A/N: Here's chapter 2! Sorry about the long wait, university went a little mental for me, but it's settled back down again – thankfully! Enjoy x
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"Bailey! BAILEY!"
The woman in question grunted and rolled over, ignoring her friend who was coming through the door, one hand holding a slice of toast. Perhaps if I just pretend to be asleep, she'll go away....
"Don't you dare go back to sleep missy!" Mandy shouted, walking fully into the bedroom and shoving the crust on the toast into her mouth. She crumpled her nose up at the dishevelled heap passing as her best friend, Bailey's head covered by the quilt and her face buried in her pillow. Mandy whipped the duvet away from her and tossed it on the floor, pulling the curtains back and tripping over Bailey's almost unpacked suitcase. "Honestly, have you not unpacked?"
"I only got here yesterday," Bailey offered, her voice muffled by her pillow, which was promptly wrenched from her grasp. "Hey! That was protecting my retinas from the sunlight!" she retorted, covering her eyes with her hands.
"Shower, you smelly git!" Mandy commanded, pulling Bailey from the sanctuary of her bed and pointing in the direction of the shower room. Bailey grunted, rubbed her eyes and stretched to her full height, stretching her shoulders and arms above her head. She then turned to see if Mandy was joking, decided she wasn't, and started staggering towards the bathroom. However, she was only halfway across the hallway before half the school it seemed ran down the corridor, chattering loudly about breakfast and lessons. Mandy rolled her eyes and made the bed before hastily unpacking Bailey's two suitcases, arranging her personal items as Bailey had had them back at her apartment until her friend stalked back across the hallway, towelling off her hair. Mandy pretended not to notice the grazes that covered her friend's pale skin. "There, don't you feel better?"
"What? I showered yesterday, you know," she replied, dragging a black smart shirt and jean-skirt out of the wardrobe, and giving Mandy an appreciative smile as she saw all her belongings arranged nicely. "Thanks, but I like my books by author, not by title." Mandy stuck her tongue out at her and plonked down on the bed
"Makes no odds, you still looked like you'd been dragged through a hedge backwards twice before being run over by a lawnmower," Mandy scolded, choosing to ignore Bailey's comment. "And anyway, if you don't like how I do it, do it yourself lazy."
"Feel the love," Bailey snapped, applying a pale pink eye-shadow with thick black mascara and a slight brush of blusher. "What are you doing here, anyway? You live in England, remember?" she said with a wince as she stood up and the skirt brushed on her knees, making a mental note to ask for some dressings for the grazes.
"No, I forgot! I just booked a plane ticket to 'wherever' and turned up here!" Bailey frowned at her friend as she heated her straighteners up. "I investigated where you were, someone told me San Fransisco, another told me New York. I went on the internet, and found this place. I got here about twelve last night, Ororo gave me a room. You're not... Angry, are you?"
Bailey stood up, a look of disgust on her face, before she launched herself on her best friend and hugged her. "This is my angry, manly hug," she laughed.
"Hey, Ladies, if you wanna do that stuff, at least have the decency to let me come watch," Logan said, leaning nonchelantly against her doorframe.
"I assume you have a reason for interrupting?" Bailey snapped, squaring up to him. He laughed and started to walk down the corridor.
"Maybe, maybe not," he replied and laughed at the expression on the two women's faces. "Look, Ororo just wants a word with Bailey, that's all," he told them. Bailey and Mandy exchanged glances, then Mandy laughed.
"Always the same with you, isn't it?" She laughed as Bailey tried to think up a retort. "She'll be right with you; I'm going to find Adam." And she was gone, with a cheeky wave over her shoulder.
"Your friend is quite..." Logan started.
"Weird? Random? Pointless? I know, but she's entertaining," Bailey said, picking up her bag and slinging it over one shoulder. Logan laughed, and pushed away from the door frame to take her down the hallway to Ororo's office, and Bailey followed him obeidiently.
It turned out that there were a lot of people who wanted to talk to Bailey; and sitting in front of Warren, Ororo, Logan and someone who was introduced to her as Kurt was the last thing Bailey wanted to be doing. They had good questions to ask, but nonetheless...
"Bailey, I know you don't want to be here, but, we need to ask you some questions about the people who abducted you," Ororo said gently, and Bailey flinched a little.
"I wasn't 'abducted', in the literal sense of the word. I allowed myself to be taken, because I wanted to know what they were up to," she said harshly, trying not to sound rude. "I knew the Manilla Corporation was only a cover for something, and I was right."
"What do you mean? A cover for what?" Logan asked, jumping in before anyone else could speak.
"They took me, and others like me, because they want to harness the Mutant-X gene. They started small, taking a few 1st and 2nd grade mutants, taking their blood, looking at their genetics. Then, they took some rats and modified their genetic material, to include the mutant gene. The rats went psychotic, most died, one escaped. It just so happened that my cat caught this rat, and when I took a closer look at it, I saw that it was deformed, it wasn't right. I tested its genetics, and it came back mutated."
I knew I lived near the lab, so I started digging. Fourteen mutants had gone missing in my area; none had been recovered, dead or alive. So, I put myself in a vulnerable situation, and was kidnapped, as planned," Bailey told them, pleased by the looks of revulsion and fear on their faces. She had seen what this lab was capable of; fear and revulsion were accurate feelings towards them.
"What happened next, Miss Watson?" Warren asked her, leaning forwards slightly to hear her better.
"At first, they were nice as pie – as long as I cooperated, they let me wander around. I even got a chemistry set to keep me occupied," she said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Then, I started not wanting to do the things they asked of me. The first time I rebelled was because they wanted me to kill another mutant. She was only a class 2, but nonetheless, I am not a murderer, and I refused." She paused, and blinked hard to try and keep tears out of her eyes. "The next thing I knew, I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a tractor, and I look worse than I felt."
"I started rebelling against everything they asked me to do, so they started restraining me to take more blood samples. That's where these come from," she said, holding her arms out to show the ligature bruising on her wrists. "When they let me go, it was only to move into a different room to be tested, so I started resisting that, too. So they dragged me along the floor, if I was lucky, though if I was unlucky they'd force me to walk."
"They had a very powerful mutant there; he was at least a class 4, and had no trouble in taking control of the other captive's minds when they played up. It was after the last time they forced me to use my powers, with the help of the other mutant, that I knew I had to escape." She took a sip of water from the glass on the table to her left, then continued in the same, detached voice. "So, I killed the evening guards, took my clothes and left the building by stealing an ID and a lab coat. I heard a commotion, headed for it, and found you guys being beaten up, and you know the rest." She stopped and wiped her eyes, suddenly aware that she'd been crying.
"I don't know if their human trials worked, but if they did... We could be in serious shit. We're talking level 4 or 5 mutants, and I heard one of the scientists talking about a level 6 project, too. Super-warriors, with mutations that are amplified versions of other peoples mutations..." Bailey shook her head. "We need to get in there and break the whole place up, because if we don't... I'm scared what will be hitting the streets in the next few months."
There was a stunned silence, that seemed louder because of the looks that were being exchanged around the room. Bailey kept her eyes on the floor, trying to pretend she was somewhere else. Anywhere else, she thought to herself, then stifled a laugh. Anywhere but in Adam's shoes right now.
"I have a question for... Miss Bailey?" Bailey herself looked up at Kurt and smiled.
"Bailey will do just fine, Kurt," she told him, and he gave her a shy smile.
"When will they be starting to human tests?" he asked, working seamlessly in his second language. She shrugged, took a sip of water, and started again.
"I honestly don't know, but I don't think it'll be too long; they'd mastered the process in primates, which are barely different from humans at a genetic level, so I think we're talking days, maybe weeks at the most." She sighed, and tried to keep positive. "I think they want to get this modification down to a fine art, then sell it to the highest bidder as a biological weapon." She had only said what they'd all been thinking, but hearing it out loud struck fear into all of them.
"This is illegal, surely? Can't we report them?" Warren asked, and then shrank back against his chair at the withering looks the others gave him.
"Who would we report them to? The police and the government couldn't care less what happens to mutants, and with the Cure bouncing around out there, most mutants are trying to stay away from official business," Logan growled, anger bubbling under the surface about the current politics in the world.
"We have to try telling someone," Warren retorted. "What about Hank McCoy? He has political influence, and he'll definitely listen."
"He will, but he wont be able to change the minds of the other politicians," Ororo told him, feeling helpless to do anything about their situation. Bailey smiled at her and opened her mouth to speak when something made the floor shake beneath them. "What the-"
"The front door," Bailey stated, standing up to go and investigate, being overtaken by Ororo and Logan before she'd even reached the doorway.
"Y'see, I told him I'd come visit," a man was saying loudly to Bobby and Kitty, who were trying to convince him that the stick he had in his hand should be put down. "Look, there's Logan, he'll tell you!" Logan was suddenly peered at by several sets of eyes and he raised an eyebrow before heading down the stairs.
"Do I know you?" he asked the man, who gave him a strange look.
"Yeah I do. I'm Remy Lebeau, dontcha remember me?"