They never noticed Adam sitting on the sidelines until he spoke. The older man had quietly taken his place on the bench lining the edge of the dojo, watching two of his team working out, throwing punch after kick after punch at each other.
It was poetry in motion. Brennan Mulwray had a gift for hand to hand combat, a beauty in motion so acute that Adam sometimes wondered if the mutant was actually part feral. Each movement was perfectly timed, perfectly placed, stopping just short of wreaking devastation on his opponent: pulling his punches.
Not that Jesse Kilmartin actually needed him to. The molecular was no slouch himself when it came to subduing his enemies and what his fists couldn't stop, turning to diamond-hard stone would. But Jesse wasn't using his gift today, and wasn't planning on it. In the present work out, as with previous ones, the goal was to improve, and that couldn't be done by cheating.
"Jesse."
That got through. The pair halted, Brennan pulling back the front snap kick that he was about to deliver. Brennan was the first to recognize the look on Adam's face. "Adam? What's wrong? Shalimar and Emma are out in the field—are they all right?"
"They're fine," Adam hastened to assure him. "I just heard from Emma. They're on their way back in, and the mutant has been successfully delivered to the underground. No, that's not it."
"Then what?" Jesse dropped to the bench beside Adam, wiping his face with a hand towel.
"Remember Benji? The New Mutant with the size of an ox and the brain of an ox as well?"
Brennan snorted. "How could we forget? The bruises have finally gone away but the memory hasn't. How is he? Did the memory boost that Jesse gave him work?"
"Yes and no," Adam started to say.
Brennan interrupted. "I hate it when he says that. Adam, the guy became someone who could walk and chew gum at the same time overnight. What's the problem?"
"Problem is, the gum chewing didn't last. Benji's back to where he was: the mind of a four year old. I don't need to tell you that Bea Sutter is pretty upset. We had a lot of hopes for this treatment."
Jesse sighed. "It's been, what, four weeks? Six? I thought that passing the two week mark meant that it had worked. What went wrong?"
Adam lifted his shoulders tiredly. "The data is still coming in. Apparently Benji did fine up until a few days or so. Then he woke up and couldn't remember how to brush his teeth, and it was all down hill from there. Dr. Sutter is crunching the data as we speak."
"So the effect is temporary," Brennan mused.
"For now. Remember, when Dr. Sutter used samples from normals, the effect lasted two weeks. With Jesse's contribution, we were able to double the time to four weeks, which suggests that we're on the right track. A little more time and experimentation, and we may hit on the right combination to make the intelligence upgrade permanent."
Jesse cringed. "Does this mean what I think it means? Another spinal tap, accompanied by a headache that would dim Manhattan?"
Adam smiled sympathetically. "You can always say no."