Chapter 30

"Jesse, Jesse, Jesse."

"Noah, Noah, Noah."

"Jesse, Jesse, Jesse."

"I think we've established our names. Let's move past the pleasantries."

"Yes, let's." Noah turned to the two guards in the room. "Both of you, initiate a search and lockdown of the building. There are more of them here. Sweep the perimeter and double check all security measures."

They saluted and left the room.

Noah waited until they had left, and then reached down and patted Jesse on the head condescendingly with one hand. With the other hand, he reached behind the chair to remove the ring from Jesse's finger. Holding it up in front of Jesse, he said. "Wouldn't want you to contact your friends, now, would we?"

"Aww. You remember. And here I thought you didn't care."

Noah backhanded Jesse across the jaw, the ring still in his clenched fist.

One minute, 50 seconds. Jesse touched his tongue to his lip, which was now bleeding on the other side.

Noah bent down so his face was only inches from Jesse's. "Don't get smart with me, boy." He tossed the ring onto the small table in corner of the small room. The table already held Jesse's other belongings, including his pocketknife, a handful of change and the detonators for the C-4 he had planted.

"It's a little late to be playing daddy."

Noah almost made a move to hit him again, but then apparently thought better of it. Instead, he moved back to the table, examining Jesse's belongings. The older man chuckled. "Too true. But then again, according to the records, I don't have a son anymore."

"Yeah. I saw that. Who did you have to suck up to in order to pull that off? Eckhart?"

Noah picked up the detonators. Recognizing the box for what it was, he tossed it onto the floor, and crushed it with the heel of his foot. Then he looked up to Jesse and smiled sardonically. "No one actually. Apparently, you were of great interest to them. They way the told it, you had survived quite a number of their tests. They wanted to see what it would take to kill you. Signing your death certificate gave them the opportunity to do so without family and friends raising questions. Speaking of friends, yours have got to be around somewhere. It was a bit of a surprise to find out that the mutant my force captured was you. As soon as I'm done here, I'll have to make sure we find the others. What were their names again?"

Jesse harrumphed and ignored the attempt to Noah was making to unnerve him. "What the hell are you doing here? You had all you wanted – you had control over K.E."

"Ah, yes. That was nice, for a while. You see, that was control, but it wasn't power."

Jesse raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, Jesse, you don't understand. Ownership of Kilmartin Enterprises was just that. Ownership. Well, I got to make a few decisions here and there, but the only thing the company was good for was to make money. Don't get me wrong, money's a great thing. But once you get to a certain point, it just doesn't mean anything anymore. You have to go after the real thing."

"Ah, so that's why you dumped it on Katie."

"Yes, Katie. I guess you've made contact with her since I last saw you. You must have given her quite a shock, you being a dead man and all."

Jesse said nothing, giving Noah a hard stare and following the man with his eyes as he paced across the room.

Noah saw Jesse's accusing eyes and felt compelled to continue. "But yes, that's why I dumped it on her. I can get it back if I want to. I'm sure she's noticed that there's a clause that revokes control whenever I want. My lawyer saw to that."

Jesse smiled. "Mason's gone, Noah. Fired for gross incompetence. Months ago. The new lawyer's got everything down."

Noah raised a brow, but then shrugged. "Doesn't really matter. I don't really want the company back anyway. When the Dominion and the Creator really get things going, they're going to control governments, nations, peoples all over the world. I'll be there to be the security director. With the kind of control the Dominion will have… Oh, that'll be real power, Jesse. People will do anything for them, to get have the chance at becoming the perfect human."

"No one's perfect. Least of all you. You're one of the sloppiest people I know. You didn't know that Lawrence kept an original copy of his will in a different location. I've seen the original. Nothing like the version you gave to the Board. I'll bet they're real happy when they see that. And I'll bet you didn't even realize that when you signed K.E. over to Katie you also gave her power of attorney. You know what that gave us? All your 'secret' papers. We found the death certificate, the papers from ZDT and your packet of papers you were going to use to blackmail Desis Supply – the Dominion. You're so sloppy, it's pathetic. The Dominion wouldn't give you any control if you were the last person on earth."

Noah's eye had been ticking while Jesse spoke. Finally, though, his anger got the best of him. He sent a punch across Jesse's jaw and another into his ribs. Then he leaned in and hissed, "It doesn't really matter. I can still get control of K.E. if I have to. After all, you're already dead, and I'm Katie's next of kin." He pulled back, a wicked grin on his face.

"You sick bastard."

"Now, now. No name-calling. You know, I'm supposed to interrogate you, but I can't really think of any reason to. I mean, I already know who you work for. I know that your precious Sanctuary was destroyed, and we've got Adam. You've got nothing." He reached under his coat and pulled out a gun. "So I don't really need you," he said, pointing the weapon at Jesse's head and pulling the hammer back with a click.
.

.

It didn't take Shalimar and Lexa too long to find Security Command. The excitement that Jesse's capture had created had left the night shift's remaining guards off balance. They had only encountered two, and those men had been down before they even knew there was someone else there. On the way, Lexa had contacted Katie about the results of the thermal scan. There were about three dozen people in the building, dispersed in such a configuration that it was clear that they were the security guards.

Within three minutes of leaving Adam's laboratory, they had found their way to security's headquarters. They waited around the corner as a half a dozen men, a couple nursing bloody noses, marched out of the office, presumably to resume their posts. Once the men moved out of sight, the two women slipped in the door, careful to avoid the roving security camera posted above the door.

Once they were in the office, they promptly encountered half a dozen more guards who were still lingering in the office. Before any of them could draw their weapons, Lexa quickly sent a laser in the guards' direction, giving her and Shalimar a chance to duck behind a desk. Lexa kept them distracted while Shalimar crawled under the desk to get behind the guards that were advancing around the room toward Lexa. Rising to her feet, Shalimar quickly let loose a series of kicks and punches, knocking two of the guards to their knees before the others even realized she was there. Two of the four remaining guards swiveled to face her.

"Shal! Eyes!"

Shalimar recognized Lexa's command and threw and arm over eyes just as Lexa sparked her hands together to create a brilliant white flash. The guards, temporarily blinded, were shocked into stillness. When they were able to see again, they only saw the blonde chick, who was already attacking. The women took advantage of their confusion, sending arcing kicks and punches to the guards' heads as fast as they could. Five of the men fell unconscious into heaps on the floor, but one of the guards fled the room, stumbling. Shalimar made a move to follow him, but then thought better of it. "The others will figure it out as fast as he could warn them. Let's get Jesse."

Lexa returned to visibility as she moved over to the wall of security camera monitors. "He's in holding cell 2."

"I'm on it. You stay here and keep an eye out. We're going to have company soon." Shalimar dashed down the corridor. Finally reaching the right room, she heard voices from inside.

"You sick bastard."

"Now, now. No name calling. You know, I'm supposed to interrogate you, but I can't really think of any reason to. I mean, I already know who you work for. I know that your precious Sanctuary was destroyed, and we've got Adam. You've got nothing. So I don't really need you."

Shalimar recognized the voices as Jesse and Noah's. She frantically tried the door handle, but stopped when she saw that the door was made of reinforced steel and had an electric control panel on the side. There was no way she could forcer her way through the door. Patting her pockets, she searched for anything to help her open the door. Reaching into her back pocket, she found the security card that she had pulled off the first guard. Hoping for the best, she ran the card through the control panel. She was in luck. The panel beeped and released the lock on the door. Shalimar pushed the door open, just as she heard something that made her blood run cold: the telltale metallic click of a gun's hammer being pulled back.

Shalimar accelerated her movements. She burst into the room, sending a forceful roundhouse kick into the side of Noah's head. The man stumbled to the ground pulling the trigger as he did so. Both Shalimar and Jesse winced when they heard the gunshot, Jesse more so because the bullet embedded itself in his right arm. Damn, the other arm. In the bone, too. That'll take a full minute to repair.

Down on the floor, Noah crawled to his feet, the gun still in his hand. He swung around, aiming for the intruder. Shalimar was quicker. She threw a couple of targeted punches and the elder Kilmartin was down on the floor again, this time unconscious.

Shalimar moved behind Jesse, working at the bonds that held him to the chair. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine. Did you find Adam?"

"Yeah, Brennan's got him; should be bringing him down from the lab any minute. Lexa's in the office. We've got to move. We'll have company soon."

Once Shalimar finally freed the straps that bound Jesse to the chair, he stood quickly, shaking his limbs to get the feeling back into them, wincing when he flexed his right arm. "Damn."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. As soon as Brennan short circuits this governor, I'll be fine." Jesse stepped over his father's prone body to the table in the corner. He picked up his ring and slid it back onto place. Squatting, he picked up and examined the remains of the detonator box. After a couple of seconds, he tossed it aside. "It's dead," he said, straightening up and heading for the door with Shalimar.

"We'll just have to make it without the bombs as distractions."

"No. I may not have been in the field for a while, but I'm not that rusty. Katie," he called over his comring.

"Jesse, you're okay! I got worried for a bit when your signal disappeared. What happened?"

"They took my ring, but I've got it back. Listen, I need you to activate the remote signal controls for the explosives. Mine are toast."

"Got it."

"Be ready to blow them when I tell you." Jesse closed the channel with Katie as he and Shalimar ran out of the hallway and into the office.

More than half a dozen security personnel entered the room at almost the same time. Lexa engaged two of the guards, and Shalimar attacked four of them herself. Two more went for Jesse, who, injured and lacking his mutant powers, spent as much time avoiding attacks as he did making them. The three mutants managed to hold their own for a while, but just as Lexa downed two guards with laser blasts and Shalimar knocked two unconscious, the could see more guards dashing towards the security office.

"Damn," Lexa grunted as she delivered a kick to a third person, a woman this time. "This is half the security force. Jesse?"

"On it," he said, blocking a punch with his left arm and then kicking his attacker away with a foot to the solar plexus. "Katie, detonate alpha!"

For a second, it seemed as if nothing would happen. But then everyone in the room was thrown to the ground as an explosion ripped through the building.