GO WEST

Chapter 25: "Until the End of the World"

Over the course of the two years of their existence as teams, the New Mutants and Hellions had gone from being outright enemies, to adversaries, to teammates (briefly), and finally, to their current state, which could be described as allies or rivals, depending on who you asked. The alliance had been forged when Magneto, the Headmaster of Xavier's School, had joined the inner circle of the Hellfire Club, becoming the White King: counterpart to White Queen Emma Frost, the Headmistress of the Massachusetts Academy. Since that time, the two teachers had gone to great lengths to encourage friendly relations between their respective students.

Tonight was another of those attempts: Frost had invited Magneto to bring his students to a "function" at the Hellfire Club (which was invariably a euphemism for a party, complete with buffet, wine, cocktails, dancing, gambling, and shady business dealings). Frost would bring her six mutant students as well, and with any luck, mixing would ensue.

This suggestion was met with trepidation on both sides, to say the least, but that wasn't any reason not to make the most of it.

Frost and the Hellions had arrived early from Massachusetts in order to stay ahead of the weather (winter was coming early this year, with snow in the forecast just one day after the Autumnal equinox), and this had given the six young mutants all day to prepare for the gala event.

Jennifer Stavros had taken teammate Marie-Ange Colbert under her wing for this particular evening, promising to turn the younger girl into a sight no man could resist. In her two years at the Academy, Marie-Ange had never had a boyfriend, and Jennifer had recently stopped dating teammate James Proudstar. There were, as Jennifer pointed out, two cute single guys on the New Mutants, and tonight would be a perfect night to make Moves. Two wild single women on the prowl.

Marie-Ange, terminally shy by nature, had been dubious about the prowling part, but spending the day in Jennifer's company was wearing that hesitance away, and by the time the party started, and the Hellions hit the floor, she was almost giddy with excitement.

The snow was already falling outside by the time the New Mutants arrived. The roster was currently seven: Dani Moonstar, Sam Guthrie, X'ian Coy Manh, Amara Aquila, Illyana Rasputin, Doug Ramsey, and Rahne Sinclair. Five girls and two guys. Not, as Jenny pointed out to Marie-Ange, the best odds in the world; all the more reason to tip the scale in their favor any way they could.

The six Hellions put in their first appearance as a unit. Along with Jennifer and Marie-Ange were the other four founding members: James Proudstar, Sharon Smith, Haroun Al-Rashid and Manuel De la Rocha.

Eventually, though, they dispersed to mingle with the crowd. Jennifer took Marie-Ange off to one side of the dance floor, where they could watch for a moment before moving in for the kill.

The two of them, standing together, were a study in contrast. Marie-Ange, not quite seventeen, nearly six feet tall even with flats, svelte almost to the point of skinny. She wore a light green, sleeveless, floor-length dress, the wide neckline decorated with a very realistic-looking collar of dark green leaves and pink roses, the latter strategically placed on the shoulders and (at Jennifer's insistence) right up front, below her (admittedly minimal) cleavage. Another rose decorated her deep red hair, which Jennifer had spent hours on, changing the normally dead-straight tresses to a cascade of curls that outlined her long face. The entire look was designed to draw attention to her best features: her fiery hair, her grey eyes, and her pale, sleek shoulders. She had been uncomfortable with the amount of skin showing up top, but Jennifer had assured her that skin as nice as hers needed to be shown off, also adding that a lot of men had a thing for collarbones.

Jennifer was her friend's opposite in many ways. Twenty years old, five-foot-three, with what she liked to call dangerous curves. Her dress was in shades of grey, form-fitting all the way down to the knees, where it finally flared out, but only slightly. It was hard to say it had a neckline at all, as it was completely backless, and cut in a wide, deep V in front, the point of the V somewhere well below the tip of her sternum. Her pale-blonde hair, normally curly, had been straightened and brushed forward into bangs, the sides plastered forward to cover her ears and make her face appear narrower. A long chain hung around her neck, with a very strategically placed pendant. Gold bracelets, gold rose-shaped pins on the sides of the dress at thigh-level, and four-inch heels completed the look. Her outfit, too, was designed to show off her best feature: her entire figure.

The biggest difference of all, though, was that Jennifer looked wholly confident in this context, while Marie-Ange was looking around the crowded ballroom with wide eyes, one hand raised to grasp the opposite shoulder and partially cover herself.

"This is it, I'm telling you," Jennifer grinned, indicating the room. "This is where it's at, Mac. We own this place."

Marie-Ange did not answer, and when Jennifer looked over, she saw that her friend was staring across the dance hall, looking pensive and thoughtful. Following her gaze, Jennifer saw Haroun, chatting it up with Sam and Amara from the New Mutants.

"Like what you see, eh?" she quipped.

"Oui," Marie-Ange nodded, distantly. She then blinked rapidly and looked away. "They seem to be together, though, the two of them."

"Ahhhh, I dunno, grapevine has it that Sammy's still single, though not from lack of trying. I guess he's totally stuck on Amara."

"So I have heard."

"Yeah, but look at her; she's giving him the cold shoulder. Trust me, I can tell these things. Maybe now would be the perfect time to move right in, put that French charm on him. Poor boy won't know what hit him."

Marie-Ange slowly shook her head. "I... do not think that would be a good idea."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Jennifer nodded, rolling with it. "He's cute, as far as country bumpkins go, but maybe that's not saying much."

Determined to get her friend a partner one way or the other, Jennifer scanned the floor, and finally zeroed in on the perfect victim. He stood off to one side, by himself, looking downcast and stormy. Blonde hair, black tuxedo with blue accessories, the very picture of clean-cut young Republican.

"Here we go," Jennifer said, nudging Marie-Ange in the ribs and pointing off in the young man's direction. "Doug Ramsey. Not too bad for a WASP computer geek with no real powers to speak of, eh?"

"Oui, he is... somewhat handsome, I suppose."

"Ah, I know that tone," Jennifer crowed, making Marie-Ange blush. "You're sweet on him! Come on, he's the perfect target! He's smart, nice dresser, decent dancer, totally clueless when it comes to real women... I bet you'll have him eating out of your hand within an hour."

Marie-Ange looked at Jennifer nervously. "But I don't know what to do!"

"Ask him to dance!"

"Quoi?" she gasped. "Just like that? Isn't that awfully forward?"

"Mac, this is America! Men like it when women are forward, trust me! Just go on up to him and ask him. Oh yeah, and turn up the accent, maybe throw a few extra French words around. He'll probably like that."

"But he... I hardly know him!"

"Yah, but he's cute, ain't he?"

"Mais... Oui, he is... rather attractive."

"Then now's the time to get to know him better, ness-pa? Timing couldn't be better. Look at him: he's completely bummed. I'll bet he's still upset because that alien pal of his abandoned their school a while ago. He's alone, he's depressed, and he'd probably fall all over himself for a complete babe like you. Now go on!"

"You're sure... it is not too forward?" Marie-Ange asked, skeptically.

"Make the move, kid. Go on, I'll watch from here."
 
 

Marie-Ange approached nervously, keeping one hand pensively raised to her chest to cover the low neckline and attention-drawing rose. Douglas did not seem to notice her as she drew in closer: his attention seemed focused on a section of the floor near his feet.

She had never really "connected" with him during the brief time the New Mutants had joined the ranks of the Hellions, mostly because his power was completely mental in nature, and he had not been permitted to take part in combat training. As a result of this, he had been a loner, even then, not committing himself to the merged team. When it came right down to it, she knew almost nothing about him.

Mustering up her courage, she cleared her throat and spoke. "Bonjour, M'sieu Ramsey. Perhaps you do not remember. I am Marie-Ange Colbert."

"Tarot," he replied, without looking around. Apparently he'd noticed after all. "One of the Hellions."

"C'est vrai!" she replied, somewhat amazed that he did, in fact, remember.

Hesitantly, she maneuvered closer, so that she was standing before him, and smiled. "The orchestra... it is playing a waltz. I have not danced in ages. Perhaps... forgive me for being so forward... you would share it with me?"

Here, at great length, Doug finally looked up, and regarded her with cold, hooded eyes. "The White Queen put you up to this?"

"Quoi?" she asked, stunned at his acid tone.

"A ploy to sink some hooks deep into me?" he went on, not even trying to conceal his disdain.

She shook her head, mouth hanging open in shock. "How... how could you think such a thing?!"

"Easy, where you guys are concerned."

Marie-Ange felt color rising to her cheeks. "I was trying to be nice!" she stammered. "Because you seemed as lonely and out of place here as I felt!"

"Well, I'm not!" he scowled. "And even if I was, I don't need some Hellion tramp feeling sorry for me!"

She stared into his eyes for only a moment more, then turned and walked away quickly, so that he would not see as she began to cry.
 
 

Jennifer watched the entire exchange from a distance. It didn't take her long to see that Doug was not being terribly receptive, and when Marie-Ange walked away, she knew that he had said something hurtful. Mac's posture said it all: she looked as though someone had punched her in the stomach. Doug, meanwhile, watched Marie-Ange go for a moment, then turned away and shook his head, his face filled with anger.

Moving quickly, Jennifer intercepted her friend before she could leave the ballroom. "Mac, what happened? What did he say?"

Marie-Ange looked at the older girl, and Jennifer saw the tears flowing freely down her cheeks. "I shall be upstairs," she said, brokenly, "if we are needed for anything."

"No, wait, Mac, what did he do? What did he say?"

In reply, Marie-Ange simply shook her head and walked away, brushing off Jennifer's concern. Once she was a greater distance, Jennifer saw that she was beginning to shake with sobs.

Jennifer looked back out at the floor to see Doug, still standing in his gloomy posture, looking stormier than ever, and a slow core of anger began burning within her. After all those hours of preparation, he'd ruined Mac's night in about thirty seconds.

"Buddy boy," Jennifer said to herself, "you are gonna pay for that..."

Landmark Hotel, Las Vegas NV
Saturday, 5 February 1994 4:11 am MST

It took the longest time just to realize that she was still alive. The voices brought her out of it first: several people, mostly men, a couple of women, having what sounded like an argument somewhere a wall or two away. That was all, though. Nothing to see, little but numbness to feel.

Gradually, greater awareness filtered through. She was in darkness, in an uncomfortable position, and the cords tying her hands behind her back were starting to hurt her wrists. She was still wearing that same eye-catching dress from the evening at Excalibur, though from the feel of things, it had seen better days. A dull, throbbing ache came from her right calf, and she had the idea that she'd taken a pretty bad cut there. When had she picked that one up?

And then this thought brought forth a torrent of images: the last moments before she'd lost consciousness. She'd taken off her seatbelt, and was looking through the shattered back window to see that somebody was holding a bazooka or some damn thing out of the pursuing Lincoln.

Then time hit slo-mo. She had watched, numbly, as a rocket had launched toward them. The sight of it was incongruously beautiful as it shot forward, leaving a trail of millions of white-hot embers in its wake, like a roman candle on the Fourth of July. It was going to hit them, no question.

And then Gene had grabbed her, wrapped his arms and his wings around her, and held onto her as the Mustang exploded.

The next was harder to remember, as she'd been wrapped in his shadow. Near as she could tell, the gas tank had blown, turning the entire rear half of the car into a blazing fireball. The force of the blast, maybe combined with a mental push from Gene, had knocked the both of them through the windshield, but Gene had broadsided it with his back and shattered it, protecting Jennifer with his own body as they sailed through. Then there had been the sensation of flying through the much colder air outside, still held securely in his wings.

And then the blur of impact as they hit the asphalt in the breakdown lane. Here again, Gene took the brunt, landing on his back and cushioning Jennifer's blow with his own body, but he'd lost his grip on her, and she'd tumbled away, hitting her head sharply on the pavement, and then...

Then just this darkness. Funny thing was that her head didn't really hurt much at all. She had a grim feeling that she'd passed beyond that pain at this point, but once it came back, it was going to be a whole lot of Not Fun.

But other than her leg (probably cut going through the windshield, she figured), she was relatively intact. Lucky her. But then what about...

"Gene?" she tried to ask. Her voice came out a harsh whisper, and she cleared her throat to try to get some volume back. "Gene?"

"Over here," he replied from the darkness close by. His voice was low and strained.

"Are you okay?"

He paused for a long time before he spoke again. "No. I'm in deep pain, actually."

"How bad?" she asked, quietly.

"Broken leg, for starters," he informed her. "Not a compound fracture, but it's pretty bad. A few cracked ribs, some pretty serious lacerations, contusions, a little burning around the edges, that kind of thing."

"Holy crap," she whispered. "Tell me you've got a healing factor or something."

"Nope. Any self-repair is with my telekinesis, and that's really slow going."

"How slow?"

"Well," he considered, his voice still distant and vague, "when the oil rig blew on me last November, I had third degree burns over most of my body. That took a couple of months to fix, and even then, I'm still not done. This... would take weeks, minimum. And since we're in the dark, I've got no light energy to fuel my powers."

"Lovely."

Silence reigned for a while. Jennifer found herself emotionally torn, somewhere between frustrated at her companion's injuries, and intensely guilty at the realization that most of them had come about protecting her.

"Where are we?" she asked, eventually.

"Well," he said, slowly, "we're tied up in what feels like a closet, I'm guessing in the basement of the Landmark Hotel."

She couldn't place the name: it wasn't one of the spots she'd visited. "How do you know that?"

"The Landmark is the F.O.H.'s local base of operations. The place has been shut down for a while now... pretty much abandoned while they try to decide whether or not to demolish it, or maybe try to renovate it. The Friends have been using it as a meeting place. Probably makes 'em feel like proper vigilantes, hanging out in a condemned building instead of a place with real electricity and working plumbing."

"And how do you know this?"

"Like I said, I've been watching them since I arrived in town. This is where they took that friend of mine I was telling you about, and this is where they killed him, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."

Jennifer took a measured breath. "So why haven't they killed us?"

"I think maybe we're more valuable to them alive than dead. Otherwise, they would have just shot us back on the highway."

"They tried to blow us up, Einstein."

"Yeah, but we lived. I think they prefer us that way, but they were willing to kill us rather than let us escape."

"I... don't like how that sounds."

"Neither do I, frankly."

"Why're we valuable to them alive?"

"Not quite sure. I've been awake for a while, though, listening to them argue about this whole topic. Some of 'em want to kill us and be done with it, but others have been saying to keep us alive so that we can be turned over to the Friends of Humanity's head honcho."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding. You may have heard of him; his name's Graydon Creed."

"Yeah," she nodded, but nodding made her head hurt. "We were... told about him."

"Right. I guess they've already called him, and he's on his way to Vegas as we speak. But before they turn us over, they're going to want to make sure we won't be any trouble."

"How?" Jennifer asked, even though in her current state she doubted she'd be much trouble to anyone.

"Remember how I told you they had mutant detection equipment? Well, looks like they also got their hands on a device that neutralizes mutant powers. That's how Adam died: his power was so fully integrated with his body that draining him..." he took a deep breath.

"Killed him?" she finished for him.

"Let's just say the grave of his I swore over was metaphorical. He... exploded. That's what I gather, anyway. I wasn't there, or I would have tried to stop it from happening..."

Jennifer began to feel the increasingly familiar sense of numb dread starting up somewhere in her midsection. "Is that gonna happen to us?"

"I don't know. Some of 'em are just saying to kill us instead of drain us, so they won't have to risk another Adam. Something about the device having unpredictable results."

"Gene, if they use that thing on me..." she whispered.

"It may not come to that."

"No, no, you don't understand," she went on, her voice getting tight. "My power is the only thing holding a shitload of bad luck in check. If they drain me..."

"Listen, it may not come to that. But... if it does..."

He paused to take a ragged breath before going on, and if anything, his voice was even more thin and quiet than before. "If they do, and it's as bad as you think, what're our chances?"

"We'll be dead," she said, flatly.

Gene sighed. "Then look at it this way. We'll die, but maybe we can take 'em with us."

"But..." she protested, then trailed off.

"What is it?" he asked her at length.

After a long pause, Jennifer whispered "I don't want to die."

"I know," he whispered back. "I'm sorry, Jennifer, really. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that... I really wish I could have been that knight in shining armor. I really wanted to get you out of here, Jenny, I really did. It's funny: on my own, I can take care of myself. But after all the times I've screwed up with other people, I really wanted to... help somebody else without messing it all up."

Jennifer was a mix of shocked, moved, and deeply disturbed at the tone of Gene's voice. Even though she couldn't see a thing in this darkness, she had a pretty good idea that he was starting to cry.

"Hey, we're not done yet," she said, trying to get some enthusiasm going in either of them. "If I can get my hands free, I'll give those suckers the worst luck they've ever had. Remember the guy in the suit? Plenty more where that came from."

"I was really hoping we wouldn't have to hurt anyone," he said, thickly.

"Tough buns for them. They blew up your car! With us still in it, for crying out loud! I'm not feeling real generous, 'kay?"

"I know," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I'm not either. My idealism started flagging a while ago."

"Can you get my hands free? You've got telekinesis, you said."

"I don't think I can," he sighed. "My TK works best internally, or as a part of me. Taking it outside myself is a stretch as it is, and right now, I'm having trouble just holding myself together."

She sighed through clenched teeth. "Then we'll have to find another way. Come on, think!"

"There is one thing that might work," he ventured.

"Yeah? What's that?"

He paused to inhale a shuddery breath. "I'm willing to bet their neutralizer thing won't work on me. I've actually been in a situation like this before. Someone with mutant-neutralizing powers tried to shut me off. It didn't work, but I played possum, let 'em think I was helpless, then hit 'em when they were off-guard. I'll try to make sure they use the thing on me first, and then I'll see if I can't distract 'em long enough to get you away."

"Get me away? What about you?"

"At this stage, I don't know if that's an issue."

This was met with shocked silence. Jennifer shook her head, but this, too, made it hurt, so she stopped. "Will you cut the melodramatic crap and tell me what you're talking about for once?"

"What I'm talking about is this," he replied, and now there was a metallic, edged quality to his voice. "I'm about three-fourths dead right now anyway. Given my power level, I can't take these guys on and expect to get out of it, but I can keep 'em busy until you get away."

"Why me?" she snapped. "What, are you suicidal for just any blonde who shows up at a blackjack table? Why're you talking about killing yourself to save some girl you don't even know?"

"Because some things," he said, very quietly, "are worth dying for."

"Gene, where are you?" she sighed, impatiently.

He paused for a moment, probably surprised at her tone. "Over here," he said. "However much that helps."

Ignoring the pain in her limbs, Jennifer forced herself to scoot over in the direction of his voice. After a while, she bumped into what felt like part of someone on the floor. "That you?"

"That," he said, very quietly, "is my broken leg."

"Right, sorry," she apologized, pushing herself closer to his voice while avoiding the leg. Eventually, she found the rest of him. It felt as though he was sitting up against the wall, and she positioned herself so that she could sit there next to him and lean her head on his shoulder.

"Okay, does this hurt?" she asked him.

"No... not really."

"Good. Now, I want you to listen to me. I have had one of the crappiest months you can imagine, and I am about yea close to the nervous breakdown to end all nervous breakdowns, you following me?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'm not gonna pretend to know why you're all fired up to die for me. I hope it ain't because you think I'm some helpless bimbo, 'cause that ain't me. But I'll tell you this. You wanna help me, you stay alive, you got me? 'Cause even though I don't know shit about you, you're the only friend I've got here, and if you die, I swear to God I'll crack. Sorry if that screws up your shining armor shit, but tough. I don't want anyone dying for me, okay? I'm not worth that. No one is."

"I'm just a hopeless romantic at heart," he said, with some genuine humor in his voice.

"Yeah, great, but if you die, you won't be romantic anything, you'll be dead. And I'll be totally fucking alone, and I'll know that you died to save my sorry ass, and I'll lose my mind. Pretty simple."

"Jenny," he interrupted.

"What?"

"I don't want to die either," he sighed. "I really don't. This is just bravado. If I figure I'm already dead, it's almost easier, because I'm not as scared. And let me tell you, I've never been this scared in my life, even with that."

"I know the feeling," she agreed, adjusting herself against his shoulder.

"If I start hoping I'll live, I'll just be scared more. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think so. But hey, we might get lucky. We're both gamblers, right?"

"I suppose. And who knows, maybe your friend Doug can find us."

To this, she did not reply. She'd been trying not to think about that.

Angie had been at Doug's house.

Why the hell had Angie been at Doug's house?

She really didn't want to think about this. If she did, she knew she'd lose it once and for all.

Elsewhere in Las Vegas NV
Saturday, 5 February 1994 4:31 am MST

When Gene had broken off his conversation with Doug by announcing that he was being followed by the Friends of Humanity, it had caused no small amount of concern on the part of the four members of Go West who were even then trying to come to the rescue.

When the connection with Gene's cel-phone had been cut off rather abruptly by what sounded like the beginnings of an explosion, this concern had escalated to nail-biting worry.

When, a few hours later, Catseye had spotted the burnt-out remains of a car on the shoulder of the southbound side of the freeway, and a quick investigation revealed it to have once been a black Ford Mustang, worry had become dread. This dread was helped along by two discoveries: the remains of a license plate reading 2VSD22- (with the last digit melted away), and traces of blood on the pavement, which Catseye had been able to affirm, by scent, as being Jennifer's. Between Catseye's nose and a casting of the cards by Marie-Ange, their best guess was that Jennifer and Gene had been taken by the FOH group. Fresh tire-tracks across the sandy center divider seemed to indicate that someone had made a turnaround there within the last few hours, so they had probably driven back to Vegas.

When, upon reaching Las Vegas, they realized that they had no idea of where to even begin to look, dread was starting to drop down all the way into full-borne despair.

One glimmer of something remotely positive was that Danielle had finally received Doug's message. Apparently she, Brynn and Kellen had been off in the mountains around the ranch telling stories around a campfire, and Dani had not brought her pager with her. Upon getting the message, she'd called Doug immediately, and the Warlock-routed call had reached Doug's mobile headset. Once she was finished apologizing profusely, she got right on the road to meet them, but even then, it would be another couple of hours, minimum, before she could catch up, even in her truck.

Not that there was much Dani could do to help the investigation, anyway, but it would be nice to have her there in the event of a fight.

By 4:30 am, Doug and Marie-Ange had found a place to park the BMW close to the Excalibur resort (the only lead they had, really), and Catseye and Warlock had gone in to scout. While Warlock could not merge with Catseye the way he could with Doug, Dani, Rahne or Ric, he could still accompany her closely by changing himself into a smooth replica of some fancy clothes. This served the multiple purpose of hiding Catseye's less human features, hiding her costume, and giving Doug an electronic link to the investigation via Warlock.

Doug, with his own ability to control and manipulate technorganic material, had fashioned himself what resembled a pair of sunglasses, but with miniature screens on the insides of the lenses, allowing him to view the investigation through Warlock's "eyes," with sound coming in through an attached headphone. It was a pretty slick set-up, he thought, giving himself some hollow congratulations. As a kid, he'd always wanted to be in a James Bond film. Of course, it wasn't as much fun here as in the movies.

After watching for a while, he rested the sunglasses up on his forehead and looked over at Marie-Ange, who was quietly contemplating her cards. "How're you doing?" he asked, quietly.

"The Tower," she said, quietly.

The non-sequitur answer took Doug momentarily aback. "What of it?"

She looked at him vaguely, her grey eyes flat and trance-like. "When I cast for her, the Tower comes up, every time."

"So what does that mean?"

"If taken literally, it means she is trapped in some sort of tower. A tall building."

Doug sighed. "We've got plenty of those in this town, looks like. May I see it?"

She handed him the card in question, and he took a closer look. The card depicted a tower being struck by lightning and crumbling under the blow, with a man and a woman falling from the collapsing heights.

"What worries me, though, are the implications of the casting," Marie-Ange said, quietly. "Douglas... the Tower strongly signifies defeat."

"Whose?"

She shook her head. "I do not know. I feel no clear premonition. No one side victorious over the other. There will be no winner in this battle, Douglas, and that disturbs me greatly."

For a long while, he stared at the card, trying to see what it was she saw, and how it was she knew what she knew. "Of course, you realize we're just going to have to make sure that it doesn't turn out that way, don't you?"

"Oui," she nodded, though she didn't look as though she meant it much. Doug decided to leave it alone: now was not the time to argue destiny versus free will. Maybe, he thought, this premonition of hers was more a warning of what might happen if they weren't careful.

They sat in silence for a while. Doug checked on their teammates' progress, and found that Catseye had wandered into a bar within the resort, and was getting an earful of rumors about the strange goings-on several hours before. Thankfully, no one had yet asked to see her ID, though Warlock would come up with some sort of facsimile were this to occur.

Even this was not sufficient distraction, however. Even though he and Marie-Ange were speaking civilly now, the memories of their argument were painfully fresh. It was the first really heated, angry fight they'd ever had as a couple, and he didn't like it at all. Fights were supposed to happen to other people, not to the two of them, perfect pair that they were.

"Marie-Ange?" he ventured.

She looked over at him again, and this time her eyes were focused on him. "What is it?" she asked, looking puzzled at having heard her full name from him.

"There's something I need to tell you," he began, but could not finish the thought.

"Go on," she prompted him.

He took a deep breath, and looked away. "You were right, before. We can't go on like this."

She nodded slowly. "Perhaps not, but you were right, as well. We cannot decide anything now. We need to find Jennifer first."

"We will. I know it. But once we do..."

Again, she had to prompt him to continue. "Tell me."

"I... think you should really consider going back. With or without Catseye. They need you back at the Academy, and we both know that."

There was a long silence. "Do you... want me to leave?" she finally replied.

"Of course not. But I can't ask you to stay. Not like this." Here, he turned to look into her eyes. "I can love you from three thousand miles away."

"Douglas," she whispered, leaning toward him and taking him in a gentle embrace, which he returned gratefully. "I do not wish to leave you, cher, not ever."

"Would you like me to come with you, then?"

She stiffened, obviously startled by this, and she pulled away slightly, so that she could look into his eyes. "You would do that?"

"If that's what you need me to do? Of course I would."

"But... your plan! Your schooling! You've come so far to get where you are now. I could never ask you to give that up for me."

"I know. Just like I can't ask you to go on giving up everything you've worked for just to be with me."

She pulled away further, and leaned back heavily in the driver's seat. "A difficult choice," she whispered.

"No one promised us a rose garden, eh?" Doug sighed.

"To be honest," she mused, "it is the deception which weighs heaviest upon me. It troubles me that Em... that Mam'selle Frost has no way of knowing that I am alive and well. If there were some way I could tell her, it would be a great burden lifted from me."

"We can work on that, if you'd like," Doug nodded.

"How?" she asked.

"We'll think of something, I'm sure."

Suddenly, there was a buzz from the headphone as Warlock started transmitting vocally. "FrienDoug, self and friendCatseye have found potential lead."

Doug gave Marie-Ange's hand what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze before turning his attention to the transmission. "Great," he replied. "Lay it on me, 'Lock."

"FriendCatseye spoke with humanentity who witnessed combat between several humanentities and two superhuman mutantforms matching descriptions of friendJenny and entityShadowwing. In battle, one humanform attempted to utilize firearm, which exploded, severely injuring humanform's hand. Stated humanform was rushed to local hospital."

"Hey, if we can find him..." Doug began.

"Possibility exists that stated humanform is member of enemygroup designated FriendsOfHumanity," Warlock continued.

"And maybe he could be... convinced to tell us where his little gang hangs out," Doug finished. "Good job, both of you. Meet us back here, and we'll start checking hospitals."

Doug looked at Marie-Ange. "Well, we've got us a start."

She nodded, but said nothing in reply.

Landmark Hotel, 4:43 am MST

By repeatedly flexing and relaxing her hands, Jenny was beginning to feel a loosening in the cords binding her wrists. It was hurting, and her hands were going to be a mess by the time she was through, but better that than the alternative.

"Making any progress?" Gene asked, quietly.

"Think so," she grunted, twisting this way and that in an effort to pull free. Still not quite there.

All of a sudden, they heard a closing door some distance away, and then several sets of approaching footsteps. "Aw, hell," she whispered.

"Jenny, listen," said Gene, very close to her ear. "Whatever happens in the next few minutes, just keep working on getting loose, okay? Don't concentrate on anything else. I'll buy you as much time as I can."

She was about to ask him what he meant, but the door to their closet-prison was suddenly flung open, leaving no time for protest.

"Come on, muties, on your feet!"

The harsh voice was accompanied by a portable spotlighter shining right into Jennifer's face. After the complete darkness, this sudden light was blinding, and she instinctively tried to reach up to shield her face, but her hands remained securely tied behind her. The lumbering shape behind the light reached out a muscular arm, grabbed her by one shoulder, and yanked her roughly to her feet. She was passed on to a pair of business-suit roughnecks, who shoved her along unsteadily. Her legs were partially numb, and it was an effort to keep her feet.

From behind, the first man's voice came again. "I said get up!" This was followed by a pained growl, and the meaty thud of someone hitting the floor.

Jennifer's escorts stopped to shine their flashlights back on the closet door, and when she got a look at the situation, she let out an involuntary gasp.

Gene was lying in the floor, half-in and half-out of the doorway, in obvious pain. He was still dressed in the tux-shirt and slacks from the evening at Excalibur, but the shirt was in tatters, and his back was badly lacerated, staining the white fabric red. His hair was half-pulled out of its ponytail, matted against his head by blood from a deep gash across his scalp. He was trying to get up, but it obviously wasn't working.

Even after he'd described the severity of his injuries to her, she'd never really considered that he'd look as bad as this, and it frightened her tremendously. He really did look three-fourths dead.

The lead bruiser seemed unimpressed, and he aimed a kick at Gene's ribs. "Get up, mutie!"

Gene looked up at the man, teeth clenched in fury and pain. "I have a broken leg, you stupid fuck!"

This was met with another kick, which rolled Gene over onto his back. "Leave him alone!" Jennifer shouted, struggling to get her hands free.

"You, gimme a hand with him," the leader said, gesturing to one of Jennifer's escorts. As these two yanked Gene to his feet, the third took hold of Jennifer by her bound wrists and continued propelling her forward.

After stumbling through an unlit hallway, they were led into a larger room, this one lit up with a number of battery-operated lanterns and other portable lights. Jennifer quickly took a head-count: there were eight of them, including the three who had brought them to the room. Six men, two women. One of the women and three of the men wore immaculate business suits: the men were three of the four that had jumped Jenny and Gene along with the pinstripe guy outside Excalibur. The two suits from the hall were dressed similarly, but hurriedly, as though they'd been called out here while sleeping, and the remaining man and woman had the build and apparent dress of well-paid bouncers (the former of which had been the one who'd retrieved them from the closet). They were sitting and standing around a wooden table, upon which sat Gene's jacket (which Jenny had been wearing prior to the crash) and a device which looked like an honest-to-Spielberg ray-gun rifle, straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Eight against two was bad odds, given the looks of things, but if she could get her hands free, she'd change the balance in a big hurry. Without her hands to direct the flow of negative energy, all she'd manage to affect would be herself.

She and Gene were shoved roughly against the opposite wall, and their escorts faded back, now holding guns at the ready in place of their flashlights. Jenny glanced sideways at Gene, who was supporting himself as best he could, propped up against the wall with his good leg. His face was a mask of agony and rage.

The suited woman rose from her chair and stepped forward to face the two captives. Jennifer found herself forcibly reminded of Emma Frost: though this olive-skinned, black-hair-in-a-bun woman looked nothing like her old teacher, there was a sense of control and practiced poise about her that was almost identical to that of the headmistress.

"Good evening," she smiled, coldly. "Welcome to Las Vegas. My name is Bethany Scott, and I am the operating Chair of the local chapter of the Friends of Humanity."

"Where's your white hood?" asked Gene, in a low growl.

Scott stared at him, looking displeased at the interruption. "I already know who you are, Mr. Corvus," she said, smoothly. She then turned those cold eyes on Jennifer, and her smile widened unnervingly. "But I'm afraid we've never met. Ms... Jensen, is it?"

Jennifer blinked, momentarily disoriented, but then realization dawned. Like Gene, she'd been using a pseudonym during her stay in Vegas: one of the fake identities Paul had set up for her. They'd probably picked it up from one of her room reservations. "That's right," she shot back. "Stacy Jensen. My friends call me Jenny." She said the last with a sarcastic smile.

"Very well, Jenny, I'd like you to..."

"I didn't say you could," Jennifer interrupted, shooting out her last remnants of bravado.

The practiced smile vanished, leaving behind a very businesslike, chilling expression that gave Jennifer a momentary shudder. Something about this woman was setting her completely on edge.

"Very well, then, Ms. Jensen," Scott corrected herself. "Before we go any further, I have a few questions concerning your presence in our fair city."

"I'm on vacation," she snapped.

Scott crossed her arms. "You were using your mutant abilities in several of our casinos. That's not to be taken lightly."

"If you were watching," Jenny grated, "you mighta noticed that I was losing the whole time."

"To be honest, Ms. Jensen, that isn't really important to me right now." She stepped closer to Jennifer, never letting her piercing gaze falter. "I'm going to give you the chance to make things easier on yourself. You see, minutes ago, one of our operatives radioed in, saying that he'd detected two more mutants, over by the Excalibur resort, where you were staying. Before he could find them, though, they disappeared from his scanner, without a trace."

By this time, Scott had brought her face within inches of Jennifer's, and Jennifer, her back to the wall, had nowhere to retreat. "Do you know anything about them, Ms. Jensen? Anything you could tell us would make things easier on you in the long run."

Jennifer felt a sudden sinking feeling. It had to be Doug. Who else could it be? She realized that she might have just led him and his team into a trap, not to mention...

...no, she would not think about that.

"I think you forgot to read the script, Beth," Gene broke in, giving the woman a glare from beneath his matted hair.

To Jennifer's relief, Scott turned away, then, to shift her focus onto Gene. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Corvus?"

"This is the part where you tell us your diabolical plan," Gene explained. "This is where you gloat over your captive heroes and tell them what horrible things are in store for them in the brief remainder of their lives. Come on, I've seen this movie before. Get on with it already."

Jennifer felt a wave of panic as one of the suits from outside Excalibur stepped in closer, his gun at the ready. "Come on, Bethany, let's ice this piece of shit. Creed only needs one."

"A moment, Mr. Price," Scott replied without looking back, merely raising one hand in his direction to silence him. "That will not be necessary at this point." She then smiled that terrifyingly perfect smile at Gene again. "Mr. Corvus, there is a basic flaw in your assessment of the situation. We are the heroes, not you. We are the salvation of humanity."

"You," said Gene, meeting her gaze, "are a heartless, bigoted bully, leading a crew of ignorant pigs who'd rather kill something than try to understand it. You're nothing but the blind leading the blind."

Jennifer then remembered the cords tying her wrists behind her back, and started working on them again. What the hell was Gene doing, trying to piss them off?

Scott regarded Gene for a moment, then looked over her shoulder. "Mr. Price, it seems that Mr. Corvus has only one good leg. The other appears to be broken."

"So it is," Price nodded.

"See what you can do about that, won't you?"

"By all means," Price smiled. He then stepped forward, brought up his pistol, and shot Gene in his unbroken leg.

Gene was not fully able to stifle an involuntary cry of pain as the bullet ripped through the meaty part of his thigh, and he crumpled to a seated position, his legs sprawled awkwardly on the floor.

"Oh, Christ," Jennifer gasped aloud before she could stop herself. She had to look away: the sight of him slumped on the floor was more than she could stand right about then.

*Tell me you're nearly loose,* his said in her mind, but his mental voice was distant and faint. *I can't keep distracting 'em forever.*

*Stop it!* she thought back. *Just stop it! Don't let them hurt you anymore! You're scaring the shit outta me, now stop!*

The next words, however, came from Scott. "Do we have your attention now, Mr. Corvus?"

"Oh, I might be convinced to listen for a while," he hissed.

"Splendid. Since you're so interested in your immediate future, I suppose I could tell you. The two of you are going to be turned over to the leader of our cause, and he will decide what is to be done with you. But before he arrives, we need to make sure you won't be any... trouble, so we are going to strip you of your mutant powers. Once these are gone, and if you choose to cooperate with us, perhaps you'll be given the opportunity to live out the rest of your lives as real human beings."

A harsh sound came from Gene, and to Jennifer's continued horror, she recognized is as a bark of laughter. He was determined to keep pushing them, just to keep their attention off her, and she couldn't get her damned hands free!

"Real human beings? Like you? I'd rather die with my wings on, thanks."

"Hold that thought, asshole!" Price scowled, once again leveling his pistol, this time at Gene's chest.

"Not just yet, Mr. Price," Scott interrupted, again waving him off without even looking at him. "We'll see how he feels after the neutralizer. Mr. Jacobs, if you would?"

Another of the suits from Excalibur took up the ray-gun thing and stepped up beside Scott. "Want me to get the girl first? She's the dangerous one."

"Hooooold on a second," Jennifer interrupted, her throat constricting with panic. "Can we just talk about this a second?"

"They won't believe you," Gene warned her.

"Shut up!" she barked at him. Anything to keep him from continuing his suicide run. "Listen," she went on, looking Scott in the eye. "My powers are over good and bad luck. I used a lot of good luck earlier this month, and it's thrown out the balance, and right now there's a crapload of bad luck in me, and I've been trying to get rid of it in the casinos, and if you shut off my power, all that bad luck's gonna come out, and it's gonna kill us all, okay? Look, I won't do anything, but don't take my power, or we're all screwed!"

"Really?" Scott asked, arching one eyebrow. To Jennifer's dismay, she didn't look at all convinced.

"You weren't there," Jacobs said to Scott. "You didn't see what she did to Gordo. She shot him with some black thing, and his gun blew up. Took off three of his fingers. She's too dangerous: we've gotta zap her, quick."

"Look, I coulda done a lot worse than that!" Jennifer shouted at them. "That was just a drop in the bucket! I coulda killed all five of you if I wanted to, but I didn't! If you take my powers, it'll be just like that, only worse, and I won't be able to stop it! Remember that guy that blew up?"

"How do you know about that?" Scott asked, her eyes widening.

"I told her," Gene growled from the floor. "That man you killed was a friend of mine, remember?"

"Listen, I'm not kidding," Jennifer insisted. "You think that was bad? This'll be worse!"

Scott paused, as if considering this. "I think you're bluffing," she then smiled. "Mr. Jacobs?"

Jacobs nodded and hefted the rifle with both hands. "Don't!" Jennifer screamed. "I'm warning you!!"

"Leave her alone!!"

All eyes, including Jennifer's, went to Gene. To Jennifer's surprise and dread, he had brought his aura of shadow around himself, and had pushed himself up to hover a couple of inches off the ground. His eyes were lit up from within, and his face was a mask of darkness. The sight of him was momentarily more frightening to Jennifer than the threat of the rifle had been.

"Mr. Jacobs!!" Scott shouted.

Without hesitation, Jacobs adjusted his aim, and fired the weapon at Gene. A green beam shot out of the barrel of the rifle, enveloping Gene in a sickly green-black aura.

Gene screamed, a broken, high-pitched inhuman howl, and his shadows began to shrink, growing closer and closer to his body, until finally, they winked out of existence, and he dropped back to the floor, landing awkwardly on his side. The aura faded, leaving Gene gasping for breath.

*Gene!* Jennifer thought as loudly as she could. *Tell me you're faking! Please, God, tell me you're faking!*

*Fine, I'm faking. Keep working on those hands!*

It took a concerted effort to keep the relief from showing on her face. Still, though, time was getting shorter. Her hands and wrists were sweating profusely by now, and she hoped that this would help her pull them free.

"How the mighty have fallen," Scott quipped, standing over Gene and shaking her head. The amused look on her face was enough to make Jennifer sick, and she felt an overpowering urge to wipe that smile off in a big way.

"I'm not dead yet," Gene groaned, in a weak British accent.

"We've wasted enough time," Scott sighed. "Mr. Jacobs, it's her turn."

Once again, the panic rose up overpoweringly as Jacobs turned the rifle and aimed it at her. "Don't do it!" she screamed. "I'm serious! You shoot me with that thing and we're all dead!!"

"I'll take my chances," Jacobs snorted, sighting her down the barrel.

Before he could fire, though, the gun was seemingly thrown out of his hands, and went sailing across the room. "What the hell?!" he cried.

A second later, Price's gun leaped out of his grasp, as did the pistols held by the male bouncer and the other suits.

"Knock her out!" Scott ordered.

"But I'm not doing anything!" Jennifer cried.

"Yeah, but I am!" Gene shouted. In one fluid movement, he rose up off the ground, wreathed himself in shadow, and cannoned across the room to body-slam Price.

A single word came to Jennifer's mind, then, as chaos erupted throughout the room. *Run!!*

At that moment, with one last painful yank, she slipped her right hand out of the cords. Her hands had been tied together, so freeing the one was as good as freeing both. Letting her Hellion combat training take over, she leaped forward and decked that Bethany bitch across the face before she even knew what hit her.

Gene, meanwhile, was making himself the center of attention, flying at one enemy after another and slamming into them. His legs trailed uselessly behind him, and his hands were still tied, so he simply propelled himself forward and bludgeoned each of them with his whole body. It was the first time that Jennifer had seen him actually fly, and she wondered how long he could keep it up, as hurt as he was.

She made for a door, but the third of the goons from Excalibur saw her, and moved in to intercept her. Instinctively, she brought up her hands, and fired a black disc at him, causing the man to slip and fall hard on his ass. It was then that she noticed that both of her hands were covered with blood. They had not been sweating at all: she had lacerated her wrists in her efforts to get free.

She looked over to see that the female bouncer had managed to get a firm grip on Gene, and was trying with some success to wrestle him to the floor. Placing her back to the wall, Jennifer prepared to send another disc spinning their way, hoping that it would find its mark.

Before she could, though, the world suddenly became one huge bright light, and she felt herself in the middle of it, bathed in an aura of heat and radiance. The ray. Someone had picked up the ray.

Jennifer felt a tiny snap within herself, and then the floodgates opened.

Black energy poured out of her in every direction, a wave of chilling darkness, expanding outward like a mushroom cloud, with her at ground zero. Everyone in the room was flooded with it, bathed in it, inundated with it.

And Jennifer felt them, each one of them, as the darkness affected them.

The suit on the floor at her feet tried to get up, but he suffered a sudden and massive heart attack, and collapsed to the floor, unable to move.

Jacobs, instinctively trying to leap out of the way of the onrushing wave, lost his balance and landed hard on the floor, twisting his neck. There was an audible splintering noise as several vertebrae shattered with the impact.

Price, having found his gun, tried to fire at Jennifer, but like Gordo's at Excalibur, this one exploded. Unlike Gordo's, though, this time fragments of the pistol buried themselves in Price's skull and pierced his brain.

One of the unknown suits suffered a sudden, unexpected brain aneurism, while the other dropped to the floor as a cancer that had been spreading from his pancreas finally got around to attacking his heart.

Around them, the entire building was beginning to creak and groan, as subtle instabilities in the structure all started to give way at once, and the ceiling above them began to crack. Several chunks of it fell, one crushing the skull of the female bouncer while another pinned the male bouncer to the floor.

Bethany Scott, who had retrieved the neutralizer and fired it at Jennifer, dropped the weapon and clutched her abdomen, her eyes wide with shock and pain. She had insisted on being here to run the interrogation in spite of the fact that she was two months pregnant with her first child, and now, in the stress and strain of the moment, she had suddenly and unexpectedly miscarried.

Gene, while fighting for his life in spite of his broken leg, had managed to knock a tiny chunk of marrow loose from his fractured bone, which went into his bloodstream and rushed straight for his heart, causing it to seize up and stop beating.

And Jennifer felt it all. She felt each of them being killed or maimed by her bad luck, and she couldn't make it stop. Her powers were gone, and this was the result.

Finally, the blackness faded, and Jennifer stood in the midst of the carnage, chest heaving as she fought for breath. She was completely unharmed, while all around her was in ruin.

Staggering unsteadily, as her body seemed a million miles away from her agonized mind, she made her way to where Gene had fallen. "Gene?" she whispered. "Come on, get up! We've gotta run! We've gotta get out of here!"

Gene did not move. He simply lay there in the floor, not moving, not breathing, all traces of his shadow gone, his eyes clenched shut, his face a death-mask of pain.

There was a gasping from close by, and Jenny noticed, distantly, that the male bouncer was still alive, though still pinned by the fallen ceiling. If he'd lived, then Gene would have had to...

No. She'd felt his heart stop.

Panic closed cold fingers around her guts. She was alone and powerless, and she'd killed the only one who could help her escape.

"My... my baby..." came a choked voice from across the room.

Still moving slowly, Jennifer turned to face Scott, who'd collapsed on the floor, clutching her midsection. The woman looked up at Jennifer, looking a pathetic mix of shocked, terrified and furious.

"I tried to warn you!" Jennifer cried, hysterically. "I told you, you idiot! Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

"You killed my baby," Scott gasped. "You killed my baby, you goddamned mutie bitch!"

"You pulled that trigger, not me!!" Jennifer screamed at the woman. "You killed Gene, you killed all of us!!"

"I'll... I'll kill you, you fucking mutant!"

"I'm already dead!!" Jennifer shrieked, finally stepping off the edge and plunging into the abyss feet-first.

Her sight blurring with tears, she turned and ran, out the door, through a darkened hall, up a flight of stairs, tripping several times on her way up, but never breaking momentum. She had no idea what she was running from, or towards.

The stairs finally took her to another door, which took her into a small maintenance room, which in turn led to another door, through which she found a huge open space which must have once been the main lobby of this hotel, back when it had been in business. There were more lights here, and through their dim glow, she saw the main front doors before her. Escape.

But escape was blocked. Four guards with rifles were here, watching over the entranceway, and one of them had seen her. "Guys! It's one of the muties!!"

As one, they aimed their weapons at her...

...but all four of their rifles simultaneously jammed. The wave had even reached this far, apparently.

Jennifer, her body now moving on auto-pilot, took this opportunity to turn and run for it. The four guards gave chase, and their shouting voices spurred her on.

These shouts caught the attention of others elsewhere on the ground floor, and pursuers began closing in from all sides.

In the middle of the lobby, though, was a once-ornate staircase leading up to the second floor. Lacking an alternative, Jennifer dashed barefoot up the steps, and was quickly swallowed by the darkness at the top landing.

Revenge, of course, would have to be sweet.

On the one hand, Jennifer was tempted to march straight up to Doug and chew his narrow blonde ass out for making Mac cry like that, but that wouldn't be nearly satisfying enough. Something far more intricate and devious would be so much nicer. The more embarrassing or humiliating for Cypher, the better.

It didn't take her long to come up with a plan. She'd attended such "functions" as this at the Club before, and she was in with the upstairs drawing-room gamblers. They never seemed to mind letting an underage girl join their games, and never seemed to care as she cleaned them out, as they were too busy staring at her to pay much attention to their cards.

When she arrived, there was already a high-stakes poker game in progress, along with the dice table and roulette wheel. She recognized most of the players by sight, and several looked up and waved greetings as she came in the room.

One in particular, an immensely fat business tycoon by the name of Willard Lexington Wallack, called out "Jenny! Long time no see, my sweet!"

"H'lo, Lex," she smiled, strutting up to the table and looking at the cards held by the nearest players. "Just getting started?"

"You're just in time to join in, dear girl," Lex grinned, his deep voice dripping honey. He gestured to an empty chair right across the table from himself. "We have an open seat, just for you."

"Maybe later, boys," she shrugged. "Keep the seat open for me, though, won't you?"

"We'll be waiting," Lex nodded, his eyes wandering up and down her body.

"I'm sure you will," she said over her shoulder as she turned and walked away from the table.

Off in one corner of a room, a small wet bar had been set up, where a tall, skinny Club employee was doing double duty mixing drinks and trading in cash for casino chips. He, too, recognized her by sight as she sauntered up to the bar. "Jen-ny Can-dy Stav-ros!" he greeted her with a thin-lipped smile, saying each of her three names in a singsong voice. "Nice of you to visit! Here to play some?"

"You wish, Fletch," she teased him. Fletch was a slimy character, but harmless enough, not to mention hopeless enough to do anything she asked. "But I do need a favor from you."

"Oh, anything your little heart desires," he chuckled. "I am your humble servant."

"Nice to know," she smiled. Taking care that Fletch would see just enough, she reached into the front of her dress, and pulled a thousand dollar bill from a concealed pocket inside. She always made a point to bring just the one bill to each of these parties, in case she felt the need for a game or three. "I need some chips, please," she smiled, presenting him with the bill.

"By all means," he replied, bringing out a small stack of $100 chips and setting it on the bar. "And of course, your drinks are on me."

"Glad to hear it." She took one of the chips and passed it back toward him, keeping one finger over it. "But you can call this a tip for yourself if you can do me a little favor or two."

"And what would they be?" he asked, leaning forward over the bar.

She put her arms up on the bar and leaned forward as well, so that her face was inches from his. "I need something... special, for a friend of mine. It's kind of a surprise."

"How special?"

She looked one way and another in a mock gesture of conspiracy. "Just the teeniest speck of meth. Enough to make a guy think he's king of the friggin' world. A little confidence booster."

"Ooooh, Jenny, that's tough," he smiled. "If your headmistress knew..."

"It's not for me, stupid. And she won't find out, trust me." She batted her eyelashes at him to emphasize the request.

"I... think I could do that," he nodded, looking at the hundred-dollar chip. "Just so you don't get me in trouble, Candy girl."

"Call me that again and I might consider it," she smiled, showing all of her teeth.

He gave a single snort of laughter. "Whatever you say, beautiful. So, anything else?"

"Just hold these chips here until I get back, okay? I'll come to pick 'em up in a few. And... I can trust you, can't I?"

"Of course," he replied, looking mock-affronted at the question.

"Good," she nodded. "I won't be long."
 
 

As it turned out, she wasn't long at all. Almost immediately upon exiting the room to go look for Doug and put on the charm, she spotted him wandering down the hall, hands in his pockets, not really paying attention to anything at all. Luck was with her: he'd come right into her trap.

She set herself up in a pose at the door to the drawing room, leaning back against the doorframe, bringing her best you-look-tasty expression to her face.

Doug wandered closer, watching the floor, oblivious of her presence. For a moment, Jennifer thought he was going to pass right by, but then, just a few feet from her, he stopped, his gaze having found her shoes. His eyes slowly worked their way up to hers, and she had the satisfaction of seeing an expression of shocked surprise peek through his sullen cast. The hook was baited.

"You're Doug," she smiled, stating it as a fact rather than a question.

He answered in the same factual manner. "And you're Jenny Stavros."

Jennifer feigned surprise. "You remember -- Neat!" She pushed herself away from the wall and took a single step closer. "I prefer Roulette."

"Like your dress," he said, weakly.

The fish was testing the bait. "My kind'a outfit," she shrugged, letting the shrug involve her whole body. "My kind'a place. My kind'a people."

At this, Doug looked away. "Wish I felt the same."

The fish was starting to swim off. Time to jiggle the hook. "You a geek then, Cypher... or a player?" she asked him, putting just enough mocking into her voice, before dropping to a more seductive tone. "Me, I go for players."

He looked at her, and studied her eyes for a moment. "What did you have in mind?"

Hooked.

She cast a glance over her shoulder, through the open doorway to the drawing room. "You play poker?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Show me how good you are, then," she said over her shoulder, turning away from him and stepping into the room.

As expected, he followed. She indicated the empty seat at the table, opposite Lex. "There seems to be a spot open," she indicated. "Why don't you get started, and I'll be riiiight over."

Doug nodded wordlessly, and went over to take the seat. Jennifer hurried over to get her stack of chips from Fletch, who gave her a wink as she gathered them up.

"Deal me in, please," she heard Doug say back at the table.

"This is high-stakes poker, boy." This was Lex, and when Jennifer came up to the table, she saw that the big man was looking at Doug as though a cockroach had just climbed up onto the table.

"I'm not a boy, mister," Doug said back, in a low, firm voice.

Before Lex could reply, Jennifer appeared at Doug's side and placed the stack of chips on the table. "I'll stake you, lover," she smirked. "Go for broke!"

"Now hold up a second here," Lex protested. "Jenny, darling, I wouldn't feel right taking your money from the hands of this... gentleman..."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll find a way to pay me back if he loses," she smiled, looking at Doug. His expression, to his credit, did not change, though she fancied he was starting to sweat. "So don't lose," she added.

"No, no, I don't like it," Lex insisted. "Hardly fair to you, girl."

"Try me," said Doug, looking Lex in the eye.

Jennifer leaned over Doug's shoulder to gaze across the table at Lex. As she hoped, his eyes were drawn straight to her dangling pendant, and the expansive cleavage behind it. "Lexy, Doug's a friend of mine from out of town, and I want to show him a good time. You can do that for me, can't you?"

Another of the players gave Lex a cagey look. "Oh, I'm sure we can go easy on him for the first couple of hands."

"Well, if you're sure," Lex frowned, grudgingly accepting their insistence. He started shuffling the deck with practiced ease. "The next hand will be five-card draw, to keep things simple for our young friend."

"I appreciate that," Doug smiled, sarcastically.

Jennifer placed one hand on his right shoulder, then leaned her head over his left. "I'll be right back with our drinks," she whispered. Before she left, though, she used her mutant power to project a dose of good luck into him, through her hand and into his shoulder, with such subtlety that he didn't notice a thing. She then headed over to the bar, where Fletch was waiting, having watched the proceedings with interest.

"This the friend you meant?" he asked.

"Yep," she grinned. "Champagne for us both. And don't forget the extra."

"Of course," he nodded, pouring the two glasses. He then reached carefully into his inside coat pocket and removed a small vial of white powder. Taking care that no one would see, he removed the tiny stopper, then used the tip of a small stirring stick to remove a smidgin of the powder and dump it into one of the glasses. It dissolved on contact, and in moments, there was no visible trace.

"Thanks, I owe you one," she told him, taking the glasses, one in each hand, keeping the spiked one in her right.

"Ooh, I'm gonna remember you said that," he leered.

"Yeah, you do that," she mocked, quickly heading back to the game.

She arrived just in time to see that her luck power had had the desired effect: Doug had won the first hand with three aces, and had just like that won back triple his original stake. "Pot goes to the young gentleman," Lex announced, pushing the stack of winnings over to Doug.

"Nice goin'!" Jennifer cheered, handing Doug the spiked champagne glass. He accepted it, then looked at it dubiously for a moment.

"Cheers," she smiled, raising hers in a toast.

With a slight shrug, he raised his glass, clinked it with hers, then took a drink.

Time to reel it in, she thought, sipping her own champagne.
 
 

The game went on, with Jennifer feeding Doug just enough good luck to keep him winning regularly, though not continuously. And as the winning continued, and as he finished his drink, she was noticing the change in his demeanor. He still kept a great poker-face, and played well, but she was willing to bet that he was feeling the effects of the crystal. Not exactly high as a kite, but gaining altitude quickly. The poor schmoe probably felt like he owned the table, and with her luck backing him up, he had no reason not to.

One by one, the other players dropped out, once it became too rich for them, and soon only Doug and Lex were left, each having a huge pile of chips at his side of the table. A sizeable crowd had gathered by this time, to watch the big finish.

Lex, as the evening had progressed, had gone through his initial distaste at Doug's presence, right into surprise, then to amazement, and now that only the two of them were left, he was making a run at nervous. And Jennifer knew from experience that when Lex got nervous, he tended to up the ante.

And up it he did. The game, this time, was five-card stud, with Lex dealing. Hole cards were passed out first, then each of them got one face-up. Lex had the nine of spades, while Doug had the seven of hearts.

"High card is mine," Lex nodded. "My bet. Two thousand, to start with." He smiled, pushing his chips forward. "To you, boy."

Doug raised his eyebrows. "I told you once, mister, I'm not a boy. I see your two thousand, and raise you two more."

With that, Doug pushed a good-sized stack out to the center, and a ripple of surprise went through the gathered onlookers.

Lex raised his eyebrows. "I call," he nodded, matching the raise.

At this point, Jennifer leaned forward, setting one of her hands down on the table, pretending she was trying to get a better look. As she did, she "accidentally" knocked her empty champagne glass into the floor. "Oops, lemme get that," she said, crouching down as much as she could (given her dress). As she picked it up with one hand, though, she very surreptitiously fired a good-luck disc under the table, at Lex's feet.

Time to tip the scales the other way, and let this Ramsey character see what a loser he really was.

No one noticed her actions, as they were intent upon the game. Another card came up for each of them. Doug got the five of hearts, while Lex turned up the nine of hearts. "Pair of nines for myself, possible flush in the works for the young gentleman. The bet is mine." He used both of his heavy hands to push a larger stack of chips out. "Five thousand."

"I see your five," Doug nodded, speaking over the ooohs and aaahs of the audience. "And I raise another five."

Astonishment reigned among the spectators. Jennifer smiled to herself. Her luck was already having an effect on Lex, giving him a pair early on, allowing him to go for broke as much as his nervous heart desired. The luck would do the rest.

"I call," Lex replied, again matching Doug's wager.

The next cards came up. Doug's was the eight of hearts, while Lex got the king of spades. "Pair of nines for myself, possible flush, possible straight, possible... straight flush for the young gentlemen. The bet is still mine, though."

"So it is," Doug nodded.

"Ten thousand," Lex announced, heaping still more chips into the pot.

Doug could match it, of course, with the huge amount he still had left, but he hesitated a moment before doing so. Jennifer took this opportunity to place her head on his shoulder and whisper in his ear. "Go for it, baby. Show him what you've got."

"I see your ten," Doug said evenly, moving the chips into place.

"Betting on an inside straight's a risky proposition, my friend," Lex warned him. "Especially when I have your nine of hearts right here."

"Life's a risk," Doug shrugged. "Deal, please."

The final cards were set down. Lex had the nine of clubs, while Doug, to the amazement of all, got the six of hearts. That gave him the eight, seven, six and five: only one step away from a straight flush. "Three nines for myself," Lex announced, nervously. "Possible flush, possible straight, possible straight flush for the young gentleman."

Jennifer was loving this. Lex would win. He'd have to, considering the amount of luck she'd given him. And Doug, looking like he had it made, would be crushed. And then she would laugh at his little loser squash-mark on the floor.

"The bet is still mine, with three of a kind showing," Lex added. "Another ten thousand."

Doug paused a moment before he replied. "I see your ten, and raise five."

A long silence followed, and at last, Lex matched him. "I see your five, and..." He then made a show of looking over at Doug's remaining chips. "How much do you have there, young man?"

Doug paused to count. "Twenty-four thousand, four hundred."

"Well, then why belabor the issue?" Lex smiled deeply. He took a moment to separate this much from his own collection, and pushed it out to the center. The two of them had been close all along, with Lex having just a couple thousand more than Doug in his corner. If Doug matched him, and he lost (which he would), it would clean him out, and leave him at Jennifer's mercy. If Doug won (which he wouldn't), it wouldn't break Lex, but it would leave him with far less than he'd come in with.

Doug paused for a long time. Lex took his everpresent cigar from his mouth and smiled across the table. "You look nervous, boy. In over your head, mebbe? You can always quit." He waved expressively over the pot. "I raise. Match me or fold."

Jennifer placed her hands over Doug's shoulders and gave him a squeeze, leaning over to see if she could get a look at his hole card. He was guarding it well, though, and she couldn't catch a glimpse.

"I call," Doug said at last, pushing all of his remaining chips out.

The crowd was stunned, and so was Jennifer. He couldn't possibly be bluffing! He probably had a straight or a flush, and was counting on this to beat Lex's three-of-a-kind. A hell of a risk to take with over a hundred thousand dollars on the table, and defeat would be all the sweeter for it.

After a suitable pause, Lex picked up his hole card and tossed it down. The nine of diamonds.

"Four nines," he smiled. "Read 'em and weep."

A collective gasp went through the crowd, and several of the other players started to congratulate him.

Doug, however, took a deep breath, and picked up his own hole card. "Not tonight, thanks," he smiled, setting it down beside the others.

Jennifer almost choked.

It was the four of hearts.

A straight flush: the only hand that could beat four of a kind.

He'd been dealt a straight fucking flush in five-card stud.

Lex had been lucky to get the four nines, sure enough. Doug had just been luckier.

A cheer rose from around the table, and Doug smiled hugely. "Well, I think I'll be calling it a night, gentlemen." He then looked up at Jennifer, and raised his eyebrows as if to say "So?"

For a moment, she was too shocked to keep up the act, and just gaped at him. Doug's forehead creased with confusion.

Then the moment passed, and she realized she'd just have to find another way. Smiling her best smile in return, she took his face in one hand, leaned forward, and kissed him full on the lips. "Whatta guy," she grinned as they broke. "My hero!"

Lex got up from the table, disgusted, and pushed his way off through the dispersing crowd. A helpful attendant came over and started gathering the enormous pile of chips into a sack for Doug.

"Not too shabby at all," Jennifer went on, trying to keep her confusion and shock from showing through. She then picked up the sack and headed over to Fletch's bar, Doug following behind her, all but walking on air.

"Well, congrats!" Fletch grinned at the both of them, as Jennifer set the sack up on the bar. "How do you want this?"

"Just a claim voucher for now," Jennifer replied before Doug could. "I'd rather not carry so much cash."

Fletch went through the motions of sorting and counting the chips, then wrote up a suitable voucher, stamped it, signed it, ran it through a validation machine, and handed it to Jennifer. "You know where to pick it up."

"Thanks," she nodded, accepting the card from him. She then looked over at Doug, who was still flying high, grinning from ear to ear. She ruffled the front of his tux shirt with the card, then placed it in the front of her dress, sliding it into the concealed pocket there. "You'll get your share, hero," she told him.

"I'm looking forward to it," he smiled back, raising his eyebrows at her.

They headed out of the room together, and once they were clear, Doug finally lost any trace of his composure. "I don't believe it! I beat him, by myself, with strategy and skill!"

The poor goofball had nothing even resembling a clue. Jennifer found it frankly amazing that he didn't remember her mutant power enough to guess that she'd had at least a little to do with it. Or more likely, he was feeling nice and grandiose from the crystal, thinking that it must have been him all along.

"You sure did, lover," she laughed as best she could. "Now it's time to party!"

They passed a waiter carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne, and Doug deftly snagged the bottle as they passed. "I can live with that."

"So where to, hero?" she asked him.

"Actually, is there someplace we can get some air?" he asked. "The smoke in there was pretty thick."

"Sure," she nodded. "Just follow me."
 
 

She led him to the rear gardens. The Club owned most of this city block, and had used the area immediately behind the Club building itself for an enclosed courtyard, surrounded on all sides by walls, but open to the sky. Trees, immaculate hedges, fish ponds, and whatever exotic plants could survive the weather decorated the space. The snow had stopped falling for the moment, but the air was absolutely freezing out here.

By now, Jennifer was already coming up with a way to turn this to her advantage. He was riding high now, sure, but that would just make the final fall even harder. Now she just needed to find a way to make sure he did fall, and she had a good idea of how to start.

They strolled around the gardens until they found a private spot. Not too many party-goers had ventured out, so it was easy to find relative seclusion.

Here, Doug popped the champagne cork, then took a drink right from the bottle. "My lady," he bowed, passing it to Jennifer.

She took the bottle, took a pull, then set it down. "Doug Ramsey, party animal. Funny, I never woulda guessed it."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," he smiled, vaguely.

"True," she considered. "So... what else are you good at, besides playing poker?"

"Oh, this, that, the other thing."

"Which 'other thing' would that be?"

"Guess."

Jennifer smiled in response. Even though the game had gone sour, she was still in control of the whole situation. She beckoned him over with one finger.

Doug took a step closer, and then Jennifer wrapped both arms and one leg around him, and kissed him again, this time far more passionately than at the poker table. Doug put his arms around her as well, resting his hands on her bare back.

They held that pose for a long time, in one long, sustained kiss. For a moment, they paused to take a breath, and then Doug kissed her in return, starting the whole thing over.

Minutes passed, and Doug was starting to really get into it. One of his hands came up and ran through her hair, then traced over her face. From her mental stance, as casual observer, Jennifer realized that maybe she was going too far here. After all, this guy wasn't even seventeen. From a strictly legal point-of-view, this could almost be considered statutory rape.

But then she remembered the look on Mac's face earlier, and she didn't care. She was going to bring this jerk down, any way she could.

Meanwhile, he continued to caress her face, then her neck, then along her shoulder, then down her bare arm. She found herself wondering if he'd have the nerve to...

Even as she considered it, he began to trace one finger along the curve of her breast.

She pulled away from him, gently taking hold of both of his wrists. "Whoa, there, cowboy," she laughed. "Take it easy."

He stared into her eyes, and didn't say a word. His face had the oddest expression, as it was obvious that he wanted to keep going, but was waiting for her word.

"Later," she promised, placing one finger to his lips.

He kissed her fingertip. "When?"

Time to get control back, she realized. "Just not here. Someplace warmer."

He nodded, but said nothing.

"Want to come up to my room?" she asked, letting her seductive smile return.

"I'd love to," he whispered.

She took his hand, then led the way back inside. All the way, she considered her options. She could get him roaring drunk and let him embarrass himself in front of his teammates, maybe. If not that, then continue to get him nice and aroused, get him thinking it was his lucky night, then very sweetly leave him hanging and tell him what she really thought of him. Or better yet...

James! Oh, too perfect. Jennifer had only recently broken up with James, and he still hadn't quite gotten the hint. And James was quite the jealous type. Let James catch the two of them in a suitably compromising position, wait for that Apache temper to send him through the roof, then watch as he knocked Doug into a senseless puddle of goo for laying hands on 'his' girl.

No less than the little jerk deserved, she reminded herself.

Landmark Hotel, Las Vegas NV
Saturday, 5 February 1994 5:17 am MST

Welcome to the mind of the dying.

The world had become both very small and unspeakably huge in just minutes. There was nothing beyond the confines of the self, though even this was beginning to blur around the edges and fade out.

When Gene had been "gifted" with his powers less than a year before, he'd quickly discovered that his telekinesis worked best inside his own body. Seven points of focus at his command, anywhere from large forces used to lift him off the ground in flight, to small points used to manipulate his own body on a cellular level. He'd also quickly discovered he was much better on the small scale. More to the point, he liked it immensely. Using his foci, he could turn his sight inward, and the sense of measure within his own self was incredible.

I can feel no sense of measure...

Right now, the emphasis was on fragile.

No illusions as we take...

Refuge in young man's pleasure...

Breaking down the dreams we make...

No problem.

Real.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, he kept a song repeating over and over like a soundtrack, and he used it to keep some measure of rhythm. Music had always helped him to concentrate on difficult tasks.

One down, one to go, another town and one more show...

There. That was a start. Of course, if he let go, he'd be no better off. He needed to get the thing out somehow, and quickly. His inner sight was beginning to blur, as the small amount of blood still reaching his brain was growing more and more oxygen-deprived, and his trillions of cells were starving.

Downtown, they're giving away, but she never came back...

Not out of the woods yet, though.

One focus then remained behind to hold the piece in place (just in case), while the other two shot down to stimulate his diaphragm, using it to expand and contract his lungs. Luck was with him, here: there was nothing blocking his throat, and the air passed through freely.

No phone can take your place, you know what I mean...

No amount of human anatomy classes could have prepared him for this, he thought to himself with some humor.

We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Lub-dub.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a pulse!

For a moment, he congratulated himself, and then the pain hit.

Ah-ah... Leave it!

Ah-ah... Leave it!

In order to keep this from a repeat performance, though, he'd need to seal the broken bone, which he hadn't been able to do in the closet: he'd been too busy keeping his telepathic tap on the proceedings outside.

No problem.

To do it, though, he'd have to set the two sections of bone, and he couldn't do that with his foci. He'd need to come out of his introspection and regain control of his muscles from the "outside."

No matter how much it hurt.

A moment's disorientation as senses returned to the outside, and then a long pause of just lying there, listening to the sound of his own pulse and breathing. It sounded wonderful.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the crushed head of the lady who'd been trying to wrestle him down, no less than two feet away. Lovely.

With slow, painstaking movements, he pushed himself into a seated position, then took a look around the room.

It was a not a sight to wake up to under any circumstances. The few remaining lights outlined a grisly scene. Dead bodies littered the floor, some partially buried in the semi-collapsed ceiling. The stench of blood and voided bowels was just the icing on the cake.

"Jesus, Jenny," he whispered. He took a quick head-count of the dead, and saw that Jenny was not among them, and neither were Bethany Scott or the male bouncer. He hoped that this meant Jenny had escaped, and the other two were probably chasing her.

A look upstairs wouldn't hurt, though. Using his telepathic sight to project his thoughts outward (it wasn't too difficult, given that his mind and body were already mostly separate in his present condition), he scanned here and there, looking for others.

He found one source on the ground floor. A lone guard was posted at the front doors, his thoughts near panic. Recent memories of the mutie girl running upstairs, of his gun not working, of Scott and her bruiser gathering all available guards to tear the hotel apart looking for her, and him left alone to guard the main entrance...

They hadn't found her, then. Well, that was one good thing out of this mess.

He returned mind to body and focused his attention on his broken leg. Using a combination of his inner and outer sight, he set the broken bone, wrenching it into place with his arms, while using his TK to make sure no more bits came loose. Once it was set, he used all seven foci to start fusing the fractured segments back together. No time for a thorough job: just enough to make sure nothing else would spill out of it. He'd have time to do the full healing job later, assuming he got out of this.

Once the leg was done, he did the same to the gunshot wound in his opposite thigh. The bullet had passed through, thankfully, so it was just a matter of speeding along the generation of scar tissue and fusing together bits that had been severed. Again, just enough to keep it together for now. It was the cellular equivalent of duct-taping his injuries, leaving them to be fixed at a later date.

Not too bad, for a jury-rigged job. Even then, though, he knew that his legs would not support his weight. The seal was too fragile for that.

His arms still worked, though. Using these, he dragged himself across the floor, over to where Mr. Price had fallen. What he needed now was a phone, and hopefully one of these business-looking dead guys would have a portable.

Price, however, did not. Gene settled for apologetically divesting the corpse of his necktie, then dragged himself over to Jacobs.

Jacobs, as it turned out, had a flip-phone in his inside coat pocket. Convenient. Gene took this, and took the man's necktie as well.

Holding the phone in one hand, and the two ties in the other, he scooted himself over to the wooden table at which everyone had been sitting. The table had been smashed into bits by a couple of chunks of ceiling, but the legs seemed to be intact. And they looked thin enough for his needs.

He broke them off as quietly as he could, then lay them down next to each other on the floor.

Then, to his amusement, he noticed his jacket lying just a few feet away. He grabbed it, then put it on, wincing at the feel of denim against his lacerated back. At least this would give him some protection, not to mention some vestige of his old costumed look.

Next, he got himself into a seated position, legs straightened. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out the business card with Doug's number on it, studied it for a moment, then switched on the cel-phone and dialed.

It didn't even ring once. "Yello!" Doug's voice came.

"Doug?"

"Gene?!" Doug all but yelped. "Gene, is that you?! Where the hell are you?!"

"Not so loud, man," he grimaced. "My head hurts."

"Sorry, sorry. Are- are you okay? Where's Jenny? We've been looking all over town for you guys!"

"Listen carefully," Gene explained. "We're at the Landmark Hotel. The Friends have been using it as a base of operations ever since it closed for business. Okay, now this is important, are you listening?" Coherent speech was becoming a problem, as he was being rapidly overtaken by weariness from his exertions. Forcing himself to stay awake, he took the two table legs and lay them alongside each of his own legs.

"I'm listening," Doug's voice replied.

"Okay, you guys are mutants like Jenny, right? Right. These folks have got some kind of ray that negates mutant powers, so you'll need to be real careful. They used it on Jenny, and it made her let loose with a bungload of bad luck that killed most everyone here, and nearly me, too."

"Jesus," Doug whispered.

Gene began using Price's tie to bind his ankles, both to each other and to the wooden table legs. "Right. Anyway, near as I can figure, she bolted upstairs, and they're taking the place apart looking for her."

"So where are you?"

"The basement. I guess they left me for dead." He then wrapped Jacobs' tie around, just above his knees, so that his legs were braced on either side by wooden supports. This, at least, would keep the two of them together, and make it easier for him to fly.

"Okay, where is the Landmark Hotel? We just pulled into the parking lot of St. Vincent's Hospital. Can you tell me how to get there from here?"

"I don't know where that hospital is," Gene sighed, impatiently. "Look, you can't miss it. It's a big phallus sticking up out of the desert."

"I beg your pardon?"

"A big cylindrical tower with a bulbous tip. It's the most Freudian building in town."

"Ooohhh-kay. Hold on a second. (Catseye, I need that tourist map you picked up. Thanks.)" As before, there was the sound of an unfolding map. "Okay, I'm checking the index... ah... there! Okay, I found where it is. I... think we can be there inside of five minutes."

"That'd be great. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much good to you, though."

"That's fine, man, you just saved the day. Stay where you are, and we'll come to you."

Gene smiled weakly. He had the feeling he was going to like this Doug person, whoever he was.

Landmark Hotel, upstairs 5:27 am MST

Rational thought had long since fled, which was just as well. If she had time to stop and think about what was happening, and what had happened, she probably would have just given up and let herself be taken. Now, though, there was just an instinctive need to survive. The fight-or-flight reflex was kicking in, but in favor of the latter option.

Nothing else but blind instinct could have led her this far, through the darkened upper stories, down circular hallways and up steep stairwells, the sound of her pursuers pushing her along from behind.

Here she was, barefoot and barely dressed, robbed of her mutant powers, well beyond the point of hysterics, blood dripping from her hands, trying to find some form of escape from a wholly unfamiliar setting, in a building that was even now creaking and groaning under its own unstable weight.

In the time since the Landmark had shut its doors, it had been given a thorough gutting, in that most rooms were empty (even the doors were gone), carpets pulled up, furnishings removed, and fixtures unaffixed. One or two rooms on each floor had been set aside for storage, with the contents of the other rooms moved in while the carpets were removed, and then left there, as though the job had been abandoned before its completion.

It was into one of the empty rooms that Jennifer ultimately wound up fleeing. She checked the huge windows along the "outer" wall, but there was no balcony, and no fire escape. No way down from here.

But then she saw something that brought her a surge of hope. A cop car was cruising up, through the empty parking lot. Somehow, somebody must have noticed something going on at the Landmark, and the cops were here to check it out. And right now, cops could handle this situation a lot better than she could.

How to get the cops' attention, though?

The answer was obvious. Jennifer had seen the movie DIE HARD at least a dozen times with Angie, Cass and Sharon: it was one of their favorite weekend party movies at the Academy. This was a scene right out of that movie. She was alone (and shoeless, even) against a tower full of terrorists, and Reginald Veljohnson was down there in the car, oblivious to what was going on.

It was then that she realized that this had been a movie all along. There was really no other explanation for it. She was just an actress in an action movie. None of this happened in real life, even to mutants. People didn't die like they did downstairs... not in real life. Those were just union guys making scale for their bit-parts. And Gene was just another actor, who'd be waiting for her off the soundstage as soon as she finished filming this scene, and they'd go and get breakfast someplace while waiting for the next scene to be set up.

A standard formula action-adventure. The producers had just opted to go for a beautiful blonde in the lead role this time, rather than the standard Bruce Willis-type. They'd considered Pamela Anderson at first, but then they'd come to their senses and decided to go with Jennifer Candice Stavros, some unknown from Jersey, recognizing her superior talent.

She needed to finish this scene, though, or there wouldn't be a sequel. She needed to break the windows with a chair, then try to get the cops' attention.

There were no chairs in the room, though. The prop guys had screwed up. The director was letting things roll, though, so she decided to improvise. She raced out of the room, down the hall, and into one of the suites being used for storage. Here, she took one chair from a neat stack, carried it back to the stage (she needed to do this on-camera, or else what good would it be?), and with a mighty heave, pitched it at the enormous panes of glass comprising the outer wall.

In reality, this would probably be shatter-proof glass, and the chair would either bounce off or break. But things worked differently in the movies.

The chair sailed through with an enormous crash, taking a good part of the glass wall with it. At least the prop guys hadn't screwed that part up.

But then, from down the hall outside, she heard a shout, followed by two sets of running footsteps. Two more of the terrorists were coming, and she was trapped in this room. No gun, no rope she could use to rappel from the broken window, nothing.

She dashed up to the shattered window, to see that her chair had landed right in front of the cop car. Two officers were even now emerging from the stopped vehicle to investigate.

"Up here!!" she screamed. "Help me!! Get me out of here!!"

From behind, two men ran through the open doorway, crossed the room in a flash, and grabbed her. She struggled, trying to let the cops (and the cameras below) see her before they dragged her back away from the opening.

These were two of the guys who'd been guarding the door downstairs, she noticed. Their rifles, jammed and useless, were slung, leaving them only brute force to use against her.

This, of course, was the reason Jennifer had beaten Pam Anderson for this role: she could do her own stunts and fight scenes.

She planted a foot into the knee of one of her attackers, and heard an incredibly realistic twisty crunch sound, accompanied by a scream from the bruiser (the sound effects guys were doing a great job!). He'd been holding one of her arms, but now he let go, allowing her to drive her fist into the other guy's solar plexus, making him drop back, gasping for breath. Pretty realistic job, for a stuntman.

Clear of both of them, now, she let her fighting training take over, and they did the scene just like it was choreographed. The one she'd kicked in the knee made a clumsy grab at her, and got a foot in the groin for his trouble (that would make some male eyes water in the audience). Once he was doubled over, she aimed a swiping kick (that gymnast training had really paid off once she started karate) at the loser's head, which knocked him to the floor, down and out for the scene.

The other guy, though, had caught his breath, and jumped her from behind, trying to overbear her and pin her to the floor. She staggered under his weight for a moment, then reached back, grabbed him by the neck, and tried to flip him.

It was an off-balance throw, but he was even more imbalanced than she, and he went sailing through the shattered window with a panicked scream. Jennifer, to her horror, found herself pitching over the edge as well, and caught the window ledge with her flailing left hand as she tumbled into open space.

Then came the pain, which was very, very real. There were still big chunks of glass in the window frame, and one had sliced her hand badly as she grabbed hold. The pain was almost enough to make her let go, but that wasn't in the scene. There had to be a dramatic cliffhanger moment before she pulled herself up.

Looking down, though, she saw that the FOH guy had fallen the seven stories to the pavement below, and his head had made a convincing splat-mark just fifteen feet from the cop car. One of the cops had drawn his gun, and was looking up at her, while the other one, weapon also drawn, dashed for the front entrance. "Hold on, lady!!" the stationary cop was shouting at her. "Just hold on!! Someone's gonna be right up to help you!!"

But then came the sound of gunfire from the entrance, and a cry of pain and surprise that could only have come from the other cop. One of the FOH guys guarding the door must have gotten his gun working.

This was real. That was a real guy whose brains were all over the parking lot. That was a real cop who was getting shot trying to come to her rescue. That was real glass digging into her hand, and a real seven-story fall waiting for her if she let go.

The other cop had run off to his partner's rescue, trying valiantly to split his attention between this and the girl hanging from the window, but Jennifer had a good inkling that he would need to deal with the immediate threat on his own life before coming to help her.

Maneuvering herself carefully, she found a relatively glass-free section of ledge and grabbed it with her right hand. She then slowly pulled herself up, just like the pull-ups she'd done in the gym, and swung one leg up over the edge, planting her foot on the cold, but solid, floor of the room beyond. Then the rest of her followed, and for a moment, she lay there near the shattered window, gasping for breath. She looked at her left hand, but couldn't really tell where the cut was through all the blood.

There was no time for this, though. Her other friend, crumpled in a little ball a few feet off, was beginning to groan, and backup was no doubt on the way.

She staggered out of the room, then down the hall toward the stairs. With the cops here, they'd have to concentrate on what was going on downstairs. This just meant she'd have to hide further up, and pray that the cops found her before Bethany and her buddies did...

Outside the Landmark Hotel, 5:38 am MST

The sky was lightening by the time Go West arrived on the scene: soon the sun would be rising, and the cover of darkness would be gone. They needed to get in, take care of things, and get out again, as quickly as possible.

This in mind, they had left the convertible out on the road a good distance away, and Warlock flew them the rest of the way in, changing himself into a miniature version of the X-Men's custom SR-71 Blackbird to facilitate the task.

From the cockpit, Doug got a good look at the surroundings. There was a police car near the front entrance, and there apparently had been some kind of commotion, as two officers were behind the car itself, using it for cover. A quick check of police radio frequencies revealed that these two had fallen under fire, and extensive backup was on the way. That could work to their advantage, actually: if the Friends of Humanity were firing on cops, it just might put mutants and the law on the same side for once.

He came back into the tiny "cabin" space to report these findings to Marie-Ange and Sharon. All three were now in costume, and Marie-Ange had staff, sword, and card-pouch at the ready, the latter two belted on, with the former in hand. In addition, she wore a Warlock-fashioned helmet, complete with headset transmitter, infrared visor, and a tiny external camera mounted on the side. Catseye, who could see in the dark regardless, had opted for a smaller, streamlined headset/camera, which would not interfere with her shapechange abilities.

"Did the reports say how many police were on the way?" Marie-Ange asked, when Doug was finished explaining matters.

"A couple of full units and a SWAT team. They're treating it as a hostage-slash-terrorist situation, with an unknown number of armed terrorists, and at least one known hostage. The only description I heard was that it was a blonde female, so I'm guessing it's Jennifer. She's somewhere up in the tower."

"And Gene?"

Doug activated his headset microphone. "Gene, you still there?"

"Still here," came the vague reply. "There's been a commotion up on the ground floor, from the sound of things."

"Yeah, I guess the cops are here."

"Is that good?"

"It might be. They spotted Jenny up in the tower, so she's still here. Can you tell me any more about how many guys we're dealing with in there?"

"If they're here in force, they'll have about a dozen guys who're basically just armed guards. Since they were dealing with two of us, I'm betting the full complement's here. There's also the lady who runs the show, and a big guy with a beard who looks like a bouncer. One of them probably has the ray-gun."

Warlock brought them in over the top of the tower, just like he had at the Imperial Bank fire months before, and set them down gently. "Hang in there, Gene," Doug transmitted. "Help's almost here." He then put Gene back on "hold," and turned his attention to the two ladies. "If we want this done quickly, we'd better split up."

"Makes sense," Catseye nodded.

"How about this," Doug proposed. "We'll start from both ends. You two start from up here and work your way down, and I'll start below, find Gene, then meet you on the way up. First one to find Jenny gives a holler, and we bolt. I'll have a direct video feed from your cameras, so if you run into any trouble, I'll know."

"Alright," Marie-Ange agreed. "But you will let us know if you run into any serious danger as well, n'est-ce pas?"

"Of course. And if you see a woman or a bearded guy toting what looks like a ray-gun, run like hell. Okay, Warlock, disassemble."

At Doug's word, Warlock unfolded his structure from around them, setting them gently on the roof as he did. He then took this structure and re-formed himself into a shell around Doug. "Process complete," he announced. "Is selfriend ready for psychemerge?"

"Ready," Doug exhaled.

Contact was made, and all senses readjusted to the new input as the two selves merged. Warlock formed a helmet around Doug's head, and Doug wired himself in, connecting himself to his teammates' cameras, to the local police broadcasts, and to the still-maintained telephone connection with Gene, below.

Any of the original human members of Go West could merge with Warlock, thanks to the Reconstruction (as they called it), but Doug was best at it by a longshot. His powers of deciphering language and code enabled his mind to step up to the incredible speed and versatility of Warlock's hardware, and allowed him to, as it were, think on Warlock's level. All forms of input were absorbed and comprehended, when to any of the others, it would be a nonsensical babble.

He quickly re-adjusted senses, so that he took in not only all that was around himself, but also views from the cameras carried by Sharon and Marie-Ange, transmissions from their headset microphones, incoming messages on the police bands, the cel-phone connection with Gene, and lastly a "heads-up" display of their vital signs, monitored by his own and his teammates' headsets: an idea he'd shamelessly lifted from a movie and applied to this real-life adventure.

All in all, this took less than a second. "Let's do it," he transmitted.

Catseye gave him the thumbs-up. "Banzai," she said, simply.

"We'll be in touch," Marie-Ange added.

Leaving them to their task, Doug and Warlock rocketed off the rooftop and made a sweeping turn around the tower. In the distance, the flickering glow of a dozen beacon lights heralded the approach of the police, in force.

Through the camera uplink, Doug saw that Sharon and Angie had overcome their first obstacle: the roof-access door had been locked, up until such time as Catseye shifted into cat-form and tore it from the hinges. The two of them were now heading down into a darkened stairwell, Catseye taking point.

Doug really wasn't liking the idea of the four of them being on the inside, and having the cops not know about it. To the police, this might end up looking like mutants had been the source of the problem all along. Before going to find Gene, perhaps it'd be best to get things straight with the authorities.

That in mind, he made a rapid descent, and pulled up to land behind the police car he'd spotted earlier, where two officers, one injured, were taking cover.

The uninjured cop pulled his gun on them. "Hold it right there!" he shouted, though he was obviously shocked (and a little frightened) at the sudden appearance of this battle-suited monstrosity.

"I'm on your side," Doug assured them. He knelt down beside the injured officer, zeroing in on the man's wound: he had been shot in the upper arm, and the bullet was still buried in his biceps muscle.

"Here, let me give you a hand with that," he offered. Before the man could even flinch, Doug closed one armored hand over the arm, then extended a tiny probe to snag the bullet and pull it out. Warlock's sight gave him a surgeon's precision, and the officer barely had time to gasp before the slug was pulled free.

"Who are you?" demanded the other cop, still holding his gun on Doug.

"My name's not important," Doug replied. "Now, listen carefully. The people who shot at you are the Friends of Humanity. The girl you saw in the window earlier is a mutant, and they're not going to let anything so trifling as local authorities stop them from killing her. I've got two people in there looking for her now, and I'm about to join them. If I were you guys, I'd stay the hell out of this and leave it to us."

"We can't do that, mister," the injured cop said, shaking his head. "We got hostiles and we got a hostage, and we got a job to do."

Backup was even now arriving, as squad car after squad car screeched into the parking lot. "Look," Doug sighed, "I know you're just doing your jobs, and I really appreciate it that you are, but frankly, we're better equipped for this. Now, I'm going in, and getting my friends out. We won't stop you from doing your jobs, but for your own safety, you stay out here and let us do ours."

He turned away, and was about to go airborne when the first officer's voice brought him short. "Well, who are you people?"

Doug couldn't resist. "We're Go West," he said over his shoulder. Then, he and Warlock rocketed up off the ground, and smashed straight through the third-floor windows.

The plan was progressing, albeit in a somewhat different manner than Jennifer had originally intended. After taking Doug to her guest room upstairs, they had finished the champagne bottle together, though Jennifer made sure to let Doug have most of it while she demurely sipped away at her own glass. Once the bottle was done, Doug had reached a pretty high cruising altitude, and was beginning to look more than a little silly. A good start.

Jennifer had then grabbed the nearest serving maid she could find, and sent her to bring back more champagne, along with caviar, foie gras, and about two or three of her fellow maids to join the party, promising that they would be well compensated for their time and trouble. A little backup wouldn't hurt, she told herself.

And so, in time, it became what looked a lot like a clothed orgy, with Doug, Jennifer, and four serving maids all piled on Jennifer's bed, drinking, eating hors d'oeuvres, and giggling as Doug recounted the story of his death-defying poker game with Lex and the other big spenders. Champagne poured freely, spirits were high, and Doug was getting to be more than a little shitfaced, now feeling the mixed effects of the crystal, champagne, and residual adrenaline from the poker game and encounter in the garden. Thankfully, Jennifer noted, he had eased off on the roaming hands now that they were in company, but he kept himself quite close to her all the while.

At length, Jennifer decided that it was time to finish the job. While Doug was occupied, telling details of his story to two of the maids, Jennifer beckoned a third, more sober-appearing servant over. The young lady scooted toward her and leaned close. "Yes?"

"I was wondering if you could get another round of everything for us. Could you do that, please?"

"Of course, Ms. Stavros," the maid nodded.

"And one more thing," she continued, moving to whisper into the other woman's ear. "If you could find Mr. Proudstar, and ask him to join us here? I'm sure he wouldn't want to miss the party."

"Oh, of course!" she smiled. "I'll find him right away."

While the maid gathered up a tray of empty bottles and proceeded toward the door, Jennifer positioned herself behind Doug and traced one hand over his shoulder. He looked back at her and smiled. "Hi, Jenny."

"How you feeling?" she asked, mischievously.

"I'm... pretty wasted," he admitted.

"Uh huh," she nodded, grinning widely.

One of the other maids accidentally spilled an entire glass of champagne down the front of her "uniform," causing all three of them to burst into tipsy giggles. Doug took this opportunity to move in just a little closer to Jennifer. "Listen," he said, "before I get too wasted, there was something I wanted to tell you, but I wasn't sure how."

"Really? What's that?"

There was a muffled crash from the hallway outside the room, but they paid it no heed. Doug looked at Jennifer, and all traces of his drunken state drained from his expression. For the first time since winning the poker game, he looked completely sober and serious. "You..." He looked away for a moment, then back into her eyes. "God, you're so beautiful..."

Jennifer blinked a couple of times, utterly surprised. Her first reaction was to say something flip, like "Yeah, ain't I though?" but this went unsaid, as she was literally stunned by the very sober, very serious tone he'd used. It sounded like he was really saying "What in the world is a little nobody like me doing in the presence of a goddess like you?" No one had ever said it like that before. Not James, not Carlos, not anybody.

Then, before she could react to the words, he kissed her again, very gently.

Then, before she could react to the kiss, the door creaked open, and a small, high-pitched scream of shock and surprise cut through the room. Doug looked round, and Jennifer peeked over his shoulder to see a furry humanoid shape standing just inside the open door. Jennifer recognized her as Rahne, the wolf-girl: one of Doug's teammates from the New Mutants.

Doug looked back at Jennifer, and his serious expression dissolved into giggles. "Oops. Caught in the act."

For a while, there was no sound, except for the creak of the door as it closed behind Rahne.

"Douglas?!" Rahne finally gasped.

Jennifer shook off her earlier surprise, smiled to herself, then eased herself up behind Doug and put one arm around him, lazily tracing her hand over his chest. Let the embarrassment begin.

"Hi, Rahney!" Doug waved. "Wanna join us? More the merrier, I always say."

"Dear Lord in heaven," Rahne whispered, shaking her head as she took in the scene.

"Jesus, she's got fur!" one of the maids exclaimed, backing away and nearly toppling right off the bed.

Doug looked over and smiled at her. "What're you talking about?"

"Look at her! She's got fur!"

"Ahhhh, I think you had a little much," Doug giggled.

"Hey, maybe you guys should head out now," Jennifer suggested to the three.

Before anyone could make a move, though, the door was kicked open from outside, and in rushed Dani Moonstar, Doug's team leader, followed quickly by none other than James. Beautiful.

"Alright, creeps, nobody..." Dani shouted, her eyes widening as she got a good look. "...Moves?" she finished, quietly. "Douglas?"

"Hiiii-ya, Chief!" Doug waved, slipping all the way back into shitfacedness. "Come to crash my party? No prob, don't mind, plenty of bubbly to go round... an' round... an' round..." He giggled.

"Cypher, you're drunk!" Dani shouted, disgustedly.

Jennifer looked over Doug's shoulder and saw that James was staring right at the two of them, eyes huge. She leaned over Doug's shoulder to nibble at his earlobe. Any second now...

"Naaah, jus' feelin' no shame, is all," Doug shrugged. "And... (hic) less pain."

Dani's face darkened, then she stomped across the room, grabbed Doug by the front of his shirt, and literally yanked him to his feet. "You want to put that observation to the test, buster?!" she yelled. "Have you gone completely nuts?!"

Jennifer shooed the maids out of the room, and they quickly beat feet. Just in time, too, as Illyana Rasputin suddenly teleported in with the rest of the New Mutant squad. Jennifer then positioned herself at Doug's shoulder, to watch the proceedings with interest.

Then, to Jennifer's shock, James cracked a grin, and put his hands on his hips. "Lighten up, Mirage. The fella's having himself a good time. Where's the harm in that?"

He wasn't exploding. He wasn't even angry. Jennifer felt her stomach drop. He thought this was funny! Everything was backfiring on her, even James's notorious temper!

Dani looked over her shoulder at him. "Magneto may have drafted us into this stupid club, but we don't have to act like we belong! We're better than that."

"Well, excuse me all to blazes," James snorted. "And we're not?"

"I saw Roulette here. I bet this is all her fault!"

Here, finally, James started looking annoyed, but not with Doug. "Looks pretty mutual to me," he snapped.

"Yeah, right, sure!" Dani went on furiously, letting go of Doug and squaring off with James. "First Catseye lures Wolfsbane away, then the bimbo goes for Cypher. Who gets nailed next, desert rat?"

Behind them, the remaining Hellions, drawn to a commotion as always, had come to investigate, and Jennifer caught a glimpse of Marie-Ange, trying to see what was going on over the crowd. Well, at least she'd have the satisfaction of showing Mac how she'd brought the twerp down.

James scowled at Dani. "Watch the mouth, girl. Nobody forced anyone to do anything! My guys may have invited yours to play, but yours accepted willingly!"

"Luck..." Doug said, suddenly.

Jennifer looked round to see that Doug had turned wobbily to face her, and his face was filled with accusation, surprise, and anger. He'd finally figured it out. Why he'd picked now to realize it was beyond her, but she backed up a step, nevertheless.

"Of all the lousy--! It wasn't my skill that won downstairs! You rigged the game my way, with your stinkin', cheatin' power!" To the surprise of all, he accented the last word with a ringing forehand slap across her left cheek. The blow knocked her a foot sideways, but more out of shock than the force of the slap.

That, finally, got James to act, and about time. He grabbed Doug, as Dani had done before, but this time lifted him clear up off the ground. "Apologize, boy... real fast, and mean it... while you still got your teeth!"

"Hands off, Thunderbird," Dani growled. "If anyone disciplines this butthead, it's me."

In an effort to keep the peace, Dani's co-leader Sam Guthrie stepped in, positioning himself between James and Doug. "Chief, T-Bird, we got a lot of tension here, a lot of energy: how 'bout we..."

His words were lost to Jennifer, who melted back into the crowd. Her face still stung from the slap, and her mind was broiling with suppressed fury. It felt like all the good luck she'd thrown around all night was having the classic equal and opposite reaction on herself.

Near the back of the gathering of mutants (all of whom seemed focused on the team leaders now), she found Marie-Ange, who regarded her with wide grey eyes.

"Well, I got him for you," Jennifer sighed.

Mac looked at her for a few moments, then shook her head. "How could you?" she whispered.

"How could I what?"

Marie-Ange just shook her head, suddenly very close to tears again, and turned away.

That, at least, made it official. The night had now gone to shit in every way possible.

Landmark Hotel, Las Vegas NV
Saturday, 5 February 1994 5:47 am MST

The merged form of Doug and Warlock roared around the circular hallway on the Landmark's third floor, using their powerful senses to check the area for life signs, movement, and most importantly, a clear way down.

They found neither of the former, thankfully, though they were detecting movement on the floor just above them: the vibrations of two sets of running feet. None on the second floor, though. Doug hazarded a guess that their hosts from the Friends of Humanity were doing just as his group had intended: making a systematic search, floor by floor. He relayed this potential danger to Marie-Ange and Sharon, who were currently at the very top story.

"Catseye, you might want to stay in human form for this, so your costume can protect you," he added.

"Will keep this in mind, goldenmane," she transmitted back.

After circuiting two thirds of the way around the main hall, a way down was located: the freight elevator shaft. Without breaking momentum, Warlock slammed through the elevator doors and shot straight down to the basement. The freight elevator itself turned out to be resting here, so they had to bust their way through that as well, before emerging into a wide hallway.

It was, of course, pitch black down here, but that was not a problem, given that they had Warlock's technoid senses to work with. They scanned the area for any trace of friend or foe, but found no immediate signs of life or movement.

Doug did the mental equivalent of pressing a "hold" button, and reconnected with the cel-phone Shadowwing was using. "Gene, I'm in the basement. Where are you?"

There was a brief pause before Gene's voice replied. "'Fraid I can't tell you, exactly. I was unconscious when they brought us in."

Another scan pinpointed the source of Gene's transmission as being just a few walls away. "Doesn't matter, we found you. Hey, is this building condemned?"

"Sort of. Why?"

"Shortest distance between two points often requires property damage."

"I wouldn't," Gene warned, his voice suddenly gaining focus. "That's something else that happened when they zapped Jenny. This whole place is getting to be pretty unstable, and I don't think banging up the foundation is going to help."

"Right," Doug agreed. "Okay, we'll take the long way."

Warlock, by this time, had already probed the entire bottom floor with a complicated series of radar, sonar and other scans, and placed a schematic up on the "heads-up" visor display of Doug's helmet. A blue blip showed their position, with a green blip signifying the source of the transmissions. Shortest route was plotted, and off they went.

When they arrived at their destination, though, the still human parts of Doug had to force back the urge to be violently ill. There was just enough light here to outline the room in hideous detail. Half a dozen bodies littered the floor of this meeting room: some smashed, some laying at impossible angles with bends where human bodies just aren't meant to bend, some clutching at their chests, eyes frozen open in looks of terror...

Doug and Warlock had seen death before, and on a far greater scale than this. That didn't make it any easier to witness this carnage, nor did the knowledge that Jennifer, however unwillingly, had been the cause.

There was no time to dwell on anything, though. Propped up in a seated position against one of the walls was a tall man, mid-twenties or so, with long black hair and a black denim jacket, his legs bound together with a pair of wooden supports.

"Mr. Corvus, I presume?" Doug said aloud, crouching down beside him.

Gene opened his eyes and looked them over. "Doug?" he asked.

Doug flipped up the visor of his helmet and grinned at him. "In the flesh, as it were." He patted the techno-coating around himself. "This is Warlock."

Warlock took this opportunity to extend a tiny head from the shoulder of the suit. "Salutations, entity designate Shadowwing."

For a few seconds, Gene just blinked at them, as though trying to clear his vision, but he then shook his head. "I won't even try to understand just now, if that's okay."

"Nothing to worry about. Can you move?"

"Sure," Gene nodded, taking the flip-phone in his hand and shoving it in his jacket pocket. "Just need a second to focus."

"Are you telepathic?" Doug asked.

"After a fashion."

"Do you think you could use that to find Jenny? We've got two more people up in the tower, and it'd help if they knew where to look."

"Sorry," Gene grunted, trying to pivot his bound legs. "That would have to be a 'no' at the moment."

"How about the enemy? Could you keep tabs on where they are?"

Gene paused in his efforts and gave Doug a somewhat annoyed look. "You are kidding, right?"

"Well, no, I wasn't."

"Ah. Real brief, then. I don't know what level of telepath you're used to dealing with, but on my best day I'd be hard pressed to do something like that. Like I said, I'm not going to be much good to you right now."

"That's fine," Doug assured him. "Sorry, didn't mean to step on anything. We'll find her another way."

Warlock had a suggestion, for which he mentally conferred with Doug. A small remote-controlled probe could scan the building quickly and efficiently, not to mention get them in contact with Jennifer if it found her. They still had enough "multi-task" mental energy between the two of them to pull it off.

Wasting no time, Doug pointed one arm back the way they'd come, and jettisoned a small lump of Warlock's structure, which quickly formed into a dart-like shape and jetted out of the room at a good clip. A "probe-cam" view added itself to the visual inputs, along with the remote cameras carried by Tarot and Catseye.

It then occurred to Doug that Gene would need a communicator, too. "Here, put this on," he said, forming a headset comm/cam in his hands and detaching it from their conscious control.

Gene looked at the device skeptically for a moment, then shrugged and put it on. "Nice battlesuit you got there."

"Self is flattered," said Warlock, his voice coming from Doug's chest this time.

"Come on, let's get you out of here," Doug cut in before Gene could ask. "You'll be safer outside."

"Stand back a second," Gene whispered.

Doug and Warlock did so, moving away to give him space. Then, to their joint surprise, Gene's eyes lit up from within, and he began to levitate himself up off the floor. Once he had sufficient clearance, he straightened his legs, and then twin wings of blackness and a matching tail formed around him, barely discernable in the near-darkness.

"I'm not leaving until we find Jenny," he said, in a low, quiet voice.

"Right," nodded Doug. "Okay, then, let's go."

He flipped his visor back down, and led Gene back toward the freight elevator shaft, in the direction the probe had gone. The probe-cam had found nothing thus far, and by checking in on Tarot and Catseye, he saw that the two of them had split up to cover more ground.

Then, to his horror, a gunman appeared on Marie-Ange's display, and opened fire.
 
 

Marie-Ange hurried down the fifteenth-floor hall, keeping herself close to the inside wall of the circular corridor. The structure of the place incongruously reminded her of the house back in La Jolla, but the situation was not even close. She checked each empty suite as she passed, making a quick but thorough search for Jennifer. With any luck, her friend would have found a place to hide from her captors. All they needed to do was find that hiding place first.

Of course, given the circumstances, Marie-Ange had no idea of how Jennifer would react to being found by someone she'd thought dead all these months. No time to beat herself up over this no