LOG: Maverick, Day Two - Debriefing

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Betsy Braddock helps to debrief Maverick and find out exactly what he's on the run from, and what's chasing him. It's not pleasant.



Facing the window, Betsy brought her hand to the curtains and pulled them back, checking the perimeter.  She scanned the outlying surroundings and when she was convinced that the safehouse was secluded.  Betsy turned back to the man sitting behind her.  Her tight expression only matched her cool exterior as she gave Maverick her full attention.

"Shall we get started then?"

David North closed his eyes, letting out a long breath to the count of ten. When he opened them, Maverick was looking out. Gone was the shaky, nervous insurance adjuster from White Plains, New York. The professional was in charge now.

"It was sixteen years ago," he began, "the Soviets had put together a project that was supposed to turn the tide of their battle in Afghanistan against the mujihadeen. They had a scientist who'd actually defected from the U.S., Dr. Cornelius, he'd found a way to work with mutants who had hostile mutations. Train them, focus them. So the Soviets gave him Arkady Russovich, late of Spetzgruppe Voychan, the KGB's domestic enforcement squad."

He looked at his hands, fingers laced, and kept explaining in clipped sentences. "NATO found out, sent in my team. Me, Jim Logan, and that psychotic American... can't remember his name. Complete animal. But we dropped into the facility, killed our way in, and I put a full clip into Arkady myself. But it wasn't enough. He has this thing, this... spore he secretes. Think of everything you've heard about biological weapons, how horrible they are, why most civilized countries ban them." He clenched his hands together to stop them from shaking. "Omega Red, that's what NATO called him in the file. Their final solution. He's a walking biological weapon, with the training of a special ops soldier and the mind of a serial killer. And he is here, and he is loose."

"And now, he's after you?"  Betsy questioned,  raising her eyebrows skeptically.  She walked over to him, her heels clicking on the hardwood surface, and dragged over a chair and sat down in front of him.  Looking down at North's manicured nails and his tailored suit, it was definitely not the sort of dress she'd expect from a merc and especially one associated with Logan. Betsy reminded herself of the file she reviewed before coming face to face with Maverick and sighed. These days, it seemed everyone was suffering from personality splits.  "So, why now? What has brought Arkady out of the woodwork and hellbent on sending you off proper? "

"Whenever he revived," Maverick continued, "he must have found his way to the States - lacking any sort of minder or control, he's free to kill all he wants. And believe me, he wants a lot. I..." His brain hurt trying to reconcile the memories of his cover identity with the real ones bubbling up from the depths of his mind. "I was on my way home from work, and he was there one day, that's the first time I remember seeing him. I don't know how long he's been stalking me.  That's when the post-hypnotic cover identity began fragmenting.  Standard deep-cover sleeper pattern," he continued to explain, gesturing with his hands. "Only with the Stazi defunct now, no more Program, no more Weapon X... I traced the info from the last dead drop Logan left before he went off the grid. Led me to you. And if he trusts you and your people, then you're the only chance I've got of seeing tomorrow."

Turning in the chair, Maverick looked out the window at the setting sun over the thick wood line. "Times like this I wish I still had my mutant power."

Betsy remained silent.  She followed his gaze while she hopscotched along his mind.  It was filled with the fragmented memories, all trying to reintegrate, to find logic where there was none.  But she could not force North's mind to process information too swiftly, to do so would be as if she asked a sane man to jump off a ten-story building. Both options would lead to unnecessary and violent jolts to the system.

There was a slow shift in his countenance, allowing Betsy an opening to proceed.  She took her time with her next question, there was no need to rub salt into an open wound. "Tell me about your ability.  What exactly are you able to do?"

"Limited range precognition," the tired man explained, "Sixty second flash-forward, sort of like the feeling you get when you know something's about to go bad? I got that with details. When the program folded, right after we failed to retrieve Cornelius, we had to go underground. Not sure where the American went, but Logan and I went to the man who we were told could salvage our careers. William Stryker. Said he had a project that needed men of our expertise. Hell, Jim couldn't sign up fast enough. Me, I was told 'deep cover'. Psychic implantation of a cover identity, suppression of mutant power, told I'd be given a trigger when it was time to act in six months."

Maverick looked down at his fingers, tightly laced together. "From what I've been able to gather, things went south. Logan caused some...problems. My operation was canceled, and they never brought me in from the cold. One less loose end."

Betsy grimaced.  Logan caused some...problems. That sounded oddly familiar. She dragged her chair closer to him, bending her head down and peering up at him.  "I can see why you'd want your mutation right about now."    Pulling back once she made eye contact, Betsy cleared her throat, a nervous tick from childhood.  "Are you familiar
with the nature of my mutancy?"

Maverick raised an eyebrow. "If you're Psylocke, then yes. You're a telepath, and you used to work for the British government, specifically STRIKE. The Stazi had a file on you, I believe at one point my superiors actually considered having you killed. If they'd known that Psylocke was really Lady Elisabeth Braddock... but then again, British intelligence earned its reputation for effectiveness on such misdirection."

Offering a cautious smile, his face slowly drew into a somber mask. "Do you think you could... unlock the conditioning? I warn you, I am not entirely certain what I remember of the project, or what I may do. Yet if Arkady is on the loose, it may be what we all need to survive."

"Yes, I am the very same," she couldn't help the smug upturn of her lips. "But that was the point, wasn't it?"  Betsy leaned back in her seat and sighed loudly.  "Am not going to lie to you on that matter. It could be quite uncomfortable, probably downright painful."  She clasped her hands together, bringing her steepled fingers to her lips.  She was clearly doing more than thinking about it and she felt, more than saw, North shift uncomfortably.  After a moment, Betsy continued speaking.  "Yes, David.  I think I can, if you'll let me."

"Please?" North's voice was quiet. "I want... I need this. If we are to survive, I need this."

"I'll try my best to prevent any undue pain," Betsy stated, her expression tight as she focused her mental abilities.  She rose from her seat and slowly walked toward North, standing directly behind him.  "I've already done an extensive scan of your mind and since your former employers didn't have their heads stuck up their pretentious arses.  They obviously knew what they were doing, unfortunately for us.”  Betsy placed her hands on his shoulders and gave a reassuring squeeze.  "I'm going to have to resort to something a bit more invasive."

Betsy removed her right hand, made it into a fist, and then felt the familiar connection as her mind projected its’ mental energy into a glowing, purple blade.  Betsy raised her fist, the unnatural violet light shining hauntingly in David's eyes, as she brought it to the back of his skull.

"Close them," Betsy ordered.  Counting backwards in her mind, the numbers reverberating in his thoughts, three...two....one....

She slammed the psychic knife forcefully into the occipital lobe.  "Contact."

David North's last thought was that if she was promising a painless process, Elisabeth Braddock was a fucking liar.

It was the mental equivalent of debriding a wound, cutting away diseased and dead tissue, exposing the healthy but raw flesh to oxygen. Only the mind under the identity of David North was as scarred and weathered as any Betsy had ever seen. Thoughts and memories intermingled, flowing in and out of both individuals, a lightning-quick unity of minds -

- broken by the ring of a telephone, once, twice, then the click of an answering machine.

"Good morning," came the reedy, heavily accented voice over the speaker. "I congratulate you on your excellent evasive techniques, whoever you are that has attempted to steal my prey from me. You came very close to eluding me many times, but I am Spetznaz. Do you know what that means? Of course you do. It means that if you can hear my voice, you are already dead. Your jet outside - I invite it closer.  Perhaps I am outside with a surface to air rocket. Would you like to see your new friends fall like burning angels, David? Would that be properly poetic for you before you die? Before I kill you as you killed me?"

"Ark...Arkady..." North drawled, the connection with Betsy broken.  Everything was fuzzy, like trying to push forward through thick mud. 

"'s... here. Dead. Have to... have to... run."

"Perhaps I have gained access to this very house, David. I have dreamed of killing you in a place like this, so unlike our world of shadows and blood. But there will be enough blood - enough for me to paint your face forever in my mind, David."

The recorder hissed as the tape wound down, but not before a thin laugh came from the speaker, faintly audible from the other end of the house, and a last pronouncement.

"You will always be my favorite kill, David."

The breaking of the connection was so fast it took Betsy half a second to register another voice, another presence in the house and another second to realize it wasn't David.  She grabbed Maverick by his lapel, pulling him up and away from the mind stationed at far end of the house, and moved him toward the door. She’d already sent a psionic distress call to Alison.

Arkady inside.  Safehouse compromised.  Target in danger. 

Opening the door and shoving her charge out of harm's way, Betsy dragged a still groggy David North toward the Blackbird's planned landing area.