xp_logs | Fiddler's Green: Greenland (Reply)

Arriving in Greenland, the other members of the rescue team discover from Jean that Nathan's capture was all part of the plan. Kyle is sent into the facility with psychic camouflage to trigger Nathan's memory blocks, and after having his own encounter with the young operatives, frees his teammate - only to discover that their business there isn't finished. On the flight back, Haller takes care of an unexpected consequence of Nathan's captivity, and Kyle and Zanne try to distract themselves from what's to come. The day's only just started.

The coordinates Charles had identified had turned out to be in Western Greenland, well distant from settlements of any size. They were lucky that it was July and the weather was perhaps the best it ever got, this far north. That and the minimal population made coming in along the coast and staying under the radar far easier than it might have been somewhere else.

In the end, Jean set the Blackbird down on a rocky, uninhabited beach. To the east were craggy hills, and just beyond them was their target. They hadn't overflown it coming in - that would have been a dead giveaway as to their presence if someone had happened to look out a window - but the satellite pictures had been uploaded to the Blackbird computer.

Jean eyed the images on the onboard screen and sighed; the dispersed nature of the facility and the presence of that team of Taygetos operatives meant they definitely needed to make some alterations to the plan and it wasn't going to be nearly as straightforward. No doubt that was why they were using this site. And what she'd sensed as they flew over wasn't going to help a whole hell of a lot either...

"Okay, time for you all to get some new details on the plan," she said, waving the others to come take a better look at the satellite shots. "First, we're not going to be able to do a frontal assault here. While the central building," she tapped it on the photograph, "does have the largest concentration of targets, these other buildings are in use too. We can't just go charging in, and with that many trained or conditioned minds, I'm not going to be able to trigger our ace in the hole. Which would be point two: Nathan's the plan, although right now he doesn't remember that."

Jim, who had spent most of the flight silently turning his cigarette case over and over in his hands, now frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"As odd as this is going to sound, Nathan being kidnapped by Taygetos was part of a plan," Jean said, leaning forward. "He has mental blocks in place so right now he doesn't remember, which means Trask and their telepaths can't find that out from him. The original plan was that we were a pick-up team, not a retrieval team - I'm supposed to trigger his blocks so he can get the information we need from his captors and get out and to us, hopefully quietly. The big key is not letting on to the rest of Taygetos that we know anything which could hurt them. But I'm not going to be able to trigger him from out here without tipping our hand. Plan B, which was us storming in and taking him if it looked to be too hard for him to get out on his own is also not going to work, given the set up."

Jim stared at her, carefully silent. This was in hopes of containing his internal dialogue, which kept vacillating between Jack's rage at needless worry for what had turned out to be yet another borderline-suicidal Nathan Dayspring Plan, Jim's attempts to tell himself the reasoning was valid and thus there was no use getting upset, and Cyndi's completely unhelpful laughter that they'd both been totally sharked.

Angelo was also staring at Jean, his face blank but his mind churning with upset and betrayed anger. "You couldn't have told us before? Even just the ones who'd be most worried about him?"

"Okay, so now what do we do?" Kyle asked. "Because, if Nate's too busted to come out, and we can't blow the place up to get him? I mean, what, do we call Clarice and see if she can port in? Do we just get backup? What's the plan?" He didn't have a plan, but someone had to have a plan. Or an idea. Or something like an idea of a plan.

"We worked out the beginnings of several backup plans," Jean said, turning back to the display, "in case things went wrong somehow. But they'll need fleshing out." Tapping her fingers against her lip as she considered she finally shook her head slightly. "Not Clarice, though. She would stand out too much, in too many different ways." Clearly something was percolating in her brain as she cast an appraising look at Kyle. "Any other suggestions?" was all she said for the moment, though.

Zanne shook her head with a familiar sense of mild irritation. Nate certainly had a talent for getting them all into trouble. "Do we know anything about Nate's condition other than he is, in Kyle's words, 'busted'?" She asked, questions starting to race through her mind. She didn't like it when plans unraveled like this. "Are we leaving him blocked once we find him or not? Is he going to know what's going on?"

"Physically, no, we don't know anything, although Charles assures me he's been conscious since he found him, so that's something. And no, we'll need to release the blocks to find out if he has the information we need. Either I can do it, if I can get close to him, or there's a backup trigger with a code phrase that anyone can activate. Which," she said, "I'm thinking is the way to go. Kyle, I think you're the key."

"I, uh, I'm the key to what now, exactly?" In a show of absolute restraint, Kyle did not pat himself down for any sort of actual key. He just pictured it in his head. Loudly. "I don't have like, sneaky invisible powers, I can't teleport and uh, I mean, I can go down there and beat the living crap out of anyone you wanna point me at, and I will totally enjoy the hell out of it, but uh... " He scratched his head, still confused. "Yeah, no, you're gonna have to explain this one to me."

"From their perspective, actually, you kind of do have sneaky invisible powers. Or, at least, a sneaky, could-be invisible brain." Jean leaned forward, cocking her head at him as she said, "Your mental patterns aren't that dissimilar to the foundation of the conditioning they're using. From my study of the notes we got I ought to be able to create a psychic overlay, mental camouflage, if you will, which would make you seem as though you belong to their psis."

Kyle let that sink in. It helped it make sense, although it didn't help him feel any better about it. "So, we're gonna make my brain look like one of their brains, and I get to go down there and pretend to be one of those poor kids and rescue Nate?" Which meant that Dr. Grey was gonna go inside his head, and do things, and that meant maybe he should warn her about the thing. "Uh. There's... a thing." In my head. Um. like Nate's, kinda sorta?

#Yes, I know. That, unfortunately, would be the other reason your brain would possibly 'feel' right to them.# Aloud she simply said, "That's the basics of the plan, yes," nodding slightly.

Kyle gave a brief moment to weigh how much he didn't like people doing things in his brain versus how much they needed to rescue Nate. "Okay. Lets do this." I warn you, he's kind of an asshole.

---

The thing about Greenland in July was that it was very green, but still cold enough to remind you that you were this close to the Arctic circle (in case the giant ice floes in the blue, blue water off the coast weren't enough of a reminder). From the outside, there was nothing to suggest that the buildings below the hills where Kyle was currently concealed were anything but an abandoned fish processing plant. It was very good camouflage, all in all.

Kyle had plenty of time in the 'Bird to look at the pretty scenery while he was letting Jean do things in his head. It had turned out to be a good way to calm himself down and he wanted to be familiar enough with the area that he didn't gape at ice floes like he'd only ever seen them once before. Appropriately enough, he thought dryly, the last time he'd had to do something slightly stupid to rescue Nate. It was obviously the fault of the Arctic Circle.

He barely paid attention to the chilly air, only acknowledging that he really wouldn't want to be outside in it dressed as he was after the sun went down. The fact that his first stop once inside was a stockroom to get some pants was incidental. That was a disguise. He could only get so far in his tank-top and boxer briefs, even if he had a hell of an excuse up his non-existent sleeves if anyone stopped him between now and finding some pants.

There was no one hanging around outside any of the buildings, or in the hallway that Jean had directed him to. In fact, no one appeared until after he'd hit the storage room and gotten into something more appropriate than his leathers. Ironically, the first person he saw was a slim, red-haired girl in her midteens, wearing much the same sort of outfit as him. She paused at the end of the hall, staring hard at him.

His good luck had to run out eventually.

Kyle didn't stop walking towards the girl. He barely paused, as if only to notice her existence, and met her stare with an acknowledging nod. Unlike the girl, he was barefoot, but that too was perfectly explainable. His feet were weapons, and to cover them up would've been a waste of ten perfectly good sharp claws.

Which was one of the reasons he didn't wear shoes in the first place, but it was one thing to refuse of his own volition, and another to know that someone would've made that decision for him had things worked out very differently.

She raised a hand, electricity crackling between her fingers. "Who." Her voice sounded rusty, ill-used. "Who you... stop." The last word was a warning hiss.

There was little sign of Kyle's challenge to the girl. His claws were already out, his hair had been cut short enough that it didn't show when it stood up on the back of his neck. He didn't growl, or bare teeth, he just stopped and stood still, looking down at her steadily. "Transferred. Yesterday." It an answer to her actual question, as though he simply wasn't interested in her question or her threat.

"Old," she hissed, not lowering her hand. But her shoulders were tense, her knees bending as if she was sinking, ever so slowly, into a defensive crouch.

"Trained." Kyle countered. Now he almost bared the teeth, just enough to let her see them. He wanted no question in her mind as to what he was, and what he was capable of. He remained in the almost military-like posture as if to suggest that he was looking down on her even more now that she'd questioned him. That he was very tall just added to the effect, letting him loom over the girl.

She bared her teeth right back at him, but it was a hesitant flash, more defensive than anything else, and she sank down even farther. There was a growl from down the hall and another teenager appeared, taller even than Kyle, his horned head lowering as he fixed the older feral with a deadly look. He extended a hand, snapping his fingers, and the girl scuttled back to a position behind him.

"Mine."

Kyle almost laughed. The noise he made came out as a dismissive bark, and he shook his head, even as he took his attention off the girl and onto the other boy. "Have one already." Well, he did, he justified to himself, even if he wasn't anywhere near as possessive of Jan as this boy was of his electrokinetic friend. He wasn't at all sure if he wanted to be relieved that they were still having something like relationships, or really disturbed that the vibe he was getting was more like mating and less like dating.

The bull-feral growled, reaching down and grabbing the redhead's short hair. "No sharing." She whined and twisted away, dodging as he made a grab for her. He gave Kyle one last warning look before he turned to follow her, back down the hall.

Kyle resisted the urge to go after them. Not because he wanted the girl, because he didn't. Too young, too submissive and too 'turned into a weapon for someone else's benefit'. He wanted to go after them, stop the bull-like feral from hurting the girl, to kick his teeth in for even thinking of being rough with her because that's not how you treated girls. He couldn't, so he had to settle for a low growl at their backs before he turned down the T-interection in the other direction from them and a promise to himself that if he did run into the bull-headed young man again, he'd crack a few ribs just out of general principle.

He didn't see anyone else until he'd made another right turn, following Jean's direction. Then, there were two more of the kids in front of him, a stocky blonde girl and a lanky boy, who seemed to draw his own shadows with him as he moved. They both stopped, seeing him. Shadows startled to crawl along the ground, stretching outwards from where the boy stood, towards Kyle.

Were they -all- paired off like this, Kyle thought. Was it some kind of sick breeding thing along with the child soldiers? He looked down at the shadows and watched them creep along the floor. If this kid was anything like Abyss, he was so very fucked. "Don't." he snapped out, leaving off the 'even think about it' that he'd normally have said.

"Make me." The boy's voice was flat, curiously resonant.

Would they be trained not to break each other unnecessarily? Kyle wasn't sure. On one hand, it was a waste. On the other, he didn't think that the people running this really cared. Maybe they figured the kids were disposable, and that if they hurt each other, they'd cull the weaker ones.

He walked closer, stopping just outside the radius of shadows and just... stood, like he was waiting for something to impress him. He was not going to beat the crap out of these kids unnecessarily. Leaving a wake of knocked out child-soldiers was a good way to get found out.

The boy bristled, but the girl beside him tilted her head, moving forward, through the shadows. She gave Kyle an up and down look, leaning in until she was staring directly up into his eyes. Then, almost delicately, she gave him a push.

It was sort of like being gently nudged by a large truck. Or maybe Optimus Prime. Kyle found himself having to take a step back to keep from being knocked over, and he was pretty sure he'd have a cluster of little fingertip bruises later. But as he caught himself, he grabbed the girl's wrist tightly and twisted, trying to pull her forward towards him.

It did tug her off-balance, but she gave him a strange, tight little smile, looking oddly pleased. "Spar?" she asked, almost idly. "Won't hurt you. Much."

The shadow-manipulator glared coldly at both of them and then whirled, stalking away. The stocky blonde continued to give Kyle that strangely coquettish smile.

Kyle frowned, and shook his head. "No time." He looked down at her and gave what he hoped was a convincingly flat smile and then ruffled her hair. "Cute. Raincheck." It wasn't a question. He was so going to the hot place. Chris Hansen was going to pop up and tell him to take a seat over there. This was so wrong.

The blonde looked perplexed, then backed away from him, eyeing him with an unreadable mixture of emotions in her eyes. Then, she shrugged. "Careful," she said. "Bug-eyes working. Told them take one. Dead now, maybe."

Kyle frowned at that, and let an annoyed growl slip out. He assumed he would have known who Bug-Eyes was, it was definitely someone in charge of something, and that was bad. How the hell was he supposed to react to that? Not care? Be annoyed that it was a waste? He decided that 'unspecified annoyance' was probably best, and shrugged at the girl. "Will be."

She nodded, then continued to sidle away, not turning her back on him until she was at the end of the hallway and had a clear escape route. Thankfully, no more operatives appeared as Kyle continued on his way through the complex. No one at all appeared, as a matter of fact, until he reached the stairwell that was supposed to lead down to the level where they were holding Nathan and heard voices. Both male, they seemed to be coming from the level above him.

"-kind of sick, Juan," one said, sounding uneasy. "I mean, he was just a kid. Looked about what, thirteen?"

"Not 'he'," the other voice corrected, sounding bored and a little amused. "It. You've got to get that straight in your head, or this job's going to screw with you. Besides, it was class C. Plenty of those to go around. It's not like we were using a class A like the little electrokinetic or anything. Plus the boss cleared it."

"... yeah, I guess. Just... well, you seemed to enjoy it an awful lot."

A derisive laugh. "You trying to cast some sort of aspersions, man? We were just trying to make a point to the bastard. Should've seen what we did to him after you ran out of the room like a little girl. Anyway, I'm done with this conversation, and you need to go round the others back up."

"Why'd she let them out again?"

"To distract them from what we were doing to the other one. They don't have much of an attention span when they're not in combat," Juan said. "And hell, it's not like they're going to go anywhere. Now, get busy." There was a clanging sound, like a metal door opening and closing.

Kyle heard the man still above him mutter a curse under his breath. "Sick son of a bitch," he grumbled, and started down the stairs.

Unless they had someone else holed up here that they wanted to get answers out of, this was the right place and they'd been working Nate over pretty hard. And Kyle doubted that had anyone else here that they wanted information from that badly. At least, he hoped there wasn't anyone else he was going to have to rescue, because as it was, he was pretty sure he was going to have to drag Nate out of here, if the two assholes weren't exaggerating.

He had two problems. First and easiest, how to deal with the guard. Second, trying to ignore the smell of blood and feces and death in the air. He had no illusions of what had happened to the kid they were talking about.

The guard made it easier for him by coming down the stairs without checking to see if there was anyone waiting below him. A tall, rangy man, maybe in his late twenties, he wore a preoccupied, troubled expression, the look of a man who wasn't entirely sure he really wanted to be where he was. Even when he noticed Kyle, it seemed to take him a moment to process the unfamiliar face in familiar garb, and by then he was mere steps away.

Kyle gave the thought of trying to continue his bluff about half a second's thought before he decided it really wouldn't work. The kids here were thirty kinds of fucked up and conditioned. This guy, not so much. The guard had body armor and a gun in a holster, and he was so not a kidnapped and brainwashed mutant soldier. This guy was probably making some kind of fat paycheck, and he was making it turning kids into weapons, or at least helping the guys who did turn kids into weapons.

And Kyle had been wanting to find someone to beat the crap out of since he'd tossed his leathers into a pile in the back of the 'Bird.

The moment of confusion from the guard was all the chance Kyle needed to dive at the man, going for a waist tackle. There were better ways to start a fight, but he wanted to get the guard off balance before he could even think to go for the gun. Being shot would be such a giant pain in the ass.

The man reacted with reasonably good reflexes, even given the situation, but he was clearly an unenhanced, if well-trained baseline human. The fight wasn't quite over as soon as the two entangled combatants hit the ground, but it didn't last much longer than that.

"Yeah, you can eat a bag of dicks." It was possible Kyle was both sick of the one-word sentences and taking out some frustration on the guard. But knocking his head against the floor did knock him out without making a mess that might be noticed. Bouncing it off the ground a second and third time was just good insurance that he'd stay knocked out. Kyle wasn't much interested in the risk of giving the guard brain damage. He sort of hoped for it, in fact.

He dragged the unconscious body of the guard into a nearby storage closet, and shut the door behind him, and resumed following the mental map towards the room they were pretty sure Nate was in. The smells of blood and sweat and death and -Nate- only increased Kyle's confidence and determination - and anger.

The door, when he finally reached it, was closed - but oddly enough, not locked. There was no one visible inside through the small window, but when Kyle opened the door, the difference between what he saw and what he'd smelled became obvious. Nathan was on the floor in the corner, bloodied and battered-looking and unmoving. There was a great deal more blood on the opposite wall, its origin very clearly the kid crumpled on the floor, shattered limbs askew beneath shredded clothing. Unmoving, but in a very different way than Nathan, whose chest was still rising and falling, if shallowly.

As much as he'd know from the smells, because dead-person-smell was a very distinctive one, Kyle wasn't prepared for the body to be right there, and to be so small and young looking. And whoever had left him there had just left him like he'd fallen.

He didn't have time for it, at all, but he thought someone should do something for the kid, even if he was already dead, and he crept over to crouch down and shut the poor kid's eyes and try to straighten out the mess that was made of his arms and legs. It didn't work very well, and in the end, Kyle was left with blood on his hands and nothing more to show for it than the kid looking only a tiny bit less like a discarded thing.

"Leave him alone." The voice was barely audible, a pained, dazed-sounding rasp. But it was most definitely Nathan.

"Na... Cable?" Dammit, he was just so goddamn not good at this codename thing. Kyle stood up and tried to wipe the blood off onto the legs of his borrowed bodysuit. "We gotta get you the hell out of here, are you..." He noticed the distant expression and that Nate's eyes had closed again. "Nate. Nate.. Rachel's on her way to the ball."

The reaction to the trigger phrase was (ironically enough, given some of what Nathan had been through in the last two days) rather like what Kyle would have gotten had he poked the older man with a cattle prod. Nathan's body heaved, as if all of his muscles were convulsing at the same time. A strangled cry caught in his throat as his eyes flew open, glassy with shock at first but then clearing to urgency.

"Kyle-" he rasped. "Off. Help me get them off." The way he was straining at the restraints on his hands made it clear what he meant, but as Kyle looked at them it also became obvious that they weren't dealing with standard handcuffs here. The restraints actually looked like they had inhibitor bracelets built into them. "She's coming back, we have to hurry-"

Kyle had already started pulling the room apart, tearing through everything he could. He'd resorted to pulling the 'medical waste' bin off the wall, and noted the irony of even having one in a place like this as he dumped the contents onto the floor. "Aw, man... this shit only worked in that one movie." But he held up the pair of broken glasses and snapped one of the earpieces off. "Juvenile delinquency better pay the fuck off here."

Nathan's eyes stayed locked on him as he worked on the restraints, but although he was clearly awake and alert at this point, the unevenness of his breathing was alarming. One of the bracelets clicked open, and Nathan shivered, his eyes moving towards the door - and over the boy's body as if it wasn't a sight his brain felt like processing right now, thank you very much.

"Help me up," he rasped as Kyle finished work on the second. "Got to get out of... line of sight from the door. So we can jump her when she comes in." His ragged voice cracked, revealing the near-desperation beneath. "I don't have it, Kyle. She hid it too well when she was in my mind. We can't leave."

Kyle looked at Nate with total disbelief. "That took too fucking long already, we need to leave. You're all fucked up, we can jack up these people later." He looked serious - and quite ready to just manhandle Nate right the hell out the door if he delayed too much more, which was about the flavor of what was going through Kyle's mind, with added thoughts that any more delay at all was too much.

Nathan reached up with his good hand, grabbing the front of Kyle's borrowed bodysuit. "That wasn't," he hissed, gray eyes blazing, "a suggestion." The air around them grew increasingly heavy and charged with power. "I am not leaving here without the intel we need."

"Okay, okay, point taken." It was obvious to Kyle that shoving Nate out the door wasn't going to work, if Nate was going to go and actually be all... Cable... about things. "Okay, then lets get the intel ASAP and then get the hell out of here." If 'get the hell out' wasn't going to work, then 'get this done and over with as fast as possible." would just have to do. "Who has it, and where are they? And what do we need to do to them?"

"You'll like it," Nathan grated as Kyle helped him up. "Promise."

---

The telempath could possibly be forgiven her inattentiveness. She was still in a fair bit of pain from her broken nose, and although her mind brushed across the room well before she opened the door, the surface scan didn't notice anything out of place.

But 'everything is status quo' made as effective a telepathic suggestion as anything else, especially fueled by as much fury and adrenaline as was driving Cable at that precise moment. As she stepped through the door, gaze lighting on the boy's body for an instant before she turned her attention to the corner where her prisoner was -or should have been - she didn't even have time to cry as Nathan grabbed her by the throat, slamming her against the wall in the same moment as he cut off her access to her powers.

"I told you that you were a fucking amateur," he growled at her.

Kyle had leaned against the wall, picking the dried blood out of his claws, looking awfully faux-bored. He hadn't even bothered to try to look authentically bored. It wasn't like she was going to be fooled. "You should listen to him. He knows what he's talking about. Also he's really really angry." It wasn't so much good-cop bad-cop as bad-cop crazy-cop and Kyle wasn't really sure which one of them was supposed to be bad and which was one was crazy.

The telempath flailed ineffectually at Nathan's arm. He could feel her straining against the block in her mind, however, which was the far greater threat. He doubted he had the endurance to outlast her. A telekinetic punch landed hard in her midsection, knocking the wind out of her, and he used the opening it gave him to force his way deeper into her mind.

What he needed was, surprisingly, nearly on the surface of her mind. Why he hadn't picked up on it while she was in his was maybe due to what she'd been busy doing to him, or the nature of the way his powers had been inhibited, but that hardly mattered. What was here was enough. Memories of hasty evacuations, of shaven-headed children in bodysuits packed into helicopters. Coordinates, images of the interior and exterior of a facility set among the mountains in - Wyoming, Nathan processed. A single facility. Just like Mistra, and Youra. Just like we hoped.

He took all of it, raking through her mind with no thought as to the damage he was doing, the pain he was causing. Because he did not care. The die was fucking cast, one way or the other. She didn't precisely scream, as he dug the information he needed out of her mind. His grip on her throat was too tight to allow for that. The noise she was making was satisfying, however. To a certain part of him.

"Now," he rasped as her eyes rolled up into her head. "You're going to sleep, and you're going to dream about being him." Gray eyes flickered briefly to the body of the boy. "Every... moment of it."

Maybe Nate was the bad cop and the crazy cop. Kyle was pretty sure that was what was going on here. He also didn't really feel much like arguing, because as far as he was concerned, as long as she wasn't dead, the bitch could have nightmares about anything Nate damn well felt like giving her nightmares about. "So, did that work, or do we get to beat anyone else up?" he asked, having moved away from the wall to listen at the closed door for any sounds. "Because I am equally in favor of getting the hell out of here, or beating people up. Your call."

Nathan let the telempath drop. "They're coming," he muttered. "Guards, not the operatives. There are six - wait, where's the sixth? Oh. I see." He turned away from the woman's twitching body, fixing Kyle with that burning gray gaze. "We don't have time to fuck around with this," he growled, moving towards the door. "Watch my back?"

Kyle just gave Nate a look like that didn't even need to be a question, but nodded anyway. He could hear the guards' footsteps, and the very low occasional word, but not much else; presumably they had a better grasp of tactical silence than he did sometimes. Soon enough they'd probably find the one he'd stashed in the storage closet, and then they'd definitely know something was up. He wasn't entirely sure how the hell Nate was still going since he looked like crap, but now was not the time to question it.

#HEY!# Nathan projected as soon as they were out in the hall. #I'm about to crush your boss's skull like an eggshell, assholes-# He sent an image of the telempath sprawled unconscious on the floor, just to goad them further.

And yes, there was the shouting. "See," he said to Kyle with a grin that felt strange and rather alarming in the way it took shape on his features, "money does buy loyalty."

"You think they have health insurance?" Kyle asked casually. Nate was really enjoying this to a disturbing degree, he thought. Not that he really disagreed with it, but it was a little scary to watch. "Oh, hey. The one I knocked out had a gun. I bet these guys do too." And sure enough, the shots came out as the first pair of guards rounded the corner. They weren't even doing all that much aiming, more like firing off as many bullets as fast as possible in the hopes that quantity would outpace aim.

They all bounced off a telekinetic shield that wasn't quite as steady as it looked. Nevertheless, Nathan stood there and let them shoot at him, waiting until all five of them were there. "You don't want to know what they did to that boy," he said, almost under his breath -and collapsed the roof on them. The gunfire stopped immediately, of course, but Nathan reached out with his telekinesis and clawed down more of the level above, his expression gone colder than the bleakest midwinter day as rubble poured downwards, burying the men.

He was right, Kyle didn't really want to know. What he'd seen was more than enough. "Cable. CABLE. Dammit, Nate!" Kyle shouted. "They're done." They might be dead. Kyle didn't know how he felt about not stopping Nate soon enough to know for sure. He could hear gasping, but it wasn't strong. "Come on, lets go. You're injured. You said it yourself, we don't have time to fuck around."

"They're done," Nathan murmured, his voice cracking. "I'm not. One last thing." He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward, chasing that familiar pattern in his subconscious. Waking up Kritzer's masterpiece, and letting it sing through him, knowing he would have to do this again, that it would only get worse...

Four operatives. Just like there had been four guards. They fell, their conditioning detonating as soon as the Trojan Horse hit it. And Nathan fell as well, fresh blood trickling from his nose and ears as the backlash hit him. Sheer will alone kept him from going any further down than his knees.

Get up, the voice at the back of his head instructed, low and harsh.

I just blasted four children into a vegetative state, fuck you-

And you're going to have to do it again. So get up, you self-pitying bastard. On your feet, soldier! Nathan realized he was grabbing at the wall, trying to pull himself back to his feet. His eyes were blurred with tears, but he shook his head doggedly, straightening.

Kyle was only a very little surprised to 'hear' off-key music, and it took him a moment to realize he wasn't hearing it with his ears. It felt like a tremor, like the times that Julio had made the ground quake, only in his head. For a heartbeat it blurred his vision and hearing, filling both with a static-white-noise buzzing.

Before his sight came back, he heard Nathan's knees smack the ground, and the smell of new blood snapped Kyle out of his pause.

By the time he got over to Nathan and put his shoulder under the older man's arm to try to help him up, the music had faded. By the time he had Nathan on his feet it was gone. But not before it was echoed once, slower and much more on-key.

---

As he and Kyle came up the Blackbird's ramp, Nathan didn't spare much more than a glance for the others, although Angelo got a quick nod. Chalk-white beneath the dried blood on his face and moving in a way that screamed 'in pain' to anyone who knew him, Nathan still headed right for Jean.

"You've got to take it right out of my head." His voice was a cracked rasp, his shoulders hunched and one arm cradled across the front of his body. "Can't focus, but I've got it. Staff's down, kids have no conditioning... no threat coming from that direction." Getting out the necessary information left him out of breath.

Jean stood up, eyes flicking over him with a snap medical assessment before she helped him into the copilot's seat. "Sit down before you fall," she said, "and open your mind as much as you can..."

Nathan shivered, forcing himself to lower his shields. She'd see what had happened back there, but there was no way around it. He forced the memories he'd torn out of the telempath's mind up to the surface, as forcefully as he could.

The connection was over quickly but that didn't make it any less thorough or deep and while other things she had glimpsed in his mind were disturbing and then some, the information they'd come for caught Jean's attention and wouldn't let go. "Oh, this is perfect," she breathed, eyes fluttering open to gaze at Nathan with a kind of manic joy in them, images of a quiet little hideout at practically the edge of civilization dancing in her mind. "For once lady luck's on our side."

Nathan almost smiled. Almost. "Need to call Charles," he rasped, swallowing painfully. "Get him to... wake Scott and 'Ro up, and call SHIELD..." He tried to take a deep breath, and his vision nearly whited out from the pain. "Forty-eight hours," he croaked doggedly. "She had forty-eight hours, before she was supposed to report in."

"So we have half a day. Plenty of time." And, oddly, Jean meant that. Truthfully it wasn't much time to create and execute a plan of attack but they'd done more with less before, and with less incentive. "You should probably be lying down for the bit where I redline the 'bird, though."

Nathan made a discordant noise that might have been a laugh, pushing himself up out of the chair. "You fly and call," he said, swaying a little. "I'll raid the medkit and stay out of your way." Half a day. Half a day and it would be done. Except that this had been the easy part.

---

As soon as the Blackbird had reached cruising altitude, Nathan did indeed raid the medkit; he hadn't quite trusted his balance to the speed of Jean's ascent. Zanne was talking to Kyle at the far end of the plane, and Jim was just... sitting there, watching him in a way that would have made Nathan bristle had he been any less interested in finding what he needed in the medical supplies. Angelo, not surprisingly, was the one who approached him, unfortunately just as he set the small bottle of go-pills down beside the antiseptic wipes.

"Oh no, you don't", Angelo said firmly, stealing the little bottle from under his nose. "You're here, Nate, an' we're not gonna leave you anywhere, but you've gotta rest."

"I have to be on my feet," Nathan grated, his hands shaking as he tore open the package of wipes. "Put those back."

"No. You can't have them." There was no give in his tone at all. "You're in no shape to be on your feet this whole time."

"You pick up a medical degree while I was gone?" He needed to get the blood off. It was only his blood, he knew, but it felt like more than that. God, his brain was going in strange directions.

"I've seen enough people hurt t'know the basics." The pills went safely into a pocket, and he reached for the wipes. "I can see better. Let me get that."

Nathan froze for a moment, but then sank down into the nearest seat. As Angelo leaned over him, he couldn't repress the flinch. "Sorry," he muttered, and forced himself to stay still. Had to keep it together. If he couldn't, they'd see, and he was not putting up with any changes to the plan. Not on his account.

"They really did a number on you this time." It was muttered, and not a question.

"I'd had worse." The words were chilly, and came out before he consciously formed a response. As if the voice at the back of his head had just seized control of his lips - again. Nathan flinched again as Angelo's fingers brushed against the sizeable lump at the back of his head. He was feeling increasingly strange. Detached.

"Yeah, you'll be okay." He looked down at the taller man. "But you need to lie down. Just for now."

There was something very strange going on. Angelo knew enough field medicine not to cut an assessment short like this. Unless he was planning to continue once Nathan was horizontal... "I don't want to," he mumbled, confused, the chilly tone gone. He flinched violently as Angelo's hands touched his shoulders.

"Yeah, you do", Angelo said gently, not pulling back his hands even at the flinch, and pressing Nathan towards lying down. "You'll feel better if you get some rest."

Something was definitely going on. He could feel Jim's eyes still on him, and Angelo's demeanor had changed. "I can't." But Angelo was easing him back against the bench, and although the cold voice at the back of his mind was snarling at him to get the hell up, Nathan, his battered and exhausted body was winning out.

Close enough, Angelo decided, and though he still didn't let go of Nathan's shoulders, his eyes flicked to Jim. He's all yours.

---

The sky over the beach was a sullen iron-gray, and the water was curiously lightless in comparison to its usual appearance. Even the vivid green of the forest seemed dulled, and the Santorini-esque house usually visible in the mountains above was hidden beneath low-lying clouds. The most unusual sight were deep gouges in the beach itself, as if claws had reached down and torn through the sand, running back and forth.

Jim studied the mindscape, eyes narrowed. His hopes were not high. Though he'd taken pains not to make the intrusion traumatic, the ease with which he'd penetrated Nathan's shields was frightening. He could almost feel the aftershocks from the previous violation. The entire mindscape seemed like a wounded animal beneath his feet, motionless but trembling. He was almost grateful it had been Kyle, not himself, who'd found the man.

Time to get started. The telepath cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled into the empty beach.

"Nathan!"

"Get the hell out," came the sotto voce snarl from behind him. The image of Nathan standing there was wearing black body armor and a look of cold rage. "Intel delivered, Legion, so you can fuck right off. There have been enough people in here for the year."

"Nathan?" Jim turned to face him, then adjusted his assessment. The stance, the demeanor -- similar, but there was a difference. Not just "someone else", but a someone the telepath had met here before.

"Cable," said Jim.

"Gold star," grated the tactical personality. The usual steely, sardonic calm was gone; those gray eyes blazed with an anger that was barely repressed, but his posture was odd, too. Tense, as if he was bracing for a blow. "Now get out, before I throw you out. I don't care what you think you're doing, whether you want to be helpful-" Venom dripped from his increasingly hoarse voice. "-but I want you out of here."

"I know, and I'm sorry for that. If there was a choice I'd be taking this slower. Right now, though, we just don't have the time." Jim hadn't moved a muscle, and his bi-colored gaze was calm. His body-language was open, but there was a suggestion of readiness about it. "Thank you for helping him. But you're safe, and now I need to find him. Where is Nathan?"

"Bullshit am I safe!" Cable raged at him. Lightning flashed out over the water, with an accompanying, ominous rumble of thunder, but the wind that blew up on the beach itself was erratic, the cold blast gone as soon as it had come. Cable took an unsteady step backwards, looking around wildly. "Where do you think this is going?" he demanded. "We got the intelligence, now we get to go home and lick our wounds? All this has accomplished... all of this, is about knowing where to aim me!"

"You know we're looking at a fight, so you're planning on, what --hiding him until it's all over?" Jim tilted his head, one eyebrow arched. "I think you're operating under some false assumptions here. First, that he needs to be protected, and second that, without him, you're anything at all."

"We'll just see," Cable spat, and between one second and the next, was abruptly holding his psimitar. The mindscape continued its erratic, not-quite shivering, random small changes in the geography in sharp contrast to its usual solidity. "I held her off." A shudder went through the tall, armored figure, his hands going white-knuckled on the psimitar.

"That was her." Jim widened his stance for stability, though his astral form seemed uneffected by the tremors in the landscape. Unarmored and unarmed, the thin man looked at Cable without fear. "Sorry, but I'm not leaving until I find him. Want to get in the way? You're welcome to try."

"Exactly whose mind do you think this is?" Without waiting for the response, Cable struck, and it was a sign of just how much damage had been done that he actually struck with the psimitar, as if it were a club.

He would have hesitated before engaging like this with an opponent. He would never have done this with a patient. But aside from knowing Nathan, all the stress and worry he'd been carrying around was still with him -- and, in the rare event when personal desire complimented greater good, he was not inclined to argue.

The telepath, in the real world never more than "adequate" when it came to hand-to-hand, brought his forearm up with uncharacteristic speed to block the psimitar. The shaft stopped an inch short of his astral body, held at bay by the ghost-forms of two other arms: thin and female, and muscular and male.

"I know where I am," Jim said, arm not even twitching under the impact. "Exactly whose son do you think we are?"

The psimitar strained against the resistance, Cable not giving ground for an instant. "Get. Out." It was half-snarl, half-plea. The mindscape actually flickered around them, concrete walls replacing the beach; the shift was brief, but startlingly vivid.

The switch elicited a slitting of Jim's eyes, but little more. In one economical motion, Jim swept the staff aside with one arm and used the opening presented by Cable's sudden overbalance to drive a fist into the man's jaw. A step to the side, and the telepath was out of arm's reach again.

"I'm sorry, I can't." Jim nodded his head towards the ragged beach behind him. "I know what you're trying to do, but do you really think you can take care of him like this?"

"And who's going to take care of him? You? Jean, who came up with this insane plan with him in the first place?" Cable took another, seemingly half-hearted swipe at him with the psimitar. "To hell with both of you."

"If you can take care of him alone -- prove it." Jim spread his arms. "Take me out, and I'm gone. But I want to see it."

Cable's jaw clenched in a very Nathan-like expression and he moved, faster than he had before, bringing the psimitar down and around in a swing that had both more skill and more deadly intent behind it. The beach around them flickered again, as if in protest, a crack in the clouds above exposing a patch of blue sky.

In reality, action was subject to physical limitations. These limitations were familiar, and so psychic avatars had a tendency to share them -- it was why most walked in a mindscape despite the fact the only force gravity exerted was that which the mind allowed it. The thing one learned about the astral plane was that, there, visualization and actualization were one.

Jim had learned this long ago, and that was how he not only dodged the psimitar, but caught it. Cable's face had just enough time to register shock before the younger man, with one sinous twist, took it a step further. With one expert jerk, he wrenched the psimitar from Cable's grasp . . . to remain in his.

The weight of it was strange in his hands. It was partly because the astral weapon was far more elegant than his own, and partly because there was an uncomfortable intimacy in holding what was, in a very literal sense, an extension of another person. Nonetheless, there was a point to be made. Jim spun the staff in his hands in a complex move intended to taunt and allowed a small smile to touch his lips.

"Try again."

Cable straightened, gray eyes blazing at the sight of the psimitar in Haller's hands. Then, he shrugged, his mouth twisting. "His weapon," he said, "not mine." With the last words he was moving again, rushing Jim.

"Exactly," Jim said. "Normally, it wouldn't make a difference--" he paused to halt Cable's charge by punching the butt of the psimitar into Cable's gut "--but you're so fractured--" the butt swung up to take Cable in the chin "--even an intruder like me can just step in and take it." A final blow with the shaft against the side of Cable's head, and Jim stepped back again. He planted the end of the psimitar in the sand and looked down at the battered man.

"It's not what you went through that makes you weak," Jim continued. "It's how you're handling it -- and why, if you don't let me find Nathan, you'll fail."

The crack in the clouds widened, but Cable pulled himself back to his feet, glaring at Jim. "And you think that we haven't already failed, even if the rest of the plan works?" he spat.

"This isn't about the plan. This is about you." The shapes of Jack and Cyndi became more distinct, flanking Jim like bodyguards. Jim raised the psimitar and pointed at Cable "You're losing in your own mind--"

"--Seriously, more 'folding like a rusty lawnchair'--" Cyndi supplied.

"--because you're convinced you're strong, and Nathan's weak. Splitting can keep you alive--"

Jack continued, "--Until you start using it for an excuse to not deal with the shit you've stepped into. Then, it's just running away."

"You think 'he' is weak, but he is you," Jim said. The psimitar thumped back into the sand. "It doesn't make a difference how strong your right leg is if your left is cut off at the knee. It's not about the parts, it's about the whole. Because facing the world, whatever that'll be, with a unified psyche, will do more than keep you alive--"

"--it'll help you win."

The words had come from a ten year old boy, black-haired and round-faced. Davey, the most distant of all the alters and well-shielded by the others during most confrontations, had appeared before Jim. He looked up at the telepath as if in askance. The primary personality nodded.

And, without any discernable transition, two things changed: the boy was by Cable's side, and he was the one holding the psimitar. Davey gave the tactical personality a cheerful smile, then swung the weapon like a baseball bat, took Cable's knees right out from under him, and left the big man on his back in the sand.

When Davey's face appeared in Cable's field of vision a split-second later the smile was now slightly sheepish. "Okay, probably not like that. But, umm -- metaphorically. Right." Davey thought for a moment, then added, "Also hi."

The patch of sand where Cable was lying rippled. When it cleared, the man lying there was wearing torn and bloodstained clothes, charred spots here and there. Gray eyes stared up at the sky for a moment, watching the clouds as they disintegrated steadily, before they focused again.

"Hi," Nathan said to Davey, his voice hoarse. He raised his head, looking at Jim. "You enjoyed that just a little bit too much, I think."

Smiling faintly, Jim held out his hand to help the man up. "You didn't exactly make it easy not to," he said, though there was a hint of relief in his voice.

"Dude, what is it with you?" Cyndi, however, clearly did not feel compelled to be redundant in regards to little details like compassion. "Seriously man, what goes through your head? It's like 'Hi, I'm Nathan Dayspring, and every time I have a plan I end up tortured and crazy. But it's cool! Because despite my long trackrecord of disasters I just know this one is gonna be different!'" There was a snigger from Jack; Jim just sighed and shook his head.

"Umm, this is yours," said Davey, holding out the psimitar to Nathan. He gave the man a contrite look. "Sorry I hit your brain with more of your brain."

As Jim pulled him upright, Nathan managed a faint smile for Davey. "It's okay," he said, and the psimitar rippled and vanished, the lack of seamlessness just one more symptom of the disruption on the mindscape. "That part of my brain is kind of an asshole sometimes."

He looked around the damaged beach, his expression shading back down towards disorientation. He hadn't let go of Jim's arm, as if he needed the anchor. "It wasn't the best plan ever," he finally muttered.

"What's done is done. Time to move on with our lives." Jim said the last comment while looking directly at Cyndi, who rolled her eyes. Davey had wandered back to Jack, and the latter had scooped him up onto his shoulders. He pulled out a cigarette with his free hand and cocked his head at the older man. "Okay, now that you're back with us, let's get you patched up."

"Yeah," Nathan said, sounding tired. "Day's not done yet, is it?"

"Not with the way it's been going so far, unfortunately."

---

"One of these days, that man is going to get us killed," Zanne remarked to Kyle in a calmly detached manner as she slumped back in her seat. "I don't know when, I don't know how, but I am completely assured of the fact that he will somehow be involved." It wasn't that she wasn't sympathetic to Nate's plight, or mission, or whatever seemed to be the appropriate term for it this week, she would just rather it didn't involve near death experiences for someone whenever it flared up again. Of course, the alternative was probably saving puppies or kittens or...

"Incidentally, have you heard about the ferret, yet?"

"You're not allowed to die. If you die, I get buried under Mount Paperwork, and we'd never get another roofer to fix the roof when Angel sets it on fire." Kyle had a wet cloth over his face to try to fight the headache he'd gotten and somewhat miraculously, that was it for injuries. "Wait, did someone get a ferret? Man, those things are like hyperactive tube socks full of crack. Who got a ferret?" If it was Angel, he was going to shoot her. They had a pact! He didn't threaten anyone she dated, she didn't get any pets that were more hyper than she was.

"Oh, God no." She repressed a shudder at the thought. Angel with a ferret was...just not a good idea in any way, shape or form. "Apparently the Stepfords have acquired one for some reason only known to them. I haven't seen it yet, but I understand that it recently went screaming through the upstairs hallway and into their room, and Esme slammed the door on Callie's face when she went to investigate further."

"Aw, Jesus. That's almost worse than Angel with a ferret. Are they sharing it?" Great, the evil blondes had a pet, and it was probably going to be evil too. Kyle knew he was supposed to technically be neutral about the kids but it was the Stepfords and they were creepy and rude. "Dammit, that's almost worse than 'hey, Nate getting Natenapped was a big complicated plan and we're gonna rearrange your head to get him out.'" Almost. Not quite.

Zanne wasn't inclined to disagree with that statement. "I know. I have no idea what they're doing with it, and am mostly hoping that they're treating it decently." Or at least better than their fellow students. "I think we're going to have to try to enforce a pet policy. Not whether or not residents can or can't have them - that's way above our pay grade - but simply that they have to tell us when they get them, for security reasons." She scrubbed a hand through her hair tiredly. "Or something. What do you think?"

The wet cloth still wasn't moving. Kyle was considering taking it home and sleeping with it on his face. It was comfortable. "I hadda tell Cain when I got Shamu, seems fair that people should, I dunno, say something. I mean, if nothing else, someone's pet is gonna croak and you know who's gonna end up dealing with us? Us." Except for goldfish. They could deal with their own goldfish. "And I know I don't wanna find out at 3am that the mystery stink is someone's pet that got out and hid in the walls that we didn't even know about."

"Oh, God. Don't even say things like that. I do not want to be ripping out walls to get at animals, dead or alive," she moaned and slouched further in her seat, envisioning a breeding colony of ferrets rampaging through the walls of the mansion, running off with all manner of shiny things.

"Wait a minute." She popped back up in her seat. "We don't have a pet cemetary on campus, do we?"

"What like the Steven King book?" Kyle'd read that one on the way to... somewhere. He'd been on a plane, he remembered that, and it was after he'd gotten Shamu. "Fuck, I hope not. I don't want any more goddamn zombies." He did bother to consider the idea seriously, following his wish for no more zombies with a "But something's gonna die eventually that's not a fish, so maybe we should. But I think we outta get whatsherface, Amanda, to make sure whereever we put it isn't cursed. Just to be sure."

"I could not agree with you more." Stephen King novels had been a key feature of Suzanne's formative years and as a result she held a firm belief that there were certain things You Did Not Mess With. Like deceased pets and clowns. "I'll get on it the second we get back. So how are you doing?" she asked, changing conversational threads. She looked over at Kyle with some concern. She wasn't used to seeing him so drained.

"Cool. Don't let her feed you curry. She orders the nuclear death stuff." Nuclear death by Kyle's standards was, admittedly a lot milder than the standards of anyone else on the planet. But he felt it necessary to warn people anyway. "So-so. I think I totally understand what Nate means when he says his brain is sprained. I feel weird." He really hadn't enjoyed having his head rearranged, or the process of putting it back.

"Kyle, I grew up in California. I like 'nuclear death stuff,'" she gently chided him with a smile. "All the more reason to look forward to calling her. Define weird, though?" It was probably one of those things you had to experience to actually get, but considering that Zanne had no intention of getting her brains scrambled at any point in the near (or distant) future, it couldn't hurt to ask.

"It's hard to explain. My brain feels like my face did when my teeth rearranged themselves." Thus the cloth, which wasn't helping much, but it was all he had. "Uh, well, after they got the braces off. That part sucked. But just like stuff got all moved around and now thinking feels weird." Kyle pulled the cloth off his face and rolled it up and stuck it behind his neck. Which didn't help much either but it was different enough that he could pretend that it was helping. "Man, what is with all you people and your hate for your taste buds. What did they ever do to you?"

"You act like I'm mistreating them," she replied with a shake of her head. "It's a reward, trust me. You just need to work on building up your tolerance so you can go out and enjoy some real food."It was too bad, really. She knew of several restaurants in the city Kyle would probably love if he wasn't such a heat wimp.

"In any event," she said gloomily returning to the situation currently at hand, "We should probably rest up while we can. It's been a miserable day so far. I can't see that it's about to get any much better."

"Aw, I know that face. That's the "I'm gonna try to make you eat pain in a bowl" face. Julio makes that face. Forge makes that face." Kyle was sort of a sucker for that face. He kept falling for it. "Dude, I like only now can eat anything with black pepper in it and that took years. My taste buds are mutant strong." Speaking of eating, Kyle used his foot to dig around in one of the MRE boxes and retrieved one of the little pouches of peanut butter and crackers. "Yeah, probably a good idea. Food, napping, making sure Nate's not gonna croak. Again."