Chapter 3: The Twists…
The next morning, David rinsed his mouth after brushing his teeth with a brand new toothbrush – picked up at a 24-hour drug store on their way to the mansion – and stepped out of the bathroom. He moved down the hallway, past Katie's office, in time to hear Katie's side of a conversation over the phone.

"We're fine, Lexa. The car's in the garage. If you could run an analysis on it…I don't know, maybe you'll find a slug fragment or paint chips on the fender or something."

Katie looked up and saw David in the doorway. He stood there for a moment, sure she would ask him to leave. Instead, though, she waved her hand, indicating for him to enter.

"David called the police anonymously. I'm sure there will be a report on it…it takes that long to file reports? Yeah. Well, that does make sense. But still… Okay. How about we do lunch then?" She laughed. "Yeah, I do sound like a businesswoman. I've been spending too much time at the office. Okay. I hope this was a random, one-time thing, but just in case, you know? Hey, do me a favor and don't tell… Yeah, he's got enough on his plate…Really? I wonder what's going on out there… Yeah, I will. I'll see you then. Good luck."

David watched as she hung up the phone and sat back in her over-sized office chair. Again, she was sitting cross-legged in the chair. "Did you find the towels?" she asked.

He smiled and sat down on the couch. "I did. Who was that?"

She stood up and moved over to the couch. "That was Lexa. She's a friend of mine and has contacts everywhere. Where she doesn't have contacts, she'll just breaks in."

David choked back a laugh. "You do realize you're telling this to a lawyer, right?" His eyes followed her as she walked the length of the room before returning to the couch and sitting down beside him. "You could be incriminating yourself here."

She fiddled with her hands, examining her fingernails, before looking back up at him. "Are you sure you have no idea why those people were trying to kill you?"

She saw David waver. Then, to her complete surprise, he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her into his body. "I'm sure it was completely random. For all we know, whoever was in that car was looking for someone else and went after us by mistake. Look, we'll just wait and see what your friend can find. When are we meeting her?"

"Tuesday. She said the police report would be the best way to get information without being noticed, but Philadelphia police have 24 working hours to file their reports, which means even a preliminary report won't be filed until Tuesday morning, since it's the weekend." She finally let herself relax in his embrace. The experience was new, but definitely not unwelcome. She leaned her head on back on his shoulder, breathing in his scent.

"There's nothing we can really do until then. We'll just have to go about life normally, okay?"

"Okay," she mumbled.

David looked down at Katie, whose head was now lolling on his shoulder. She was already falling asleep. She must have had a long day too. And now her body was coming down from an adrenaline rush, fueling her need for sleep. He could feel her body relaxing.

His wasn't though. He didn't think he'd get any sleep tonight, either. Twice in one day, he had almost been killed. Added to the near mugging Thursday and the mild food poisoning unique to his food on Monday – mild only because his lunch had been interrupted by business – and it was clear that someone or something was after him. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He hoped her friend Lexa could find something.



"Hey Jess, are you sure this is the place."

Back at Sanctuary, Jesse quadruple checked his information. "It's got to be. It's the only place that matches the description she gave me."

"If you say so, bro."

"Be careful, Brennan. We're going ahead in the dark, here, so watch your back."

"Always." Brennan thumbed his comring off and moved with Shalimar around the corner.

It was now Monday afternoon, and Brennan and Shalimar were in Indianapolis, hoping to find a new mutant who had been attacked in her home. Yesterday, more than a dozen of their automatic flags, placed in public and private computer networks across the globe, had been triggered, setting off alarms in the system as well as sanctuary itself. All five of them had spent the entire day working their way through those systems, trying to figure out what exactly had triggered the flags. What made the task complicated was that they seemed to have been activated for no specific reason. It wasn't until late in the evening that Jesse had found the virus. It had been uploaded to a corner of sanctuary's mainframe via one of the safehouses – constant rerouting had made it impossible to determine which one – and been activated remotely. This wasn't the first time Sanctuary's computer system had been hacked – after all, no system was perfectly safe – but it took a lot of skill to break into their system. They all counted themselves lucky that the damage hadn't been worse. Lexa, Jesse and Adam had managed to create a patch, and now they were working on a complete manual system diagnostic.

Unfortunately, just as that calamity had been resolved, Monica called from the New York/Center safehouse, saying Tyrone had gotten a frantic call from a friend, a fellow mutant he had lived with for several years. Her home had been raided, she'd been accosted at work and she was being followed everywhere. Tyrone told them that she, Ariah Benoz by name, had fled to the home of another friend – Don Vries – in Indianapolis. Now, Tyrone was unable to reach that friend. Given the fact that the three friends had a history of staying in close contact with each other, Tyrone said, this was cause for concern. Then, an hour ago, Ariah had managed to reach Tyrone. She was able to give a description of a building at the intersection of Shepoquie St and Ralston Ct, and then the line was cut off. Now, Shalimar and Brennan were creeping through the area – which housed mostly abandoned tenements – looking for any sign of the missing mutant. So far, they hadn't found anything.

They approached the building that closest matched the description, looking around for anything that seemed out of the ordinary as they did so.

Reaching the dilapidated building, Shalimar pushed on the door giving entry into the building. When it didn't move, she gave it a soft kick with her heel, just hard enough to open the door without causing it to swing open wildly and crash against the wall.

Brennan looked at the dingy staircase and railings, both in disrepair – much like the rest of the building. "I hope there aren't any kids living in here? They're likely to fall right through those things."

Shalimar chose not to react to his comment – there was nothing she could do about the situation, even if she completely agreed with him. "Come on. Let's start on the ground level and work our way up."

The two searched for open doors and checked with residents who were home. No one had seen anyone matching the description Tyrone had given them or had heard about a strange girl or someone named Ariah. They were climbing up to the second of the seven floors when they heard a loud clatter from above. Followed by a deep yell and a high pitched scream

Shalimar looked at Brennan. He was looking back at her. "The roof," they said almost simultaneously. In a flash, they were racing up the remaining stairs, soon slamming through the door marked 'ROOF – RESTRICTED ACCESS.' Shalimar, with her lighter feet and body, led the way, kicking through the door leading to the top of the building. They squinted their eyes and raised hands to block out the sun, so bright after having been in the darkened building.

Shalimar's eyes adjusted faster. The moment she got onto the roof, her mind was open, taking in the details of the situation. The next moment, it had switched to defense mode. "Hey!"

She charged forward, just as Brennan focused his vision. What he saw instantly caused his adrenaline levels to skyrocket. Shalimar had charged and was already attacking two large men. They were near the edge and one of them had a gun. Thankfully, he saw, they had made the mistake of underestimating the petite blond. One was already staggering, reeling from the kick Shalimar had delivered to his hands to disarm him. Brennan built up a tesla coil, but then paused before hurling it at the other man. The guy was too close to Shalimar. He needed time in order to create and toss a closely controlled coil the situation required, and he didn't have that kind of time. Instead, Brennan shut of the juice and charged as Shalimar had. He reached the second guy – Shalimar was busy delivering a right hook to the first man's jaw – just as he was trying to attack Shalimar from behind. Brennan blocked the man's swinging hands and planted his foot in his stomach, shoving the man to the ground. Now that there was a sufficient distance between them, Brennan let loose a sharp blast of electricity, enough to knock the man out cold for several hours, just shy of the amount of current that would stop the human heart.

That done, he turned to help Shalimar, only to see that, as usual, she didn't need it. One final kick, and the man was down on the ground, unconscious and moaning.

"What happened?" Brennan asked.

"I'm not sure," she said, her breathing still steady. "These guys were looking off the edge. When we showed up, they just started charging. You okay?"

"Yeah. These guys didn't put up much of a fight." Brennan watched her move to the edge of the roof, where the guys must have been when they came on the roof. She peered over the edge, and Brennan saw her eyes flash yellow, as they often did when she tapped into her feral senses. He came up to her side just as the glow dissipated. When he could see her eyes again, he saw sadness. He followed her gaze and sighed, realizing what she had seen, and slammed his hand against the sidewall. "Damn. If we'd been just two minutes faster."

"I know," she said, putting a hand on his arm.

"Brennan? Shal? You guys there?" The voice over the communications system was clear, as always.

"Jesse."

"Yeah, listen, have you found Ariah yet?"

"Yeah, we did. She's dead."