CAGES
The light filtered through Bryn's eyelids and burned throughout her entire skull. Her body felt heavy, like it was weighted with lead or bound to the ground by gravity a hundred times more potent. Her breath was dragged in and pushed outward laboriously, and only then did she realise that the pressure over her face was an oxygen mask.
Pupils dilated as the whiteness of the room scorched her retinas - a hospital room, but she could not remember how she had gotten there or where she had been before.
" How do you feel?" a voice inquired from a long way away, though its owner stood at the bedside with a clipboard in his hand.
" Shit," Bryn rasped, rolling her eyes, trying to make them focus. " Where am I?"
" Just rest," she was told, and there didn't seem to be a great deal of sympathy in that voice.
" I would rest, much easier," she forced out. " If I knew where I was."
" Increase the dose," the voice said.
" Of what?" Bryn scowled, fear rising up inside her, irrational as it might have been, she did not like the trapped feeling that permeated her body, or not being given a straight answer to so simple a question - but seconds later, darkness consumed her once more.
When next Bryn woke she felt normal - there was no pain, and she felt well rested. She was no longer where she had been, though there was an IV drip in her arm that appeared to contain a saline solution. Trying to keep her heart form racing, Bryn sat up and peered around her. Bare white walls, one door with no handle on the inside and what appeared to be a mirror on the opposite side. It looked like a padded cell without the padding, the only piece of furniture in the room, the bed on which she sat and the IV stand.
It was like a scene from a movie thriller, so bright and surreal Bryn's brain was having a good deal of trouble deciding how best to deal with it - then again, the last five years, with the full emergence of mutants and all the publicity had made life itself more like a sci-fi movie. It was becoming difficult to tell what was real and what wasn't.
Cautiously, almost like she expected the floor to be electrocuted, she placed her bare feet on the cold linoleum and transferred her weight to them. Exhaling shakily Bryn swallowed down the lump in her throat and struggled to remember exactly what her last recollection was.
This seemed like a strange sort of hospital if that had been in fact what she had previously woken to, but where were her family? Where were the doctors and the nurses? The mirror was odd, and it didn't take a genius to get the notion that it was two way. She moved toward it wheeling the IV stand beside her, feeling almost like she was in a dream, somehow detached from the reality of the situation, but when she reached it, the sound of the door opening behind her made her turn on her heal.
Two men and a woman holding a clipboard entered and the door closed behind them.
" Good afternoon," the first man said, and his voice sounded vaguely familiar. The second man was much younger and was not wearing a lab coat like the others. His dark blond hair was spiked up at the front, his posture arrogant and his eyes piercingly intent upon where she stood in a white linen hospital gown that tied at the back. Of all of them, he unsettled her the most.
" Where am I?" she rushed suddenly. " Who are you people?"
The woman scribbled something down on her notepad, and the man in the lab coat pursed his lips a moment before answering.
" A medical facility in Trenton New Jersey," he said.
" What?" Bryn blinked. How the hell had she gotten to the US?
" Your medical condition was one that could not be properly treated in Australia," the man continued calmly, despite Bryn's obviously rising confusion.
" What medical condition, I don't have, a medical condition?" she scowled, taking a step back, incidentally into the wall, as the group of three stepped forward.
" Your body was in an extreme state of distress when we found you," he told her plainly. " You were lucky that we found you when we did."
" Who the hell is we??" Bryn insisted - she felt like a hunted animal cornered with nowhere to go, something for which she did not care at all.
" My name is Daniel Laudheim," he answered. " Doctor, this is Dylan Barlow and Jasmine Stoker."
" But who?" Bryn pressed, gritting her teeth.
Barlow set his jaw, and was the one to answer.
" Templar Administration," he dropped flatly, like she should know what that was and be respectful, but Laudheim clarified this answer in a much more gentle tone.
" We've done a lot of research into mutation and subsequently this is the best place to be in your condition."
He shifted his feet but did not move any closer.
" I understand that you must be apprehensive, you've suffered a great trauma and must be disorientated, even afraid, you don't know who we are, but I assure you, we want to help."
Bryn took all this in, but because she didn't remember what actually occurred, she couldn't be sure of what she was told.
" I'd like to leave," she said - she felt fine.
" Highly unadvisable until we discover exactly what the cause of your cellular break down, was and how it can be prevented," Laudheim said firmly.
" Just the same," Bryn responded. " I'd be more comfortable at home."
Stoker looked up from her click board. A smirk spread across Barlow's face. Laudheim shook his head.
" I'm afraid that isn't going to be possible," he told her in a sad, but far too cold tone for Bryn's liking, and from then on it felt more and more like she was in some kind of prison.
" You, can't keep me here," she forced out, even though her voice shook.
" Actually we can," Barlow said bluntly, sweeping one hand beneath his jacket to his hip, effectively revealing the fact that he was carrying a weapon.
Bryn swallowed. This was a nightmare.
" Why are you really doing this?" she coughed, fear welling in her eyes.
Laudheim and Stoker turned to the door, but Barlow moved toward her.
" Because we own you," he answered in a harsh whisper.
The door opened and Laudheim and Stocker exited - Bryn looked passed Barlow through the open space - she wasn't going to stay there.
She didn't say anything, just lifted her hands and Barlow flew back and slammed into the opposite wall. The needle stung as Bryn ripped it from her arm, but that was the least of her concerns. Everything moved in a flash, and she could do no more than live in each moment.
The door had begun to close the moment Barlow hit the wall, but Bryn had a grip on it from the other side of the room and dashed through and past Laudheim and Stoker.
" Stop her!" Laudheim shouted, and already there were men in black uniforms traveling toward her from both sides of the corridor she had exited into.
Barlow had picked himself up from the floor of the cell, but was trapped when Bryn brought the door closed, and the guards rushing at her were to have no better luck - invisible hands reached out and slapped them so hard that they were sent reeling and skidding back down the corridors from which they had come and did not move after that.
Blind panic moved her feet quickly, adrenalin surging through her veins to her muscles even as yet more guards picked up the trail.
" No windows," she cried as she ran in and out of various rooms.
" Tranquilizer only!" she heard Laudheim command, and this spurred her into a stairwell that only lead up.
Shouting voices followed her at every turn until she burst from the concrete spiral and into a naturally lit hall from which she could see trees and cars parked.
There was no time to pause, only to slam the door behind her and continue running.
People blinked as she passed by, people in suits and ties, at desks and computers, normal people at their place of work with this woman pelting like crazy for an exit, any exit, wearing no more than a hospital gown.
The foyer was full.
Like an army of black these men, like soldiers stood, blocking the glass doors behind then, the way out. Her bare feet screeched on the linoleum as she skidded to a halt and then men lifted their weapons and took aim.
" Don't get in my way," she cried, raising her hands once more.
Shots were fired.
It was too late.
It was as if a bomb had exploded.
Bodies clad in black were propelled backward as if hit by a truck, through the glass wall and doors, arms and legs and weapons flailing helplessly. Screams and shouts and the roar and shriek of exploding glass and concrete rumbled between Bryn's ears, but she did not take time to appreciate what she had just done, and began to pick her way across the debris strewn floor, out of the building, over moaning bodies and across the garden.
But it was not over.
The pursuit continued, and it was Barlow's voice she hear bellowing out commands. Something cracked against a tree beside her, but Bryn did not pause to see what it was, throwing herself forward with renewed energy even though her feet burned and her head was beginning to thump.
Then there was a new throb, overhead, and as Bryn broke from the trees to what looked like traffic in the distance, she caught sight of a helicopter.
" Stop where you are!" a voice instructed through the loud speaker.
Bryn stumbled as she climbed up and embankment onto the side of what was the widest highway she had ever seen.
" Stop!" she yelled, waving her arms at passing cars, who did not, incidentally, stop at her distress. Increasingly aware of the men closing the distance behind her, Bryn took her chances and dashed onto the busy expressway.
She dodged and ran, until she made it to the median strip, but by that time Barlow and his men were up the embankment and preparing to cross themselves, and several four wheel drives turned onto the road from a small break in the wall and drove toward her regardless of the other cars, that swerved to avoid collision.
Bryn was on the verge of mental break down - fear, disbelief, a sense of disjointed reality, shock, took over her body, survival, took over her body.
There were soldiers to her right, cars coming at her and a helicopter now hovering overhead. Bryn did what she could.
One hand stretched out toward the oncoming cars, the other upward at the helicopter. The cars stopped, all of them in sight, not because time had stopped, but because they now hung a good six feet from the ground, their wheels aimlessly spinning.
Bryn held them there as her other hand directed her consciousness at the helicopter and brought it down toward Barlow and his group of armed men.
Naturally they scattered as the helicopter looked about the crash into the ground, but Bryn pushed it into the trees, avoiding a heavy impact.
Her body screamed, people were yelling, screaming crying, trying to figure out how and why they were suspended in mid air. Panting erratically Bryn dropped one car from the lot, holding it still until she could open the back door and climb in.
" Drive," Bryn hissed, even as the male driver blinked at her in his own state of shock. " GO!" Bryn shouted, and the car shuddered from the force of it.
The car moved.
The driver did as he was instructed to do, and at top speed and could do so because, all of the cars still hung in the air above them. Bryn slumped her head back against the rest, her eyes wide but not seeing anything but the line of cars, concentrating so hard to keep them there until she could no longer.
Seven and three quarter minutes she'd held them, until the traffic resumed in a panic.
" Pull over," Bryn breathed.
" This is an expressway, we can't just stop!" the driver exclaimed, glancing back to see Bryn roll her eyes. " A'ight, a'ight, we'll stop here," he amended, and pulled through the traffic to the side of the road, where Bryn dragged herself out, and disappeared over the concrete rail and down the embankment.
" Hmm," Xavier mused darkly as he wheeled down the underground corridor away from Cerebro toward what constituted a Ready Room, in which Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, Rogue, Iceman, Gambit and Nightcrawler were waiting.
" What's this all about Chuck?" Logan asked, chewing on the end of his unlit cigar.
Xavier picked up a remote control from the bench and pressed the play button and a recording of the afternoon news came on.
" Bizarre scenes today for highway motorists in New Jersey today, who spent several minutes suspended in mid air on the city expressway," the reporter declared. " Witnesses told CNN reporters that without warning their cars lifted from the ground and remained six feet in the air for at least five minutes before lowering back onto the road. This of course caused much confusion, but no actual injuries have been recorded."
" The news was plastered with this earlier," Xavier explained. " Some with actual footage."
He pressed fast forward and then play at the right spot, to reveal pictures of the cars dangling precariously.
" So someone got a little irritated with the traffic and decided to make life a little easier," Logan quipped, shrugging his shoulders.
" That's eight lanes of traffic," Xavier expounded. " Held against gravity for at least five minutes."
" How much of the motorway was affected?" Storm inquired, peering at the Professor much more intently than Logan.
" Two and a half miles," Xavier replied, and there was even a little awe in his voice.
" Two and a half miles??" Cyclops exclaimed.
" That," Storm began, working out the numbers in her head. " At least five thousand cars!"
" At least," Xavier nodded.
Logan had straightened.
" Magneto?" he inquired.
" I doubt even Magneto could hold all of those cars for that long," Xavier admitted.
" More powerful than Magneto?" Rogue frowned.
" I traced both ends of the occurrence using Cerebro and pinpointed the origins to a young woman," Xavier continued.
" We know where de petite is now?" Gambit asked.
" Yes," Xavier nodded. " But her presence is very weak and getting weaker I'm afraid. I want you to find her, and bring her back here. I sensed that she was very frightened and in a great deal of pain."
" Right," Cyclops nodded, and everyone began to file out.
Bryn had managed to stumble from the side of the roadway and traveled close to a kilometer before she could walk no more. She collapsed in some trees, her breath labored but her mind clearer than it had been since she had woken. It was sharp and awake, even though her body had begun to shake - never had she felt such a surge of power, her will driving the incredible stream of telekinetic energy. She understood it, deep inside her, an understanding that could not be put into words.
What she didn't understand was where she was and why she was being chased with such ferocity.
She couldn't run anymore, could barely breathe, could barely move. Too tired for even tears, Bryn just leaned back and closed her eyes drifting into the recesses of thought, trying to block out the pain that was building inside her.
Then there was a voice inside her head, one that was not her own.
" Don't be afraid," he told her, a voice touched with and English accent and there was something in that tone that was in fact comforting.
" It hurts," she said silently, her own voice floating through the haze of semi-consciousness.
" I know," the voice soothed, and somehow, Bryn felt the pain subsiding into a drowsy numbness. " But you must hold on, help is coming."
" Why is this happening?" she asked, the sound of her ethereal voice sluggish.
" I don't know," came the reply. " But I promise I will endeavor to find out."
Then there was nothing but a black, dreamless sleep over which she had no control.
" These are the co-ordinates," Wolverine declared, and Storm lowered the jet into a small clearing. From the air, the motorway had been visible, though the traffic was moving as it should as the night began to creep over the light of day.
" Fan out," Cyclops instructed when they had all disembarked, and they did just that.
The twilight was filled with the sound of suburban birds and the dull roar of traffic in the distance.
Wolverine scanned the trees as he approached them, tuning out all those extraneous noises and focusing for other, more subtle sounds of life. Sharp eyes penetrating the dimness finally spotted a white mass that seemed almost to glow.
" Here!" he shouted, his voice carrying easily to the other X-men. " Hey?" he inquired, kneeling down beside the figure that appeared to be motionless.
There was no response, but as he gently turned the form over onto his other arm, he could see beneath the thin material of the linen gown that her chest was moving.
" Come on," he whispered, checking for a pulse and finding it slow and weak.
The other X-men appeared through the trees as Wolverine lifted Bryn into his arms.
" We have ta get her back ta the mansion," he declared, not waiting for the others but heading straight back to the jet.
" We've lost the pulse!" Storm said urgently as they rushed Bryn from the jet into the medical bay at the mansion and Xavier and Doctor Hank McCoy, otherwise known as Beast moved in.
The X-men stood back, but Wolverine still hovered nearby as they went to work.
Syringes passed hands, the defibrillator, IV, CPR, until eventually Xavier moved away.
" Well?" Logan inquired with a frown.
" She is stable for the moment," Xavier explained. " But I don't know for how long."
" What's wrong with her?" Logan asked.
" I honestly don't know," Xavier admitted. " We'll do some more tests and hopefully we'll know more then."
Comprehensive tests were completed within hours, and another meeting was called, chaired by Hank.
" There was nothing to be told from regular blood works," he explained, turning on the light board on the wall, displaying full body x-rays. " She suffers from no known diseases, no broken bones, but there is evidence of steady cellular break down which looks to have began at approximately the age of nineteen, fascinating!"
" What is causing this break down?" Storm asked.
Beast nodded, and put up another set of slides that indicated three DNA maps.
" This here is the DNA map of a regular human," he lectured, pointing to one section. " This is the sequence responsible for mutation." He pointed to the subtle, but clear difference between the human slide and that of a mutant.
" Our young friend's map is different again," he finished, indicating, and highlighting, enlarging her DNA sequence.
" A new type of mutant?" Cyclops offered.
" Actually Scott," Xavier began. " New mutant may not be so far from the truth."
Xavier handed Beast yet another slide, and it was placed beside Bryn's.
" There are significant similarities between this sequence belonging to Senator Kelly."
" Could she have been created by Magneto as well?" Logan questioned, standing to take a closer look, even though he didn't really understand what he was looking at.
" They're similar, but not the same," Xavier replied. " It looks as if the mutation look place over a much longer period of time, indicated by this string of anomalies on either side of this sequence."
" What does that mean?" Logan pressed.
" I believe Logan, it means that she was created, and it is more than likely killing her, just as it did Senator Kelly," Beast said sadly.
" Is there nothing we can do?" Storm asked.
" We are working on some possibilities," Xavier told her. " But currently we possess nothing that may unmake a mutant."
When everyone left the Ready Room, Xavier asked Logan to remain behind.
" What's up?" he asked, shifting from foot to foot as he was want to do.
" We'd like to try an experiment, if that's all right with you Logan," Beast said with what was for him a smile.
" What kinda experiment?" Logan inquired cautiously..
" Well," Xavier began. " It may be possible to isolate viable white blood cells from you that should carry a least some of your remarkable ability to heal. If the woman could be transfused, it may buy her some time."
Logan thought for only a short moment.
" Do it," he nodded, and Beast set up the necessary equipment.
Logan sat down beside the gurney upon which Bryn lay. Her complexion was pale, her eyelids fluttering lightly as if she was being chased by something in her dreams. She was otherwise striking, despite her weakened and disheveled state, and Logan found himself fascinated by her instantly.
" Do we know who she is?" he asked, looking to the other side where Xavier was moving toward Bryn's head.
" Not yet," he answered, then placed his hands one either side of her head. " But we'll know soon enough. Now where have you come from?" he whispered, and closed his eyes, connecting with her mind.
Flashes broke through, vivid and sharp, as if Xavier had stepped into Bryn's memories. Her entire childhood blinked by, birthdays, family, Christmases, school, happiness and sadness, sickness and health, until he reached that day at the school that she was unarmed the attackers in the yard. This Xavier paused for, and watched in full from her perspective, before moving on to the subsequent media attention, the papers and the television reports.
Then there was a knock at the door.
" If you're here for an interview," Bryn croaked, Xavier standing beside her though she didn't seem to notice. " You can forget it."
" Are you Bryn Harper?" the older gentleman questioned mildly, and Xavier listened and watched intently.
" Look," Bryn coughed, holding herself up by the doorframe, a fact that did not escape the Professor's notice. " I am not in the mood for this ok?"
" Your gift...." the man began, but Bryn broke his sentence before he could properly begin it.
" My gift?" Bryn grunted. " Is none of anyone's business."
Xavier watched as Bryn flicked her finger and the door closed. He followed, as she turned from the door down the hall, her feet dragging, her hand running along the wall for support, until she collapsed in a heap and did not move.
Bryn's consciousness wavered, and Xavier again sensed the deep pain that soaked her body.
Her eyes opened, but the picture was blurry and faded out quickly until another picture focused into view. Xavier found himself standing in a white room, door on one side, mirror in the other, and Bryn pulling herself up from a bed in the centre, a saline drip attached to her arm. It was clear by her expression, as well as the vibes that the he could feel, that Bryn was both afraid and confused, and that only increased when the door opened and three figures entered.
One of them, Xavier already knew.
Pleasantries were short, as Xavier walked a slow and unnoticed circle around Bryn's handlers, then watched as Bryn dashed from the room and made good her escape, leaving a path of glassy destruction in the foyer.
It was obvious to Xavier that the Templar Administration was keen to keep Bryn in their possession, by the zeal of their pursuit, throwing everything except tanks at her in an attempt to recapture their escapee, this one foreign girl in a hospital gown, alone and terrified dodging traffic on a busy motorway.
Then, chaos to order.
Xavier stood almost in awe as Bryn commanded the physical elements around her like a musical conductor, bringing down the helicopter without crashing it and lifting the cars from the ground. He could feel the energy almost static in the air, the new clarity in Bryn's mind, but also the deep, growling destruction that was tearing her body apart at a cellular level.
He rode with her in the car until she exited, and passed out beneath the trees.
Professor Xavier opened his eyes, blinking a few times as the images and Bryn's emotions and physical feelings dissipated.
" Her name is Bryn Harper," he announced with an uncharacteristically heavy sigh as Beast slid the IV needle under Logan's skin and began the transfusion process. " She's from Australia."
" Then what's she doin here?" Logan inquired with a frown, glancing from the blood traveling through the tube and into the diffuser, to Bryn's peaceful expression, then back to Xavier.
" By the look of it she didn't have a great deal of choice in the matter," Xavier explained. " It appears that she was taken by operatives of the Templar Administration after she collapsed in her home six days ago."
" Templar?" Beast frowned, connecting the other end of the medical machinery to Bryn's IV, then flicking numerous switches, setting the machinery to work.
" Logan," Xavier said seriously, his own brow creased. " Does the name Dylan Barlow mean anything to you?"
Immediately Logan reacted, deep inside.
Since Stryker's death and the relative resolution at the Alkali Lake research base, some other memories had begun to seep through. Most of it was indistinguishable, but names, whispers, and the name Barlow definitely rang a bell.
" Yeah," he nodded. " He worked for Stryker once."
Apart from that, there was little Logan could say about the man, the memories were simply buried too far for him to reach or make sense of.
" With a mutant ability very much akin to yours I believe," Xavier added. " I seems that Mr. Barlow and scientists from a global consortium known as the Templar Administration found it extremely important to abduct Miss Harper from her home and keep her by any means necessary."
" Why?" Logan asked, peering once again at Bryn's face, as the separated white blood cells were fed into her debilitated body. " I mean, of course she's powerful, but there has ta be more to it than that right?"
" I'd be very surprised if there wasn't," Xavier agreed. " Unfortunately she doesn't seem to know what."
" How will we know if this is working?" Logan exhaled, flexing his fist a little.
" White blood cells are generally accepted across all blood types," Beast explained. " Even from mutants to humans and vice versa. Once into the blood stream they receive instructions from the brain to repair damaged cells and begin their work. In the case of your most extraordinary cells Logan, we should expect to see dramatic improvement, well, any time from now."
Logan leaned forward a little against the edge of the bed and gently picked up Bryn's pale and limp hand.
" And if not?" Logan inquired, glancing up briefly.
" Then I doubt very much that she will wake."
Logan suddenly felt more akin to this woman, connected to her somehow through the obscure link that was this obviously unscrupulous man Dylan Barlow. Details of his past that had emerged at the Alkali Lake research facility had not been happy ones, notions that he had brought his condition upon himself, that he had allowed himself to be experimented on, that he had been working with Stryker and before that had been a real monster of a man. The blanks haunted him less now, the void still filled with visions of Jean Grey's last moments and the pain that had all but wrenched his chest open and spewed forth his vulnerable heart. This young woman laying there dying, appeared to be a victim of something he may very well have helped put into motion, or, might lead to further knowledge of his past. Either way, he held her hand and hoped with all his heart that this exchange of blood could bring her back to life.
A finger twitched.
" Her BP is improving," Beast reported, looking at one of several monitors to which Bryn was connected.
" Her hand just moved," Logan declared, venturing a small smile.
" Pulse is strengthening," Beast went on. " And the EEG is nearly normal."
" It's working?"
" Yes," Xavier smiled, watching as Bryn's fingers curled reflexively around Logan's.
" Hmm," came a labored murmur from the gurney, and all three men leaned over Bryn as her lids fluttered open and her eyes lashed about in panic.
" Do not be afraid," Xavier told her gently, and this appeared to have an instantly calming effect.
" We had to intubate you," he explained. " But we can remove it now that you're breathing has improved."
Bryn blinked, her mind fighting to come to grips with what she saw - bald man in a wheel chair with the voice from her dream, a massive creature with blue fur in a lab coat and a man holding her hand with side burns like none other she had ever seen.
She coughed as the tube slid out of her throat, dry and raspy she swallowed, like sandpaper down her esophagus.
" Water," she croaked, and a straw was brought to her lips, from which she sucked slowly before relaxing her body once more.
The pain was subsiding quickly, replaced by a strange, tingling sensation all throughout her body that filled her with strength and physical reassurance, though she did not know how exactly.
" You," she whispered, rolling her eyes in Xavier's direction. " I heard, who are you? Where am I?"
" My name is Professor Xavier," Xavier said softly. " And you are safe, safe from the Templar Administration. No one will hurt you here."
Her eyes looked to Beast, but rest on Logan when she noticed the tube in his arm.
" What's this?" she asked, her mind filling with yet more questions, but surprisingly less fear than when she had woken in the white room in Trenton.
" We're using Logan's white blood cells to repair some of the damage to your body," Beast told her.
" Logan?" she rasped, rolling her head to one side and blinking up at Logan, who smiled and gave her hand a slight squeeze.
" Hey," he whispered in a reassuring fashion.
Bryn closed her eyes, that strange tingling sensation rippling shivers through her entire body.
" Rest now," Xavier instructed. " We will talk more later."
Bryn opened her eyes for a few more seconds to look up at this man, Logan, whose blood still pumped into her body.
" Thank you," she exhaled, and then let her body relax into sleep.
The light filtered through Bryn's eyelids and burned throughout her entire skull. Her body felt heavy, like it was weighted with lead or bound to the ground by gravity a hundred times more potent. Her breath was dragged in and pushed outward laboriously, and only then did she realise that the pressure over her face was an oxygen mask.
Pupils dilated as the whiteness of the room scorched her retinas - a hospital room, but she could not remember how she had gotten there or where she had been before.
" How do you feel?" a voice inquired from a long way away, though its owner stood at the bedside with a clipboard in his hand.
" Shit," Bryn rasped, rolling her eyes, trying to make them focus. " Where am I?"
" Just rest," she was told, and there didn't seem to be a great deal of sympathy in that voice.
" I would rest, much easier," she forced out. " If I knew where I was."
" Increase the dose," the voice said.
" Of what?" Bryn scowled, fear rising up inside her, irrational as it might have been, she did not like the trapped feeling that permeated her body, or not being given a straight answer to so simple a question - but seconds later, darkness consumed her once more.
When next Bryn woke she felt normal - there was no pain, and she felt well rested. She was no longer where she had been, though there was an IV drip in her arm that appeared to contain a saline solution. Trying to keep her heart form racing, Bryn sat up and peered around her. Bare white walls, one door with no handle on the inside and what appeared to be a mirror on the opposite side. It looked like a padded cell without the padding, the only piece of furniture in the room, the bed on which she sat and the IV stand.
It was like a scene from a movie thriller, so bright and surreal Bryn's brain was having a good deal of trouble deciding how best to deal with it - then again, the last five years, with the full emergence of mutants and all the publicity had made life itself more like a sci-fi movie. It was becoming difficult to tell what was real and what wasn't.
Cautiously, almost like she expected the floor to be electrocuted, she placed her bare feet on the cold linoleum and transferred her weight to them. Exhaling shakily Bryn swallowed down the lump in her throat and struggled to remember exactly what her last recollection was.
This seemed like a strange sort of hospital if that had been in fact what she had previously woken to, but where were her family? Where were the doctors and the nurses? The mirror was odd, and it didn't take a genius to get the notion that it was two way. She moved toward it wheeling the IV stand beside her, feeling almost like she was in a dream, somehow detached from the reality of the situation, but when she reached it, the sound of the door opening behind her made her turn on her heal.
Two men and a woman holding a clipboard entered and the door closed behind them.
" Good afternoon," the first man said, and his voice sounded vaguely familiar. The second man was much younger and was not wearing a lab coat like the others. His dark blond hair was spiked up at the front, his posture arrogant and his eyes piercingly intent upon where she stood in a white linen hospital gown that tied at the back. Of all of them, he unsettled her the most.
" Where am I?" she rushed suddenly. " Who are you people?"
The woman scribbled something down on her notepad, and the man in the lab coat pursed his lips a moment before answering.
" A medical facility in Trenton New Jersey," he said.
" What?" Bryn blinked. How the hell had she gotten to the US?
" Your medical condition was one that could not be properly treated in Australia," the man continued calmly, despite Bryn's obviously rising confusion.
" What medical condition, I don't have, a medical condition?" she scowled, taking a step back, incidentally into the wall, as the group of three stepped forward.
" Your body was in an extreme state of distress when we found you," he told her plainly. " You were lucky that we found you when we did."
" Who the hell is we??" Bryn insisted - she felt like a hunted animal cornered with nowhere to go, something for which she did not care at all.
" My name is Daniel Laudheim," he answered. " Doctor, this is Dylan Barlow and Jasmine Stoker."
" But who?" Bryn pressed, gritting her teeth.
Barlow set his jaw, and was the one to answer.
" Templar Administration," he dropped flatly, like she should know what that was and be respectful, but Laudheim clarified this answer in a much more gentle tone.
" We've done a lot of research into mutation and subsequently this is the best place to be in your condition."
He shifted his feet but did not move any closer.
" I understand that you must be apprehensive, you've suffered a great trauma and must be disorientated, even afraid, you don't know who we are, but I assure you, we want to help."
Bryn took all this in, but because she didn't remember what actually occurred, she couldn't be sure of what she was told.
" I'd like to leave," she said - she felt fine.
" Highly unadvisable until we discover exactly what the cause of your cellular break down, was and how it can be prevented," Laudheim said firmly.
" Just the same," Bryn responded. " I'd be more comfortable at home."
Stoker looked up from her click board. A smirk spread across Barlow's face. Laudheim shook his head.
" I'm afraid that isn't going to be possible," he told her in a sad, but far too cold tone for Bryn's liking, and from then on it felt more and more like she was in some kind of prison.
" You, can't keep me here," she forced out, even though her voice shook.
" Actually we can," Barlow said bluntly, sweeping one hand beneath his jacket to his hip, effectively revealing the fact that he was carrying a weapon.
Bryn swallowed. This was a nightmare.
" Why are you really doing this?" she coughed, fear welling in her eyes.
Laudheim and Stoker turned to the door, but Barlow moved toward her.
" Because we own you," he answered in a harsh whisper.
The door opened and Laudheim and Stocker exited - Bryn looked passed Barlow through the open space - she wasn't going to stay there.
She didn't say anything, just lifted her hands and Barlow flew back and slammed into the opposite wall. The needle stung as Bryn ripped it from her arm, but that was the least of her concerns. Everything moved in a flash, and she could do no more than live in each moment.
The door had begun to close the moment Barlow hit the wall, but Bryn had a grip on it from the other side of the room and dashed through and past Laudheim and Stoker.
" Stop her!" Laudheim shouted, and already there were men in black uniforms traveling toward her from both sides of the corridor she had exited into.
Barlow had picked himself up from the floor of the cell, but was trapped when Bryn brought the door closed, and the guards rushing at her were to have no better luck - invisible hands reached out and slapped them so hard that they were sent reeling and skidding back down the corridors from which they had come and did not move after that.
Blind panic moved her feet quickly, adrenalin surging through her veins to her muscles even as yet more guards picked up the trail.
" No windows," she cried as she ran in and out of various rooms.
" Tranquilizer only!" she heard Laudheim command, and this spurred her into a stairwell that only lead up.
Shouting voices followed her at every turn until she burst from the concrete spiral and into a naturally lit hall from which she could see trees and cars parked.
There was no time to pause, only to slam the door behind her and continue running.
People blinked as she passed by, people in suits and ties, at desks and computers, normal people at their place of work with this woman pelting like crazy for an exit, any exit, wearing no more than a hospital gown.
The foyer was full.
Like an army of black these men, like soldiers stood, blocking the glass doors behind then, the way out. Her bare feet screeched on the linoleum as she skidded to a halt and then men lifted their weapons and took aim.
" Don't get in my way," she cried, raising her hands once more.
Shots were fired.
It was too late.
It was as if a bomb had exploded.
Bodies clad in black were propelled backward as if hit by a truck, through the glass wall and doors, arms and legs and weapons flailing helplessly. Screams and shouts and the roar and shriek of exploding glass and concrete rumbled between Bryn's ears, but she did not take time to appreciate what she had just done, and began to pick her way across the debris strewn floor, out of the building, over moaning bodies and across the garden.
But it was not over.
The pursuit continued, and it was Barlow's voice she hear bellowing out commands. Something cracked against a tree beside her, but Bryn did not pause to see what it was, throwing herself forward with renewed energy even though her feet burned and her head was beginning to thump.
Then there was a new throb, overhead, and as Bryn broke from the trees to what looked like traffic in the distance, she caught sight of a helicopter.
" Stop where you are!" a voice instructed through the loud speaker.
Bryn stumbled as she climbed up and embankment onto the side of what was the widest highway she had ever seen.
" Stop!" she yelled, waving her arms at passing cars, who did not, incidentally, stop at her distress. Increasingly aware of the men closing the distance behind her, Bryn took her chances and dashed onto the busy expressway.
She dodged and ran, until she made it to the median strip, but by that time Barlow and his men were up the embankment and preparing to cross themselves, and several four wheel drives turned onto the road from a small break in the wall and drove toward her regardless of the other cars, that swerved to avoid collision.
Bryn was on the verge of mental break down - fear, disbelief, a sense of disjointed reality, shock, took over her body, survival, took over her body.
There were soldiers to her right, cars coming at her and a helicopter now hovering overhead. Bryn did what she could.
One hand stretched out toward the oncoming cars, the other upward at the helicopter. The cars stopped, all of them in sight, not because time had stopped, but because they now hung a good six feet from the ground, their wheels aimlessly spinning.
Bryn held them there as her other hand directed her consciousness at the helicopter and brought it down toward Barlow and his group of armed men.
Naturally they scattered as the helicopter looked about the crash into the ground, but Bryn pushed it into the trees, avoiding a heavy impact.
Her body screamed, people were yelling, screaming crying, trying to figure out how and why they were suspended in mid air. Panting erratically Bryn dropped one car from the lot, holding it still until she could open the back door and climb in.
" Drive," Bryn hissed, even as the male driver blinked at her in his own state of shock. " GO!" Bryn shouted, and the car shuddered from the force of it.
The car moved.
The driver did as he was instructed to do, and at top speed and could do so because, all of the cars still hung in the air above them. Bryn slumped her head back against the rest, her eyes wide but not seeing anything but the line of cars, concentrating so hard to keep them there until she could no longer.
Seven and three quarter minutes she'd held them, until the traffic resumed in a panic.
" Pull over," Bryn breathed.
" This is an expressway, we can't just stop!" the driver exclaimed, glancing back to see Bryn roll her eyes. " A'ight, a'ight, we'll stop here," he amended, and pulled through the traffic to the side of the road, where Bryn dragged herself out, and disappeared over the concrete rail and down the embankment.
" Hmm," Xavier mused darkly as he wheeled down the underground corridor away from Cerebro toward what constituted a Ready Room, in which Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, Rogue, Iceman, Gambit and Nightcrawler were waiting.
" What's this all about Chuck?" Logan asked, chewing on the end of his unlit cigar.
Xavier picked up a remote control from the bench and pressed the play button and a recording of the afternoon news came on.
" Bizarre scenes today for highway motorists in New Jersey today, who spent several minutes suspended in mid air on the city expressway," the reporter declared. " Witnesses told CNN reporters that without warning their cars lifted from the ground and remained six feet in the air for at least five minutes before lowering back onto the road. This of course caused much confusion, but no actual injuries have been recorded."
" The news was plastered with this earlier," Xavier explained. " Some with actual footage."
He pressed fast forward and then play at the right spot, to reveal pictures of the cars dangling precariously.
" So someone got a little irritated with the traffic and decided to make life a little easier," Logan quipped, shrugging his shoulders.
" That's eight lanes of traffic," Xavier expounded. " Held against gravity for at least five minutes."
" How much of the motorway was affected?" Storm inquired, peering at the Professor much more intently than Logan.
" Two and a half miles," Xavier replied, and there was even a little awe in his voice.
" Two and a half miles??" Cyclops exclaimed.
" That," Storm began, working out the numbers in her head. " At least five thousand cars!"
" At least," Xavier nodded.
Logan had straightened.
" Magneto?" he inquired.
" I doubt even Magneto could hold all of those cars for that long," Xavier admitted.
" More powerful than Magneto?" Rogue frowned.
" I traced both ends of the occurrence using Cerebro and pinpointed the origins to a young woman," Xavier continued.
" We know where de petite is now?" Gambit asked.
" Yes," Xavier nodded. " But her presence is very weak and getting weaker I'm afraid. I want you to find her, and bring her back here. I sensed that she was very frightened and in a great deal of pain."
" Right," Cyclops nodded, and everyone began to file out.
Bryn had managed to stumble from the side of the roadway and traveled close to a kilometer before she could walk no more. She collapsed in some trees, her breath labored but her mind clearer than it had been since she had woken. It was sharp and awake, even though her body had begun to shake - never had she felt such a surge of power, her will driving the incredible stream of telekinetic energy. She understood it, deep inside her, an understanding that could not be put into words.
What she didn't understand was where she was and why she was being chased with such ferocity.
She couldn't run anymore, could barely breathe, could barely move. Too tired for even tears, Bryn just leaned back and closed her eyes drifting into the recesses of thought, trying to block out the pain that was building inside her.
Then there was a voice inside her head, one that was not her own.
" Don't be afraid," he told her, a voice touched with and English accent and there was something in that tone that was in fact comforting.
" It hurts," she said silently, her own voice floating through the haze of semi-consciousness.
" I know," the voice soothed, and somehow, Bryn felt the pain subsiding into a drowsy numbness. " But you must hold on, help is coming."
" Why is this happening?" she asked, the sound of her ethereal voice sluggish.
" I don't know," came the reply. " But I promise I will endeavor to find out."
Then there was nothing but a black, dreamless sleep over which she had no control.
" These are the co-ordinates," Wolverine declared, and Storm lowered the jet into a small clearing. From the air, the motorway had been visible, though the traffic was moving as it should as the night began to creep over the light of day.
" Fan out," Cyclops instructed when they had all disembarked, and they did just that.
The twilight was filled with the sound of suburban birds and the dull roar of traffic in the distance.
Wolverine scanned the trees as he approached them, tuning out all those extraneous noises and focusing for other, more subtle sounds of life. Sharp eyes penetrating the dimness finally spotted a white mass that seemed almost to glow.
" Here!" he shouted, his voice carrying easily to the other X-men. " Hey?" he inquired, kneeling down beside the figure that appeared to be motionless.
There was no response, but as he gently turned the form over onto his other arm, he could see beneath the thin material of the linen gown that her chest was moving.
" Come on," he whispered, checking for a pulse and finding it slow and weak.
The other X-men appeared through the trees as Wolverine lifted Bryn into his arms.
" We have ta get her back ta the mansion," he declared, not waiting for the others but heading straight back to the jet.
" We've lost the pulse!" Storm said urgently as they rushed Bryn from the jet into the medical bay at the mansion and Xavier and Doctor Hank McCoy, otherwise known as Beast moved in.
The X-men stood back, but Wolverine still hovered nearby as they went to work.
Syringes passed hands, the defibrillator, IV, CPR, until eventually Xavier moved away.
" Well?" Logan inquired with a frown.
" She is stable for the moment," Xavier explained. " But I don't know for how long."
" What's wrong with her?" Logan asked.
" I honestly don't know," Xavier admitted. " We'll do some more tests and hopefully we'll know more then."
Comprehensive tests were completed within hours, and another meeting was called, chaired by Hank.
" There was nothing to be told from regular blood works," he explained, turning on the light board on the wall, displaying full body x-rays. " She suffers from no known diseases, no broken bones, but there is evidence of steady cellular break down which looks to have began at approximately the age of nineteen, fascinating!"
" What is causing this break down?" Storm asked.
Beast nodded, and put up another set of slides that indicated three DNA maps.
" This here is the DNA map of a regular human," he lectured, pointing to one section. " This is the sequence responsible for mutation." He pointed to the subtle, but clear difference between the human slide and that of a mutant.
" Our young friend's map is different again," he finished, indicating, and highlighting, enlarging her DNA sequence.
" A new type of mutant?" Cyclops offered.
" Actually Scott," Xavier began. " New mutant may not be so far from the truth."
Xavier handed Beast yet another slide, and it was placed beside Bryn's.
" There are significant similarities between this sequence belonging to Senator Kelly."
" Could she have been created by Magneto as well?" Logan questioned, standing to take a closer look, even though he didn't really understand what he was looking at.
" They're similar, but not the same," Xavier replied. " It looks as if the mutation look place over a much longer period of time, indicated by this string of anomalies on either side of this sequence."
" What does that mean?" Logan pressed.
" I believe Logan, it means that she was created, and it is more than likely killing her, just as it did Senator Kelly," Beast said sadly.
" Is there nothing we can do?" Storm asked.
" We are working on some possibilities," Xavier told her. " But currently we possess nothing that may unmake a mutant."
When everyone left the Ready Room, Xavier asked Logan to remain behind.
" What's up?" he asked, shifting from foot to foot as he was want to do.
" We'd like to try an experiment, if that's all right with you Logan," Beast said with what was for him a smile.
" What kinda experiment?" Logan inquired cautiously..
" Well," Xavier began. " It may be possible to isolate viable white blood cells from you that should carry a least some of your remarkable ability to heal. If the woman could be transfused, it may buy her some time."
Logan thought for only a short moment.
" Do it," he nodded, and Beast set up the necessary equipment.
Logan sat down beside the gurney upon which Bryn lay. Her complexion was pale, her eyelids fluttering lightly as if she was being chased by something in her dreams. She was otherwise striking, despite her weakened and disheveled state, and Logan found himself fascinated by her instantly.
" Do we know who she is?" he asked, looking to the other side where Xavier was moving toward Bryn's head.
" Not yet," he answered, then placed his hands one either side of her head. " But we'll know soon enough. Now where have you come from?" he whispered, and closed his eyes, connecting with her mind.
Flashes broke through, vivid and sharp, as if Xavier had stepped into Bryn's memories. Her entire childhood blinked by, birthdays, family, Christmases, school, happiness and sadness, sickness and health, until he reached that day at the school that she was unarmed the attackers in the yard. This Xavier paused for, and watched in full from her perspective, before moving on to the subsequent media attention, the papers and the television reports.
Then there was a knock at the door.
" If you're here for an interview," Bryn croaked, Xavier standing beside her though she didn't seem to notice. " You can forget it."
" Are you Bryn Harper?" the older gentleman questioned mildly, and Xavier listened and watched intently.
" Look," Bryn coughed, holding herself up by the doorframe, a fact that did not escape the Professor's notice. " I am not in the mood for this ok?"
" Your gift...." the man began, but Bryn broke his sentence before he could properly begin it.
" My gift?" Bryn grunted. " Is none of anyone's business."
Xavier watched as Bryn flicked her finger and the door closed. He followed, as she turned from the door down the hall, her feet dragging, her hand running along the wall for support, until she collapsed in a heap and did not move.
Bryn's consciousness wavered, and Xavier again sensed the deep pain that soaked her body.
Her eyes opened, but the picture was blurry and faded out quickly until another picture focused into view. Xavier found himself standing in a white room, door on one side, mirror in the other, and Bryn pulling herself up from a bed in the centre, a saline drip attached to her arm. It was clear by her expression, as well as the vibes that the he could feel, that Bryn was both afraid and confused, and that only increased when the door opened and three figures entered.
One of them, Xavier already knew.
Pleasantries were short, as Xavier walked a slow and unnoticed circle around Bryn's handlers, then watched as Bryn dashed from the room and made good her escape, leaving a path of glassy destruction in the foyer.
It was obvious to Xavier that the Templar Administration was keen to keep Bryn in their possession, by the zeal of their pursuit, throwing everything except tanks at her in an attempt to recapture their escapee, this one foreign girl in a hospital gown, alone and terrified dodging traffic on a busy motorway.
Then, chaos to order.
Xavier stood almost in awe as Bryn commanded the physical elements around her like a musical conductor, bringing down the helicopter without crashing it and lifting the cars from the ground. He could feel the energy almost static in the air, the new clarity in Bryn's mind, but also the deep, growling destruction that was tearing her body apart at a cellular level.
He rode with her in the car until she exited, and passed out beneath the trees.
Professor Xavier opened his eyes, blinking a few times as the images and Bryn's emotions and physical feelings dissipated.
" Her name is Bryn Harper," he announced with an uncharacteristically heavy sigh as Beast slid the IV needle under Logan's skin and began the transfusion process. " She's from Australia."
" Then what's she doin here?" Logan inquired with a frown, glancing from the blood traveling through the tube and into the diffuser, to Bryn's peaceful expression, then back to Xavier.
" By the look of it she didn't have a great deal of choice in the matter," Xavier explained. " It appears that she was taken by operatives of the Templar Administration after she collapsed in her home six days ago."
" Templar?" Beast frowned, connecting the other end of the medical machinery to Bryn's IV, then flicking numerous switches, setting the machinery to work.
" Logan," Xavier said seriously, his own brow creased. " Does the name Dylan Barlow mean anything to you?"
Immediately Logan reacted, deep inside.
Since Stryker's death and the relative resolution at the Alkali Lake research base, some other memories had begun to seep through. Most of it was indistinguishable, but names, whispers, and the name Barlow definitely rang a bell.
" Yeah," he nodded. " He worked for Stryker once."
Apart from that, there was little Logan could say about the man, the memories were simply buried too far for him to reach or make sense of.
" With a mutant ability very much akin to yours I believe," Xavier added. " I seems that Mr. Barlow and scientists from a global consortium known as the Templar Administration found it extremely important to abduct Miss Harper from her home and keep her by any means necessary."
" Why?" Logan asked, peering once again at Bryn's face, as the separated white blood cells were fed into her debilitated body. " I mean, of course she's powerful, but there has ta be more to it than that right?"
" I'd be very surprised if there wasn't," Xavier agreed. " Unfortunately she doesn't seem to know what."
" How will we know if this is working?" Logan exhaled, flexing his fist a little.
" White blood cells are generally accepted across all blood types," Beast explained. " Even from mutants to humans and vice versa. Once into the blood stream they receive instructions from the brain to repair damaged cells and begin their work. In the case of your most extraordinary cells Logan, we should expect to see dramatic improvement, well, any time from now."
Logan leaned forward a little against the edge of the bed and gently picked up Bryn's pale and limp hand.
" And if not?" Logan inquired, glancing up briefly.
" Then I doubt very much that she will wake."
Logan suddenly felt more akin to this woman, connected to her somehow through the obscure link that was this obviously unscrupulous man Dylan Barlow. Details of his past that had emerged at the Alkali Lake research facility had not been happy ones, notions that he had brought his condition upon himself, that he had allowed himself to be experimented on, that he had been working with Stryker and before that had been a real monster of a man. The blanks haunted him less now, the void still filled with visions of Jean Grey's last moments and the pain that had all but wrenched his chest open and spewed forth his vulnerable heart. This young woman laying there dying, appeared to be a victim of something he may very well have helped put into motion, or, might lead to further knowledge of his past. Either way, he held her hand and hoped with all his heart that this exchange of blood could bring her back to life.
A finger twitched.
" Her BP is improving," Beast reported, looking at one of several monitors to which Bryn was connected.
" Her hand just moved," Logan declared, venturing a small smile.
" Pulse is strengthening," Beast went on. " And the EEG is nearly normal."
" It's working?"
" Yes," Xavier smiled, watching as Bryn's fingers curled reflexively around Logan's.
" Hmm," came a labored murmur from the gurney, and all three men leaned over Bryn as her lids fluttered open and her eyes lashed about in panic.
" Do not be afraid," Xavier told her gently, and this appeared to have an instantly calming effect.
" We had to intubate you," he explained. " But we can remove it now that you're breathing has improved."
Bryn blinked, her mind fighting to come to grips with what she saw - bald man in a wheel chair with the voice from her dream, a massive creature with blue fur in a lab coat and a man holding her hand with side burns like none other she had ever seen.
She coughed as the tube slid out of her throat, dry and raspy she swallowed, like sandpaper down her esophagus.
" Water," she croaked, and a straw was brought to her lips, from which she sucked slowly before relaxing her body once more.
The pain was subsiding quickly, replaced by a strange, tingling sensation all throughout her body that filled her with strength and physical reassurance, though she did not know how exactly.
" You," she whispered, rolling her eyes in Xavier's direction. " I heard, who are you? Where am I?"
" My name is Professor Xavier," Xavier said softly. " And you are safe, safe from the Templar Administration. No one will hurt you here."
Her eyes looked to Beast, but rest on Logan when she noticed the tube in his arm.
" What's this?" she asked, her mind filling with yet more questions, but surprisingly less fear than when she had woken in the white room in Trenton.
" We're using Logan's white blood cells to repair some of the damage to your body," Beast told her.
" Logan?" she rasped, rolling her head to one side and blinking up at Logan, who smiled and gave her hand a slight squeeze.
" Hey," he whispered in a reassuring fashion.
Bryn closed her eyes, that strange tingling sensation rippling shivers through her entire body.
" Rest now," Xavier instructed. " We will talk more later."
Bryn opened her eyes for a few more seconds to look up at this man, Logan, whose blood still pumped into her body.
" Thank you," she exhaled, and then let her body relax into sleep.