Chapter 14

While she recovered, Adam caught Emma up on what she missed while locked in her concrete box. He told her about his inability to control Julia Lechner's rapidly mutating powers as evidence by the bandage on his head. For the moment, heavy doses of drugs and reduced body temperature were being used to slow her deterioration.

Emma spent the next couple of days on bed rest in the infirmary. She was fed all that she could hold down until her contracted belly was full. She was constantly tired and nauseous, but still felt much better, at least physically. Whenever Adam entered the room, she was glad to see him.

"How's my other patient today?" he asked.

"I'm feeling much better, much stronger," she said. Adam stood next to her and put his hand on her right shoulder. She jumped at the pinch as he injected her with something and then hid the needle.

"I'm glad to hear it. I think maybe today is the day our team should be reunited." Adam's smile was strange as he said this and Emma could barely resist the urge to rub the shoulder where he had injected her. What had he done?

A guard escorted them to the solid steel door that was the main way in and out of the cell where Mutant X was being held. Emma followed Adam as he entered the doorway, which was closed and sealed behind her.

Shalimar and Jesse were playing cards on the floor in the center of the dismal concrete room. Emma pressed her palms together, holding her hands to her face with her thumbs under her chin and felt tears come to her eyes. She had never thought to see their faces again. Brennan was sitting against a large mirrored wall on the left side of the room.

Shalimar dropped her cards and rushed to Emma, hugging her thin form. Emma could hear that her emotion had taken hold of her and she was crying. The shocked faces of the people she loved were enough to communicate to her how far gone she must still look. Even after a few days of eating as much as she could, she was still less than a hundred pounds. Shalimar held Emma by both of her arms, conscious of how thin they had become and looked into her eyes. Both were too choked up to say a word. She pushed some of Emma's hair away from her face.

Finally, Shalimar was able to speak. "We will get them for this," she said. "I swear it."

Emma didn't know what to say or do. In her mind, she had betrayed them and their cause. How would they react? "Marlowe is probably at Sanctuary right now," she said. She looked right into Brennan's eyes as she said it, knowing he would blame her the most, then at the other members of the group.

"Emma," Adam said, "it's all right." He came to where she was standing and put a hand on her frail shoulder.

"The important thing is that you are back here with us," Shalimar told her with a smile through her tears. "We love you and we are sure you did more than you probably should have." Emma smiled slightly. Shalimar didn't hate her and neither did Adam. Jesse looked concerned, but she couldn't read Brennan.

Brennan locked eyes with her. "Traitor," he said. The other three team members looked sharply at him, but he continued before they could speak up. "That's what I thought when Adam told me that you had revealed the location of our headquarters. I just have to open my eyes and look at you to see what you suffered through. Can you ever forgive me?"

He was clearly sincere and remorseful. "I forgive you, Brennan," she told him, smiling. He returned her smile and it was suddenly like old times between the five of them again.

"Touching," said a voice as the mirrored wall of the cell cleared to reveal Charles Marlowe and a man Emma recognized to be Michael, the Psionic who had headed up her interrogation. "Unfortunately, Ms. DeLauro will have to be put back in her box."

"You can't do that to her again," Shalimar said.

"Yes, I can." He turned to the mutant at his side and suddenly Shalimar fell to the ground choking. "Enough," Marlowe said and the Feral could breathe again.

"You couldn't find everything you needed at Sanctuary?" Adam asked him.

"We thoroughly examined the location extracted from your esper, but we found nothing there." Marlowe turned to the man next to him who seemed very surprised.

"That's impossible. We crosschecked every piece of information we got from the subject. They all matched. They all identified the same target." Michael Andrews was clearly afraid. He had not been on the team sent to the supposed Sanctuary site and had not been aware of their failure to find what they were looking for.

"It seems Ms. DeLauro deceived all of us, including Mr. Andrews here."

Emma's concerned expression changed to a sly grin. "Maybe your people did not look carefully enough," she suggested.

"The site given to us by Mr. Andrews was pockmarked with old mine shafts and natural caverns. We searched day and night. I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing to find. No significant structure, no computers, no power source, nothing."

Brennan looked at Emma. "Wait," he said. "So they didn't find Sanctuary?" Emma shook her head and grinned. He didn't understand why Emma had seemed so distraught before over revealing their secrets, but then he solved it. "You had to fool yourself to fool them." He smiled back at her never having respected her abilities more.

"But you won't fool us twice, not even the gullible Mr. Andrews, who, by the way, has been demoted." Marlowe pulled a chair from behind him and sat down. "You will break eventually. Why not save yourself and your friends some trouble and tell me what I want to know now."

Emma looked at Adam. She knew he was up to something. She could feel his subdued confidence. Whatever he had planned, Brennan, Shalimar and Jesse were not in on it yet. They were all scared and concerned. There was even a tinge of despair that had grown during their weeks of confinement and inactivity. She idly touched the back of her neck. The subdermal governor was still there, but she was not just interpreting these emotions from her friends as anyone could from body language and facial expression, she was using her powers.

"Why should I support your cause?" she asked, stalling for time. What had Adam done to her? She moaned a little in pain and clutched her head. Her brain felt like it was swelling to twice the size of her skull.

"I could send you mutant after mutant with stories of abuse, abandonment and exploitation at the hands of Normals, but I'm sure you have heard enough of these stories as a member of Adam's little gang. My goal is simply to prevent any more New Mutants from having these stories to tell. In a world where mutants are leaders, respected and feared, no parent would abandon or abuse a mutant child. None of use would ever be exploited by Normals as Adam exploits you."

"I've heard various crackpots say these things before," she said, massaging her temples. She realized that she didn't need to listen to his words. She could see them as they formed in his brain. "Ultimately, you just want to exploit me and all of us the way you do these people and poor Julia Lechner."

"It takes money to fund a revolution," Marlowe responded. "Fasergen is profitable, but those profits are traceable and insufficient. A stealth ship like the one that shot down you plane is difficult to explain on a list of legitimate company expenditures. Julia was a willing participant in our endeavor and will be again, thanks to Adam. Of course, if we lived in an open society, where New Mutants were accepted, she could have been given the best treatment immediately. Some good people died when her powers went out of control, because our kind are afraid to reveal themselves. We don't have the same resources available to us that a normal person has. We can't seek out the best medical care, because the best doctors don't even know we exist. Doesn't it make you want to change things?"

"Adam is trying to change things," she said.

"No, he's not," Marlowe corrected her. "He's trying to keep things the same. He wants us to hide, to be embarrassed by what we are. He is doing nothing but working to reinforce the fears of those who would destroy us." Emma made no response. "Would any Normal trust you to stay out their head without a subdermal governor?" Some of his words were sincere, but there was something else that he was not bringing forward. Emma could feel a deeper motivation. She tried to reach for more information, but she was still in pain. It was all she could do to appear somewhat composed on the outside.

What did you do to me, Adam!

Emma? Adam had heard the thought in his head.

You can hear me? Emma transmitted.

Yes, Adam responded.

I'm a telempath, not a telepath. What did you do?