Okay, so here it is, Chapter 2, where things get a bit…meatier. Hope it goes down alright. Thanks to Sarah as my first and only reviewer. I'm editing that last line from the first chapter per your suggestion. You're right "my boy" doesn't really sound like a phrase that would come out of Jordan. Thanks loads!

Ursula

Chapter 2

The following day, Shawn burst into Jordan's apartment, already late for two meetings that morning, to witness a horribly awkward scene. Claire, with her back to him, was just pulling a t-shirt over her naked torso while Jordan watched her from the couch. Seeing Jordan's start of surprise, Claire turned to see Shawn in the door and her eyes fairly bugged out of her head in shock. A blush began to spread over her freckled cheekbones, and for a split second, her obvious discomfort gave Shawn a sense of pleasure. A bit of payback for her harsh quips.

"Oh, um – huh. Wow, I –" Shawn fumbled for an appropriate apology.

"Yeah, I know. They're selling CBGBs t-shirts at the mall now. Crazy, right? Never woulda thought. Hear they're going under though. Shame. Okay, well, 'bye." She had used the awkward babble to edge around Shawn to the door and slipped past him into the hall before he could form a sentence.

Shawn turned a cocked eyebrow at Jordan. "Some of your experiments?"

"Now don't you take that tone with me. You should know by now that things are often not as they seem."

"But Jesus, Jordan. You can't keep your hands off a secretary long enough to get some work done? Don't you remember what happened with Devon? Or do you want to send another one to the hospital to get her stomach pumped?"

"I mean it Shawn, stop. That's not what was going on there. You're jumping to conclusions."

"Am I? Because it sure looked like she was standing naked in your apartment."

"And she was. But only to see if the experiments were having any physical effect."

"Huh." Shawn pursed his lips. "And were they?"

"Not yet, not yet."

"So I suppose you'll have to check her again tonight after dinner just to be sure there's been no new development."

"Shawn – " Jordan adopted the tone of a weary adult addressing a petulant child.

"Forget it Jordan. I don't want to know any more about this. I mean it. I don't want to know."

Coincidentally, Jordan did choose to continue his private experimentation with Claire later than evening after the chaos of day-to-day operations at the Center had died down. He took her to a back room off his apartment, empty and windowless, and gestured for her to sit in the room's only chair.

"Now Claire, it would seem we've gone just about as far as we can with the mental testing we've developed at this facility. So I think, and I hope you'll agree, that in order to discover your hidden gifts, we need to engage in some more – ah – physical methods."

She raised one eyebrow in a disconcertingly Shawn-like gesture. "You mean physical methods like me taking my clothes off again? Look, I don't know what you – "

"Claire, don't be silly. Now didn't you come to me expressing your desire to do anything to uncover the talent lying dormant inside you? I thought we'd reached an agreement in which you promised to trust me and my experimental methods in order to reap the full benefits of my approach?"

She sighed. "You're right. That is what we agreed."

"So you need to trust that anything I ask you to do is only in your own best interest." He paused and looked at her meaningfully. "So, are we on the same page again?"

"Yes."

"Good." He approached her in the chair, produced several pairs of handcuffs and began binding both her wrists and ankles to the chair's supports.

"Huh," Claire mused dryly as she watched Jordan's progress as he fixed her to the chair. "Well this seems very far removed from the getting naked approach. If I'd known what you had in mind, I'd have brought my bullwhip and leather."

"Please. Cool it with the sarcasm." He said it in his hard edged, brook no opposition voice. Claire already knew better than to contradict him when he adopted that tone.

"Right." She breathed deeply, evidently exercising supreme restraint, as Jordan finished his preparations and moved away from the chair again. She closed her eyes to focus on the task at hand rather than being angry at Jordan. "So, what's the – ow! What the hell!" A sharp pain jarred her shoulder, pushing her back painfully in the chair. She opened her eyes to see Jordan standing a few yards away next to a small pile of what looked like bocce balls. "Jordan, what are you - ?" He aimed his next missile at her stomach and fired before she could finish her sentence. The force of the blow took all the wind out of her, making speech impossible.

"So, Claire, what do we know about the emergence of other 4400's abilities? Most often, as was the case with Orson Bailey and Carl Morrissey, they were responses to direct threats to the returnee's person, causing them to have an extreme reaction to protect themselves from harm. So, what is the body's capability of protecting itself with the dormant powers of the mind when it's given no other recourse? That is precisely what these experiments are" thwack "designed" thud "to" smack "detect. You have the ability in there somewhere. We just have to tempt it to emerge. It's not entirely scientific; it's not based on some complex technology, but I believe it will be – in the long run – effective."

She gulped several shallow breaths as he paused in his onslaught. "Isn't there another - ?"

He hurled another ball that made contact around her shins. "There is no other way. I thought you said you were going to trust me."

"Yeah, but Jordan, you're really hurting me." She was powerless to stop the tears that began to cloud her vision; her entire body was focused on recovering from the blows. Her vision began to fade, collapsing inward into darkness like the closing of a shutter. Jordan's voice called her awake before she could lose consciousness. He shook her roughly, causing her to sputter and shake her head, the only movement she was capable of while restricted in the chair.

"No you don't. The experiment is no good to you if you lose consciousness."

The thick walls of Jordan's personal apartment muffled Claire's protests and curses as Jordan continued his experimentation while the Center shut down for the night around them. She didn't know how long it had been before Jordan abruptly stopped throwing and approached her, keys in hand.

"That'll have to be it for tonight. You don't seem to be making any progress. And my pitching arm is getting tired." He chuckled as he said this, as if he expected her to be in high spirits and to laugh at his joke. He patted her shoulder gently in what he must have thought of as a fatherly gesture. "We'll try again tomorrow."

She looked up at him blearily. "What? Tomorrow?" She could barely muster the energy necessary to shake her head. "No, no more Jordan. I'm done."

He didn't even look up from his fumbling with the handcuffs, but his voice took on a businesslike tone. "Claire, need I remind you what is waiting for you beyond the Center's walls? What did you have to offer the world in 1977? Put simply, nothing. You were a junkie with no skills and absolutely nothing to contribute to society. I took you in. I got you clean. I've given you a place to live, a job. You want to throw all that away and go back on the streets? Except of course now you'd be worse off than before because it wouldn't take your streetwise compatriots long to peg you as a 4400 freak. And people fear what they don't understand. You wouldn't last the week."

Even as he said the words, Claire knew they were true. The Center was her only home; she had no choice but to do what Jordan demanded. She tried to trust him, tried to believe that what he was doing had a greater purpose, to bring out the 4400 in her and from there to bring it out in the greater world. She found it difficult to concentrate on such idyllic thoughts when every inch of her body ached from the attack. "Tomorrow then."