AN: Sorry to have left you guys hanging for so long. The old 9-to-5 routine has been dragging me down this week, but I finally got this done! Hooray! And keep up the reviews! They make me happy, oh so happy! (I really wish I could add the singsong tone of voice right there. Ah, well.) -- Animiga
Chapter 15: The Million Dollar Question
"Shalimar? Shalimar, can you hear me?"
At the sound of her name, Shalimar made a fervent effort to pull herself out of the fog that surrounded her brain. It took a few moments, but she was finally able to do so. "Monica? What the hell is going on?"
"Oh, thank goodness! I've been trying to wake you up for almost ten minutes. I need you to contact Jesse with your comring. The communication equipment's been blown to pieces."
Shalimar glanced over to the panel that should have contained the radio, video and satellite uplink equipment. As Monica said, all that remained were metal and glass fragments, scorched wires and bent panels. At the sight, Shalimar's brain seemed to right itself and her memory pieced itself together. "Monica," she said urgently. "How long has it been?"
"I'd guess about 15 or 20 minutes. You arrived here less than half an hour ago, so I'd say closer to 20 minutes since someone threw the grenade. I messed with some of the wires, and managed to get a hold of Jesse briefly, but then the system shorted out and the transmitter died completely."
"Wait, where's Brennan?"
"I don't know. I looked around the whole house while you were out cold. He's not here. Neither is Lisa. Maybe they fought with whoever threw the grenade. That would explain all the damage. The couch is busted, some furniture had been knocked over and that wall has a few holes and scorch marks."
Shalimar swore. She remembered exactly what had happened, and that wasn't it. Drawing herself to her feet, she activated her comring with her thumb. "Jesse? Lexa? You there?"
Jesse's tense voice answered. "Shalimar! Jeez. I feared the worst when I lost contact with Monica. What happened?"
"Someone attacked the safehouse. Threw a grenade in which contained some kind of knockout gas."
"Are you guys okay?"
"Monica and I are fine, but Brennan and Lisa are gone."
"Monica said as much. What happened?"
"That's where we've got a problem." She glanced over to Monica, who was listening to the conversation attentively. "Lisa wasn't knocked out by the gas. Before I was knocked out, I saw her walking out of the building. She was completely unaffected."
Back at the Cave, Lexa could see that Jesse was perplexed and stunned by this news. "That could be possible." Lexa crossed her arms. "If the person took a neutralizing tablet or shot before they were exposed to the gas, they wouldn't be affected. The Dominion used that technique sometimes," she said to Shalimar over the comlink. "But that would mean that she was in on it from the beginning."
At the safehouse, Shalimar nodded reflexively. "Yeah. But we've got another problem. Brennan and I recovered from the gas first, and he seemed fine, but then he attacked me. He managed to knock me out. When Monica woke me up just now, he was gone."
Jesse and Lexa's voices overlapped. "What?" "He did what?"
Shalimar sighed, still trying to figure out what was going on. "He attacked me. He wasn't holding anything back either. But his fighting style wasn't quite the same. It was chaotic, like he wasn't controlling himself. Now he's gone, and from what Monica tells me, he's got a 10 or 15 minute head start. Can you track his comring?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line. "No. He's not wearing it."
Shalimar spotted something across the room and went over to retrieve it. "Damn. It's here. He tossed it on the ground. Wait, is the Helix still here?"
There was another pause. A second later Shalimar thought she heard Jesse swear softly. "No. It's just past Trenton, New Jersey right now. He's on his way here. Damn. Shalimar, take care of Monica, and see if you can figure out what kind of gas was used. It might give us a clue. Lexa and I will take care of Brennan. I'll call you as soon as I get more information."
"Be careful, Jess. If he attacked me, he's capable of anything, so watch your back."
"I will. Good luck." Jesse ended the connection and turned to Lexa just in time to see Katie and David enter the room, walking side by side, but not touching.
"What's going on?" The smile on Katie's face fell when she noticed the serious looks on Jesse and Lexa's faces.
For a moment, Jesse said nothing, but David knew. "It's Brennan. Something's wrong. What can we do?"
Jesse's face relaxed somewhat. "Something happened when they went to the safehouse. They were attacked by a gas, and then Brennan turned on and attacked Shalimar. From what I can tell, he's taken the Helix and is headed this way."
There was a beeping noise behind Jesse. "Correction," he said, heading for the doorway. "He's here. The hanger door just opened. Lexa, come with me. We've got to find him before he disappears into the building. If he turned on Shalimar, who knows what else he might do."
"What do you want us to do?" Katie asked.
Lexa bent down to a computer for a moment as she was heading out the door. Jesse paused in the doorway, waiting for her. "You two stay here. Get medlab ready – just in case." To Jesse she said, "I'm activating the security grid in the hallways around the hanger. Katie – the moment we pass this point –" she indicated a location on a map of Sanctuary, "activate the closest security grid pane. Lock us in. And don't open it for anyone but Jesse or myself."
Katie nodded. "Good luck."
"Thanks." Lexa turned and followed Jesse out of the room.
David watched Lexa sprint down the hallway towards the hanger before turning back to face Katie. "So now we just wait, huh?"
Katie sat down at the computer and watched as the internal scanners traced Jesse and Lexa's movements. "Basically. I'll monitor the situation from here and help them any way I can."
David watched as Katie shuffled through the in house monitors. "You do this a lot?" he asked, making conversation.
Katie shrugged. "Sort of. In the past couple of months, I've manned the base computer if the rest of them are out on a mission. I'm kind of an associate member of Mutant X. It doesn't happen too often though."
David watched as she focused carefully on the monitoring system. A few seconds later she typed in a few keystrokes, then spoke to her finger. "Okay, guys. You're locked in behind the security grid. I don't see any evidence that Brennan's made it outside that perimeter, but I'll keep an eye on the cams." Then she turned to David. "Now we wait."
The silence echoed as neither spoke for a few moments. Finally, David broke the silence, asking a question that had been nagging him for the past 12 hours or so. "Aren't you afraid to do the kind of work you do here? I mean, you could be killed at any moment by some random mutant whose powers are on the fritz or by someone who's trying to kill mutants."
"Well, sure I'm afraid. But I'm more afraid for Jesse and the others. They're the ones that put themselves in dangerous situations all the time. But they've trained themselves for all kinds of situations, and they know what they're doing. Besides, we're changing the world, albeit slowly, and saving mutants."
"You must be a minority. Most of the normal people I've known, if they even know about mutants, are afraid of them."
"Hey. I may not be a new mutant, but my brother is, and my friends are, and I want to help anyway I can. And there are a lot of people out there like me."
"There's no one out there like you."
Katie's eyes widened at the sincerity of David's voice. "What did you just say?"
A flush crept up into David's cheeks. "I…uh…" he stammered. Then he gave up trying to explain his way out of his words. "Damn, Katie. You know you're special, and unique. Who else would have stayed friends with a guy who did just about everything to avoid you for three years?"
"I'm pretty sure you know at least part of the reason why I did that."
Leaning against the desktops, he let his head drop and stared at his feet. "Yeah, I know. And I'll tell you this: the attraction was most definitely not one-sided."
Katie felt her own cheeks flush. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"
Since she knew about his powers, David decided to be blunt. "I thought I might accidentally kill you," he said his hand seemingly reaching up of its own volition to hover above her cheek. She surprised him when her reaction was to reach up and place her own hand over his gently drawing his hand closer so that he was finally touching her skin.
"Katie…" He tried to put a warning in the tone of his voice, but couldn't seem to be able to do it.
"David, look at me. I'm not afraid of you, or your powers. Even if I might have back then, and we'll never know if that would have been the case, I'm most certainly not afraid now. And I'm not afraid to have you wandering around in my thoughts. When you learn to control it, I might even be able to talk back."
David stopped fighting it. He dipped his head and touched his lips to hers. The contact to her mind had already been made so there was no surprise there. What was a surprise was the intensity of her emotions, the strength of her need for him. He deepened the kiss; she responded in kind. They changed the angle, the pressure, learning each other and enjoying every moment. He felt his body reacting to her and he groaned. Her arms snaked around his waist and he realized that his own hands were cradling the back of her head, guiding her. Her thoughts were swirling around in his own mind, breaking the cage he had placed around his own emotions for her. He was almost surprised to find they matched the intensity of hers. Censoring and restricting himself, as he had in the years since his escape from Genomex, had proved to be useless with this brave group of people. And as much as he hated to admit it, it felt damn good to feel as if he had a small bit of his life back. And he wanted to give it all to Katie.
Neither knew how long it was before the need for oxygen forced them apart. He nibbled at her lips for a moment before finally pulling back and leaning his forehead against hers. "I think I love you," he whispered.
"I think I love you, too," she whispered back. "You know…I think there's something about this room. I keep catching Jesse and Lexa and Shalimar and Brennan here."
"Well whatever it is, I hope it sticks around." He kissed his way across her features, dropping butterfly kisses across her cheeks, her eyes and her nose before coming back to her mouth.
She was just about to reach in and deepen the kiss when the lights momentarily dimmed. Her passion fogged brain managed to snap back, and she leaned back in David's arms with a frown. "Sanctuary's power system is on a routed generator network. The only think that could cause a dip like that is…" She whirled back to the computer and he watched as she skimmed through the images from security cameras.
"What is it?" he asked, placing a hand on the small of her back.
She stopped and pointed to the screen. "I found Brennan."
