Katherine's hair was still not put up, and the towel was all that saved her from indecency. As the team from the Dominion entered the clinic with Ben and Amanda, Dr. Sutter removed her lab coat and offered it to the woman who was her equal in years if not in appearance, and Katherine Windom gratefully accepted the cover up. Ben gaped at the scene, his face going pale and then automatically looking to his mother, to reassure himself that she was still intact. Amanda, upon seeing her dead father, uttered a cry of despair and ran to her suddenly in-the-flesh mother, Katherine Windom.
There was blood everywhere, most of it appearing to belong to the corpse lying on the ground. Treo stood close to his mother and sister, supportive of the fact that his mother had been 'saved' only to become a widow within seconds of her salvation. Katherine sniffed, accepting a tissue to blow her nose, drawing her tearful daughter to her. She glared at the men from the Dominion who intruded on this hour of grief.
They ignored all three and Dr. Sutter, and ignored the dazed guards who only now were waking up. Their detectors were all that the Dominion soldiers needed; they scanned the area.
The lead man looked up. "Where are they?"
"They ran off," Dr. Sutter said bitterly. No one needed to ask who 'they' were. "They pulled their man out, and they ran off. They're gone. You might be able to catch up with them," she added sarcastically, "if you're fast enough."
The Dominion soldier shook his head and pointed to his detector. "My readings say that they're still here. I'm getting molecular readings. Where is he? The molecular? Where is Jesse Kilmartin?"
"Of course you're getting molecular readings," Dr. Sutter said, barely able to contain her exasperation. She motioned to Katherine and Treo Windom. "Both of these two are moleculars. Want a demonstration? Want to waste more time, while Mutant X gets away after destroying my lab and killing my colleague?" She gestured at the devastation around her, careful not to move from her spot for fear of stepping on something sharp and artery-puncturing. "Or maybe you're afraid to get any closer to those mutants. Didn't I hear that it took only the four of them to take down your bosses? I'd be afraid, too, if I were you."
The Dominion soldier's eyes smoldered, but he was too well trained to let his emotions get the better of him. He put away his detector, and motioned for the rest of his team to pack it away. "I'll leave you to the clean up," he almost taunted, meaning that's all you're good for. Leftovers. It was the best he could offer, under the circumstances. He shepherded his men out of the lab, urging them to move more quickly after Mutant X.
Ben waited until they were out of earshot, then looked around. "Where are they? Did they escape?"
A whoosh was his answer: four bedraggled and bloodied mutants staggered out of the computer banks and re-materialized into solidarity. Jesse staggered, gasping for breath, and Ben caught him before he could collapse to the glass-littered floor. Brennan too tilted, ready to slide down the wall, hand clutched to the gaping wound in his thigh. Shalimar was all that kept him from receiving another gash from the shattered glass that turned the clinic into a high tech mine field as she manuevered the elemental safely onto a bench free of miniature daggers.
"Quickly, to the stretcher," Dr. Sutter commanded, grabbing her stethoscope. "Oxygen, now."
Treo helped Ben wrestle the limp molecular to the stretcher, Lexa holding the oxygen mask to Jesse's face until he finally slowed his frantic inhalations, catching his breath. "That was close," Lexa murmured. "How long? Three minutes?"
"I thought you were going to lose it," Shalimar said to Jesse. "They would have had us."
"We're still not out of the woods yet," Ben warned. "When they don't find you, they'll be back. They'll be watching the grounds."
But Lexa got a faraway look in her eye. "Let 'em watch," she said.
"Lexa, they have heat sensors. Your invisibility won't help."
"Not what I had in mind." The faraway look turned into a malicious glint. "I think we're owed a certain something by the Windom family. You wanted Mutant X's help in restoring your mother? Let me talk to you about the price for our help…"
The Dominion soldiers looked up. "There it is. They're trying to get away."
The chopper was already some hundred feet in the air and rising rapidly. The leader of the Dominion team aimed his detector at the helicopter, adjusting it for the extreme distance. "Molecular aboard. It's them, people. Look alive."
"EMP missile ready. We can take it down whenever we want. It'll kill the power, not blow up the chopper. They'll have to land, and it'll be a rough one."
"Do it quickly," the leader ordered. "We want Kilmartin in one piece, for testing. Too high up, and the drop will kill him. Fire."
The missile launched, its 'smart' brain heading it unerringly for the still lifting chopper. The pilot saw the danger, tried to shift away, but the missile changed course to intercept. The missile blossomed into an electro-magnetic pulse, just the thing to knock out the electrical systems and wipe out the power keeping the rotors a whirling blur. Just the thing to put a chopper back on the ground where the Dominion could pick up the dazed mutants with little or no trouble.
Except this chopper exploded. Fireworks filled the air. Flaming particles rained down over the wooded countryside.
"What?" the leader exclaimed. "What happened?"
The man who had launched the missile blanched. "That shouldn't have happened. The missile couldn't do that."
"Well, it did! Did you use the right one? Let's get over there, see if there's anyone still alive after that. Idiots," he muttered under his breath, hoping that he wouldn't be blamed for this fiasco by his superiors back at base. The Dominion needs that Kilmartin freak and they wanted him alive. Maybe they'll be satisfied with some fresh pieces.
No one noticed the small cloud that detached itself from the helicopter's previous skyward position and drifted back toward the Windom facility.
Ben helped Brennan get into the passenger side of the SUV, a gift from a grateful Windom family that had come to see them off. Brennan grunted as he sat down, the deep slice in his thigh slowing him down more than a little. Shalimar, in the driver's seat, settled him on one side while Ben tucked the crutches in beside him. Brennan, on his part, grabbed his leg to a) position it properly and b) reduce the pain while doing so as much as possible and regretting that not much was possible. Shalimar helped him to buckle himself in, pulling the strap tight across his waist. Brennan yelped.
"Oh, sorry," Shalimar cooed. "Did I hurt you?"
Brennan bit his lip and remembered the last time he was sitting next to a girl. That girl hadn't been Shalimar, and he regretted it immensely. "Not at all," he lied, working to get the words out through the waning agony shooting through his leg. He clutched onto the door handle, white-knuckled, wishing that he could somehow transfer all the hurt into the uncaring plastic of the armrest. "I appreciate everything that you do for me. Everything," he added. The last word held a lot of sincerity.
"I'm sure that you do. And I'm sure that you will in the future as well. A very long time in the future."
Jesse was already in place in the back seat of the SUV, lying flat with his head pillowed on Lexa's lap, letting the chromatic get away with thinking that he was too far gone on pain-killers to notice her stroking his forehead, trying to caress away his headache. But what really hurt, Jesse reflected, was that he'd been dreaming about being in this very position for several months now. The reality was not living up to the fantasy. Feeling like the least little movement would make him grab for the basin on the floor of the SUV was not part of the dream. Having a bunch of other people around and the Dominion on their tail was also not part of the dream. He must have groaned, thinking about it, because Lexa responded by smoothing back the hair on his forehead. Jesse opened his eyes, met hers in gratitude, then closed them and concentrated on breathing. And not throwing up.
Dr. Sutter leaned in through the window, handing a small vial of pills to Lexa. "One of those four times daily, for each of them," she directed. "I'd rather you kept them here for a few days. Brennan's leg could get infected too easily, and let's face it: my late colleague was less than gentle with Jesse."
Lexa shook her head. "The Dominion is not going to go away. That trick with Treo and the chopper will keep them occupied for about thirty minutes until they realize that no one blew up with the chopper."
"Hey, I blew up with that chopper." Treo materialized from fog into human some five feet away, sauntering over and giving his mother a peck on the cheek. "Can I help it if I can reconstitute myself?"
"Fruit juice concentrate gets reconstituted," Shalimar told him facetiously.
"You calling me a fruit?"
"If the shoe fits…"
"Ah, the mixed metaphor," Ben inserted. "English Lit 205." He turned serious. "Are you sure that you won't stay? Some of you have some serious healing time ahead. Where will you go?"
"I know a place a few hours from here," Lexa said, being deliberately vague. Ben nodded approvingly; what the Windom and Sutter families didn't know, they couldn't divulge. "Those men will be back, and next time they'll want to tear the place down. They won't be satisfied with quick explanations or a quick search. We need to be gone. For everyone's sake."
Dr. Sutter, as the medical personnel on the scene, wasn't happy but she'd lived on the run herself for the past two decades. She understood. "I'm still worried about both of them. Listen, I'll plan to take a stroll around town every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Just in case someone needs to kidnap me, and use me to treat a wanted criminal who's sick."
"Couldn't possibly let you go into town, Mother, without an escort. You know how dangerous it is; mutant types all around just waiting to cause chaos and havoc. I'll bring my backpack with me, filled with books so that I can study while you're shopping. Books, and medicines, and syringes, and bandages…" Ben grinned, but the worried look didn't leave his eyes as he scanned Mutant X. "Which reminds me; you guys need to escape fast, before the Dominion wises up and comes back, and I have a date with a term paper. And others," he added, looking down at the sixteen year old empath on his arm. Amanda dimpled shyly. Mrs. Windom beamed. Obviously she approved of the interest that Ben was taking in her empathic daughter.
"Roses," Lexa instructed. "Where are they? You need a whiff, Sutter."
"Well, actually, no, I don't," Ben replied sheepishly. "Mother has a special aftershave with rose attar as the main ingredient that she makes for me. I'm wearing it right now, although usually I don't bother. Sniff." He extended his chin.
"What? You immune to empathic charms? You don't look it to me, Mountain Man. Right now you look thoroughly besotted."
"It's because what Ben's getting doesn't wear off with roses," Treo put in, smirking. "Let's just say that in another couple of years, when Amanda turns legal, I'll be acquiring a brother-in-law." He leaned against a tree. "Not bad for a day's work. I get to be CEO, I appoint Dr. Sutter as chief researcher, and keep Ben on as head of security. I can live with that."
Katherine Windom fixed her son with a steely gaze. "Who gets to be CEO, Justin Trelayne Windom?"
"Um… You do, Mom?"