'Captain?' the voice repeated. Sheridan grimaced;

'Delay him. I will be down there as soon as I can.' Then he turned to Zack;

'I will stall him for as long as I can -but you need to be prepared. If Earth decides in his favour I may have no choice but to hand her over.'

'And let him win?'

'Only if I have no other options… which is why I suggest you get to work finding some evidence to exonerate Miss Alexander. And Zack…' the Captain turned, half way to the door '-find it quickly.'

They found Bester in one of the conference rooms, with no sign of the agent who had alerted them to his presence. He was deep in conversation, but looked up from the comm as they entered. His eyes bored into Zack's and there was a moment when Zack felt the telepath rifling through his thoughts before he was abruptly released. Zack took a furious step forwards, not sure what he planned to do to the man, other than it would hurt.

–but found himself standing in a corridor, half holding a shaking Lyta as he withdrew the syringe from her arm.

'Well done, Mr Allan,' Bester told him quietly. 'For a mundane to trap a telepath of her calibre, well I must say I'm impressed. Of course it helped that she trusted you. Poor Lyta….Perhaps she will be ready to end this foolish rebellion now that she sees how readily you set her aside when the interests of your own kind beckon'

Zack saw red. He was moving forwards, ready to punch the smugness from that face – but was restrained by Sheridan's hand on his shoulder.

'Mr Bester. I assume you have a reason to be on my ship – besides the opportunity to perform illegal scans on my officers.'

'Ah, Captain.' Bester offered a smile that was singularly bereft of warmth. 'I was beginning to wonder if you might be avoiding me.'

'God forbid. What do you want?'

'You know that is a very interesting question. What do any of us want? I certainly wouldn't mind a luxury condo on mars, or perhaps a pleasant afternoon on the beach. But I will settle for your assistance in recovering a particularly dangerous rogue telepath.'

'Well you can't have her,' interjected Zack -'She has done nothing wrong.'

'Her, Mr Allan?' enquired Bester gently. 'I am afraid you misunderstand. I am not here for Miss Alexander – although she is by all accounts an extremely dangerous individual. The man I am tracking poses a far more immediate threat.'

Sheridan's expression darkened.

'And this extremely dangerous individual is now at loose on my station? You know for an organization that claims to police its own you certainly seem to have accumulated an impressive list of failures!'

The dark suited woman on the other end of the comm made a choked sound of fury, but Bester seemed unfazed.

'Well rogue telepaths can be troublesome, Captain. Not all of them can be lured in with false promises of protection…But never fear, I am here now, and the situation will shortly be brought under control. You see, whatever you might think of me, I have no interest in seeing the people on this station suffer.'

Lyta was sure that the brig was shrinking; either that or she was losing her mind. At first she had distracted herself by listing the side effects the sleepers had on her – the nausea had thankfully abated, but it had left in its wake a sense of disconnection which showed no signs of lessening. She was fairly sure she had not hallucinated anything; the last few hours had been so boring that strange visions might have actually been welcome... As for depression – 'I suppose anyone would be depressed in these circumstances' she told herself softly.

It was now just after eight in the morning, and other than the occasional guard she had not seen a single person. She had half thought that Zack might look in on her, which just went to show even telepaths could be blind in certain matters…either that or the sleepers had addled her more than she realised. She had not heard from Sheridan either which was actually something of a relief; she had been half expecting him to burst into the cell with a list of accusations – or perhaps the news that she dreaded above all else, that he had decided to hand her over.

Of course she would have to face him at some point; by now the news of her arrest was bound to have spread. It would not take long for Earth to begin to exert pressure. Not that it was Earth that posed the greatest threat to her now. The nearest Psicorps base was the one on Mars; it would not surprise her if a team had already set out, probably headed by Bester. If he got his hands on her she would disappear before anyone could so much as mention due process.

And there it was – the truth she had been dancing away from since they had first left her to her own devices. After all this situation could only play out in so many ways and very few of those ended well for her. Not that dwelling on it did any good – after all she could do nothing from this cell, and fear was counterproductive – but she could not seem to help it. There were only so many distractions available to her and so far every train of thought had brought her back to this.

I find fear to be an effective weapon. That was something Bester had said to her, before she had decided to switch to commercial telepathy. Lyta suppressed a shudder. There were very few memories that competed with what they had done to that man… or rather, what Bester had done, and she had witnessed.

It was not that she had felt any particular sympathy for the mundane – she knew that he would have done far worse to her. But to see telepathy wielded towards such deliberate brutality…it had shaken her to the core, and planted the first seeds of doubt about the validity of the Psicorps. Not that she would have considered going rogue, not back then…in those days the corps had been her family, and she could not have imagined trying to survive without them. Still it had served as both eye opener and reminder – some families could be frightening. Lyta had known then that no matter how scrupulously she followed the rules she would never feel entirely comfortable in the company of a Psicop.

-And something of that fear had lingered, even after the Vorlons had altered her into something barely human. It was not quite the blind horror of the shadow vessels, but rather a human terror; the fear of the hunted. It seemed that in that one respect at least she was no different from any other blip. It did not help that she could not even run…

Then there was the matter of her defence – fragile as it was…She had asked Zack to enlist Garibaldi and it had seemed a shrewd move at the time, except that hours had passed and she had seen no trace of him, not even a polite refusal. It was not necessarily a bad sign; after time was short, and he might be busy elsewhere, searching for evidence to prove her innocence, or perhaps confronting Sheridan, and fighting her corner. Lyta hoped it was something like that; as corners went hers was looking depressingly empty.

'I am looking for a Mr Everton,' Garibaldi told the patrons of the seventh bar, scrutinising the faces of those around him for the tell-tale twitch of recognition. '-A Mr Clive Everton – around average height, brown hair - sound familiar, anyone?' There were a lot of hostile faces - unsurprising really – he had arrested more than a few of them in his time. But nothing to suggest that he was any closer to his quarry than when he had first set out. So far Clive Everton had proved surprisingly elusive. He was about to move on to the next location when he saw it – a flicker of recognition. Seeing that he was singled out the man tried to retreat, but Garibaldi was expecting it, and moved to intercept him. 'Here my friend,' he announced loudly, catching hold of the other man's arm in a firm grip as he steered him to a less crowded corner. 'Let my buy you a drink.'

'Let go of me!' snapped the man, brushing a strand of greasy black hair out of his eyes. 'You don't work for security anymore – you have no right to ask me anything.'

'You know I've been hoping someone would point that out,' Garibaldi informed him with a toothsome smile. -'You see the head of security is answerable to a lot of people at Earthgov and that means having to work within a lot of tiresome regulations; like not being able to use force to obtain information. Me now – I've gone private. And that means there would be no one to stop me doing something like this…' He grabbed the man's arm and pulled it backwards at a painful angle. 'Now I ask again -what can you tell me about Clive and where I might find him?'

'Alright! Ok! Clive is in here sometimes picking up women – I don't really like the guy but he is good for drinks, especially if you get him started on the subject of those teeps. Feels very strongly about that he does - thinks the government should round them all up and exterminate them – course he might have a point…ouch what was that for? Anyway he was here last night…seemed mightily pleased with himself about something. He left with a girl with brown hair.'

Now he was getting somewhere. Garibaldi loosened his grip but maintained the hold. 'That was good – now let's see if you can follow through. The girl – what was her name. Have you seen her around here before?'

At some point in the last hour Lyta had taken to pacing the confines of her cell. There wasn't much room to move, but at this point anything was better than staring at the clock as the minutes crawled by. It was now eight hours since her arrest – eight hours of doing absolutely nothing. Even the thought of her probable fate at the hands of the corps seemed distant now, as if it awaited someone else. It was funny - she had always considered herself to be fairly self-sufficient -but perhaps it was simply that as a telepath she had never been truly alone. Even a P5 was surrounded by a background hum of thoughts and emotions – Lyta did not know her current classification but it had not left much space for isolation. Now all that was stripped away and what was left seemed lacking somehow. As if some vital part of her personality was missing and had been for some time – hollowed out by the Vorlons perhaps, to make room for their alterations. Who was she? The old Lyta would have had an answer. She was Lyta Alexander - a commercial telepath – a member of the Psicorps.

As for now… 'I am Lyta Alexander,' she said into the silence, 'and I am a rogue telepath.'

It was frightening really - how much of her identity had been discarded alongside that symbolic pair of gloves.

Now she wasn't even a telepath. Of course mundanes probably had their own strategies for coping with solitude…she would have to ask Zack…assuming she ever forgave him.

Was it really possible that after five years on this station there was not a single person willing to give up a few minutes of time to check up on her – ask how she was doing? She had been there for them – fought alongside them in the war – surely that must count for something? Apparently not.

The thought was so depressing – and probably accurate that she wanted to weep. Just a few years ago her life had seemed so promising – that Lyta had it all a good job, with prospects for advancement – a reputation – not to mention the fact that no one wanted to dissect her.

Now she was reduced to this; stripped of her telepathy and dependant on an ally who might or might not actually be on her side. It was starting to look like the Psicorps were the only people who actually wanted her around. It was a worrying wake up call. If you get out of this you are changing your life, she promised herself.

It was at that moment that she felt it – the unmistakable sensation of a scan. She spun around expecting to see the Psicops closing in, but there was no one there. The room was empty but for her – and the pressure in the back of her mind. Her heart was in her throat – boredom banished in an instant and the fear came rushing back.

She reached for her shields – stopping short when there was no internal response…of course, she thought…the sleepers… The training of her youth would prevent her from broadcasting her thoughts; but that was something any mundane could accomplish…not enough to prevent even a determined P8.

And this mind was considerably more than that…to have scanned her from out of sight would require power not to mention training; a P10 at the least, probably higher. As for her…she was on sleepers – with no more in the way of psychic defence than any other mundane.

I know you're there; she projected, defiantly. She might be blocked but she was still a telepath, and she would not make the mistake that mundanes invariably seemed to when dealing with her kind. Just because she could not hear the intruder did not mean they could not hear her. Show yourself.

Then she waited. For a heartbeat, and then another. Surely this was it; the Psicorps had decided to bypass diplomacy and take her in by force. No doubt they had measures in place for dealing with the aftermath. It was actually a bit surprising that they had not simply done so before now; it was not as though cover ups had ever posed a problem for their ilk. She supposed it must have been her powers that had kept them away. She could think of nothing else.

Still it was strange that it was taking them so long. Could it be that the sleepers were playing tricks with her imagination? She had felt so certain…

Then the room around her flickered – the empty chair taking on the image (it had to be a projection) of a man in his thirties. It was a remarkable feat, one that was beyond most telepaths, even of the highest classification. To have planted the thought from behind steel walls showed a control that was almost frightening.

'Hello Lyta,' the projection greeted. 'I am sorry that our meeting has to be this way. I have been trying to get through to you for some time, but with the Psicops on the station I have had to be careful.'