THE CHOICES WE MAKE
Continued...
Shalimar jumped, avoiding Jesse's leg sweep and somersaulted over his head, landing easily on her feet. Jesse recovered quickly enough to miss her retaliating punch but was too slow for the neat roundhouse kick that followed and ended up lying flat on his back, half way across the dojo. He was relieved that Adam had had the good sense to line the floor with a padding that seemed to absorb impact in an uncanny way.
Groaning, Jesse started to get to his feet, "Okay, enough, you win I take it back! I'll never accuse you of not being a morning person again!"
The feral grinned triumphantly and helped her friend back to his feet. She had gotten up early this morning, (well earlier than usual considering Jesse was the only other person yet about,) and this had prompted the fateful comment from the molecular, "I didn't think ferals were up to much at this time of the morning, careful, you might hurt yourself." The resulting challenge had clearly contradicted these thoughts.
"I think you broke a rib!" Jesse complained.
"No I didn't,"
"Well something hurts!"
"I hit you exactly two inches below your ribcage Jesse! Enough to cause insult but no injury."
"Gee, thanks Shal"
"Now stop being a big baby and help me make breakfast." Despite being eager to defend the slight against her morning abilities, the feral was definitely happy to accept that she was not the best cook in the team. It was usually Emma that rose first; she liked to get up early, for the 'empathically peaceful moments before the world started shouting' she said. The others often teased her about the fact that she was often caught humming to herself in the mornings while making breakfast.
Jesse stopped massaging his stomach and followed Shalimar obediently into the kitchen area and started cooking eggs.
"Em and Brennan are sleeping late this morning," Adam commented as he entered the kitchen, attracted out of his lab by appealing smell of the eggs.
"Mmm..." Jesse didn't seem particularly interested until Shalimar piped up,
"That's good. Since they aren't here I was just thinking we should do something to celebrate."
"Celebrate what?" asked Jesse, suprised.
"Well it'll be a year ago in 4 days since they joined us; I just thought it might be nice to acknowledge that fact. Things wouldn't be the same around here without them."
"What Shal means is she wouldn't have Brennan to flirt with constantly. "Shalimar shot Jesse a look which said quite clearly 'that is not what I meant and you know it!'
"Shalimar's right though," offered Adam, "We should do something, if for no other reason than I'm sure it would be nice to let them know that they're appreciated."
"They sure have helped save our buts a good many times," Jesse said thoughtfully
"We make a good team." Shalimar agreed.
"Well good teams work best when they're all awake," Adam remarked gesturing to the two empty spaces at the table. "It's not like Brennan to be absent when there's food on the table. I sometimes think he has a mutation to sense food from a mile away and I just keep missing it in the scans."
Shalimar snickered, it was true he ate a lot but his large appetite was what gave him that great body, and she certainly would want him to give that up.
"Must be all the excitement of last night," Jesse joked, serving the now cooked eggs tomatoes next to Shalimar's contribution of buttered toast.
"Excitement?" Adam asked, biting distractedly into his toast, "I thought you all had a quiet evening, light on the action side."
"Yeah, well the only reason Brennan missed out on action was because you called us in early Jesse smirked, "He must have left that poor girl heartbroken"
"Who's heartbroken?" Jesse was interrupted from his narrative by Emma entrance.
"Morning Em" Jesse smiled at her. Noticing Brennan was absent she took the plate Jesse offered her and sat beside Shalimar, who grinned,
"We were just discussing what Brennan got up to last night."
Emma stiffened; worried for a second that Shalimar had gone on one of her nightly prowls and spotted her and Brennan on the sofa last night.
Her worries were alleviated however by Adam, who clearly having had enough discussion on the subject of conquests already, said merely, " They were just saying Brennan was disappointed that his date had to end early when I called you back last night." Emma breathed a sight of relief. "There was a reason for that you know people," Adam continued, "The mission; Devon Rykes remember, you're all supposed to go on that mission this morning. The GSA aren't going to wait around to make their move until we show up and I for one don't want to see them claim yet another guinea pig. Where the hell is Brennan?"
"Keep your remaining hair on Adam" said Brennan, yawning widely as he made his presence known, "I just need a quick caffeine boost and I'm good to go." He looked over at the rest of the team, "Sorry, guys, didn't sleep well," he answerd their unspoken question. He caught Emma's eye for a second but she quickly looked away.
"Well now that you're all wide-eyed and ready to go," Adam said sarcastically, "I'll power up the Double Helix. You leave in 10 minutes."
"I still don't like the idea of leaving Shal and Emma at those co-ordinates on their own" Brennan remarked. He chanced another glance at Emma be she was staring fixed at her plate and didn't look up.
"I told you Brennan, it's not open to debate."
The four mutants found themselves on board the double Helix shortly afterwards. Jesse pulled the ship to halt over the location the new mutant was thought to have moved to.
"Be careful girls."
"Yeah," Brennan agreed, "Watch your backs."
"I'll leave watching my back to you," Shalimar smirked at Brennan, turning and walking away seductively. Emma rolled her eyes, and with one last glance at Brennan, who still looked concerned, she followed Shalimar down the street.
Jesse closed the door and the ship rose, heading to the co-ordinated of the burned down warehouse. He landed and, setting the controls, followed Brennan out.
"Let's make this quick shall we?" Brennan said as he made his way quickly towards the blackened building.
Jesse frowned. His friend was definitely acting edgy today. He was concerned about the girls too, but he really didn't doubt Shalimar's ability to handle herself, and Emma's powers and fighting abilities had been developing well.
The door inside seemed to be boarded up, 'Probably the work of Eckharts people,' Jesse surmised. He phased out and walked through the wall, barely having time to reintegrate himself when he heard the crashing sound of splintering wood. He watched Brennan walk though the now open door, "You can just never resist using the violent approach can you?" he asked, referring to the fact that Brennan had apparently taken out his obvious impatience with their current situation by kicking down the door.
"What?" Brennan shrugged, "It practically gave way."
"Well let's look around."
The two of them wandered through the blacken remains for a few minutes, being careful of the slightly unstable internal structures.
"Find anything?" Brennan called
"No, everything too badly burned." He sighed, "Besides if there was anything the GSA have problem removed it by now."
Brennan was about to remark that he knew it was a waste of time and they should get back to the girls when there was a small crash behind them.
"Looks like we've got company," Brennan muttered, moving over to where Jesse was standing, electricity already starting to spark from his fingers. Both held their breaths listening. There was another creak, this time evidently coming from the charred remains of the door connecting the two rooms. The door began to open. Reacting quickly to the movement Brennan shot a bolt of electricity straight at the spot. There was a small thud. Jesse edged over and phased through the wall.
"Well done Brennan." he called, "You got the cat."
"What?!" Brennan pulled the door open and saw a frazzled looking cat laying dazed just behind it.
"Nice going man, you certainly saved us there," Jesse couldn't help laughing at the expression on his friends face.
"Oh this is stupid," Brennan retorted irritably, "Adam...Adam" he shouted into his comm, there's nothing here, were going to head over to the second location."
"Alright." came Adams voice, "You and Jesse head on over there."
"Have the others found anything?" Brennan asked.
"No, they checked in a few minutes ago though, I'll patch you over their current location."
"Great," Brennan was already heading back to the Double Helix.
Adam frowned as he looked at the information on the screen in front of him. Part of the reason he had been so abrupt with Brennan doubting the mission was because he was having some doubts himself. Something just didn't sit right. Adam had gone over the original information complied by Jesse and Brennan a few days ago. It seemed routine, but there was just something still niggling in the back of Adams mind. He pulled up another source; glancing over it he made his decision.
"Brennan, Jesse," he spoke into the comm.
He heard a acknowledgement from Jesse and sighed, it was no good, he had to tell them his suspicions,
"Jesse I need you and Brennan to get over to the others immediately, I have reason to think Emma and Shalimar are walking into a trap."
"What?" Adam cringed as he heard Brennan over his comm.
"I think this new mutant isn't as innocent as we first thought. The information regarding his childhood gives several instances of him being found at the scene of a fire. He was a suspected child arsonist but the authorities never found any evidence to link him to the crimes- not surprising."
"So surely we should be assuming he was just a child who couldn't get control of his new mutiny, and maybe still can't," asked Jesse reasonably
"No, there's still something about the accounts that's bothering me." Adam replied, "A new Mutant child with uncontrollable powers would be frightened, confused, but in the accounts I read this child was just standing back enjoying the show. I don't he's the innocent victim of his powers like we were assuming."
"It's okay Adam; we're already on our way."
"It is not okay!" Retorted Brennan furiously, "I said this whole plan was a bad idea from the start, if anything happens to Emma and Shalimar..." What...what would he do? He tried to shut it out of his mind, he couldn't think about it now; all that was important was getting to them. "Jesse, can't this thing go any faster?"
Continued in chapter 5...