Chapter 32

Jesse arrived in the main room to find absolutely no one there. He cradled his right arm; all the running had jarred it. It was eerily quiet, the majority of the guards having left their posts to pursue the intruders. But one remained. A few seconds after he entered the room, a lone guard entered the room from the far side, and Jesse found himself in a wide-open space, with no place to hide.

Both he and the guard froze. Their eyes met across the room. For Jesse, the world seemed to move in slow motion. Without his ability to mass or phase, and without something for cover, he was entirely vulnerable. He watched as the guard at the other end saw him, recognized him as an intruder, and reached for his sidearm. Jesse stilled, waiting for the inevitable bullet, or laser depending on the type of weapon the guard preferred, to penetrate his body.

But it never came. Just as the man finished aiming his weapon, as series of blue arcs came from above, like one of Jove's own thunderbolts. The guard's body shuddered, jerked, and fell to the ground. Jesse didn't react for a moment, wondering if the bullet had hit him and he just didn't feel it. When that moment passed, Jesse looked up to the third floor catwalk and saw Brennan's grinning face. Standing beside him was Adam.

"I figured you could use a little help."

Jesse let loose the breath he had been involuntarily holding. "Well, better late than never. Adam," he said by way of acknowledgement.

Adam returned the greeting, his smile tight as well. His expression changed to one of concern when he saw the blood trailing down Jesse's arms and on his face. "Jesse. Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Just as soon as Brennan gets down here and zaps this thing." He pointed to the back of his neck.

"On my way, brother." Brennan moved to his left, Adam at his heels, heading for the staircase.

"What did Jesse mean he'd be fine as soon as you disabled the governor?"

Brennan looked at Adam as he ushered him around a corner on the staircase. "Jesse can heal himself and other people."

Adam stopped suddenly on the stairs, in mid-step. "What?"

Brennan pushed him. "Keep going! One of your experiments caused Jesse's powers to have a growth spurt, and he developed the ability to heal. That's what fixed his genetic structure, not one of your tests."

Adam grabbed a rail to swing himself around a corner. "And he fixed Lexa's structure, too? That's what she meant when she said her expiry date wasn't a problem."

"Bingo. He fixed mine and Shalimar's too. Now I have to get down there and disable the governor so Jesse can take care of himself. Now, come on. Let's get out of here."

Jesse watched Adam and Brennan head for the staircase and dashed over to meet them. He looked around for Shalimar and Lexa, hoping they had been as lucky as he with the guards. He saw Shalimar entering the room from the south and west, respectively, and gave a sigh of relief that she was successful in dodging her pursuers.

Shalimar trotted into the main room where she was to meet the others. The guards that had followed her would be distracted by her disappearance for a while, but that wouldn't last forever. Eventually they'd figure out that she had ditched them and would spread out to look for her and the others. She hoped that Brennan had gotten Adam downstairs. When she had found out that he was still alive she had felt elation along with anger. Then when they had found him after Lexa had been captured, it had angered her to see Adam so absorbed in his work. He was obsessed with his 'life's work,' and only cared about what the Dominion was doing because it interfered with his work. She had been close to Adam for years. He was a father to her. For that, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. But if he didn't show his allegiance soon, she would have to let him go, no matter how much it hurt.

Shalimar was jolted out of her reflection when she noticed the familiar scent of electrified air that came whenever Brennan used his powers. She picked up the pace a bit, praying that everyone was okay.

She relaxed somewhat when she saw Jesse was still standing. On the third floor, she saw Brennan and Adam headed for the stairs. Across the room from Jesse, a guard was lying on the floor, still twitching from the residual shocks.

Though the sight of the disabled guard eased her tension, her feral senses were still on alert when they detected something else. More specifically, someone else. Her eyes darted around, finally finding the intruder. The man was of average height and build. He was wearing and expensive suit, which made him stand out from the guards, who wore cheap military-like jumpsuits. His dirty blonde hair was shorn close to his head and wire-rimmed glasses obscured his eyes. What disturbed her, though, was the fact that the man was walking deliberately and sternly out of the shadows, a weapon in one hand, pointed squarely at Jesse's back.

"Jesse! Look out!" Shalimar shouted. She charged toward the man, wanting to believe that she could cross the room before the man could fire. Jesse couldn't protect himself without his powers. Brennan was on the staircase – he couldn't see what was happening, and she was too far away. There was nothing she could do. Jesse was going to die.

Realizing he'd been spotted, the man only picked up speed and intensity, his determination obvious. "Damn you, Jesse! He's dead! You've ruined it all!" he shouted.

Jesse had turned the moment he had heard Shalimar's warning. His eyes settled on the man hurtling toward him. Not again. His 20/10 vision could see the man's finger tightening on the trigger. Jesse again braced for an impact he was helpless to prevent.

And again it didn't come. A half second after he realized the trigger was being pulled, a blaze of white light entered his peripheral vision, striking the attacker hard in the back. The man fell forward, his momentum sprawling the man face first at Jesse's feet.

Jesse stood stunned as Shalimar came up to his side and Brennan and Adam approached him from behind.

"Are you okay, man?"

Jesse blinked and shook his head. "Yeah." He looked up to find the source of the light that had saved his life. Standing across the room, revealed by the falling man's body, was Lexa. He stepped toward her; she did the same, moving until they were standing in front of each other.

"You okay?"

Jesse reached a hand up to stroke her cheek. "Yeah, thanks to you. Are you okay?"

She nodded, and leaned into him, comforting herself with his strength and scent. She had been terrified when she came out into the room to see a strange man charging toward Jesse, his intentions clearly murderous. She reached an arm around his waist, and froze when she heard his sharp intake of breath. Pulling back a little, she noticed for the first time the extent of his injuries. She immediately became concerned.

Jesse saw her expression change. He gave a small smile and dropped a quick but intense kiss on her lips before she could say anything. Then he turned to face Brennan. "Would you be so kind?"

Brennan put a hand on Jesse's neck and with his other hand sent enough of a charge to the subdermal governor to disable it. Jesse flinched as he felt the metal wires withdrawing.

Adam watched the exchange, but his mind was still on the interaction between Jesse and Lexa he had just witnessed. He had seen Jesse's concern for Lexa when they had worked together to remove her implant. But he was surprised to see Lexa showing open affection for Jesse. In all the time he'd known Lexa, he'd never known her to act like that with anyone other than her brother. Now it seemed as if she actively and knowingly engaging in a relationship. Not to mention the increased physical contact he was noticing between Shalimar and Brennan. He had been away for too long. At one time, he considered these young men and women to be his children and yet he was completely out of touch with them.

Adam's reverie was interrupted by what Jesse did next. As he watched, his one-time protégé repeatedly massed and phased his entire body – except for his right arm. Adam stared amazed as the cuts on Jesse's face disappeared, and the wound on his left arm cauterized itself.

"That'll have to do for now," Jesse said moments later. "The right arm will have to wait until I get the bullet out, and we still need to get out of here."

"Jesse…that was amazing control."

Jesse cracked a small smile. "Glad you approve. I've been working on a lot of things while you were gone." He was grateful and happy to see that Adam had shown some semblance of his former self. But like Brennan, Jesse still felt out of sorts around Adam. It would take time for their relationship to recover. He looked down to the body on the floor, then reached down to check for a pulse. "He's dead."

"Damn. I've been working on making my shots less lethal. Guess I need to practice. He knew you, Jesse. Who was he? What did he mean 'he's dead'?"

Jesse stood up and rolled the body over with his foot. "Don't be too sorry, Lex." He reached for and squeezed her hand. "This sorry excuse for a human is none other than Noah Kilmartin."

Lexa was taken aback. The first time she meets Jesse's father and she kills the man. But knowing what she did about him, and watching Jesse's reaction, she supposed she shouldn't feel guilty about it.

"But who's dead? I didn't get that part."

Brennan rubbed the back of his head. "My guess is he's talking about the Creator. When the power went out his control panel shorted out and exploded in his face."

Jesse was silent for a moment. "That explains why he came after me. The Creator was supposed to be his key to a power position." He sighed. "Now come on, we've got to get out of here before those guards get loose."

"I locked my guards in with yours Jesse, so, although they're all pretty stupid, there are twice as many of them there to think of a solution." She grabbed Jesse's arm, and started to usher them all out the way they had come.

"Agreed. We'd better pick up the pace. I can hear at least a dozen people running in from that hallway."

They all instinctually glanced down the hallway Shalimar had indicated. Already they could see several guards dashing toward them. The glance lasted only a fraction of a second, then all five of them were sprinting toward the exit. They took the turns quickly, every second counting. Brennan and Lexa paused occasionally, sending light and electricity down the hall at the faster pursuers who had managed to get close. When they passed a staircase, Jesse called out to Shalimar, who was leading the retreat. He redirected her to a door, and they quickly moved through it. It led to a tunnel. The same tunnel through which Jesse had entered the building. Once they were through, he could detonate the C-4 on the staircase outside the tunnel, protecting their escape.

"Katie, detonate bravo in 10 seconds," he shouted into his ring as he ran with the others down the tunnel. "Give it one minute, then blow the rest." They came to the vertical ladder. "Go, go."

They clambered up the stairs. Jesse was the last one out, and he rolled out of the hatch just as an explosion rattled the hatch shut behind him. He scrambled to his feet with Brennan's help. They dashed through the woods, heedless of security cameras. They wouldn't matter.

Seconds after they cleared the woods, there was another explosion, this one permeating the entire building. Glass blew out of the windows above ground. There were at least three secondary explosions, and the center of the building caved in on itself. Fire laced out the windows. The rumble of falling debris echoed in their ears.

When they stopped to catch their breath, Brennan turned and looked at the burning building. "Damn, Jess. How much C-4 did you use?"

"Not much. But what I did use was rather potent."

"I'll say." Shalimar gave him a good-natured poke. "You know, this puts me in mind of another explosion from a couple weeks ago."

Brennan straightened up. "Well, at least this time we have everyone. And we have transportation," he said proudly.