Chapter 8: - The Emergency Prism Protocol
A.N:- Thanks for the reviews please keep it up! I learnt something highly useless whilst writing this; thingamabob is actually in the English dictionary! I thought this was amusing, anyway on with the story
"Don't worry! It's not a problem" yelled Baby over the din.
"I'll find the stupid paper weight thingamabob" said Jamie walking out of the team's line of sight.
"Come on up" yelled Baby gesturing wildly to the stairs as her voice couldn't be heard above the racket. The four mutants climbed the spiral staircase quickly, covering their ears as the sound became louder. They watched as Jamie shifted several piles of paper and yelled triumphantly pulling out a flashing red prism. He dramatically threw it to the floor. It smashed into hundreds of shards of glass.
"Thank god you killed it! Damn that's given me a headache!" said Shalimar rubbing her head.
"Hopefully I did more than that" said Jamie still watching the shards of glass. Slowly a yellow glow began to come from the glass. It spread upwards and began to form a hazy image. The image stabilised and they saw Adam standing in front of them.
"Hello. If I've activated this protocol then were in deep trouble. I'm either dead or incarcerated. If I've died then I'm sorry, not for my sake but for yours. Now there's no way I can make it up to you for the things I've done. I can't help stabilise your D.N.A! In fact I have no idea who's even witnessing this. Hopefully Baby and Jamie have brought the rest of you here to safety. If I umm" the holographic Adam faltered and his face turned grim "am alive but the dominion have me then don't try and find me. Use the disc I put inside this prism to help find what stabilised Baby and I hope Jesse as well. If Jesse didn't make it then I'm sorrier than you'll ever know. Either way I failed to protect you all! The very people I promised to protect!" the hologram continued to rant "The disc should help through even if I can't. You have to work it out and soon! All of your times are limited but well Lexa's is very close. Focus on curing her first. We've lost to many people recently" he said grimly. The hologram began to pace. "I'm hoping that if the others are here that Lexa, Baby and Jamie explained what I did. I need to apologise again for keeping secrets. This is bigger than before though, Brennan was right in what he said before; I keep hiding things from you, yet I expect you to trust me. Why should you?" The hologram stopped pacing and Adam stared off into the distance. "I need to explain the decisions I made. When I first found Baby I was in shock and denial, at first I was convinced that it was a trick of Eckhart's. Then I realised there was a slue of mutants I had no knowledge of, most of whom were dead within a couple of years of their birth. I blamed myself I should've known that Eckhart wouldn't just accept that I had access to the current mutants via the database and that he didn't, he invented his own! I didn't know what to do. It didn't help that when I first met Baby she beat the hell out of me. Definite similarities with Shal" holographic Adam smiled slightly in memory.
"What?" said Baby as everyone looked at her in astonishment "I thought he was one of Eckhart's goons. Besides he got into the ring! What did he expect?"
"You continue to surprise me!" said Jamie smiling.
"Good" said Baby smiling in response and settling herself further into his warm embrace. "We should probably listening to Adam" she turned back to face him.
"She still needed a lot of training" Adam continued "or more accurately detraining from Genomex ways as well as Lexa's unorthodox way of handling situations."
Baby grinned "Hey I resent that! My way gets results!" said Lexa grumpily.
"Anyway I took the decision, perhaps wrongly, I don't know, to wait till I thought Baby could handle being part of a team before telling Shalimar she existed. Then when I found out that both Brennan and Jesse had brothers I decided it would be best to introduce all of them at the same time. First I had to find them though, and that in itself took nearly a year. I'm not trying to justify what I did, just explain it" said Adam. They heard a mumbled voice in the background. The hologram turned "Alright I'm coming. How the hell did he crash it into the wall again?" he yelled. He turned back towards them. I have to go fix one of your messes" he grinned slightly then turned sombre. "If you've seen this then just forget I existed. Use my knowledge but forget about my failings. I tried!" the image vanished.
"Wow. When did Adam become so defeatist and when did he start to admit he was wrong. He was like a different man" said Brennan.
"A broken man" Shalimar said worriedly
"We cant just forget him! No way are we going to leave him to the dominion" said Jamie.
"Your damn right!" said Baby "I wonder where the disc he talked about is?" she began to carefully route through the shards of glass. "Ah here it is" she held it up in triumph.
"What exactly was that thing?" said Lexa pointing to the glass shards.
"Emergency Prism Protocol. Adam named it. We just used it as a paperweight. It used to really piss Adam off, he was always afraid we'd break it prematurely. He used to change the recorded message all the time! He told us to smash it if it ever went off" Jamie replied.
"That was a good plan of Adam's" said Jesse "I wonder what's in the disc that we don't know already"
"It'll have my D.N.A records at least" Baby replied "My expiration date was a week before yours. Adam was frantic but he couldn't do anything. He was honest about my pending death, an honour he didn't give you" she said to Jesse. "Not much of an honour really, waiting for death was not the best experience to have."
"Wasn't my favourite time either. Heck when I woke up the next morning I couldn't believe I'd fallen asleep! I was sure you'd died. My world collapsed! Then you snored. I have never been so happy to hear anyone snore" Jamie smiled in memory.
"I don't snore!" said Baby turning to face him with hands on hips. Her eyes glowed yellow.
"Yeah you do! Not loudly or anything" he said in defence as her eyes glowed again. "It's kinda cute and its comforting reminds me that you're O.K."
"My God, How creepily domesticated are you two. Its totally weird how much you both changed in a year" said Lexa laughingly.
"We had to; it's been a rough year. Besides having Adam live here permanently made for a less exciting existence, he was major protective. But now he's gone and I don't know if we can fix this stability thing without him. I mean Jesse and I are O.K. but that isn't very comforting when we know you're all close to deaths door" said Baby.
"Even if we could fix it, it doesn't mean we should leave Adam with the dominion. He may have made some questionable decisions but he doesn't deserve that!" said Jesse.
"Jesse's right. We have to get him back! We need a plan" said Brennan.
"Not right now we don't, were all exhausted we've up for 72 hours and without rest we'll be good to no one" said Lexa.
"True. We can formulate a plan tomorrow morning" said Shalimar.
"Sure. I'll show you to some rooms" said Jamie as he began to lead the way.
"Jamie! Slight problem" said Baby in a scared voice.
He turned back "What?" he asked before noting the flamey feral eyes.
"It's happening again" she replied in anguish. Baby dived to the floor. Jamie ran over and sat across her back using his weight to hold her down. He began hunting in his coat pocket.
"What the hell are you doing?" said Shalimar trying to pull him off.