"Adam, I can help find—"
"I think you've done enough, Jesse." Adam cut him off curtly. "The other things have been careless and thoughtless, but this? Jesse, this is a sixteen year old girl we're talking about who is now out on the streets and alone for Genomex to find. And you deliberately lied to me about it! Why didn't you tell me that you lost her?"
"I didn't lie to you, Adam," Jesse insisted. "I don't know what's going on here, but I dropped Denise Vetchner off directly to her foster parents at the terminal where we arranged to meet. All three of them waved as I left."
"Oh, so now Mary and Joe Dunn are lying to me, is that it?" Adam folded his arms, radiating annoyance. "Two people that I've known for over thirty years?"
Jesse side-stepped the issue. "Listen, I'll get on the computer, see if I can track her down—"
"No."
Jesse stopped short.
"Jesse, I want you to go to your room and stay there." Adam had had enough. "I don't know what your problem is, but right now I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with it. You should have outgrown nonsense like this when you were twelve. Go to your room and stay out of my way."
"Adam—"
"Are you not hearing this either, Jesse? Go. I'll deal with you later. After we find Denise. And rescue her again."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Makes a pretty good case, Adam," Shalimar said. Mutant X was back home in Sanctuary, de-briefing over the botched bodyguard mission. Brennan deposited four mugs onto the table in front of them, and Emma took a welcome sip. Shalimar went on. "I mean, look what Kenny was able to do: he tracked down that false lead I found on Gary Shadling in thirty seconds flat and was able to discount it so that we didn't waste any more time. Even you couldn't do that. Not that fast. He's good."
"It's the dawn of the New Millenium," Brennan agreed. "Electricity is useful out in the field. Shalimar's feral abilities are definitely a plus in the field, and we can't do without Emma's empathic talents. But the computer? That's a whole new arena, and Kenny is an expert. More than that; he's a mutant who can go into computers. Jesse keeps complaining about getting stuck behind, monitoring the missions. What if we added someone to the team whose job was to do that? Someone who could outdo us all with computers because he was literally born to be a computer?"
"You've got a point," Adam conceded thoughtfully, looking over the three members of Mutant X. "I will definitely consider it, but not at this moment. Right now there's a sixteen year old girl out there somewhere, someone with mutant powers that we don't know much about. We need to find her first and get her to her foster parents. Any delay could mean her death; Genomex is after her, and we don't know who else. Not only that, the stress of being on her own in a world hostile to New Mutants could trigger her powers. And if those powers are lethal, who knows what could happen?" He sighed. "Priorities, guys. First, find Denise and get her settled. Second, I'm installing this CAMS chip that you earned for me." Adam smiled broadly, holding the chip up in the air to admire. "Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to using this," he informed them. "This is almost as good as a birthday and Christmas rolled into one." He dismissed his team, the three that were present. "Go see if you can find any leads on Denise. After we get her squared away, I'll consider adding Kenny Dickerson to the team. Assuming he wants in."
"Oh, he wants in," Brennan assured them all. "He can't wait to play in the Sanctuary computers. This would be a dream come true for him. Trust me; I've known him for years."
"Shall I tell Jesse to work on the computer search for Denise?" Emma asked.
Adam considered, then shook his head. "No. Like I said, I don't know what Jesse has going on inside his head, but he's clearly not focused on Mutant X right now. Let's leave him out of this for the time being. Go find Denise. Then we'll talk about Kenny joining the team."
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Adam had told him not to leave his room, but the older man had said nothing about monitoring Sanctuary, and that was what Jesse was doing: checking every console and nook and cranny of Sanctuary remotely through the internal cameras and audio links. It kept him in contact with at least a little of the outside world.
There had been a great deal of pacing at first: back and forth, back and forth, wearing a single track in the area carpet across the center of his bedroom and bored out of his skull until he hit on the concept of monitoring through the computer network. Better than pacing.
Jesse could have sworn that Shalimar had told them that the attack would come from the west. Even now, after a period to think about what had happened, Jesse was still ready to declare the same thing. And that he had changed positions based on what Shalimar had said, to protect the computer mutant from an assassin's bullet that only Jesse had the power to defend against. He had heard Shalimar say that she checked out the east, that it was safe in that direction.
Brennan and the rest were right; there had been a lot of mistakes going on over the last few days: Adam's lost computer program, the lost sixteen year old who had apparently never been seen by her foster parents—and Jesse knew that he handed her directly over to the Dunn's—not to mention forgetting Brennan's mission with Kenny. Was he going crazy? Early Alzheimer's setting in? Neither option sounded particularly appealing. Has to be my DNA: all this phasing is hardening my cerebral arteries and affecting my brain. Great.
But although Adam hadn't wanted to deal with a crazy molecular roaming the halls of Sanctuary, he hadn't forbidden Jesse computer access. And Jesse had a console in his room. One that was currently in use, monitoring the conversations going on in the various rooms and hallways of Sanctuary. One discussion in particular came in loud and clear:
"Shall I tell Jesse to work on the computer search for her?" Emma asked.
Adam's voice came next. "No. Like I said, I don't know what Jesse has going on inside his head, but he's clearly not focused on Mutant X right now. Let's leave him out of this for the time being. Go find Denise. Then we'll talk about Kenny joining the team."
Jesse went cold. Whatever was going on, Mutant X didn't need him. Adam didn't even want him helping from behind the scenes, doing a computer search from the safety of Sanctuary. Hadn't asked him to install the CAMS chip. Didn't have time to investigate whether or not Jesse's genes were mutating out of control, or even if there was something going on in Jesse's life making it seem like there was a genetic disorder.
Didn't care.
They needed someone to monitor the computers for their missions, and now they'd found someone better at it than Jesse. Someone that Jesse couldn't compete with because Kenny had an unbeatable advantage and who even wanted to spend the rest of his days sitting in front of a video screen. Sure, Jesse could phase, but when you got right down to it, how useful was that? Brennan threw lightning bolts—lethal at a distance. Emma threw psychic whammy's—lethal at a distance. Shalimar could take down any three men and still have time for tea and crumpets—lethal at any distance. But Jesse? Well, he could get them through locked doors. But so could any skeleton key. Great. I'm about as useful as a small hunk of metal. Pretty humbling, when you think about it.
Jesse's room had suddenly become very small. No windows. Door closed. Computer no longer a friend but an enemy, now allied with another mutant, a computer mutant who wanted Jesse's place on the team. Jesse felt the need to get out of his room, for a glass of water if nothing else. He went to the door and turned the knob.
Locked.
Locked. As in, don't come out. As in, we can't cope with you. As in, we don't want you here. Jesse's heart sank. They couldn't keep him in his room—no one could do that; his mutation was useful for something—but they could make their feelings obvious. And they just had.
His room really was too small. In fact, all of Sanctuary had become too small. Jesse needed to get out. Exhaling, he phased to insubstantial and eased himself out through the wall of his room into the corridor. He made his way past where the others were working, careful not to be seen. They would think that he was still in his room where Adam had sent him like a kid being punished. That worked for him: Jesse needed out.
He paused by the computer console on the way out. It was the same one that he'd been working on when trying to push through Adam's computer program in a hurry to make up for lost time. It was the computer containing the hard drive with all of Adam's data, the data that had been lost when the program crashed. At the time, they had thought that Jesse had programmed it incorrectly.
But there was a small smudge on the outer casing of the computer tower, a smudge that came away on his finger when Jesse bent to examine the mark. The smudge was soot.
It was the mark of an electrical jolt that had fried the innards of the computer. It was the mark of an elemental who had apparently deliberately crashed the program.
And Shalimar had told him east, not west.
And even Emma had belted him one for thoughts he hadn't even had. It all started to make sense. They were all telling him the same thing.
Jesse tightened his lips. He got the message.Time to leave.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Cute kid," Brennan commented, eying the picture on the computer monitor.
Shalimar leaned on his shoulder, allowing her weight to drag companionably on the elemental. "That's what you said when we rescued her the first time. She wasn't interested in you then; what makes you think she's changed her mind?"
Brennan started to speak, but Emma interrupted. "It's because Jesse won't be there this time," she laughed. "Face it, Brennan, you've got competition."
"Hah." Brennan leaned away from the monitor. "He's welcome to her. Jailbait all the way."
"Jailbait!" Shalimar mocked. "A lovely like her? Looks twenty-one or older?"
"She may look twenty-one, but she's got the mind of an adolescent," Emma reminded them. "Lots of girls are growing up too fast these days. And being a mutant makes you grow up even faster."
"Got that right, girl." Both Shalimar and Emma knew that for a fact. "Finding any trace of her, Brennan?"
"Nope." It was frustrating for the elemental. If Jesse had been there, they knew, there would have been three search programs multi-tasking and cross-referencing for any hint. Instead, all they could pull up was the database that had been started on the girl when Adam first learned of her existence a short time ago.
Denise Vetchner, mutant. And that was almost all there was on her. Parents deceased in a car accident a couple of years ago, and the notes that Adam had tucked to the side suggested that the accident may not have been all that accidental. There was nothing additional one way or the other, but still…
Denise was tall with gawky limbs and a tiny waist that spoke of a girl with glamorous aspirations toward modeling. That fit; Shalimar had had a talk with her about proper nutrition when they met, and Denise had promised to mend her ways, the feral her new role model. But Denise was a child in a woman's body, eager to experience life before she was ready and convinced that her mutant ability, whatever it was, ought to give it to her. Mutant X had snatched her out from under the noses of Genomex and whisked her away, and if the safe house wherethey stayed wasn't a palace, it was still tremendously romantic and thrilling to a girl high on life. They hid there for three days before venturing forth, taking turns at look out. Brennan, Shalimar, and Emma had volunteered to lead the baddies away while Jesse took Denise to the rendezvous point for her new life with her new foster parents.
Psionic, the database labeled her, based on her gene structure. And there the information stopped. In the safe house, at Adam's behest, Emma had tested the girl to the extent of her abilities and had come away shaking her head. If the girl was psionic, then it wasn't anything that Emma could find. It happened that way sometimes, that the mutant genes were recessive and caused no difference from the rest of the 'normal' human population. If Denise were to have a child with another psionic, it might be a different story for the baby but as for Denise herself? Emma couldn't bear to hurt the girl, and gently suggested that some power or other 'might appear later in life'. Denise, of course, heard that 'immense psychic abilities would manifest themselves any day now'. She could scarcely wait.
And nowDenise was missing. Where could she have gotten to? And how would Jesse be moving forward in the search if he were allowed out of his room to get at the mainframe?
"No, Brennan," Emma said.
"But—"
"No. Adam said to leave him alone right now."
"No, Adam said not to involve Jesse in the search. He didn't say anything about asking Jesse how to use the search programs that he devised," Brennan pointed out reasonably.
"I don't think that's what he meant—"
"But it's not what he said," Brennan replied triumphantly. "Look, we haven't got the faintest clue on where to start, right? I mean, Denise has no favorite hang outs in this area, she hasn't been around long enough to make friends—according to Adam, she never even met her foster parents."
"Maybe she's heading back to her old home?" Shalimar guessed.
"Not likely." Brennan spoke like someone who had had to run away from too many homes himself. "That's where Genomex tried to snatch her. She's not stupid; she'll stay away from there as far as she can. No, we have to look some place else. Some place where she thinks she's wanted."
"She's wanted here," Emma pointed out. "We want her."
"No, we don't." Brennan wagged his finger at the empath. "Remember, we're the ones who insisted that she go to some foster parents that she'd never met before. She wanted to stay here, in Sanctuary, with us. Remember?"
"She clung to Jesse," Shalimar acknowledged. "It was part of the reason that we decided that Jesse should take her to the Dunn's. She was listening to him, as much as any teen-ager would listen to any adult. They connected."
"But Adam said to leave Jesse out of the search," Emma reminded them.
"And so we will," Brennan replied. "I won't ask him about the search for Denise. I will ask him how to do a search. All the programs he's created, what to do." Grinning triumphantly, Brennan got up from the chair in front of the console and used his long legs to head for the bedrooms in Sanctuary.
Emma and Shalimar looked doubtfully at each other.
"You gonna tell?"
"Not me. You?"
"Are you kidding?"
"What's Adam going to say when he realizes that we've been using Jesse's programs?"
"Not gonna tell him that, either. You?"
"Not a chance—"
Brennan poked his head back in. "Jesse's door is locked, and he's either sleeping or so pissed at all of us that he's not answering." He held out his hand. "Bobby pin."
The two girls looked at each other.
"Brennan, neither of us uses bobby pins."
"What are you talking about? Of course you use bobby pins. The hero of the story, in order to break into the locked vault, uses a bobby pin that some lovely young female side-kick has been helpfully wearing throughout the entire movie so that the hero can come to the rescue of whoever needs rescuing."
"Brennan," Emma repeated, "we don't use bobby pins and we are not female side-kicks and Jesse most definitely does not need rescuing. And what do you mean, Jesse's door is locked? He never locks his door."
"Well, it's locked now and I don't have the key. And either Jesse did it, or one of us. Or Adam."
"Not Adam." Shalimar was certain. "He would tell Jesse to stay in his room, but he knows that Jesse could simply phase out any time that he wanted. Locking the door would be silly for a molecular like Jesse." She got up out of her own chair. "Let's go. I think I want to talk to Jesse. This whole thing isn't like him." She stopped suddenly. "Guys, this really isn't like Jesse. Can you truly imagine him not turning over a sixteen year old to her foster parents? And then lying about it to us?"
"Now that you mention it, no." Brennan too gained a frown. "And frankly, he's not that good a liar; I can beat him every time at poker. But he told us with a straight face that the mission to drop off Denise went forward without a hitch. I would have folded with a full house for that face."
"You're right," Emma said, putting in her own thoughts. "I was there when he got back. He was not lying. Why would I now think that he was? Guys, there is something odd going on here."
"Which brings us back to where we started." Brennan held out his hand. "Bobby pin?"