Disclaimer: It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)
Thanks: To everyone for reading, reviewing, and of course to the fabulous Mitchy. (This was longer than the other chapters, 'lovely' gets an upgrade)
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Another Telempath had died, this time before contact had even been established. Adam didn't know what her name had been, only seen the confusion reflecting still in the empty eyes he closed with a gentle hand. He refused to bring another out.
Eckhart still paced in his office, he could see the man's constant movement through the glass wall out of the corner of his eye as he sat at his workstation, blindly staring at the computer screen and allowing his mind to process the information it had been given.
There were three distinct forms of virus. The first 'zero' infection was non-deadly and sentient; he had begun to mentally refer to it as 'Bob' in honour of Marcus. The second was a variation of 'Bob', possibly semi-sentient, airborne and wreaking the majority of the havoc; he labelled it Junior. The third strain was a variation of Junior, deadly and contained to a single body or the form of a macro-virus; no name had yet been assigned to that particular horror.
He had tried to think, he had tried to research, and now he let his mind clear to wait for the spark of inspiration.
Unfortunately, that allowed the distractions in. Fleeting flashes of worst scenarios and possible futures, globally and finally on a more personal scale. Were they still alive? What would he find when he returned home? Would he close their eyes as he closed Marcus'?
There was wetness on his cheek and he swept it away in frustration. This was not the time to give in to sleep deprivation and fear, this was the time to be the 'vaunted genius' Eckhart had mockingly proclaimed him to be.
The sensation of something scratching at his mind appeared, something hovering and waiting to be realised. It was like with the generator; there, waiting, but a small piece of the puzzle was missing. Well, he didn't have time for that piece to make itself known, not anymore. He forced himself into concentration mode again, shutting the thoughts of his team from his mind.
It came almost immediately. When Emma had tried to read Brennan's emotions, she had claimed it was like another being was in there with him, fighting. And there were the scratches on the wall he had seen by Brennan's door, he had thought they were made by Shalimar, but …
He stood fast and turned to the ape currently assigned to him. "I have to get to Sanctuary, NOW." The man jumped and reflexively looked up to the window that Eckhart was peering through with detached interest. A moment later the man's voice came over the loud hailer.
"May I ask why?"
"The third virus – the one capable of existing outside the host body. I know where it is. Brennan must have bought it into Sanctuary, and it's been counter-acting the macro-virus in him, maybe in all of them, somehow. They should have died almost instantly with the exposure they had, and they didn't. I have to find out how. Ah, the hell with this, get me back there and we have a chance."
Slowly, far too slowly for Adam's agitated nerves, Eckhart nodded. "Very well, but you are taking a small guard with you." The man smirked "For your own protection, of course."
"I don't care if you're sending the entire goon squad and their cheerleaders with me Eckhart, just do it."
-o-
Brennan licked his dry lips quickly as he tried to stay between the force filing into the room and the table holding the still form of Emma. "What big guns you have, Grandma."
"You're mixing your fairy tales but, if it makes you feel better, 'All the better to shoot you with, my dear'". Jude took a long look around the room, seeing the ghostly form of the man who attempted to strangle her, the woman on the table and the pathetically swaying elemental. "Things do not look good for our heroes."
"Yeah, well, we're lulling you into a false sense of security." Jesse's voice was reed thin and barely above a whisper, but held the bravado that had been lacking from it earlier.
"Uh huuuuh, very convincing, have to say. I'd clap but, hey, big gun." By way of emphasis, she waved the 9mm towards Brennan. "Over by the table."
As the elemental acquiesced, she spoke to the rest of the men without looking away from her target. "Clean house boys, get it all."
The Task Force moved forward to begin ripping out the hard drives and ransacking the filing cabinets, but froze as the air around Brennan turned a crackling white-blue. "Don't think so." When the woman's finger tightened on the trigger he simply smiled; it couldn't have been a pleasant one, judging by the way she flinched. "You aren't going to shoot me. Wanna know why? Because, chances are, everything around me will go boom in a Fourth of July come early kinda way. Sounds like a fun way to go to me ... Want to try?"
"Then we're back to the cyanide option, Brennan." Jude attempted not to look too pleased by the prospect. She didn't want to kill them, not in cold blood at least. That ran a little too close to the line, even for her. Resistance, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. She could justify that.
"Well, see, I'll just blow everything in here up anyway. How fast can you run? Good legs, maybe you'd even make it to the end of the corridor before the oxygen ran out and the fire caught you." Brennan decided to go for broke, with nothing left to lose, and grinned wider. "Well, pretty good legs, anyway. Desk job not giving you time to work out?"
Jude wondered briefly whether comments about her physique counted as resistance. A small, sickly, conscience informed her it didn't. She settled for keeping retorts verbal, for now. Besides, it didn't look like the man would be able to keep conscious much longer anyway.
"Oh, I work out, I just don't feel like replacing my mind with muscle." She cast a deliberate look up and down his body, but didn't take the comment any further.
Jesse gradually allowed himself to fade from sight as Brennan provided the distraction; no one appeared to notice his disappearance. With a faint hope he would be able to fade back in again, he moved behind the still hesitant goon squad and made the effort to re-materialise. Every cell in his body protested and the edges of his vision began to grey out before he once more reappeared.
Now it was time to put his plan into effect, and hope like hell Emma's calm voice resounding inside his head was right.
"Sic 'em, Shal"
As the men before him rapidly spun to face him, he forced his molecules into action one more time. With a ripping sensation of flying apart he saw the aborted leap Shalimar had taken at his back resumed without pause into the faces of the stunned invaders, from within his own body - not something he intended to witness anytime again soon, but it was worth it just for their expressions. At least, it was worth it until he couldn't find the energy to pull himself back together again. With a whispered "ah, hell" he fell sideways.
Freedom! Deep at her core, where she fought so hard to be just a little more than a beast, Shalimar watched in horror as her teeth ripped into her first target's neck and her powerful jaws snapped the spine in two with barely an effort, before tearing the man's throat out.
The blood ran hot and heady into her muzzle, but she didn't stay to claim her kill, leaping instead to the next man and bringing him down just as she had the first. A loud sound rang out and her leg flared in sudden pain, but she ignored it as she took the arm of the third man in her teeth and pulled.
His scream welled a fierce kind of joy in her, something no animal could have. The joy was hers alone and, in the tiny confines of her mind, Shalimar wept.
Jude had time for one shot into the red mist surrounding the great cat before Brennan moved with a speed that made her eyes water to stand in front of the gun. She lowered it, numb now at seeing the decimation of her forces. Her mouth was dry and she swallowed thickly before speaking. "Aren't you worried she'll come after you next?"
"Who, Shal?" Brennan pretended to consider as he looked over his shoulder with a grim smile he hoped hid the sickness at its edges. He didn't have a tendency towards prayer, God hadn't done him any favours he was aware of. But now was a good a time to start as any, he prayed she wouldn't remember. If she did, she wouldn't get over this. She'd pretend, and she'd be tough, and she'd laugh and joke again, but she wouldn't be Shalimar anymore, not after this.
He made no attempt to put the levity back in his tone, or keep the sadness from his eyes, as he looked back "What's to be worried about?"
Six men down and the cat prowled around its kills, nuzzling at them to ensure they were indeed dead. Brennan could see, literally, the outline of Jesse lying on the floor beyond, but every move he made in his direction caused orange eyes to be turned on him in warning.
"Let me shoot her."
"Hmm, let me think, no."
"Godammit Mulwray, we don't have a choice." Jude waved her gun towards him, and then dropped it fast as a small arc of lightning melted it in her hand, too hot and too fast to even to ignite the bullets.
"Nope, now we don't have a choice. You shot her once, you aren't doing it again."
Sucking on her burned fingers Jude subsided into a resentful silence. Looked like they would just have to hang around and wait for electro-boy to explode. Joy. At least they could do it in silence, but that hope was dashed as he spoke in the irritatingly crackly voice again.
"Jess' man, wake up or you're gonna to fade." There was no response but Shalimar's hackles rising in warning. He ignored the threat and yelled. "Jesse!"
One ear of the big cat twitched as it turned and limped over to Jesse, licking the back of what there was of his neck once. Brennan's rush forward aborted under a warning glare, and it returned to trying to revive it's fallen … what? The cat mind didn't know. But something was prodding within now, directing it's actions patiently and slowly, and soothing the barely recognisable human mind buried within it.
Emma was starting to forget what her own body felt like.
-o-
The huge rent in the hangar doors at least made landing the helicopter easier, and Adam was out of it and running the second the aircraft touched down. The Unit weren't far behind, but he had no concern for them. His efforts redoubled as he heard the sound of a gunshot ringing through the base, and the beam of his torchlight bobbed ahead to let him avoid the debris.
His palm was slick around the tranq gun the torch was attached to, finger on the trigger slipping alarmingly, but there was no time to stop and make ready. He turned the corner into the med lab without pausing and snapped the rifle up to his shoulder.
One second of frozen time to assess the carnage of the tableau before him, and he took his shot. The great cat's body jerked once as its muzzle turned almost curiously towards the dart now imbedded in the thick muscles of its neck, and then fell sideway to fold unconscious on the floor.
Then he started to breathe again.
Jude pursed her lips as she crossed her arms loosely and took a more relaxed stance. "Oh, so he gets to shoot her?"
She was ignored as both men crossed over, Adam to attempt to take Jesse's pulse and Brennan to get a measure of Shalimar's leg wound. The scientist spoke above the sound of the Unit jogging in to take defensive positions around the room.
"There seems to be something like a pulse, he's alive I think." Adam brought his head up to lock eyes with Brennan, trying to ignore the worrying way the other man's sparked with unnatural energy. "We have to move fast, somewhere here is a macro-virus you carried in. It may hold the key to finding an antibody for what's killing you all, if we can find it."
Across the room, Jude stood straighter and couldn't think why. When her mouth opened and her throat began to work towards forming words, she automatically fought back. A light pressure began in her mind, not painful but persistent. Scrabbling mentally for freedom, she was lost under the onslaught.
"The macro-virus is in Shalimar. It started in Brennan, jumped to Jesse and then into Shal when she merged into him. I've been trying to communicate with it, but there isn't a real mind to hold onto. I'm sorry, Adam."
The two men watched as Jude's normally carefully fixed expression took on the softer lines of Emma's, the Task Unit shuffled back warily, unsure now where they should be targeting their rifles. The leader of the squad spoke up uncertainly, voice tinny and bled of its emotion though the radio in his helmet.
"Status ma'am?"
Jude's head swung to face him, and she smiled. "Ms Riley is fine, I'm only borrowing her. Just … go to sleep for a little while."
One by one rifles dropped from suddenly loose grips as their owners sagged to the ground unconscious.
Emma stretched the hands of the unfamiliar body before her, savouring the sensation of being within a healthy vessel, no longer bound into controlling Shalimar's killer instinct. She could feel Jude inside her, fighting her presence far more than either of the others had, but perhaps this mind had more to hide. Diligently she avoided looking at the memories that weren't her own to review. Even if they did hold anything that could help, it was enough she had stolen the woman's being from her. Guilt attempted to surface briefly, but there was more at stake here than Jude's fury at a corporeal hijacking.
Adam began to manhandle the dead weight of the big cat onto the table that had been Jesse's. For the moment he had to ignore everything else, the sense that time was running out pressed down on him with a greater weight and he still didn't know if his hypothesis even had a snowballs chance in Hades.
"We need to force it out of Shalimar and into the open." He stood back and cast his eye around desperately for anything that might accomplish that as he continued speaking, mostly to himself. "Have to make the environment unfriendly, but I don't know what lengths we'd have to go to for that." Even as he said it, he knew exactly the length it was most likely they would have to go to.
All the drugs they had relied on the computer to regulate them, and in any case were designed for human chemistry. Brennan was staring at him as he forced himself to look up at him, already starting to shake his head, knowing what was going to be asked.
"We don't have a choice Brennan. Look at Jesse, look at him, he's almost gone. Emma's barely breathing and there is no way you're going to survive another pulse."
Brennan dragged his gaze from Adam to Jesse, then Emma, before looking back once more. "You're telling me to kill her!"
"And then you bring her back. Electricity starts the heart as well as stops it; you know that better than anyone. It will work Brennan." Adam took a step closer to the younger man, trying to modulate his tone into a reassuring calm he wasn't feeling as he repeated himself. "We don't have a choice. It will work."
The faintest uncertain nod was all he waited for before looking to Emma. "Once it's out, we need to contain it. Are you able to do that?"
With a faint smile Emma's voice spoke in a strange harmonic of low voices. "We will ensure she is able."
Adam gave a tight smile as Junior joined the battle. "Okay. Brennan, do it."
For a moment he thought the man would refuse once more, there was no movement, but then he saw the expression of intense concentration. A blue nimbus began to surround Shalimar, widening and darkening so slowly he found himself holding his breath in anticipation.
Then the first convulsion came from the animal as it was jolted by enough, just enough, electricity to stop the heart. As if she too were a Molecular the fur on her side shimmered and dispersed to let a glistening, misshapen, sphere explode from within the body. It dived towards Adam, close enough he could smell it's sickly-sweet rotting odour before it was abruptly held squirming in mid-air.
"Start her heart!"
But the other two were ahead of him; the electricity was jolting through the great cat and Emma was diverting a portion of her attention to monitor the mental life signs.
"No brain activity, hit her again."
Another jolt of electricity came, but this one crackled and hissed unevenly, not giving the precision or strength needed. Brennan let his legs give out and hit the ground hard as he tried to maintain an element of control. "I can't do it, the charge is building too much."
Emma dropped a hand on his shoulder, using the contact to feed another portion of herself into Brennan's psyche, and fighting her way to the core of his ability. He was trying to play the little Dutch boy, but damming an ocean not a river. A few rivulets of his power escaped into Shalimar, but there was no way he could continue to hold back the sea and still focus what he allowed through. Without thinking further she threw her mind entirely into his, abandoning Jude but reinforcing the fragile wall between Shalimar and evaporation.
One more shot pulsed out, the last she knew even their combined strength was capable of. It was strong and targeted and, finally, after a delay far too long for her fear, the great cat's sides draw in as it heaved in a lungful of air, and then another.
Adam saw Jude stagger to one side like a marionette released of its strings. The lid of the glass beaker slammed down on the freed organism as it began to dart forward once more.
"Got you!"
Brennan didn't even try and interfere as Emma forced his body back to its feet and over to Jesse. The younger man was barely more than a collection of dots, a Pointillist painting in 3D, but his closed eyes still flickered in REM and the slight habitual smile was still in place.
"Hey man."
There didn't seem to be much more to say, he doubted Jesse would even hear him anyway. Talking to coma patients was one thing, but they probably hadn't devised theories about the correct care of someone slowly coming apart at an atomic level. Something he pretty much considered good, all things taken into account.
Somewhere in the background he could hear Adam shouting excitedly and Jude yelling back. It sounded like they were doing something interesting, but he couldn't quite find the energy to look around anymore. Summoning a coughed out and mostly silent laugh at the irony, he decided to close his eyes, just for a moment.
He was out before he hit the ground beside Jesse, missing Emma's gentle departure back to her own body, for better or for worse, at last.
-o-
Shalimar stretched as she awoke, enjoying the tactile sensation of the clean sheets against her skin. A tingling in her leg on the edge of sharp pain gave her pause before she moved once more, testing this time. Yes, there was definitely something wrong.
"Hey, hey, don't move so much. You'll bust stitches and then Emma will get cranky. Remember what happened last time she got cranky? I slept with a stuffed bear for a week!"
Jesse's cheerful tone above her sidelined the worry for a moment, and she opened her eyes with a grin. "I remember, but it was your own fault." Then something surfaced above the pleasant haze of the painkillers and her grin began to fade. "What happened? I don't remember … the lights went out … what …"
"Hey, pretty lady." Brennan's stride into the room was relaxed, as was his smile. A book was held loosely in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other "Welcome back to the land of the living."
Fading bruises decorated his face, a violent combination of oranges and purples that made her wince just to look at them. "You look like you had a fight with a crayon factory."
"Colouring outside the lines is a bigger crime than you'd think. How's the leg?"
She flexed it once more, ignoring Jesse's meaningful expression that she should not. "Twinges, a little. Can I get up?"
"You're kidding, right? Like I'm going to tell Emma I let you out of here. After what she did to Jesse?"
"Yeah, yeah, cranky, I get it." Shalimar let herself relax back against the pillows with a pout slightly ruined by the smile. "Is someone going to tell me what happened now?"
Jesse and Brennan regarded each other thoughtfully across the opposite sides of the bed, waging a non-vocal war of expressive stares and blinking over who was going to explain this. Jesse was losing the battle at roughly the same time as Shalimar was losing her patience, when a thought occurred.
"No! Uh, I mean, I'll get Adam."
He left fast at a run as Brennan began to back towards the door with an apologetic smile. "There's all these big words involved, and he'll want to know you're awake anyhow."
Before she could object, he too was gone. Heading towards, if she was any judge, the sound of heavy construction. Strange. With a sigh, she began to pick at the sheets, waiting for Adam. Him, she was going to hold for an explanation, even if she had to … well, she'd think of something threatening by the time he arrived.
-o-
Jude leant back in her chair and ran her eyes over her report one more time. Mr. Eckhart wasn't going to like this. At least the contents wouldn't come as a nasty shock, he had the tendency to know what was going on at all times anyway. Maybe the reports were just his way of doing his little part to ensure the depletion of the Rainforest.
Still, there had to be better way to say 'Miserable failure'. 'Objective incomplete' might work. Or maybe 'It was all that guy in Accountings fault.' Then of course there was the missing Task Force to explain away, as if she could. Absently she called over to her current assistant. "How do you spell Sanctuary?"
The woman looked up in slight confusion. "S-A-N-C-T-U-A-R-Y".
"So not E-I-G-H-T-H-C-I-R-C-L-E-O-F-H-E-L-L?"
There was a short silence as this was worked out, then the voice more timidly replied. "Uhm, no?"
"Just checking." She deleted the line and sighed as she started the document printing. "If I'm not back in three hours, expect a promotion. I'd wear running shoes for the occasion, personally."
Her assistant gave no reply; Jude's estimation of the young woman increased a notch. It was an important workplace skill to know exactly when to stay quiet.
Then she stood, enclosed the report in a folder, squared her shoulders and went to meet her maker. Boss. Whatever.
For once Eckhart read the entire report, having taken it from her with an insincere smile of interest that did little to help her anxiety levels. Once the last page had turned, he looked up with an expression of polite enquiry.
"All data on the whereabouts of Sanctuary 'missing'?"
"Yes, sir."
"An entire Task Force 'misplaced'?"
"Yes, sir."
"All research on the virus 'mislaid'."
"Yes, sir."
"The original sample 'vanished' … did you perchance use a thesaurus and look up 'lost' a great deal for this report?"
"Yes, sir."
"I see. No records of how Adam managed to create the antibody?"
"No, sir."
"Tell me, Ms Riley, did we manage to achieve any of our objectives at all?"
"We're still alive, sir."
"Yes, well, let's not be too hasty on that particular evaluation, shall we?"
"Sir."
"Do you hate them, Ms Riley?"
Jude paused in her mechanical answers and frowned with slight confusion as she replied. "Sir?"
His tone was patient, even a little amused. That wasn't a sign she really wanted to consider. "They took your memory and they took the data that might have been enough to keep you out of stasis. Do you hate them?"
"No, sir."
That appeared to peek his interest as he leant forward, hands clasped before him. "And why not?"
"Because hate won't help me hurt them."
"I see." He sat back once more, before finally standing, pacing towards her. "And how would you hurt them?"
"Other than fatally, I couldn't say sir. Research would be required, time needed to plan."
They stared at each other a moment. Jude waited to be told she would have nothing but time to plan, but met his gaze without blinking and without fear.
"Well, perhaps you had better begin, then. I expect a report in the next two weeks on what you recall of their strategic vulnerabilities, and how best to exploit them. You may go."
Jude finally allowed herself to smile as she left the room and walked the long corridor, relaxing the mental suggestion over Eckhart by small enough degrees he would eventually believe the decision to allow her to live had been his.
The records had been tricky to 'lose' and it had been even harder to convince everyone she had lost her memory along with the others. But the hardest part had been getting used to the odd stares she received for muttering to herself.
"Bob, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
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Notes: Hoo-yah, we're done! Reviews are not only welcomed, but cared for lovingly and not given away at Christmas. Hope people enjoyed reading this, I enjoyed writing it, even if it did take nearly an entire year. :: hangs head :: Sorry about that, again.
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)
Thanks: To everyone for reading, reviewing, and of course to the fabulous Mitchy. (This was longer than the other chapters, 'lovely' gets an upgrade)
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Another Telempath had died, this time before contact had even been established. Adam didn't know what her name had been, only seen the confusion reflecting still in the empty eyes he closed with a gentle hand. He refused to bring another out.
Eckhart still paced in his office, he could see the man's constant movement through the glass wall out of the corner of his eye as he sat at his workstation, blindly staring at the computer screen and allowing his mind to process the information it had been given.
There were three distinct forms of virus. The first 'zero' infection was non-deadly and sentient; he had begun to mentally refer to it as 'Bob' in honour of Marcus. The second was a variation of 'Bob', possibly semi-sentient, airborne and wreaking the majority of the havoc; he labelled it Junior. The third strain was a variation of Junior, deadly and contained to a single body or the form of a macro-virus; no name had yet been assigned to that particular horror.
He had tried to think, he had tried to research, and now he let his mind clear to wait for the spark of inspiration.
Unfortunately, that allowed the distractions in. Fleeting flashes of worst scenarios and possible futures, globally and finally on a more personal scale. Were they still alive? What would he find when he returned home? Would he close their eyes as he closed Marcus'?
There was wetness on his cheek and he swept it away in frustration. This was not the time to give in to sleep deprivation and fear, this was the time to be the 'vaunted genius' Eckhart had mockingly proclaimed him to be.
The sensation of something scratching at his mind appeared, something hovering and waiting to be realised. It was like with the generator; there, waiting, but a small piece of the puzzle was missing. Well, he didn't have time for that piece to make itself known, not anymore. He forced himself into concentration mode again, shutting the thoughts of his team from his mind.
It came almost immediately. When Emma had tried to read Brennan's emotions, she had claimed it was like another being was in there with him, fighting. And there were the scratches on the wall he had seen by Brennan's door, he had thought they were made by Shalimar, but …
He stood fast and turned to the ape currently assigned to him. "I have to get to Sanctuary, NOW." The man jumped and reflexively looked up to the window that Eckhart was peering through with detached interest. A moment later the man's voice came over the loud hailer.
"May I ask why?"
"The third virus – the one capable of existing outside the host body. I know where it is. Brennan must have bought it into Sanctuary, and it's been counter-acting the macro-virus in him, maybe in all of them, somehow. They should have died almost instantly with the exposure they had, and they didn't. I have to find out how. Ah, the hell with this, get me back there and we have a chance."
Slowly, far too slowly for Adam's agitated nerves, Eckhart nodded. "Very well, but you are taking a small guard with you." The man smirked "For your own protection, of course."
"I don't care if you're sending the entire goon squad and their cheerleaders with me Eckhart, just do it."
-o-
Brennan licked his dry lips quickly as he tried to stay between the force filing into the room and the table holding the still form of Emma. "What big guns you have, Grandma."
"You're mixing your fairy tales but, if it makes you feel better, 'All the better to shoot you with, my dear'". Jude took a long look around the room, seeing the ghostly form of the man who attempted to strangle her, the woman on the table and the pathetically swaying elemental. "Things do not look good for our heroes."
"Yeah, well, we're lulling you into a false sense of security." Jesse's voice was reed thin and barely above a whisper, but held the bravado that had been lacking from it earlier.
"Uh huuuuh, very convincing, have to say. I'd clap but, hey, big gun." By way of emphasis, she waved the 9mm towards Brennan. "Over by the table."
As the elemental acquiesced, she spoke to the rest of the men without looking away from her target. "Clean house boys, get it all."
The Task Force moved forward to begin ripping out the hard drives and ransacking the filing cabinets, but froze as the air around Brennan turned a crackling white-blue. "Don't think so." When the woman's finger tightened on the trigger he simply smiled; it couldn't have been a pleasant one, judging by the way she flinched. "You aren't going to shoot me. Wanna know why? Because, chances are, everything around me will go boom in a Fourth of July come early kinda way. Sounds like a fun way to go to me ... Want to try?"
"Then we're back to the cyanide option, Brennan." Jude attempted not to look too pleased by the prospect. She didn't want to kill them, not in cold blood at least. That ran a little too close to the line, even for her. Resistance, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. She could justify that.
"Well, see, I'll just blow everything in here up anyway. How fast can you run? Good legs, maybe you'd even make it to the end of the corridor before the oxygen ran out and the fire caught you." Brennan decided to go for broke, with nothing left to lose, and grinned wider. "Well, pretty good legs, anyway. Desk job not giving you time to work out?"
Jude wondered briefly whether comments about her physique counted as resistance. A small, sickly, conscience informed her it didn't. She settled for keeping retorts verbal, for now. Besides, it didn't look like the man would be able to keep conscious much longer anyway.
"Oh, I work out, I just don't feel like replacing my mind with muscle." She cast a deliberate look up and down his body, but didn't take the comment any further.
Jesse gradually allowed himself to fade from sight as Brennan provided the distraction; no one appeared to notice his disappearance. With a faint hope he would be able to fade back in again, he moved behind the still hesitant goon squad and made the effort to re-materialise. Every cell in his body protested and the edges of his vision began to grey out before he once more reappeared.
Now it was time to put his plan into effect, and hope like hell Emma's calm voice resounding inside his head was right.
"Sic 'em, Shal"
As the men before him rapidly spun to face him, he forced his molecules into action one more time. With a ripping sensation of flying apart he saw the aborted leap Shalimar had taken at his back resumed without pause into the faces of the stunned invaders, from within his own body - not something he intended to witness anytime again soon, but it was worth it just for their expressions. At least, it was worth it until he couldn't find the energy to pull himself back together again. With a whispered "ah, hell" he fell sideways.
Freedom! Deep at her core, where she fought so hard to be just a little more than a beast, Shalimar watched in horror as her teeth ripped into her first target's neck and her powerful jaws snapped the spine in two with barely an effort, before tearing the man's throat out.
The blood ran hot and heady into her muzzle, but she didn't stay to claim her kill, leaping instead to the next man and bringing him down just as she had the first. A loud sound rang out and her leg flared in sudden pain, but she ignored it as she took the arm of the third man in her teeth and pulled.
His scream welled a fierce kind of joy in her, something no animal could have. The joy was hers alone and, in the tiny confines of her mind, Shalimar wept.
Jude had time for one shot into the red mist surrounding the great cat before Brennan moved with a speed that made her eyes water to stand in front of the gun. She lowered it, numb now at seeing the decimation of her forces. Her mouth was dry and she swallowed thickly before speaking. "Aren't you worried she'll come after you next?"
"Who, Shal?" Brennan pretended to consider as he looked over his shoulder with a grim smile he hoped hid the sickness at its edges. He didn't have a tendency towards prayer, God hadn't done him any favours he was aware of. But now was a good a time to start as any, he prayed she wouldn't remember. If she did, she wouldn't get over this. She'd pretend, and she'd be tough, and she'd laugh and joke again, but she wouldn't be Shalimar anymore, not after this.
He made no attempt to put the levity back in his tone, or keep the sadness from his eyes, as he looked back "What's to be worried about?"
Six men down and the cat prowled around its kills, nuzzling at them to ensure they were indeed dead. Brennan could see, literally, the outline of Jesse lying on the floor beyond, but every move he made in his direction caused orange eyes to be turned on him in warning.
"Let me shoot her."
"Hmm, let me think, no."
"Godammit Mulwray, we don't have a choice." Jude waved her gun towards him, and then dropped it fast as a small arc of lightning melted it in her hand, too hot and too fast to even to ignite the bullets.
"Nope, now we don't have a choice. You shot her once, you aren't doing it again."
Sucking on her burned fingers Jude subsided into a resentful silence. Looked like they would just have to hang around and wait for electro-boy to explode. Joy. At least they could do it in silence, but that hope was dashed as he spoke in the irritatingly crackly voice again.
"Jess' man, wake up or you're gonna to fade." There was no response but Shalimar's hackles rising in warning. He ignored the threat and yelled. "Jesse!"
One ear of the big cat twitched as it turned and limped over to Jesse, licking the back of what there was of his neck once. Brennan's rush forward aborted under a warning glare, and it returned to trying to revive it's fallen … what? The cat mind didn't know. But something was prodding within now, directing it's actions patiently and slowly, and soothing the barely recognisable human mind buried within it.
Emma was starting to forget what her own body felt like.
-o-
The huge rent in the hangar doors at least made landing the helicopter easier, and Adam was out of it and running the second the aircraft touched down. The Unit weren't far behind, but he had no concern for them. His efforts redoubled as he heard the sound of a gunshot ringing through the base, and the beam of his torchlight bobbed ahead to let him avoid the debris.
His palm was slick around the tranq gun the torch was attached to, finger on the trigger slipping alarmingly, but there was no time to stop and make ready. He turned the corner into the med lab without pausing and snapped the rifle up to his shoulder.
One second of frozen time to assess the carnage of the tableau before him, and he took his shot. The great cat's body jerked once as its muzzle turned almost curiously towards the dart now imbedded in the thick muscles of its neck, and then fell sideway to fold unconscious on the floor.
Then he started to breathe again.
Jude pursed her lips as she crossed her arms loosely and took a more relaxed stance. "Oh, so he gets to shoot her?"
She was ignored as both men crossed over, Adam to attempt to take Jesse's pulse and Brennan to get a measure of Shalimar's leg wound. The scientist spoke above the sound of the Unit jogging in to take defensive positions around the room.
"There seems to be something like a pulse, he's alive I think." Adam brought his head up to lock eyes with Brennan, trying to ignore the worrying way the other man's sparked with unnatural energy. "We have to move fast, somewhere here is a macro-virus you carried in. It may hold the key to finding an antibody for what's killing you all, if we can find it."
Across the room, Jude stood straighter and couldn't think why. When her mouth opened and her throat began to work towards forming words, she automatically fought back. A light pressure began in her mind, not painful but persistent. Scrabbling mentally for freedom, she was lost under the onslaught.
"The macro-virus is in Shalimar. It started in Brennan, jumped to Jesse and then into Shal when she merged into him. I've been trying to communicate with it, but there isn't a real mind to hold onto. I'm sorry, Adam."
The two men watched as Jude's normally carefully fixed expression took on the softer lines of Emma's, the Task Unit shuffled back warily, unsure now where they should be targeting their rifles. The leader of the squad spoke up uncertainly, voice tinny and bled of its emotion though the radio in his helmet.
"Status ma'am?"
Jude's head swung to face him, and she smiled. "Ms Riley is fine, I'm only borrowing her. Just … go to sleep for a little while."
One by one rifles dropped from suddenly loose grips as their owners sagged to the ground unconscious.
Emma stretched the hands of the unfamiliar body before her, savouring the sensation of being within a healthy vessel, no longer bound into controlling Shalimar's killer instinct. She could feel Jude inside her, fighting her presence far more than either of the others had, but perhaps this mind had more to hide. Diligently she avoided looking at the memories that weren't her own to review. Even if they did hold anything that could help, it was enough she had stolen the woman's being from her. Guilt attempted to surface briefly, but there was more at stake here than Jude's fury at a corporeal hijacking.
Adam began to manhandle the dead weight of the big cat onto the table that had been Jesse's. For the moment he had to ignore everything else, the sense that time was running out pressed down on him with a greater weight and he still didn't know if his hypothesis even had a snowballs chance in Hades.
"We need to force it out of Shalimar and into the open." He stood back and cast his eye around desperately for anything that might accomplish that as he continued speaking, mostly to himself. "Have to make the environment unfriendly, but I don't know what lengths we'd have to go to for that." Even as he said it, he knew exactly the length it was most likely they would have to go to.
All the drugs they had relied on the computer to regulate them, and in any case were designed for human chemistry. Brennan was staring at him as he forced himself to look up at him, already starting to shake his head, knowing what was going to be asked.
"We don't have a choice Brennan. Look at Jesse, look at him, he's almost gone. Emma's barely breathing and there is no way you're going to survive another pulse."
Brennan dragged his gaze from Adam to Jesse, then Emma, before looking back once more. "You're telling me to kill her!"
"And then you bring her back. Electricity starts the heart as well as stops it; you know that better than anyone. It will work Brennan." Adam took a step closer to the younger man, trying to modulate his tone into a reassuring calm he wasn't feeling as he repeated himself. "We don't have a choice. It will work."
The faintest uncertain nod was all he waited for before looking to Emma. "Once it's out, we need to contain it. Are you able to do that?"
With a faint smile Emma's voice spoke in a strange harmonic of low voices. "We will ensure she is able."
Adam gave a tight smile as Junior joined the battle. "Okay. Brennan, do it."
For a moment he thought the man would refuse once more, there was no movement, but then he saw the expression of intense concentration. A blue nimbus began to surround Shalimar, widening and darkening so slowly he found himself holding his breath in anticipation.
Then the first convulsion came from the animal as it was jolted by enough, just enough, electricity to stop the heart. As if she too were a Molecular the fur on her side shimmered and dispersed to let a glistening, misshapen, sphere explode from within the body. It dived towards Adam, close enough he could smell it's sickly-sweet rotting odour before it was abruptly held squirming in mid-air.
"Start her heart!"
But the other two were ahead of him; the electricity was jolting through the great cat and Emma was diverting a portion of her attention to monitor the mental life signs.
"No brain activity, hit her again."
Another jolt of electricity came, but this one crackled and hissed unevenly, not giving the precision or strength needed. Brennan let his legs give out and hit the ground hard as he tried to maintain an element of control. "I can't do it, the charge is building too much."
Emma dropped a hand on his shoulder, using the contact to feed another portion of herself into Brennan's psyche, and fighting her way to the core of his ability. He was trying to play the little Dutch boy, but damming an ocean not a river. A few rivulets of his power escaped into Shalimar, but there was no way he could continue to hold back the sea and still focus what he allowed through. Without thinking further she threw her mind entirely into his, abandoning Jude but reinforcing the fragile wall between Shalimar and evaporation.
One more shot pulsed out, the last she knew even their combined strength was capable of. It was strong and targeted and, finally, after a delay far too long for her fear, the great cat's sides draw in as it heaved in a lungful of air, and then another.
Adam saw Jude stagger to one side like a marionette released of its strings. The lid of the glass beaker slammed down on the freed organism as it began to dart forward once more.
"Got you!"
Brennan didn't even try and interfere as Emma forced his body back to its feet and over to Jesse. The younger man was barely more than a collection of dots, a Pointillist painting in 3D, but his closed eyes still flickered in REM and the slight habitual smile was still in place.
"Hey man."
There didn't seem to be much more to say, he doubted Jesse would even hear him anyway. Talking to coma patients was one thing, but they probably hadn't devised theories about the correct care of someone slowly coming apart at an atomic level. Something he pretty much considered good, all things taken into account.
Somewhere in the background he could hear Adam shouting excitedly and Jude yelling back. It sounded like they were doing something interesting, but he couldn't quite find the energy to look around anymore. Summoning a coughed out and mostly silent laugh at the irony, he decided to close his eyes, just for a moment.
He was out before he hit the ground beside Jesse, missing Emma's gentle departure back to her own body, for better or for worse, at last.
-o-
Shalimar stretched as she awoke, enjoying the tactile sensation of the clean sheets against her skin. A tingling in her leg on the edge of sharp pain gave her pause before she moved once more, testing this time. Yes, there was definitely something wrong.
"Hey, hey, don't move so much. You'll bust stitches and then Emma will get cranky. Remember what happened last time she got cranky? I slept with a stuffed bear for a week!"
Jesse's cheerful tone above her sidelined the worry for a moment, and she opened her eyes with a grin. "I remember, but it was your own fault." Then something surfaced above the pleasant haze of the painkillers and her grin began to fade. "What happened? I don't remember … the lights went out … what …"
"Hey, pretty lady." Brennan's stride into the room was relaxed, as was his smile. A book was held loosely in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other "Welcome back to the land of the living."
Fading bruises decorated his face, a violent combination of oranges and purples that made her wince just to look at them. "You look like you had a fight with a crayon factory."
"Colouring outside the lines is a bigger crime than you'd think. How's the leg?"
She flexed it once more, ignoring Jesse's meaningful expression that she should not. "Twinges, a little. Can I get up?"
"You're kidding, right? Like I'm going to tell Emma I let you out of here. After what she did to Jesse?"
"Yeah, yeah, cranky, I get it." Shalimar let herself relax back against the pillows with a pout slightly ruined by the smile. "Is someone going to tell me what happened now?"
Jesse and Brennan regarded each other thoughtfully across the opposite sides of the bed, waging a non-vocal war of expressive stares and blinking over who was going to explain this. Jesse was losing the battle at roughly the same time as Shalimar was losing her patience, when a thought occurred.
"No! Uh, I mean, I'll get Adam."
He left fast at a run as Brennan began to back towards the door with an apologetic smile. "There's all these big words involved, and he'll want to know you're awake anyhow."
Before she could object, he too was gone. Heading towards, if she was any judge, the sound of heavy construction. Strange. With a sigh, she began to pick at the sheets, waiting for Adam. Him, she was going to hold for an explanation, even if she had to … well, she'd think of something threatening by the time he arrived.
-o-
Jude leant back in her chair and ran her eyes over her report one more time. Mr. Eckhart wasn't going to like this. At least the contents wouldn't come as a nasty shock, he had the tendency to know what was going on at all times anyway. Maybe the reports were just his way of doing his little part to ensure the depletion of the Rainforest.
Still, there had to be better way to say 'Miserable failure'. 'Objective incomplete' might work. Or maybe 'It was all that guy in Accountings fault.' Then of course there was the missing Task Force to explain away, as if she could. Absently she called over to her current assistant. "How do you spell Sanctuary?"
The woman looked up in slight confusion. "S-A-N-C-T-U-A-R-Y".
"So not E-I-G-H-T-H-C-I-R-C-L-E-O-F-H-E-L-L?"
There was a short silence as this was worked out, then the voice more timidly replied. "Uhm, no?"
"Just checking." She deleted the line and sighed as she started the document printing. "If I'm not back in three hours, expect a promotion. I'd wear running shoes for the occasion, personally."
Her assistant gave no reply; Jude's estimation of the young woman increased a notch. It was an important workplace skill to know exactly when to stay quiet.
Then she stood, enclosed the report in a folder, squared her shoulders and went to meet her maker. Boss. Whatever.
For once Eckhart read the entire report, having taken it from her with an insincere smile of interest that did little to help her anxiety levels. Once the last page had turned, he looked up with an expression of polite enquiry.
"All data on the whereabouts of Sanctuary 'missing'?"
"Yes, sir."
"An entire Task Force 'misplaced'?"
"Yes, sir."
"All research on the virus 'mislaid'."
"Yes, sir."
"The original sample 'vanished' … did you perchance use a thesaurus and look up 'lost' a great deal for this report?"
"Yes, sir."
"I see. No records of how Adam managed to create the antibody?"
"No, sir."
"Tell me, Ms Riley, did we manage to achieve any of our objectives at all?"
"We're still alive, sir."
"Yes, well, let's not be too hasty on that particular evaluation, shall we?"
"Sir."
"Do you hate them, Ms Riley?"
Jude paused in her mechanical answers and frowned with slight confusion as she replied. "Sir?"
His tone was patient, even a little amused. That wasn't a sign she really wanted to consider. "They took your memory and they took the data that might have been enough to keep you out of stasis. Do you hate them?"
"No, sir."
That appeared to peek his interest as he leant forward, hands clasped before him. "And why not?"
"Because hate won't help me hurt them."
"I see." He sat back once more, before finally standing, pacing towards her. "And how would you hurt them?"
"Other than fatally, I couldn't say sir. Research would be required, time needed to plan."
They stared at each other a moment. Jude waited to be told she would have nothing but time to plan, but met his gaze without blinking and without fear.
"Well, perhaps you had better begin, then. I expect a report in the next two weeks on what you recall of their strategic vulnerabilities, and how best to exploit them. You may go."
Jude finally allowed herself to smile as she left the room and walked the long corridor, relaxing the mental suggestion over Eckhart by small enough degrees he would eventually believe the decision to allow her to live had been his.
The records had been tricky to 'lose' and it had been even harder to convince everyone she had lost her memory along with the others. But the hardest part had been getting used to the odd stares she received for muttering to herself.
"Bob, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
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Notes: Hoo-yah, we're done! Reviews are not only welcomed, but cared for lovingly and not given away at Christmas. Hope people enjoyed reading this, I enjoyed writing it, even if it did take nearly an entire year. :: hangs head :: Sorry about that, again.