"Sedate her," Dr. Morrison advised calmly. "It's the best way to help her ride it through. She'll only suffer more if you don't."

"You knew about this?" Adam's disgust was plain to see. Upon arrival at the clinic, Shalimar had transferred her frantic attentions from Jesse to her mentor, nearly knocking him over in her need. From the look of him, Jesse was grateful. As a totally normal and healthy male, he had been having a tough time fending off Shalimar's uncontrollable advances. Shalimar will appreciate that later, Adam thought. He turned on Morrison again. "You didn't tell me—Shalimar!" he scolded as the girl slid into his chest. "Shal—ummph!" as her mouth closed over his.

"Two ccs. of haloperidol ought to do the trick," Morrison murmured, sliding the needle into Shalimar's vein. "A little on the heavy side, but she's healthy. Oh, yes, very healthy," she noted as Shalimar tried to do something to her mentor that most rated X movies couldn't handle. "You have an impressive team, Adam."

"This isn't funny, Martha," Adam snapped, sternly demanding that parts of his own anatomy stop responding to Shalimar in this condition. Hegrew a new respect for Jesse's level of self-control on the spot."With your history, you of all people ought to know that." A moment later Shalimar's eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into his arms, a slight bundle thatAdam tenderly deposited onto the second stretcher beside a wide-eyed Brennan. Even in her sedated state, Shalimar reached one arm across the intervening space to rest on Brennan's chest.

Brennan grimaced; this is not how I pictured winning her affections. But he covered her small hand with his, allowing her the comfort even in her sleep. The gesture was safe. And G rated. "Adam?"

"Just don't let her jump on you. Not in your condition. Now," and Adam fixed the other scientist with a cold eye, "perhaps you'd like to share the rest of your research, Dr. Morrison?"

But Morrison was unmoved. "It wasn't pertinent to the project, Adam. Surely you can see that. It's an interesting anomaly, but frankly, it's a waste of time to explore the sexual attributes of the shark mutants. These mutants are created in the lab, not produced in egg-laying caviar beds. Reproduction is not an issue; I can create more any time that I chose. Besides, I should think that some of the more adventuresome of the shark mutants would find this particular twist appealing. I understand that it's quite lucrative for them."

"Appealing—!" Adam was at a loss for words, but not for long. "Martha, a group of soldiers on the base are attacking them for this anomaly and selling it on the black market! Do you have any idea of the side effects on the normal population? Have you even studied this? Do you know if you're allowing something lethal to be distributed? Do you know what you're doing?"

"Stop yelling, Adam. The entire base can hear you."

"I'm not—" Adam lowered his voice with an effort. "Martha, how could you have been so thoughtless? Whatever possessed you to—"

Crack!

The window shattered: a bullet slapped through.

Jesse flung himself in front of Brennan, phasing as he did so. Just in time; the bullet shattered against his suddenly dense surface, flattening itself and dropping to the floor.

"Brennan!" Adam yelled. Another bullet followed the first; Adam grabbed Morrison and took her to the floor.

Shots rang out from outside the clinic door: the guards firing back. The courtyard in front of the clinic erupted into a flurry of activity, the soldiers on duty no longer walking sedately to their posts but grabbing rifles and flinging themselves down behind the nearest cover. Brennan rolled off his stretcher, taking Shalimar with him and Jesse maintaining his shield over the pair of them on the hard wood of the floor.

"Everyone all right?" a soldier shouted to the inside.

"Jesse?"

"Intact," Jesse reported with relief. "I got to them in time." He raised himself off of his teammates, Shalimar still in her drugged state yet taking advantage of the movement to snuggle into Brennan's chest, murmuring softly. Still hot and in heat…

Brennan winced. "Somebody want to give me a hand to get up?" He looked down at the slender blonde in his arms, an odd expression on his face. "Or not."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I need a shower," Jesse muttered to himself, grumpy and not afraid to admit it. The peculiar combination of sweat from both fear and lust created an aroma that even he couldn't stomach on himself, and he was the one who created it. "A cold shower," he added, casting a dour look at his teammates.

Brennan chose not to acknowledge the molecular's mood. The clinic had been re-righted and he was once again relaxing—on his side this time, thanks very much, Adam!—on the stretcher and looking forward to the rest of his recuperation on either a soft bed or a soft sandy beach. Both should not come equipped with a sniper. The sleeping blonde, however, could remain under his arm. He smothered a grin. One up on you, bro! Despite her ordeal, Shalimar's hair still smelled of the flowery shampoo that she'd used this morning. That was nice. He could do without the sheen of perspiration, but even that added to the spice of her. He was certain that there was a whole heck of a lot of pheromones around in there, but as long as it wasn't accompanied by a leaping body jumping onto his so not-up-to-it ass, Brennan was satisfied.

"Go," Adam ordered Jesse, fed up with the entire mess known as Base Forty Three A. "Were you able to get the data plugged in? Then go. It will undoubtedly take a while. Slow computers," he added, with a glare at Morrison, as if she was responsible for the speed of the computers as well as the problems on the base.

"You're getting closer to a solution for electrical sensitivity problem?" she asked, ignoring the warning signs.

"I'm getting closer to a solution for some of the shark mutants' problems," Adam snarled. Only Brennan noticed that Adam didn't mention exactly which problem he was working on, but he could guess. Four samples of Shalimar's blood? Six from shark mutants, including Blue and Vanderworthy? Adam even requested and got a volunteer to demonstrate what happened when a shark mutant was placed on his back. This time Blue hoisted himself willingly onto the clinic stretcher to be measured and poked and prodded by Adam, the geneticist muttering to himself in the foreign language known as medical-ese. Lt. Vanderworthy also donated his body to science and received the same treatment, Adam comparing the two sets of readings. Small samples of skin tissue were excised from both, Adam apologizing for the crude techniques but telling them that it was necessary. Both shark mutants eagerly submitted to the testing, but each in turn declined to join Adam as he gleefully offered to show them the results under the microscope. Brennan, used to this sort of behavior from his mentor, ignored him and pretended to be asleep with Shalimar in his embrace.

Dr. Morrison he watched from underneath hooded eyelids. The woman was miffed at Adam's refusal to let her participate and finally slunk out of the clinic. Brennan didn't particularly care where she went, just that she left. The atmosphere brightened considerably at that point, even though the sun was headed down over the horizon. Both shark mutants didn't say anything but Brennan could tell just by the set of their over-developed shoulders that both were relieved. No love lost there.

Vanderworthy and Blue had been acting as Adam's lab assistants and go-fers in addition to being lab rats, since neither Brennan nor Shalimar was up to it and Jesse hadn't yet returned from cleaning up. Adam plopped himself down on a convenient stool to regard them.

Blue looked at him suspiciously. He'd only been working with the man for a few hours, yet he already knew that expression. "Yeah?" he drawled out with mock dread. Well, maybe not so mock.

"I need some more data," Adam said hesitantly.

"And—?" Vanderworthy too feared what was coming.

"I need to explore your electrical sensibilities," Adam explained. "And I need to see how you react to external sources of electricity."

"Ouch," Vanderworthy said wryly.

"I thought that's what you'd say—"

"Nope," Vanderworthy interrupted. "You don't understand, Dr. Kane. When I said 'ouch', I meant 'ouch'. You zap us with a stick, it hurts like a…" He trailed off, watching his language with ladies present, even though the lady in question was still asleep.

"Right. But where does it go from being something you can perceive, like light—even painful light—to something that can knock you out?" Adam pursued.

"And you need this to fix our skin?" Blue was understandably confused.

"Actually, yes. I have two alternate possible solutions, and the one involving electrical current looks more promising at this point. Although 'the operation was a success, but the patient died' scenario is not what we're after, which means that I have to know if your mutated biology can stand up to the treatment I'm considering. Dr. Morrison did some of the data collection but her methods were crude and the data suspect. It appears that every time you were touched with one of those shark sticks, you lost consciousness."

"That's right," Vanderworthy acknowledged warily.

"What happened when the stick was set to the lowest setting?"

"We fell over and flopped around on the ground for a while." The black humor fell flat.

"No, I mean the lowest setting."

"We fell over and flopped around on the ground for a while," Vanderworthy repeated patiently. "Like I said: we're sensitive to it." He pointed at Brennan, who had given up his pretense of sleeping and was listening to the discussion with both ears. "Not one of us has dared shake his hand. Not because he's not an okay guy, but because he leaks so much electricity that to us he literally glows. I could probably brush up against him and get away with just my head ringing but not when he's angry."

"Brennan leaks more energy when he's angry?" Adam's attention was caught.

"Well, yeah. Everybody does. But not the same. His gets your attention."

"Remind me to keep my temper," Brennan grunted, relaxing against the cold and hard stretcher, wishing for his comfortable bed back in Sanctuary. Even the Sanctuary clinic recliner was more comfortable. His backside throbbed in time with his headache.

"That's interesting," Adam mused, taking notes in his head. He turned to the elemental. "Remind me to explore that when we're back home. But for now," and he turned back to the shark mutants, "we still have a little skin problem to solve. I still need to determine at what voltage you go from 'ouch' to 'flopping around on the ground.'" He looked expectantly at the two shark mutants. "I can adjust the voltage to some place a lot lower than those shark sticks."

Blue grinned at his lieutenant. "Isn't this where I get to follow in your footsteps, lieutenant? You lead; I'll follow. After you, sir."

Vanderworthy mock-scowled at the private. "Watch it, there, private. I could order you to volunteer. I outrank you."

"Yes, sir, and you're pretty rank." It was an old joke, one shared between comrades. Adam appreciated the relationship that Vanderworthy had built up with his men.

Vanderworthy held out his arms to Adam, wrists first, as if offering them for handcuffs. "Okay, doc; what happens next? Test away."

"Actually, it's pretty simple," Adam explained. "I'll give you a couple of wires to hold and put some galvanometers onto your skin to measure your body's response. I'll start with the lowest possible setting, since it sounds like your sensitivity is pretty strong."

"Please don't call me sensitive, doc. I'm an officer in this man's army; I've got a reputation to uphold as a bad-ass."

Adam grinned, tacking electrodes onto the lieutenant's chest, hooking the wires up to his monitors. It took a few minutes, but he got the distinct feeling that Vanderworthy was in no hurry to experience what Adam had in mind. "You ready?"

"Fire away, doc."

"Lowest setting," Adam murmured, flipping the switch.

Vanderworthy winced. "Felt that."

"I can see you did." It wasn't the specimen that Adam was watching, it was his dials. "This is impressive. Your readings are already off the scale as far as nocio-receptor response. Are all of you like this?"

"Why don't you test Blue boy over there and find out?"

"Doing just fine over here, lieutenant." Blue backed away.

"This may be a problem," Adam muttered, mostly to himself. "If I'm seeing these sorts of readings at this level, then using the electrical process to resolve the skin texture may not be practical. Lieutenant, can I try a slightly higher setting for comparison?"

"Anything for science," Vanderworthy said, the lie clear on his face.

"Anything to get you to your wife back home," Blue snickered. "I've seen her picture inside your locker door."

"You, you're just jealous."

"Yeah, lieutenant, I am. She's a looker. You're a lucky man." The comraderie between the two was plain to see. Blue cocked his head at Adam. "You get that plan of yours to working, Dr. Kane, and there'll be a bunch of weddings real soon and kids nine months after that. That I can promise you."

"Oh, I'm fairly certain I can get something to work," Adam assured them. "It's just a matter of time. The genetics is pretty clear at this level."

That caught Vanderworthy's attention. "What do you mean? Dr. Morrison said that there was no cure for our 'skin condition'."

"Oh?" Adam tried to backpedal. "Well, maybe she misunderstood. Or was getting pressured from somewhere else." He adjusted a dial. "Certainly when we arrived, this wasn't the most calm of environments. Hopefully I can do something about that. And I'm not just talking about your 'social' problem."

"Yeah. That would be a plus." But all present could tell that there was some heavy duty thinking going on behind those shark-black eyes. Brennan lay back on his stretcher and watched, wondering if he had enough energy to sit up and throw a bolt or two if needed. He decided that he didn't, and that it didn't matter. Adrenaline would do wonderful things when the time came. And Brennan Mulwray devoutly hoped that that time would never arrive. The elemental wanted to like these shark mutants—they were fellow mutants, after all—but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else going on, something that no one on this island had seen fit to share with their guests. And it made Brennan nervous. Something fishy in Denmark, friends…

It didn't seem to bother Adam. The scientist had been brought here to work on the genetic problems plaguing this project, and that was what he was doing. The current problem wasn't exactly what Morrison had had in mind, but that, to Adam, was unimportant. Morrison had been too close to the issues to be able to see how to truly solve them. These shark mutants had been badly treated, had had their lives' dreams and aspirations taken from them and no one seemed to care. This one thing that Adam was doing, this returning to the men their ability to conduct a private life again, would go a long way to solve the overall situation, and would make the rest of the problems recede if not disappear altogether.

Adam glanced over at his two patients. Brennan was watching him with interest, although Adam noted that the man's face was still pale and wondered if another blood transfusion would be in order. No; the supply was limited, and what Brennan really needed was rest and a couple of hearty meals to replenish what had been lost. Adam frowned slightly: and antibiotics. There was a pink in the elemental's cheeks that had nothing to do with health. Adam resolved to look in Dr. Morrison's supplies to see which antimicrobials she carried and start the man on something before it got to be alarming.

Even Shalimar was stirring, starting to come out of her enforced sleep. A finger stretched, a deep sigh followed, and Adam smiled. If the girl had had a tail, it would be twitching right now. He pulled his attention away from her, sparing a glance for the drugs on hand. If she was still under the influence of the shark mutant aphrodisiac, he'd sedate her again. As a feral, Shalimar just barely kept her wild nature under control and if she were subjected again to those overpowering impulses—well, Adam would just as soon protect her from that. One woman—excluding the shark mutant women who could escape into the sea—and over one hundred servicemen who hadn't seen anything in a skirt for months, and an aphrodisiac? Adam thought of himself as an idealist, but he was far from stupid.

He turned back to the bank of dials, making the appropriate adjustments. "Lieutenant, I apologize, but this will be the last one. For you, at least; sorry, Private Tyler, but I do need a couple of comparison readings to get an idea if the lieutenant's numbers are consistent among all the shark mutants. Solving the problem for the lieutenant would be a step in the right direction, but I'd like to be able to extend that to all of you. Lieutenant, are you ready? This one will be a bit higher in the voltage."

"As ready as I'll ever be, doc." Vanderworthy took a deep breath.

"Here goes." Adam flipped the switch.

The reaction was dramatic. No small 'ouches' this time. Vanderworthy spasmed, arms flying out in a gross parody of a backward swan dive, head thrown back with a silent scream coming out in a mere gurgle. Adam immediately cut the power. Vanderworthy collapsed to the ground, twitching uncontrollably.

Adam hastened to help, but Blue held him back. "Stay away, doc!" the private commanded. "Watch the teeth!"

The shock had left Vanderworthy gasping and unconscious, his jaw working to draw air into oxygen-starved lungs with those deadly teeth gnashing at nothing. Too close, and someone would be missing an arm in a mere second. The shark mutant's arm thrashed about, his heels beating a staccato drum rhythm on the floor, yet still Blue held Adam back for fear of injury.

"He'll come out of it in a minute, doc," Blue told the scientist. "Believe me; we've been through this before—and lots worse. He'll be okay."

"That was a grand mal seizure!" Adam ground out. "You can't possibly be subjected to that on a regular basis. Not deliberately!"

"That's barbaric!" Brennan added, looking on in horror. This wasn't quite as bad as Genomex, but the content was basically the same: torturing mutants in the name of science.

"Oh, I wouldn't call it regular," Blue said grimly. "You get one of those sticks jabbed at you, you learn pretty quick to do as you're told."

There was a bang at the front of the clinic. The interruption couldn't have come at a worse time. Six soldiers, led by Captain Caruthers, entered through the screen door, took one look at the shark mutant writhing on the clinic floor, leaped to the wrong conclusion and drew their shark sticks.

"Stand back, Dr. Kane," Caruthers ordered. "I'll take care of him." He advanced, intent on driving both shark mutants back to the corner of the clinic, convinced that the mutants intended their guests harm. "Spread out, men."

"Don't be ridiculous," Adam returned tartly. "I'm conducting experiments. Experiments that you are interrupting, I might add. Put those things away."

"What?"

"Put those sticks away immediately," Adam ordered. "No one is in any danger here. Lt. Vanderworthy and Private Tyler volunteered to help me collect data." He folded his arms, carefully putting his back to Blue helping Lt. Vanderworthy to his feet, placing himself in between the two sides with the shark mutant lieutenant woozy and unsteady, staggering in Blue's grasp. "What do you want?"

"Him." Caruthers pointed to Brennan. That mutant raised his eyebrows: who, me? What did I do?

Adam felt much the same way. This was a different perspective on affairs. "Why?"

"Colonel Bayliss's orders, doctor. He heard about the second shooting, thinks it would be safer for him up at the officer's quarters. We're to take him there now."

"He's not going anywhere," Adam returned testily. "Right now he's a patient under my care. He lost a lot of blood and right now I want him where I can keep an eye on him."

"But the colonel—"

"Brennan is a patient under my care," Adam interrupted. "He's staying here."

Unfortunately for Mutant X, Captain Caruthers was made of sterner stuff. "I'm sorry, Dr. Kane, but the matter is not open for debate. This man is going with us. You can attend him in the colonel's quarters."

"No."

Caruthers put his shark stick back into its holder and folded his arms, glancing pointedly at the six men behind him. "That was not a request, Dr. Kane."

"And I am not—"

"It's all right, Adam," Brennan put in, having assessed the odds: seven to what? Blue couldn't fight—not with a few shark sticks aimed at him and Vanderworthy all but unconscious in his arms. Shalimar: asleep. Brennan himself? Well, he'd had better moments. The only one left to do more than register a verbal protest was Adam himself; no slouch in the arena but not against seven trained soldiers. Besides, give Brennan another day and he'd be back to fighting form. Bayliss wouldn't keep the elemental any longer than Brennan wanted to be kept. Brennan slid his feet to the floor and stood up, wavering. "I'll go. You can keep tabs on…"

His eyes rolled back into his head, and he started to crumble. Adam leaped to catch him with two of the soldiers right behind.

"You see?" Adam snarled. "He's in no shape to go anywhere. Help me get him back onto the stretcher—"

"Move out," Caruthers directed his men. "Carry him, if you have to."

They did. Two of the soldiers hoisted the unconscious elemental into the air, arms hauled over their shoulders, keeping a nervous eye on Adam and the two mutants. Caruthers himself pulled his shark stick back out, ready to defend his prize. Vanderworthy made a limp attempt to get himself together to defend a member of his side, but Blue was ready for his lieutenant and held him back as well as up off of the ground. The soldiers carted Brennan out of the clinic, heedless of the man's state.

Adam watched them go, eyes smoldering. "Nobody," he said, his jaw set in a grim line, "but nobody removes a patient from my care in that fashion." He brought his comm. link to his lips. "Jesse? Jesse? It's Adam. I need you right now."

No answer.

"Jesse? Jesse, come in."

"Uh, doc?" Vanderworthy pulled his teeth back into his head with an effort, striving for coherency. "There's something I gotta tell you…"