Seven


Another day, another town.

Standing desolately in the doorway of the spartan box that was to be his chosen bolt hole for the night, key dangling limply from his fingers, Jesse found himself struggling to remember how many places just like this he'd woken up in since he'd abandoned Sanctuary. How many roads he'd trudged in the vain hope of finding some indication this was the one, that elusive something that would tell him this was a place he could belong. But every day his prayers had gone unanswered, and his already beleaguered soul sank a little deeper into perdition.

He'd fallen into a routine that saw him arriving at the next stop on his seemingly interminable journey late in the evening, giving him a full day for his search before moving on. Darkness cloaked his coming and going but, at least to begin with, each morning seemed to dawn with a new hope that the passing hours of daylight drained mercilessly away until night came round again and there was nothing left to keep him there. As time went by, though, he was finding that regenerating hope diminishing daily.

Everywhere he looked it seemed there were reminders of what he'd done, what had brought him to this situation. Every little girl he saw laughing or playing became Daisy to his eyes. Every mother watched him with hatred and suspicion, hurrying their children past him to keep them out of his reach, safe from the harm they knew he could inflict without a second thought.

Every encounter with the innocent and unsuspecting was becoming fraught with danger from his narrowing perspective, and that was making even the simplest interaction more and more difficult for him. Even when someone offered him the chance of companionship, however fleeting, he was increasingly unable to open up enough to accept it. Take the waitress in the coffee-shop where he'd had breakfast that morning. He'd been aware she was flirting gently with him, and in his past existence he would have enjoyed the prospect of reciprocating. But now... now that was a risk he couldn't take. And in any case, he was certain that if she knew what he was, her interest would turn to abhorrence.

He was barely aware of the fact that, for almost the first time in his life, the 'what he was' wasn't his mutancy. It was what he had now become.

A murderer.

And that knowledge wasn't something he could ever risk allowing anyone near enough to learn.

That this decision was going to force a change in his plans hadn't escaped him. Work that didn't involve close contact with others wasn't going to be easy to find, though he did have a few ideas - using his skill with computers for one. At least they didn't judge, just presented the facts. But that kind of job, without references, didn't grow on trees and in the short term he still needed to survive.

So he'd had to sell the bike, something he regretted every time he slid onto the cracked vinyl seat of the rusty Ford he'd bought to replace it. He'd loved the sense of freedom the Ducati had given him, the way it seemed able to make him forget everything except the thrill of going flat out down an empty road with nothing between him and the elements. But it was too conspicuous, marking him out as too different to the other drifters whose numbers he was inexorably joining for comfort, and that would have made it expendable even if he hadn't been desperately in need of a financial boost.

He'd been surprised at how easy it had been, both to find someone who'd buy the bike for cash, no questions asked, and for him to slip into the shady persona of someone with something dangerous to hide, someone with no desire for the transaction to become public knowledge.

Or maybe he shouldn't have been surprised about that, given it was the truth.

It had been even easier to buy the car, again without anything more than cold hard cash changing hands, and he'd been on his way in no time, distancing himself even more irrevocably from the past. Moving. Always moving.

With a sigh he closed the door and dropped key and bag onto the bed, the long hours before dawn and his next chance of finding some way to break free of the treadmill he was trapped on stretching endlessly ahead of him. The comforting weight of the brown-bagged pint of cheap rot-gut whiskey nestling in his jacket pocket nudged gently against his side and he extracted it carefully, setting it on the bedside table. Not yet, he told himself, trying to ignore its whispered promise of escape from his problems, determined to prove he had the mental strength to rise above it - at least for now...

Looking round in search of some diversion, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and hauled up short, barely recognising the man he saw there. Sparse and dream-racked sleep had left him dog-tired and the red-rimmed, sunken eyes told of every lost hour. Most mornings he lacked the energy to shave so his habitual stubble had metamorphosed into a straggly beard, though that at least went some way to disguising the gauntness going hand in hand with a body gone beyond lean through a fading interest in food, and his too long hair hung lankly over forehead and neck. All in all, not someone he'd trust with anything remotely important, and it made his heart ache to remember that once upon a time there'd been those who'd put their lives in his hands without a single qualm.

And those memories, once released, brought with them more of those oh so painful feelings he'd been hiding from and sent his hand reaching automatically for the bottle. Not so strong after all, it seemed.

Later, as he continued his attempts to exert his authority over the whiskey rather than allowing it to take control of him - practice makes perfect, right? - he almost allowed that same weakness to ruin all his hard work. He'd so far been unable to completely discard the silver ring that was his last real link to what he used to be, instead keeping it buried deep in an inside pocket of his jacket. But even hidden away it managed to speak to him and, Frodo-like, he was driven despite himself to succumb to its lure and pull it into the light.

Staring in rapt fascination at the dull gleam of its contours as he turned it over and over in his hand, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to let it slide onto his finger where it had once belonged. To watch the intricate design reappear on its surface as it recognised and responded to his DNA. To hear the heartbreakingly familiar voices spring from its embedded circuits into his head, calling his name, pleading, begging him to respond.

But while part of him wanted desperately to answer, to take comfort from the obvious concern he could hear, and to reassure in return, the larger and increasingly dominant side that he'd been nurturing the past few weeks gave him the willpower to resist. Silently, resolutely, he pulled the ring from his finger again, cutting off the words and consigning their speakers to that other world once more.

'They'll find you now!' crowed that tiny rebellious streak that still thought he had a future in his past, but his analytical mind knew he hadn't been visible to their sensors long enough for more than a partial fix. And he'd be miles away before they managed to narrow it down sufficiently to pick up his trail.

If they even cared enough anymore to try.

That thought, coming from left field as it did, bothered him a lot more than he wanted to admit to, which resulted in a lot more showing the whiskey who was boss. But at least that meant when he finally surrendered to sleep the dreams stayed away...


*

The quiet metronomic beeping of a computer-generated alarm signal stood no chance against the clatter of Shalimar's boots as she raced into the central control room and skidded to a halt in front of Adam. "It *was* him, wasn't it?" she demanded. "Tell me you got a trace on his signal. Tell me we didn't lose him again!"

Brennan answered for him. "He was barely on-line a few seconds, Shal. You know it takes longer than that. But..." He raised his hand to stop the bitter recriminations lining up on her tongue to flay him and drew her gaze towards the map flickering on the big screen. "...we've at least narrowed it down to this area of West Virginia. Better than the big fat zero we had before."

Adam nodded. "Lucky I had that flag set up in the system to start the trace and alert us as soon as Jess' com-link was activated, otherwise we wouldn't even have that. He didn't exactly give us much time to pin him down."

"He'd know exactly how long we'd need," Emma chipped in softly as she joined them. "The surprise would have been if he'd let us get any closer."

"So? What are we waiting for? Let's go get him!" Shalimar turned towards the door, looking back when she didn't hear the expected sound of the others following her. "What?" she challenged, seeing Brennan and Emma share a glance with Adam, before he responded carefully.

"Don't you think it might be better to get a fresh start in the morning. By the time you get down there it'll be the middle of the night - not the best time to pick up leads, even if you did know where to begin looking."

"Yeah, it's a pretty big area, Shal," Brennan agreed, drawing a scowl his way. "I mean, there's gotta be ten, fifteen towns he could be holed up in, not to mention all the other places too small to raise a blip on the radar. We could probably do with the time to check them out a bit more, see if we can narrow it down some. And anyway, not everyone has your affinity with the night - some of us actually need some sleep to function at our best."

"That never stopped you before when someone you cared about needed help," the feral snapped. "Any of you! So I guess I'm the only one who still hasn't given up on Jesse."

A chorus of denial greeted her, but she treated it with the contempt she obviously felt it deserved. "Prove it, then! I can't leave him out there another night, not now, not when I have some place to start. Not when he's finally made contact. Can you?"

Her simmering golden-brown gaze swept over them, but her heart sank a little to see that they were unable to truly meet her eyes. There was a silence, broken finally by Brennan's sigh as he shrugged expansively.

"I guess we're going huntin', then," he said, coming to stand in front of her. "So, you got any hunches on where we go first?"

She looked up at him gratefully, choosing to ignore the fact she knew he was in all likelihood doing this more for her than for Jesse. But right then she didn't really care as long as she didn't have to spend any more wasted time finding some other outlet for her anger and frustration. "Of course!" She moved past him to the map still displayed on the screen and started randomly tapping the dark patches that represented the settlements dotted across it. "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe... So that would be... Ardington? Good a place as any, don'tcha think?"

With a dazzling smile that conveyed far more confidence than she was actually feeling she turned towards the door again, pausing to throw impatiently back at her hovering friends, "Shall we?"

She didn't wait for an answer, heading boldly in the direction of the hanger with Brennan ambling along behind. But that at least saved her seeing the look of questioning uncertainty Emma shared with Adam, and his resigned nod of agreement before she too followed them out.


****

TBC