There was movement underneath him, and Jesse felt himself being carefully deposited onto a hard stretcher.

It didn't matter how uncomfortable it was. The important thing at the moment was that he was lying down. Everything hurt: his head, his back, his arms and legs, and, oh yes, his head was killing him. Did Jesse mention that his head was pounding? It was enough to make him wish he'd stayed unconscious.

How long? Crap; that was the bad thing about unconsciousness, that he hadn't a clue of how long he'd been out. He remembered Dr. Windom's sharp features, those eyes boring into his, and sharp empathic agony lancing through his neurons. His throat hurt, too; clearly he'd screamed himself raw. Had whatever Windom wanted worked? Was he finished torturing Jesse?

"This is barbaric!" a deep voice said, horrified and angry. A door slammed shut behind the voice. It took a few moments for the challenging process of thought to kick in, but Jesse was able to identify the owner of the voice as Ben Sutter. Ah, it was Ben who had carried him to this stretcher, big ol' economy-sized Ben with the biceps the diameter of tree trunks. Next time, a softer bed would be nice. I know you've got some around. Slept in one last night. Ben continued, "You can't do this! It's inhuman!"

You tell 'im, Ben.

"I require this," Dr. Windom responded distractedly. "Look, it's working! She's coming back! I see an arm!" More clinking of glassware. "More! I need more serum!"

"Not yet," Dr. Sutter said hurriedly. "Give him forty-eight hours. He's too weak." Jesse felt movement around the stretcher, felt someone poke at his arm, feel the pulse in his throat. It was too much effort to respond to whatever it was that whoever was doing. Breathing would be all the activity he was capable of for a little while. He concentrated on that.

"Forty-eight hours? Impossible, Beatrice. Set him up. We'll finish now and be done with this."

"You can't," Dr. Sutter replied.

"Certainly, I can. Ben, put him back in the chair."

"I mean, you can't," Dr. Sutter repeated. "I gave him some narcotic analgesia. He'll never achieve the level of adrenaline production you need with that on board."

You gave me that? Isn't that a pain-killer? How come I still feel so bad?

"Reverse it," Windom demanded. "I need that serum."

"That wouldn't be wise," Dr. Sutter told him, awesomely calm. You go, doc. "His heartbeat was erratic toward the end of this session. You run the risk of killing him, and then you'll get no more serum. You've achieved much, Abner, but look at your results. You're going to need several doses of the serum; you wouldn't want to lose the only supply you have, would you?"

No, I wouldn't. Especially since the supplier is me.

Windom glowered. "Don't push me, Beatrice."

"She's right, Dr. Windom," Ben put in. "Look at him. He's too weak for this. Even I can see that, and I'm not a doctor. Give him forty-eight hours, like Mother said."

Can I just lie here and look mostly dead? Won't take much effort on my part. Would it help if I said I saw Emma? A bright white light, something like that?

Windom checked his watch, more for show than anything else. "Eight hours, no more. The analgesia should have more than worn off by then. Give him no more narcotics, Beatrice. Hear me? No more. I need that sample."

"No more," Dr. Sutter agreed serenely. "You have my word, Abner."

"Good. Then come along with me to my office. Help me analyze the data from this session. Perhaps there's a way to speed up the process of restoring my wife to her natural state."

"I'll be along in a moment," Dr. Sutter told him. "I'll check on Jesse one last time, and be there in a minute or two."

"Fine." Through closed eyes Jesse heard the door to the clinic close, a little more firmly than needed, reiterating Windom's instructions to Dr. Sutter not to dawdle.

The Sutters, mother and son, didn't. "Mother?" Ben asked.

The communication patterns developed over years of needing to hide kicked in. Neither needed many words to convey information. "You're right, Ben, we can't leave him to Abner's untender mercy. But we have that explosive device in your belly to remember, Ben. I won't jeopardize your life, either."

"Then take it out." Ben's voice was low and demanding. Repeating an old argument.

"I can't, Ben. I need time, I need anesthesia, I need tools—"

"We can sterilize a knife in a fire," Ben interrupted. "The rest, I can handle. I heal quickly, remember?"

"Not fast enough, and I won't do it without anesthesia, Benjamin." That was his mother talking, not just the super-soldier's chief medical officer. "Abner expects you to participate in this experiment, helping to keep Jesse under control, helping in the lab. You won't be able to hide."

"I'll manage."

"No, you won't, because I won't take that risk. I've bought Jesse eight hours. I told Abner that I'd given him narcotics, but I lied. Give Jesse an hour, then wake him up and tell him to escape. He'll have to do the rest."

"He can't, Mother. You know that. Look at him—he's unconscious right now. How do you expect him to rip that inhibitor off of his head, phase out through an electric fence, and escape? Dr. Windom will kill him with this mad scheme. You and I have to help him."

"I don't know anything of the sort." That was Ben's mother speaking, a woman frantic for her son. "He's strong. He's young. He's accustomed to getting through these sorts of missions. He's strong, and he'll survive."

"But not as strong as me, mother. You know that. You engineered my genes. He might not survive this. And what about Dr. Windom's inhibitor?"

"It doesn't matter, Ben, because I'm not doing it your way. I'm not going to take that explosive device out of you until I have all the equipment and the time that I need." A pause. "I need to go, Ben. Abner is expecting me in the lab right now. Take care of Jesse."

"This isn't finished, Mother."

"No, Ben. It's not."

Jesse heard the door quietly closing behind Dr. Sutter. He heard Ben moving around in the clinic, then felt more than heard the super-soldier standing over him. "Ben?" The name came out as more of a croak than a true word.

But the super-soldier understood. "I'm really sorry about this, Jesse. If I had known what Dr. Windom had in mind, I never would have gone along with it. No matter what the consequences."

"Wha—?"

Ben filled in the blanks. "It's his wife. Dr. Windom's wife. She is—was—a molecular, like you. Only she couldn't maintain her cohesion. Her mutation went too far. Windom thinks he can reconstitute her with an infusion of your cerebral spinal fluid. Windom took the results of Mother's and Dr. Kane's research, added it to his own, and came up with this solution. Only he didn't tell me about needing to have your adrenaline pumping at top speed, or the way he intended to get it. I didn't know that he was going to torture you."

"Explosives…"

"In my gut." The words were bitter. "Windom put it there as insurance. To force both Mother and I to cooperate. Push him too far, and he'll splatter me all over the landscape." Then, "I need it out, Jesse. I need to get that explosive out of my gut, and then Windom will be finished."

Why does that sound like Ben wants me to do something? I just want to go to sleep. Is that too much to ask? I'm hurting here, dude.

"Jesse." Ben shook the molecular's shoulder. Jesse blinked, wishing that he hadn't passed out again. What did I miss? "Jesse, listen to me. Wake up."

"'M awake." Right. How 'bout another fairy tale?

"Jesse, I need you to help me." More shoulder shaking. "Jesse!"

"All right," Jesse grumbled, his voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper. "Whatever. Just make the room stop spinning."

"Man." Jesse could hear the discouragement in Ben's voice. "Damn Windom." Ben gentled his tones. "Sleep now, Jesse. Get strong. But do it fast if you want to live."

"Stop." Shalimar halted them in the middle of a clearing. The trees ran tall in this part of the estate but there was a dirt road several yards away just beyond a crop of bushes with red berries. "They stopped here. Don't move."

Lexa obediently held Arrigo back, keeping her finger poised to kill. True to his word, Arrigo had sent his men back to the building, keeping them away in terror that the two mutants that held him hostage would go on a killing rampage. It wasn't fear for his people, Lexa thought, but fear for himself. Her opinion of the scientist hit a record low.

It didn't matter at the moment. Right now all that was important was what Shalimar was doing, sniffing around the clearing, carefully moving forward step by step, inhaling the scents that still remained and deciphering what had occurred some twenty four hours previously. It took too long for the feral to finish, but neither mutant was in the mood for a half-assed job. Lexa waited.

"They stopped here," Shalimar finally said. "All of them: Jesse, Ben, Treo, and Mandi."

"And—?"

"They met some people." Shalimar took a deep and angry breath. "They met Dr. Windom."

"Really." That was unexpected. "Why, do you suppose," Lexa asked, "did Big Daddy Windom meet them here? That was not the plan. Dr. Windom was to stay home and mind the store."

"And," Shalimar held the chromatic's eyes, "I found traces of a gun shot. The smell of gunpowder. And blood."

"Jesse's?" Fear clenched at Lexa's heart.

"No. Ben's."

"Not Jesse's?"

"Not a trace. Only Ben's."

"Which is why Ben's arm is in a sling." Lexa was already lost in thought. "Why would Windom shoot Ben, his own man? What happened to Jesse? The three of them—Ben, Treo, and Mandi dearest—all returned to Brennan and I in the clearing where we were supposed to meet, claiming that Jesse had been killed. They deliberately lied to all, even Ben who supposedly is your friend. Why?"

"Windom took Jesse," Shalimar said. "That's the important part. Why? Why would he take Jesse?"

"Does it matter? We're mutants, Shal. Everyone wants a piece of us. Jesse more than most, or don't you remember which one of us has already passed his expiry date?"

"The Dominion?" Arrigo perked up his ears. "The Dominion has a mutant that has passed his expiry date? That would be a mutant worth possessing."

"Don't get your hopes up, slime," Lexa told him, pushed a flare of photons through her finger in warning. "Your own expiry date is fast approaching if we don't find our friend."

"My expiry date? I'm not a mutant—oh," he finished up worriedly, finally catching on. Geniuses—smart as all get out, but have the common sense of a lentil bean. "Nevertheless, if your friend has passed his expiry date, the Dominion will be very eager to get hold of him. They've been researching that particular issue for decades."

"Pretty well aware of that," Lexa told him. Been there, done that, got the bruises to prove it. Jesse's screams as they tortured him in front of me will live in my nightmares forever.

Arrigo's eyes widened. He finally put two and two together. "You're from the bunch that took down the Dominion."

"Tried to," Shalimar said. "We didn't get all the pieces."

Arrigo nodded grimly. "Some of the 'pieces' came to visit me last week, looking for you. I told them I hadn't seen you. They went away." A corner of his mouth quirked upward. "Some pretty impressive hardware they have. Not much good against psionics, yet. Just ferals. And elementals. Chromatics, too. They hinted around about purchasing some of my research. We're talking about a trade."

"Too bad you don't have any of that hardware right now." Lexa kept the man in line, flaring a dainty fingertip. "I'd stay on our good side if I were you."

"I don't have what, or who, you want." Arrigo was starting to regain his confidence. Shalimar's own research demonstrated that Arrigo didn't have the mutant they were searching for. There was no reason for the mutants to kill the scientist. "You can let me go."

"Not yet." Lexa jerked on the man's collar. "Shalimar?"

Shalimar traced the scent to the dirt path and squatted to examine the hard-packed earth. "Vehicles. Tire tracks. They took Jesse away in these. Then Ben, Treo, and Mandi headed toward your rendezvous." She stood up suddenly, searching, going on point. "Lexa! Get down!"

Lexa wasted no time dropping to the leaf-covered forest floor. Shalimar took the opposite tack, leaping straight up onto a tree branch some twenty feet above her.

Bullets careened through both positions. If they hadn't moved right then and there, there would have been two dead mutants. Shouts erupted from the forest edges. Arrigo himself screeched and plunged into the bushes, covering his head with his hands.

Neither mutant had time to waste on their former captive. Lexa spun around, hands flashing, lasers zeroing in on their assailants.

The light flashed into nothingness, absorbed by the black suits that the oncoming troops were wearing.

It took all of a milli-second to recognize them: Dominion soldiers. Dominion soldiers armed with not only bullet-firing guns but other weapons with strange protuberances. Shalimar decided on the spot that she'd rather not find out what those strange-looking weapons could do. That could wait for a better time. "Go!"

"Right behind you." Invisibility was worthless; the goggles that the soldiers wore contained infrared. Likewise, the black suits were impervious to lasers, and any swipe that Shalimar happened to land would be absorbed by the armor. Escape was the only reasonable option.

Lexa took off. With her feral speed, Shalimar could easily outrun the soldiers; could Lexa? We're gonna find out. But first: a little defensive move.

Lasers won't take you down, bastards. How about a falling tree?

Lexa's fingertip light show chopped through three tree trunks at the speed of light. The massive hunks of wood toppled over, crashing through the underbrush, flattening one soldier and slowing the others.

It bought the ladies just enough time to make their escape. But neither one dared try to repossess their vehicle where they had left it. It was all but certain that the Dominion had left soldiers there, waiting.

Shalimar looked at Lexa. Lexa looked at Shalimar. It was going to be a long walk back to Windom's place.