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The prick of a needle, and the world slid into fire.
"You're far too valuable to lose, Adam…."
A terrifying ache in muscle and bone; hearing and sight wavering out of focus, rushing back sharper than they ever should be.
"How ironic. That the measures I require daily to safeguard my existence, thanks to your unfortunate blunder, have saved me from your fate."
His blood burned. His heart raced. His lungs ached, despite the oxygen line feeding them, trying to take in air through damaged tissues.
"Or at least, the fate that would be yours. If we - as one might say - let nature take its course?"
And the hell of it was he knew exactly what was happening. Knew precisely, down to the molecule, what that insane lunatic Talia's bio-engineered viral toxin was doing to his system-
As he knew how Mason was counteracting it.
And that was worst of all.
"Interesting, isn't it? How ferals bond to those they know well. Our psychologists find the phenomenon - remarkable. Genetically engineered instinct overriding long-standing ethnic hatreds, philosophical differences… even that most rare of commodities, common sense."
Fighting the chaos in mind and body, Adam opened his eyes. Peered past the plastic wreathing medical monitors, the biohazard suits of those tending him, the blaze of light on glass.
Peered past just enough to catch a glimpse of white hair, pale skin, blue and brown eyes creased in a smug smile behind violet lenses.
Mason.
If he got out of these restraints, that son-of-a-bitch was finally going down.
Shalimar would approve.
"Inform me the moment the toxin drops below measurable levels." Mason Eckhart studied his captive through glass, a shadow of a smile creasing plastic skin. "It'd be a pity to waste this opportunity."
"Sir." Lena Blake stepped up beside him, pink nictitating membranes sliding across the lizard feral's sky-blue eyes as she stared past the lights. "We may have shielded these facilities against Mutant X's empathic tracking, but we know Adam has other contacts in the New Mutant underground. And we don't have nearly the level of security here as we would at Genomex. Is this wise?"
"Probably not," Mason allowed. "But even in stasis, taking the time to transport him across the continent would have signed his death warrant. And a mind like Adam's is not to be squandered simply because one homicidal genetic researcher decides to eliminate normal humans by means of a transgenic filoviral toxin." He grimaced. "Nasty work. One could almost be grateful to Adam's little band of troublemakers for incinerating the lot." He flicked a glance her way. "Are you well, Ms. Blake? There are some paltry benefits to wearing a false skin…."
"I'm fine, sir." Chestnut hair slid over her shoulders as she nodded. "Our tests confirm I was exposed, but the toxin breaks down in a feral immune system."
"And Ms. Fox was able to warn the rest of Mutant X before they could stumble into the exposed room. Pity." Mason shrugged. "Just as well. While it would be pleasant to be rid of them once and for all, the price would be far too high."
"Sir, our other exposed personnel didn't respond to the modified Tricorp serum…."
"The others are not Adam." He stepped back from the glass, gloved fingers touching in silent contemplation. "The mind can cure or kill, Ms. Blake. The others might have believed they wished to live, but they could not conquer their fear of the toxin itself." Mismatched eyes narrowed, studying the thrashing form under the medical monitors. Still alive. Still struggling, to the last breath, the last beat of an angry heart. "Deny it as he will, Adam is a survivor."
"Sir?"
"He may cover it well. His quixotic drive to 'save' New Mutants, his continued defiance of law and Genomex, that annoying incident with the police when he'd lost his memory… still, he's survived it all." Mason smiled wryly. "And no one does that by accident."
"Your hack better be on the money, Oracle." Helena Kyle landed on the roof of Legacy Genetics in a soft crunch of gravel, sped toward the cover of an air-conditioning unit in a ripple of dark leather. "I had a serious date with a pool table in No Man's Land."
"You can hustle the out-of-town metas later, Huntress." A soft click of keys filtered over the link; Barbara, checking her database on this very private research facility. "No changes to the security system that I can see, but there's a serious shift in the electrical usage… I'd look for something installed in a hurry."
Helena faded into a patch of shadow, eyeing a suit standing near the roof door. "Like a few extra guards on the payroll?"
"Yes-"
Helena smiled. "On it."
"Huntress!"
But she was already on the man, ripping his radio away with one swipe of a hand, striking to disable-
The guard dodged, flame rippling around his hand. Fire balled in his fingers, swirled in a crackle of heat toward her as he threw.
She wove aside, blue eyes slitting to violet-red; moved in with her mother's speed and Barbara's training. Strike, strike, dodge, strike-
"Huntress?"
The man crumpled. "There goes another coat," Helena ground out, eyeing singe marks on her sleeve. "If Talia's toxin isn't in here, something sure is. They had a meta on guard."
"Be careful."
"Aren't I always?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
"We'll just chalk it up to trust." Drawing various interesting bits of tech out of her pockets, Huntress started bypassing the alarms.
In, out. Breathe. Keep breathing.
And try not to think about the fact that they'd taken the oxygen line out.
His mind was fuzzy. His throat was fever-dry. And he ached everywhere. Knew I should have gotten a flu shot….
No, Adam told himself bluntly, feeling the restraints grip his wrists. Rough, sore, despite the nylon padding; was this why Shalimar went for cotton and leather? No deceptions. No illusions. Think.
The doctors had sponged him clean, taking out monitors and IV lines long enough to move him to another room. A regular room, this time, with unsuited medics who had no more barrier between themselves and him than latex gloves. Which meant Mason was certain he was no longer carrying the toxin in his system. Which meant….
Okay, don't think about that part of it.
His career might have focussed more on genetics than medicine, but Adam was a doctor. He had been sick. Deathly, no-bones-about-it, die-if-you-push-yourself sick. Even now, with the fever a distant memory of unbearable heat, he felt as weak as he ever had coming off a week-long bout of flu.
But considering that was a filoviral toxin….
One thing about that lethal class of bugs, they followed a predictable course. You got sick, then flu-like symptoms, then very sick, then… well, if things got that far, your ticket was pretty much stamped for the biohazard incinerator. Hemorrhagic fever was an ugly way to go.
He'd made it past the crisis. He was going to live.
As long as he didn't do anything stupid.
He blinked at the lights, tested his bonds carefully. Right now, I feel like being very stupid.
No. Think. He had some time. His body might have beaten the toxin, but there would still be some in his system for the next day or so. Not enough to expose an ordinary person… but Mason was no ordinary person. What Eckhart had in mind would require more than just one-way conversations through glass. It'd need scent, and… touch….
Adam suppressed a shudder, able to picture that gloved hand on his shoulder all too easily. Shalimar, why didn't you tell me?
Mason had been his friend once. Before the accident. Before they knew the truth of each other.
And something in him reached toward that shattered friendship, seeking friend. Companion. Packmate.
It wasn't logical. It wasn't rational.
It just was.
I have to get out of here.
Ever so slowly, he tried to unclench one stiff fist. He'd knotted both of them tight, hoping the medics would think it was just the pain. And for an agonizing eternity, it had been the pain; cracking knuckles, driving fingernails into palms no matter how the doctors pried at his hands to check.
They had checked his right hand, in the midst of his throes, prying it open despite spattered blood. Rational. Sensible. Just as Mason had ordered. Adam was right-handed. Any sane person would hide what they meant to use in the hand best able to use it.
So I took second best.
Work the tendons. Loosen the fingers up, one joint at a time-
Metal slipped from his grasp as his left hand uncurled. Don't - no-
Fingers snatched at air, too fast to register. There was just the slim solidity of steel in his grasp, the shocking knowledge that he had caught the pick.
I'm not - I can't….
Adam licked his lips, deliberately not thinking. Just get out. Scream later.
Fingers turned slim metal, inserted it awkwardly into the buckle holding the bonds on his left wrist. Pry, and work the pick backwards, and pry….
He had to pause for a few breaths, holding trembling fingers still. The buckle wasn't - quite - loose. But it was getting there.
When I get out of here, I'm going to have to get Brennan to show me a few tricks-
Alarms jangled the air.
"What'd you touch?"
"Who knows. Who cares?" Helena kicked, snapped out an elbow, snatched a suited guard's shock-stick away from him and thwacked him over the head with it. "What am I looking for, anyway?"
"Cops, in about five minutes," came Oracle's dry reply. "The central computer system should be two floors down."
"Two floors. Gotcha." Which meant finding the stairs, since some weirdo of an architect had inexplicably made each level a sealed unit, with no handy catwalks to jump off of. Downright rude.
"Be careful. From this floor plan, the computer's near the clean rooms."
"So far, I haven't seen any dirty ones." Helena threw a guard through the stairwell door, threw herself through as well even as her victim was cursing his way head over heels down metal steps.
"Clean as in biologically sealed, Huntress. Do not breach integrity on anything you don't have to. Talia's little toy may not be the only thing in here."
"Okay, okay…." One landing, two landings, three landings, four… Helena grinned, bouncing from steel to reverberating steel. God, she loved stairs.
A last leap-and-land, and she was at the door. Pick the lock, don't pick the lock - ah, the heck with it. Leather snapping about her, she slammed a heel into the door lock.
"Ow…."
Helena stopped in her tracks, glanced down at a flash of white under the flattened door. Lab coat. Scientist?
No; not unless the people who worked here usually threw on a lab coat two sizes too small over a patient's fragile cloth gown, leaving way too much tender skin at risk to the breeze. Hey. Not bad for an older guy.
The dark-haired man tried to rise, slumped back into the wreckage. Helena noted the lump already rising on his head, the bit of familiar spring steel that'd dropped from his hand… and the welts on his wrists, where rough bonds had torn tanned skin. "Oops."
"Oops?" Oracle was not fond of oops.
Not as heavy as he looks, Helena thought, lifting the limp form to her shoulders. Muscle and bone, not much else. "Tell you in a bit. Where's the computer?"
"Ahead and to your right-"
A cold-eyed brunette snaked around the tiled corner, leading with a one-two combination fast as anything Helena had ever seen. Ow - damn - meta, definitely.
The brunette drew back, inhaled deeply-
Uh-oh. Sorry, guy- Helena tossed her limp burden at her opponent.
The brunette staggered under the sudden weight. Coughed out green vapor; swore as it hit her eyes. "Augghh-"
And a one, two, three - neck strike!
The meta went down, limp as the man Helena scooped off the floor. "What is this, Evil Metas R' Us?"
"The guards are metahumans?"
"A lot of them, definitely." Ah. Computer room. Complete with frazzle-haired computer tech, eeping as he scrambled for the farthest corner. She flashed him a toothy grin. "Mind if I cut in on your session?"
The tech clutched a plastic chair in front of him, frail protection from a slit-eyed fiend. "Don't hurt me!"
"Sounds like you've got a fan."
"Carrying around a KO'd body tends to do that." Plucking Oracle's CD out of her pocket, Helena proceeded to unleash computer havoc. "Have fun."
"I intend to… what KO'd body?"
"Just a guy I ran into." She snatched the CD back out of the drive, waved at the wide-eyed tech. Who froze, trying to melt into the wall.
"What have I told you about picking up strays?"
"Oh, please." Helena snatched up the dark-haired man, dashed for the corridor. There was a window around here somewhere…. "He's not my type." Not like Reese; rough and cynical and a chip on his shoulder the size of the New Gotham Police Department. No; too old, and too gentle, if the subtle lines on his face were any indication. Worry lines, like Alfred's; the kind parents got looking after their kids.
The kind she saw on Barbara's face, sometimes, when the night was long and bitter….
A cultured, angry snarl, from an odd pale man with dead-white hair. "Stop that woman!"
Now there was gunfire, startling her; the amount of biohazards and sensitive equipment in here, she'd thought lead was the last thing these people wanted to be flinging around-
Only it wasn't lead. Air marshal's slugs, Helena realized as she ran, as one shattered against the wall near her shoulder. Weird ceramic rounds that would shiver apart on glass or metal… but tear through flesh like paper. Terrific.
And they were through the hall window in a shower of glass, dropping through whistling air. The Huntress laughed, somersaulting in mid-air, barely slowed by the weight in her arms-
Hit asphalt hard, startling a snarl from her as her ankle yelped. Okay. Jumping off buildings, good idea. Jumping with one hundred fifty-odd pounds extra weight, not good idea.
But she was off and limping, disappearing into an alley as the first patrol cars rounded the corner. Have fun explaining to the cops, whoever you guys are.
Oracle would know. Oracle always knew.
"Think Alfred's got leftovers?" Helena chuckled, hefting the too-slight weight on her shoulders. "I don't know where this guy's been, but he could definitely use feeding up."
"Are you certain this is advisable, Miss Gordon?" An English voice, measured and precise.
"Not really." A whirr of motorized wheels; the woman's voice moved closer. "But given he's a meta, a hospital might not be the best place for him. And if Huntress was able to bring him all the way here…."
"Yes; anyone who's not been roused by hurtling from roof to roof is most certainly sleep-deprived." Careful, solid footsteps nearer. "But perhaps the gentleman would care to introduce himself now?"
Adam blinked sleep-sand from his eyes, scanned the room. Handicapped-modified, he noted, taking in the differing heights of door-handles, the reaching tool on the kitchen counter so the redhead in the wheelchair could pull items from the cabinets. And we're in a tower. Or some other area of low pressure; his ears still weren't settled enough to be sure. He'd apparently been laid on the couch. He wasn't in any more clothes than he'd broken out with, but the set of quilts over him was pleasantly warm. "Whoever you are, thank you."
"I am Alfred Pennyworth." The elderly man granted him a precise bow, upper-class butler to a stranger of unknown standing. "This is Miss Barbara Gordon, whose residence you are presently within. And you might be?"
So much for "who are you" and "where am I", the geneticist thought wryly. And civil as if strangers in the middle of the night were no big deal. Could be Genomex… no, Mason's not that Byzantine. Not quite. "Adam Kane," he inclined his head. Moved carefully into a sitting position; the room still wanted to spin at odd moments. "And the last thing I seem to remember is a door flattening me." He glanced about the room, looking for any flash of leather and dark hair.
"An acquaintance of ours pulled you out of Legacy Genetics." Barbara's smile was wry. "It didn't look like you were there willingly."
Adam hesitated. "This may sound odd…."
An auburn brow lifted.
He sighed. "Did you check me for tracers?"
"As a matter of fact-" she pointed. "I think the local should be wearing off soon."
"Try now." Adam winced, running careful fingers over the small bandage on his right arm. "Again, thank you."
She leaned back in her chair. "Someone wanted to be sure you'd stay put."
"Yes." This was going to be a long explanation. "Mason Eckhart."
"Jesse?" Shalimar Fox leaned over the molecular mutant's shoulder, breath blowing through his short blond hair as she studied the readout on the Double Helix' computer screen. "Any luck?"
Jesse Kilmartin shook his head, banging away on the keyboard. "Adam may have the best files on our patch of turf, but his East Coast data's not that good. I think I've got it narrowed down to about three places within a hundred-mile radius that Genomex is tied into. Nothing for sure yet."
"Keep trying." The lithe blonde feral twisted the extra silver ring on her index finger. A bland, unmarked ring, unlike its brighter twin; Adam's comlink was keyed to his DNA, inactive in any other hands.
Bitter gas, and screams, and warm metal pressed into her grip. "Shalimar, get out!" Adam's face, desperate and calculating and bitterly determined. He was the geneticist; he'd had to go in after Talia's data. Had to keep Genomex from getting their hands on it. No matter what the risk. "Don't let them in here-"
She shuddered at the memory, rubbing the loose ring, blinking away the images of what had been left of Ms. No-last-name Talia's "test subjects". Shrinking from the knowledge of what had happened, what would happen, to anyone exposed without feral DNA-
Maybe we got Mason.
Nice if they had. But she wasn't going to count on it. Not until she saw his plastic-wrapped corpse for herself.
"We don't even know if we're looking in the right places!" A stray spark snapped between Brennan Mulwray's fingers.
"Well, there aren't that many places that can handle a Level Four biohazard." Jesse called up another screen-full of data, tapped a few commands. "We find the right equipment, we'll find Adam."
"If Eckhart's trying to keep him alive. If he just jammed Adam in a pod and took off for Genomex - look, you saw those people. Dead in four days. If they were lucky." The elemental's breath hissed between his teeth. "All I'm saying is, even if Adam's still alive now-"
"He's not dead! He's-" Emma DeLauro cut herself off. Frowned. "He's not dead."
Shalimar straightened. "You got a hit?"
The telempath brushed back dark hair, turned her head from side to side, as if seeking a noise too low to hear. "I'm not sure." She walked to the side of the jet; placed her hand against the Helix' hull, as if contact with the battered stealth craft might lead her closer to its master. "It's kind of fuzzy."
"Fuzzy, as in sick?" Fuzzy, as in dying… no. Please. Not Adam.
Emma stared into space, trying to put feelings into words. "I don't think so. More like… worn out. And a little… weird around the edges."
"Weirdness is kind of in the job description," Brennan pointed out, a definite grin lighting his face. "You know, certified genius and all that."
"I know. But this is different."
"Heads up." A clatter of keys; Jesse straightened a crick out of his neck. "One of our three contestants just popped up on the radar."
The rest of Mutant X gathered behind him. "Legacy Genetics is suddenly in the New Gotham police database." Jesse pointed to the data scrolling down his screen. "Patrol just filed the first reports."
"Major break-in," Brennan smiled.
"Or break-out?" Emma lifted dark brows.
"Adam," Shalimar stated.
Jesse glanced at them. "So what are we waiting for?"