Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. The phrase danced through Jesse's mind with all the delicacy of a Great White, of whom there were plenty of mutant examples cavorting in the waves between him and the shore. The raft was soaked, Jesse was soaked, and it looked he was coming dangerously close to the invisible fence that would prevent the shark mutants from hauling both raft and molecular back to terra firma. A little hasty in turning down the shark mutants' oh-so-courteously phrased request, were we?
No. Good guys didn't kidnap fellow mutants and try to force them into questionable activities. There had to be an ulterior motive, something that the shark mutants hadn't divulged. And what was to prevent Warren and the others from simply leaving Jesse out in the middle of the ocean to drown once the fence was down? They would have what they wanted. Jesse knew he was a strong swimmer but five miles to shore was too far even for him.
Where the hell was Adam and Shalimar? The feral should have woken up by now, and they should be wondering why there was a Jesse-sized hole in their conversational grouping. Not for the first time Jesse heartily wished that Warren hadn't taken his ring from him. Worst case scenario, Adam and Shalimar could have hijacked a convenient chopper and flow out to pick him up.
But they couldn't pick him up if they couldn't find him. Five miles didn't sound all that far, but make that a five mile radius around a twenty mile island and the search area became a tad unwieldy.
An arm sliced through the waves: Warren was returning. Coming to gloat, shark boy? Come to try one more time before letting me wash out to sea?
Warren had other things in mind. Shooting up from the water, the shark mutant landed easily on the edge of the raft, leaving his legs to dangle in the cold water. He held up his hand, and something shiny glittered in the sunlight: Jesse's ring. Also known as his comm. link. The very device that would allow him to contact Adam. Salvation.
Jesse debated snatching at the gold band. Was he faster than the shark mutant? Hmm. Was he faster than a feral? Experimental evidence produced by a certain blonde of his acquaintance said no. Jesse waited.
But Warren simply handed it over. "Put it on."
"What?"
"Put it on," Warren repeated impatiently. "Your boss needs to talk to you."
Jesse obeyed. The band shivered in simulated relief at being back where it belonged, a slender light playing along the metal.
"Go on. Talk."
Jesse cautiously raised his hand to his lips. "Adam?"
"Jesse!" The relief in the older man's voice was evident. "Are you all right?"
"A little water-logged, but intact. What's going on?"
"No time for that. Listen, they tell me that there's a submerged shack about thirty feet down that holds the controls to the electric fence that encircles the island."
"That's what they've told me, too. How does that figure into the problem?"
"Brennan's been kidnapped, and the price for the shark mutants' help in finding him is taking down the fence."
Jesse digested both facts. "And I take it that this fence razing can't be done from your location."
"No. The remote control is fried in Colonel Bayliss's office, and has been for some time. The only person who can get in and out of that under water shack is you, Jesse."
"Adam, I hate to break it to you, but that shack is thirty feet straight down. There's no way I'll have enough breath to swim down and then phase inside. Isn't there another plan? Something involving dynamite, for example?"
"No good, Jesse. Other military powers in the area would detect it and panic. No, we've got it figured out, Vanderworthy and I. Sergeant Warren will tow you down to the shack so that it won't take more than fifteen or twenty seconds. You'll have plenty of air left to phase into the place, and there's more air inside the shack. Disable the controls and take down the fence. Do that, and the shark mutants will help us search the island for Brennan."
Jesse flicked a glance at Warren who was still waiting, sitting on the edge of the raft, ready to slip back into the watery depths. "You sure about this, Adam?"
"Completely sure," Adam said stoutly, which meant that Adam had about as much faith in this plan as did Jesse himself. But it also meant that Adam thought they had no better options. Play along, Jesse. Don't mess up the scheme that I'm dreaming up. We need to rescue Brennan.
"All right." Jesse signed off, and turned to Warren. "You win. I'll turn off your damn fence." Don't make it sound too easy, Jesse-me-boy. Let's keep the teeth people guessing. "Just remember that I don't have your gills, and I'm not that good at holding my breath." Lie. But they don't need to know that. "Tow the raft to over the site of the shack. The less time I have to spend not breathing, the faster I can do the job."
"Already there," Warren responded with a smirk. Jesse stared at him. "You think we're gonna let you go out of our reach? After all the trouble we went to put you here? Let's just say we were confident that we'd be able to convince you to do it our way. Eventually." Warren slid off of the raft and into the water, bobbing gently with the waves. "We held the raft from underneath. Easy to do when you don't have to hold your breath, lubber."
"Hah." When did things slide out of control? But, steeling himself, Jesse lowered himself into the cold ocean waters, wishing that he had whatever bio-controls the shark mutants had to avoid feeling the frigid temperatures, waiting for his body to acclimate itself to its new surroundings.
"You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." Jesse took a deep breath.
Warren pulled him under. In a short moment Jesse found himself towed through the water at a pace faster than an Olympic swimmer, faster than he ever dreamed possible. The water grew darker as less sunlight filtered through the water, the fish nearby peering at the pair with undisguised amazement.
The shack was small, barely big enough to contain a man, let alone a generator and room to work. But no time for that now; Warren was holding on to Jesse's arm, preventing him from floating upward.
Air was getting scarce. Time to act: Jesse exhaled, phasing to insubstantial, and pushed himself into the tiny building.
Almost out of breath; Jesse dropped to his knees, gasping for oxygen. The air inside the shack smelled foul and stale, product of remaining too long in one location without means of circulation. But that was unimportant: it was breathable. And it wasn't water. An inch or so of the liquid stuff had slowly seeped in over the past months to provide a wet surface to stand in—must have been what shorted out the controls back on dry land, Jesse realized. Also unimportant. Jesse glanced around, estimated that he had some ten to fifteen minutes of breathable air before he sucked all the oxygen out of the shack. Better get to it.
The generator sparked. Not a problem; it had likely been sparking periodically for weeks if not months. Jesse traced the wires back, hoping to simply disable it or re-enable the distant controls in Bayliss's office. It would be nice to be able to put the fence up again. Keep the real sharks from the beaches, if nothing else. Better for recreational swimming by those unable to out-swim a tiger shark.
Jesse took a breath, realized that he had to take another one to keep his head from swimming, water not included. Air is getting foul, he thought, faster than I'd anticipated. Better hurry this up. He blinked, willing the wires to stay straight as he looked at them.
There. That was the one. Water had dripped in, rust had formed, and a short circuit had bridged itself across the lines. Pulling those apart should take down the fence and hopefully restore the landside controls, although that last part Jesse would not have wanted to bet the farm on. No, for right now, taking down the fence and getting back to the surface of the ocean sounded like the priority.
And the walls were closing in.
Not now, Jesse chanted to himself, refusing to say the words aloud. This room is not too small. There is enough air to breathe. I have a job to do. Brennan is depending on me.
It was the last line that did it, the thought that kept him going: Brennan is depending on me. Adam and Shalimar are depending on me. The air became thick and stifling, and Jesse could no longer tell whether it was his own tortured thoughts choking him or whether it was the lack of oxygen. Claustrophobia. Gotta love it.
Time to finish this. Steeling himself, Jesse swiftly grabbed the two offending wires and ripped them apart.
The unexpected shock threw him back into the wall. Afterward, Jesse would never be able to say whether he blacked out from the electrocution or from hitting his head but in the long run, it didn't matter.
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Lt. Vanderworthy turned to the others in Colonel Bayliss's office. "The fence is down. Let's go. My men are waiting outside."
"You can tell that the fence is gone from in here?" Adam was amazed.
"You tested my senses, Dr. Kane," Vanderworthy reminded him. "Believe me: the fence is inactive." He turned to Shalimar. "Ready, Ms. Fox?"
"Let's go," Shalimar replied grimly. "We've got a black market to stop and an elemental to track down."
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Vanderworthy listened to his own comm. unit, half hidden in the island brush and trees. The sun had gone done, and it was difficult to see the large shark mutant in the darkness. "Not yet. They're still looking. Shouldn't be too much longer. To us the man glows in the dark. He's a damn homing beacon."
"Then why haven't you found him?" Shalimar grumbled from her perch in a tree, vidcam in hand.
"Why haven't you found the black marketers yet?" Vanderworthy replied reasonably.
Shalimar was not in the mood to be reasonable, she was in the mood to tear something—or someone—apart. The black marketers would do nicely if they ever had the guts to show up and take the bait.
And Blue was currently serving as that bait, nervous as a sparrow in a nest of kittens. He trotted slowly along the trail where the most assaults had taken place, a trail that up until now the shark mutants had avoided as though it were plague-ridden. He wore his fatigues not because he particularly wanted to—all the shark mutants these days preferred to wear as little as possible, spend as much time in the water as possible, and generally act as though they weren't human—but because once the assault began he and Vanderworthy wanted as much evidence as possible. Getting clothes ripped off would go over big in a military court of law, especially if Blue kept his deadly teeth decently inside his mouth. No use upsetting the unwitting authorities…
Shalimar perked up her ears. "Stay alert," she murmured, her own feral senses more potent than those of the shark mutants on dry land. To each his own… She readied the vidcam, shifting it in her fingers. Beside her, Vanderworthy too came on point.
It happened very quickly; the black marketers were experienced and knew how to handle an unwilling victim without getting bitten. The first approached from the front: the distraction. The second lunged from the back, sweeping Blue's feet out from under him. Blue gurgled and went down, his shark senses twisted when on his back. The third dropped across Blue, pinning him to the ground, just in case the flat-on-the-back thing wasn't enough.
Vanderworthy clenched his fists, waiting, agonizing over watching this happen to one of his men, knowing that this had to happen to free the rest. Shalimar spared no time for sympathy; her job was to film this in living color, get the evidence that no one could dispute.
"Damn good day," one of the three assailants laughed. "Second one today. We'll make a killing on the main land."
"Get his pants down," the second advised, "and don't count your chickens until we milk them."
"Don't," Blue cried out, making it artistic, knowing that the cameras were sucking up every move, every sound. He struggled, weak and helpless on his back. The three just laughed. The noise made Shalimar grit her teeth. They would pay! She aimed her vidcam at the scene, catching every detail, every piece of the action.
The men knew what they were doing. One stroked Blue's belly in a mock parody of gentleness, pinning the shark mutant down with that motion alone. Blue gasped and moaned, barely able to breathe under such ministrations, his mutation preventing him from retaliating. The other two wrestled with his fatigues, wrenching them down to expose the shark mutant's delicacies. The flag pole rose as the belly massage continued. More than one way to a shark mutant's heart…
Blue's face reddened as the men continued to fondle him. Shalimar could guess what was going through the mutant's mind: not only was he being assaulted in this grotesque fashion, but it was being filmed for distribution to a very high level audience. He groaned; humiliation didn't begin to cover this topic. This had better be worth it…!
The black marketers forced the shark mutant into a frenzy, gasping and panting, collecting the desired specimen in a bag they had waiting.
"Little slut," the first one sneered. "Coming up here all alone. You must want this, just like Angel."
"Gonna come back for more, slut?" the second jeered. "I'll be waiting for you. Got a nice little pecker there. Come on back, and I'll make you scream for me. Wouldn't you like that, little shark slut?"
"Bastards," Blue ground out, barely able to speak. "Get off of me!"
"Ooh, I think we're making him mad," the first grinned.
"Better make sure that he can't get up too quick," the second gloated. "Want me to hurt you, little shark slut?"
"Don't damage him," the third warned. "There's only a limited supply of these sluts. We'll want to milk him again—"
They had enough evidence. It was all on tape, every stinking bit of it. All that remained was take the black marketers into custody with the evidence in their hands. Shalimar looked forward to it.
The only part that didn't satisfy her was that the black marketers didn't put up a fight.
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"Fence down, black market shut down," Adam announced to the room at large, focusing on Lt. Vanderworthy, "so where's Brennan?"
Vanderworthy nodded; Adam Kane had indeed kept his part of the bargain. Colonel Bayliss glowered in the background as the shark mutant lieutenant crossed to the map on the wall displaying the features of the island. He pointed to an interior portion that looked to be the highest point. "Here."
"All right. Let's go." Adam turned back to see that Vanderworthy hadn't budged. "What?"
"Not going, Dr. Kane."
"What do you mean, not going? We agreed—"
"We agreed," Vanderworthy emphasized, "to participate in the search, sir. Not the rescue. That would be impossible for us. The elemental is putting out so much power in his electrical field that none of us can get near him." He folded his arms. "We have each lived up to our part of the bargain, sir. The fence is down, the black market crushed, and we have located your man. Contract complete."
"And you call yourselves mutants," Adam snarled, frustrated. Beside him, Shalimar too hissed angrily. If she had had one, her tail would have been shooting off sparks. Big electrical ones, aimed at Vanderworthy. Adam activated his comm. link. "Jesse? Jesse, come in. I need you back here. How far from land are you?"
Silence.
"Jesse?" Adam looked at Vanderworthy suspiciously. "What have you done with him?"
"Nothing, sir." Vanderworthy remained formal. "But I regret to inform you that after de-activating the fence, your man never emerged from the shack."
"And you're telling me this now?"
"You have your objectives, sir, and I have mine. I had an obligation to my men to see mine through without distracting you with other concerns. That has been accomplished, and we stand ready to assist you in whatever fashion we can."
"Whatever fashion—?" Adam was appalled. "You refuse to help rescue Brennan. You leave Jesse in the middle of the ocean to die. What kind of help is that?"
"We can't get close to Brennan," Vanderworthy responded, "and, as before, we can't enter the shack. He—" and Vanderworthy jerked his thumb at Bayliss, "—made sure of that. We waited for your man to come out; we would have towed him in to shore. He never came out."
"You—" Adam didn't know what to say. If anger had been electricity, Vanderworthy would have fried where he stood. Adam looked around helplessly; his team was going under. "Shalimar—?"
"I'm going after Brennan." There was no way for her to reach Jesse, but the elemental was on the island, and she had a rough location, thanks to the shark mutants.
"You'll need help. There's too many of them," Adam said despairingly.
The smile that played over the feral's lips had nothing to do with good humor. "You leave that up to me, Adam. I will get him out." And tear off a few limbs while I'm at it, hung in the air.
"Sir." It was Blue, up to now doing a fine job of blending with the woodwork. "Lieutenant, request permission to assist Ms. Fox."
Vanderworthy looked startled. "You know what you're asking, Private?"
"Yes, sir. I'll be careful, sir. But I can speed up the recovery process quite a bit, sir."
Vanderworthy set his jaw. "Permission granted, private."
"Thank you," Shalimar said, meaning it. She turned back to Adam. "You be careful. Brennan is going to need you when we get him back." She spared a glance for Bayliss. "The rest we can leave for Dr. Morrison."
Adam chose to believe her; he had nothing left to lose. "I'll find Jesse," he promised, trying to keep the break from his voice. "I'll bring him back." Another line drifted between them: dead or alive, I'll bring him back. He turned to Bayliss. "I'll need a fast boat, radar, and a wet suit with a tank. And access to your armory."
"What are you going to do?" Bayliss asked suspiciously. "You can't blow the shack up. You'll alert the other forces in the area."
"Shaped charges," Adam said, daring the other man to challenge him. "I'll take the top off of the shack, and it will never make a blip on the radar. It wouldn't have worked before with the fence in operation—it would have sent out an electric shock wave that would kill every shark mutant for three miles around but now that the fence is down, we can use it."
"Water will rush in. He'll drown."
"And while we wait, he's suffocating." Adam had had enough. "Get out of my way, Bayliss."
"Now, see here—"
"This is on your head!" Adam yelled, pushed beyond anger. "If you hadn't done such a damn poor job of running this base, this wouldn't be happening! Now, get out of my way before I run you over!"
"There's a boat at the pier," Vanderworthy said. "Take that." He too turned his attention to Bayliss. "You can either give Dr. Kane the key, sir, or I'll hotwire the engine myself. Sir." Back to Adam: "I'll have Sgt. Warren get out the charges. He does detail in there; he'll know what you need."