Chapter 6

Emma and Jesse arrived where they had expected the Helix to be if it hadn't launched and found nothing beyond the imprints of its landing gear in the grass. Nearby, there was a score torn in the earth and they followed that path with there eyes. They saw a sight that didn't immediately register in their brains. A few smoldering debris fires littered the area and the partially submerged wreckage of the Helix, which had skidded into a lake, could be seen with its nose sunken in the water and the remains of its stern in the air. Emma reached out and could detect the three life signs of their friends, but they were not in the wreck. She noticed the open hatch on the top of the plane, but could not pin down where Adam, Brennan and Shalimar were.

"They're alive," she told Jesse. Both looked behind them and then at the Helix again. "I sense them nearby, but I'm not sure where. Maybe they sought shelter in one of the abandoned buildings." They ran towards the wreckage, hoping they would be able to find a sign of the rest of their team and rescue them before pursuit arrived. Neither could conceive what had happened.

Halfway to the muddy lake, Emma reached out for Jesse to stop him, sensing danger ahead. From the right and left, a dozen people ran out from behind two of the derelict buildings of business complex. Another dozen were slightly further away, in pursuit from behind, presumably coming from the Fasergen site.

Jesse didn't need psionic powers to see that they were in trouble. "We'll have to try and come back for them later," he said to Emma, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the left side of the lake. The group coming from that side was slightly further away and they might be able to outdistance the angle of pursuit.

Emma and Jesse managed to edge out their pursuers by about fifty yards. Coming around the other side of the lake were two Humvees. What were presumably Fasergen agents had them hemmed in from all directions and since they were suspected of being affiliated with the Strand, they were likely to all be New Mutants. The trap had been sprung and there was no clear way out.

"This way," Emma said, and they slightly altered their course, heading for the nearest building, up a slight hill from the pond. It was a giant, abandoned office complex, formerly belonging to a now defunct international conglomerate, possibly the largest of the disused structures.

They ran full speed at a solid wall and Jesse phased himself and Emma through it and into the office building, where they found themselves in a dirty, decrepit room full of old, outmoded executive furniture. Leaving the storage room, they entered a dim hallway.

"Now what?" Jesse asked.

"They're coming from almost every direction," Emma said.

"You give me directions, I'll take us through any walls in our way." Behind them, the outer wall of the room they had just come from disappeared. Strand mutants began entering the hole. Emma launched a series of psionic blasts and took out the first few, but more were coming. As she turned away, she saw Julia Lechner behind them.

"This way," she told Jesse and they began to run, weaving a course through the enormous, mazelike building, frequently passing through walls in an attempt to throw off pursuit. But every wall they passed through soon disintegrated and their pursuit drew closer. Emma sensed only a narrow escape route. They were closing in on the pair like a horseshoe. "We're not going to get away," she told Jesse as they headed down a long straightaway, winding their way back and forth through side offices and walls in case any of their pursuers had line-of-sight powers. She realized it was futile and Jesse did as well. They were being corralled.

Emma and Jesse came to the end of the building. She knew Strand mutants were waiting for them on the other side and perhaps Jesse did too, but what else was there to do? They stepped out once again into the bright daylight and saw perhaps fifty mutants. The noose had ensnared them. The two Mutant X members walked slowly into the center of the circle. Behind them, a hole opened up in the wall they had just come through and the pursuit behind completed the surrounding circle of Links.

A man stepped forward. "The last time I saw the two of you, you were lying on slabs on the verge of death." Both Jesse and Emma recognized him immediately. It was Charles Marlowe—long thought to be dead. "We have your friends," he said, "and we have you." He held out his hands, open palmed. "We are all the same here. We are all Genomex's creations. You only need fear if you work against us."

"And what is it you are working for?" Jesse asked him. Emma sensed only malice emanating from the man.

"I want what Gabriel Ashlocke wanted. I want our kind to stop living in fear. Why should the strong restrain themselves? Why should they cower in fear, when they can rule?" All around, Emma sensed agreement; though it was clear to her that Marlowe's words were not entirely sincere.

"If you want what Ashlocke wanted, you mean to kill and subjugate innocent people," she said, not swayed by his words.

"I didn't make the rules," he responded. "They already do it to one another. The so-called 'normal people'. The richer, the handsomer, the better connected, the stronger; they all dominate those with less or who are less able. It's the 'Rule of the Jungle', my friends. Leadership is just going to change again, just as it has countless times in history. Only, this time, the leaders will truly be better than those who serve them."

His words spoke to his followers, but Emma could sense something of Marlowe's true intentions and motivations. She felt greed, revenge, and hatred. Marlowe's world was not one she would choose to inhabit. "I don't really want to surrender," Jesse said quietly to Emma.

"Neither do I," she told him. She positioned herself so that she was back to back with Jesse.

"You can take us by force, but we will not go with you willingly," Jesse called out.

Emma reached into Marlowe's mind. "Didn't I tell you we were all of one kind? We will not take you by force. You may go, but expect no mercy if you ever attempt to follow Adam Kane's lead and cross our path again." He turned to his followers and said, "Let them go. They are New Mutants and have not harmed us. They may leave and I hope that someday, they will join us in the Strand."

Jesse took Emma's hand and together they left the circle and headed toward the distant highway that ran between dozens of industrial parks on this side of the city. They had only made it a hundred yards when a burst of energy hit them from behind, knocking both to the ground.

Neither had known about the stealth plane that took down the Helix. Marlowe had put it on standby outside of precise psionic detection range and given strict orders should he cease acting like himself. With so many minds around her in every direction Emma had not sensed the minds aboard the aircraft. Seeing what happened below and that the two mutants they had been pursuing were escaping, the pilot had closed in and a psionic aboard had fired a stun burst at them. As Emma fell forward, consciousness was rapidly leaving her, though as a psionic herself, she held on a few seconds longer than Jesse. It was just long enough. She reached out with her powers to her fallen friend and the other thee members of Mutant X, who she now detected were being held on the stealth plane, and instinctively performed one final act before darkness captured her.