Disclaimer: I don't own Mutant X or the X Men.
We're All Family
Chapter 19
Wednesday continued
Adam went back to the lab to check on Dria. Even with the extreme weakness, she should be waking soon. He turned to reach for a scanner when he heard her. Moving quickly to her side he saw her head begin to toss back and forth. Her moans became louder and she began to weakly thrash. "Dria," he whispered as he reached for her shoulders. When he touched her she reacted more wildly. He knew she was afraid. "Dria, no. Wake up. It's me. It's Adam." Still she tried to fight him. "Dria!" Adam glanced from her face to her erratically jolting body.
Having been alerted of the activity in his lab, Hank bounded in and to Adam's side.
"Hank, hold her! The stitches." Adam released her shoulders as Hank's large hands restrained her movements. He put his hands on either side of her face and held her still. "Dria! Dria, wake up!"
Dria suddenly gasped as her eyes snapped opened. Panting heavily she tried to speak but only winced from the pain.
"No, Dri. Don't move anymore. You'll pull the stitches."
"Adam," she whispered. "I…I saw Andrew…He…He was…"
As Hank was checking the bandages, Adam tried to soothe her. It broke his heart to hear the fear in her voice. "Dri, it's over. You're safe with me. Andrew's dead, Dri. Remember? He won't ever hurt you again. I promise. No one will ever hurt you." He leaned down and embraced her as he felt her arms weakly wrap around his neck. After a moment he moved back and caught her arms so they wouldn't drop. "Now you have to stay still." Tenderly he wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Let us take care of you." He smiled and kissed her before turning to Hank.
"She's ok. There's no tearing," Hank reported as he replaced a clean covering.
"Adam," Dria's whisper was much calmer. "Where's John?"
"He went to the conference with Dr. Winslet." Adam checked his watch. "It should be over now. They'll be back soon. Rest. I'm sure he'll come right down as soon as he gets here."
Dinner was almost ready when Evie saw Adam coming down the hall. "How's Dria?"
"She's very weak. Has John gotten back yet? She's asking for him."
"No. I haven't heard from them yet. It is getting late. I thought they'd be back by now."
Adam raised his ring to his lips and activated it. "Brennan?" After a few moments he tried again and still got no answer. He saw his own concern mirrored in his wife's face. "Shalimar?"
"Yes, Adam." Her voice was whispered.
"Can you meet me in the Library, please?"
"I'll be right there."
Adam took Evie's hand and guided her down the hall. They didn't have to wait long.
Shalimar opened the door and came in with a smile. "I was just putting Shawna…down…" her smile faded as she saw the look on Adam's face. "What's the matter? Isn't Dria ok?"
"Yes, Dria's recovering well. Have you heard from Brennan? They aren't back yet."
"Actually he did call a couple of hours ago. He said he was having trouble activating the access remote. Sissy thought his ring wasn't working so he called to prove it was. He said he was going to check the device to see if he got a bad one. Maybe he had to go back to Sanctuary to get another one."
"Maybe." Adam raised his ring again. "Brennan? Brennan can you hear me?"
The whir of Charles' chair made them turn. "Is everything alright?"
"Brennan's not answering his com."
"Let me try." Charles closed his eyes and lowered his head. After almost a minute he looked back up. "I can not reach any of them. They could just be too far but..."
"Jesse can track the Helix from the war room if he links to Sanctuary's systems." Adam saw Charles nod then began to walk out. "Jesse, I need you in the war room."
They all followed.
Jesse walked through the opened door; his smile turned to a questioning frown when he looked into Shalimar's eyes. He learned to read her eyes from back when they were teens living with Adam, alone. He walked right to her and gently touched her arm. "What happened?"
Adam moved a step closer. "Brennan's not answering his com. It could be nothing. Maybe interference. I want you to track the Helix."
"That's easy." He sat atki a keyboard and began as he explained. "I have a link to Sanctuary's systems set up with a series of encoded passwords. I check on it every few days to make sure it's secure. Whenever I get the chance from here I expand it. I figured that if what we saw in the future was really to happen I'd want to have a fast way to get all our stuff here and Sanctuary shut down." He hit a last key and the main monitor switched from the war room desktop design to that of Sanctuary's. "See? It's just like being home."
"Exactly how long have you been working on this?" Adam grinned as he pat the young man's back.
"Well, it actually began before the trip to the future. It started as the link I set up to talk to Kitty. It just evolved from there." He sat up straighter and tilted his head.
"What is it?" Shalimar moved to look over his shoulder.
"You wanted me to track the Helix. She's in the hangar bay at home." He heard the gasp as Shalimar moved closer. "I have visuals. There she is." Jesse pressed a key and made the large wall monitor display the same as the monitor in front of him.
"Are there any life signs in Sanctuary?" Shalimar whispered.
"Sanctuary, respond. Is anyone home?" Jesse asked.
"There is no one present in or around Sanctuary for point five miles." The computer's voice sounded all too familiar.
Jesse shrugged when all eyes were fixed in shock on him. "Evie's voice is very soothing. I thought it would be nice. I can change it if you want."
Adam looked at his wife as she blushed slightly around a shy smile. "No, Jess," he stepped closer and pat his shoulder. "Pull up the garage."
"His Mustang's gone," Shalimar voiced first.
"I've got it." Jesse keyed up a map of the city. "It's…in the parking garage at the…Crystal Lake Hotel."
"That's where we left John's car when we brought them home," Evie offered as she stepped closer to her husband, gently laying her hands on his back.
Jesse turned back and hit more keys. "I have a read on John's car. It isn't there now. It's…at the conference center. Brennan must have put the access remote on before they went to the conference."
"No," Shalimar interrupted. "He called me because he said he couldn't get the remote to activate." She turned to Adam. "I told you he said Sissy questioned his com working so he called me to prove it worked. He thought maybe he'd gotten a bad remote from home."
"No chance," Jesse shook his head. "I had every one working. I did a stock check a couple of weeks ago. Anything that wasn't working I moved out of inventory."
Adam stepped back as he began, "If it wouldn't activate…and his com was obviously working," he nodded to acknowledge the call to Shalimar, "then…"
"He would have checked the car for a GPS system first, I'm sure." Jesse turned in his chair to face the others.
Adam's eyes grew dark as his brow furrowed with his next thought. "The only other reason a working remote wouldn't activate would be if the car had…"
"a tracer." Jesse finished grimly.
"What do you mean, Jess?" Evie was afraid she wasn't keeping up.
"I installed a detection program in the remotes. We didn't want a car coming into Sanctuary that had a tracer on it. The program prevents activation in the event it detects another signal coming from the car."
"Who would want to be tracking John? He just got here." Shalimar's nerves were beginning to show.
"I don't know, but Brennan must have found it." Adam moved back to Shalimar's side.
"and disabled it." Jesse continued. "Our remote is working."
"Which means," Adam concluded, "that Brennan was aware of a threat."
"That conference was scheduled to end 3 hours ago. I believe it would be prudent to send a team to investigate." Charles moved to a console and touched a button. It began blinking and in a matter of moments the X Men began coming into the war room. Only a select few remained on the upper levels with the children, knowing that they would be made aware of the situation in time.
Cyclops was the first in. "Holding a secret meeting?"
"Not any longer," the professor obliged. "We have a potential situation."
Adam, Charles and Jesse filled in the rest with the few details they had.
"We need a team to check this out," Cyclops began. "There really isn't a lot to work with. I'll go with Logan, Jesse and Shalimar. We'll try and come up with something and report back as soon as we can."
"Start at the Crystal Lake and Brennan's car," Adam directed. "Maybe they went back there with Nicholas. Jesse you drive the Mustang to the conference center. Check John's car. If you don't find anything, get both cars back to Sanctuary and bring the Helix here. We'll go from there."
In only 5 minutes the Blackbird was in the air.
Dark…damp…so cold… Jack slowly began to come around. His head hurt. Eyes blinking to focus,…or at least trying to, he found himself in complete darkness. He slowly sat up to not further aggravate the man pounding the sledgehammer against his temples. That man was quickly forgotten when Jack touched a figure on the floor at his side. A familiar feeling of soft hair forced recognition, "Sissy." Carefully he checked her for injury running his hands gently over her body, then touched her face. He heard a noise from behind and turned with a fist ready to defend the unconscious girl. "Stay away," he warned the darkness.
"It's just me," John weakly and slowly approached. When he bumped into Jack he knelt beside him.
"Sissy's unconscious, but I think she's ok." Jack turned back to the girl. "Sissy, come on, wake up." Relief washed over him as he heard a small moan.
"Slowly," John warned.
"Uuhh, Jack? John?" She grasped the hands that were touching hers and began to sit up. Suddenly crumpling to the floor, she groaned in pain.
"Sissy, what's wrong?" Jack fell beside her and tried to lift her. He stopped when it seemed that he was causing more pain.
"Sissy, can you tell us. What is it?" John tried to touch her head but she pulled away from him as well.
All Sissy knew was that she hurt. It hurt all over. Got to get away, move away she tried to port to…anywhere…but only succeeded in causing excruciating pain. She screamed and crumpled back to the floor as she mercifully passed into darkness…again.
"Sissy!" Jack was frantic. He caught her as she fell and held her close, afraid to let her go.
John checked her again. He did the best he could and guessed that she was unconscious from the pain but he didn't know why. "Lay her down. Let her rest… Anything on Brennan?"
"No."
"Let's see if we can figure out where we are." John stood and strained to see in the darkness that imprisoned them. As he walked slowly into the unknown he could hear labored breathing from up ahead. "Jack," he whispered back. As the teen came to his side he put out a hand to stop him. "Listen."
"Doesn't sound good. Come on." Jack took a few steps then stopped suddenly throwing both arms out to his sides. "Whoa."
John stopped behind him and reached for his shoulders thinking the teen was falling. "What is it?" he whispered.
"The floor, it's on a decline." He slowly took another two steps. "And it's wet."
Sloshing movement and a groan ahead focused their attention. "Brennan?" John called cautiously.
"Stay…back," Brennan strained to be heard.
"Brennan, are you hurt?" They heard more sloshing and the clanging of a chain.
"I'm handcuffed…and chained to a chair in about…2 feet of water. Don't come any closer. I can't see what else is around me. Is everyone ok? Sissy?"
"She was in some kind of pain when she woke up," John reported.
"She screamed and passed out." Jack added.
"Feel the back of your neck. Is there a small round device at the base of your skull?"
"Yeah," Jack replied as John yelled out in pain and fell to his knees. Jack turned back and reached for him as they heard Brennan yell.
"No, powers! John, don't use your powers." He heard the panting. "It's a governor. It's made to keep new mutants from using their powers." He turned his neck back and forth. "I've got one, too."
"But Sissy's…" Jack began.
"I know, in constant pain. The governors are made to detect mutation and react when it's used. They were made for new mutants. We found out a couple of years ago that on natural mutants they never turn off. Where is she?"
"She's on the floor about 30 feet from you."
"See if you can find some lights. Be careful." He listened as they shuffled around in the darkness, each going in a different direction.
After a few minutes of searching John called out. I found a switch. Cover your eyes."
Light painfully invaded the area as they now could see their surroundings. It looked like a basement of some kind. Right beside John was a metal door. "Locked," he confirmed as he tried to open it. Aside from the chair Brennan was cuffed to, there were a few scattered benches and some empty shelving. Bare bulbs hung from fixtures scattered sparsely through the level.
"Who would want to kidnap us?" Jack voiced as he moved back to check on Sissy.
"It was my car that was being tracked. I think you were probably just taken by association."
"He's right. They obviously don't know about you and Sissy. As long as she's unconscious she won't feel the pain. The governor shouldn't affect you at all."
"Except for a killer headache," Jack informed him.
"Who ever these guys are, they're equipped and they know enough about me to neutralize me completely." Brennan pulled on the chains. "My ring is gone and they know that if I stay wet, I'll get weak and I won't be able to put up a fight."
"Will it cause any permanent damage?" John asked as he moved to the edge of the water.
"No. I'll dry out…eventually. Don't come in the water. You don't need to get wet."
John shook his head and turned back to the teens. "The floor must be too cold for her. Let's get her up on one of these benches." He pulled one over and pushed it against the wall as Jack ably stood with Sissy in his arms. After she was set down as comfortably as possible, they pulled another close to hers and Jack sat taking her hand in his.
John returned to the waters edge and moved to check for a way to get Brennan out. "If I could find something to pry the chain with, we could get you out of the water."
TBC
