Jesse stared at her, dumbfounded. "That can't be Alanna, she's dead!" Emma shook her head, "I don't know how they did it, but they did." "Emma, we saw her. She was dead." Brennan interjected from his seat in the area they had all been banished to when Adam had told them to get out of the lab. "Brennan, I'm telling you, that is Alanna."
Shalimar spoke up after a moment of silence. "Well, we'll know in a moment." She said, looking over in the direction of the lab as Adam walked over to them. "Well Adam?" Brennan inquired.
"Emma was right. It's Alanna somehow, but her genetic structure is very unstable." He announced softly.
"How long..." Jesse started to ask, but stopped as Shalimar and Emma jumped up, both racing for the lab. Shalimar reached there first, finding an even paler Alanna sitting up in the chair and holding her head. "Alanna?" She asked, coming over to the girl slowly and putting a hand on her shoulder. Alanna jumped, her eyes glowing golden as she raised her head, enveloping her vision in sepia tones. "Shalimar." She said slowly, trying to process the two separate versions of the woman that conflicted in her brain. Emma walked in, gazing at Alanna with a troubled expression.
The rest came in a second later, making the girl cringe as emotions pressed in on her. These people who were concerned for her, they couldn't be the monsters that the other memories said they were, or could they? She heard someone approach and then press her back into the chair. "Alanna, you need to take it easy." Adam said, going over and looking at the results of some tests and the progress on others.
The girl sighed, conflicting memories taking up too much of her mind for her to protest as she laid back and watched everyone with a slight look of confusion. Emma glanced at Adam before coming up to Alanna, "You ok?"
Her head tilted over to look at Emma, a small, bitter smirk falling over her face. "As ok as I'll ever be." Emma frowned, watching the expression cross over the girl's face. "Alanna, you're DNA is mutating." A weary sigh escaped the teen, "I thought I would at least have a week." Adam came over, his dark eyes gazing sharply at the girl. "They must have accelerated your mutation when we found you. It would have been a shock to your system, so your heart stopped."
Alanna nodded, the motion causing a wave of dizziness to descend on her. "I was the second new mutant they had tried the serum on, they never got the first's heart to start again." She paused a moment to let the vertigo pass, "They say they've been trying to develop a new serum to slow and eventually stop the mutation to a manageable level, but haven't been able to..." An arc of flaming pain shot down her spine, making her freeze to the chair, her eyes widened.
The soft beeping of the heart monitoring system increased rapidly, followed by a flat tone as her body relaxed into the examining chair limply. "Brennan!" Adam had barely gotten the word out of his mouth before Brennan had a small telsa coil ready and jolted the girl, cutting the voltage after a moment.
The flat line jolted up once more, rising to a normal pace instead of its previous frantic dash. Brennan, Jesse and Shalimar left the lab to give Adam more space as he checked vital signs, walking towards the dojo.
Emma looked up at Adam, eyes worried. "How long?" Adam sighed, reluctantly giving up the information. "The results from the tests weren't too clear." He studied the unconscious figure laying on the examination chair, a bitter, sad tone in his voice. "I just don't know. The feral mutancies are normally more stable than the others, but Alanna has psionics as her subsidiary mutancy." Adam turned away, "Multiple mutancies are so uncommon that there has been almost no research done."
The geneticist walked over to a tray and picked up a needle and an empty testing tube. "But..." Emma continued for him as he swabbed the girl's arm before plunging the needle in and slowly pulling the plunger up, dark crimson blood filling the vial. "But, as soon as I can take a look at this blood sample, it should tell me what state of disrepair her chromosomes are in…" Adam moved to the counter and put a small amount of blood between two slides, putting it under the microscope and moving to the monitor. "...And perhaps the answer to how they accelerated her mutations."
Emma walked over slowly, peering at the screen above Adam's shoulder. "They look a little ragged around the edges." Adam nodded, "She has a couple of days at most. The scan showed Alanna's mutation rates have been consistently increasing."
"She's burning out?" Both Adam and Emma jumped, finding Shalimar and Brennan standing in the middle of the doorway to the lab, watching the chromosomes on the monitor. Jesse walked up behind them, "How long?" "A couple of days." Shalimar's brows drew down, "You're talking like you can't do anything."
Adam glanced over at the cataleptic figure, "Adam?" He looked over at them all, then moved to a computer. "I need some supplies from town. Shalimar, if you and the team would go and retrieve them..." He stopped a moment as a message popped up on the screen. "Emma, Jesse, I need you to go and take care of a new mutant down town. I'll load the coordinates into the Helix."
Emma and Jesse exited the lab, heading towards their rooms and changes of clothing while Adam jotted down a quick list. "You can find most of this at the medical supply shop downtown. Shalimar knows where to find the rest." Brennan nodded, following Shalimar to the garage.