Don't Close Your Eyes: Discovery

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

After arriving back at the mansion, Haller discovers it has been taken over. He is given an ultimatum.



Jim frowned and punched the gate-opener one final time. Once more the gate failed to respond. With a sigh he returned the opener to its home in the glove compartment. Every once in a while he wished he had a more practical mutation, like the ability to recharge a dead battery. Jean-Phillipe probably didn't have this problem.

The telepath put the car into park and got out. Manually keying in the code yielded no better results; he'd probably misremembered it. He wasn't in the mood for this. Not between a morning of therapy in the city and the enervating July heat slowly thawing the fruits of a pre-4th of July grocery run in his backseat. Telling himself it would not be appreciated if Jack tore off the gate, Jim wiped his forehead and pushed the intercom button.

"Hello?" he said, hoping someone was around to hear it. "It's David. Could someone open the front gate?"

The request was met with static at first, then a quiet hum drifted out over the distortion, slowly distinguishable as a lullaby, warped by the crackling of the speakers into a jilted melody.

Someone screamed, though upon second listen it turned out to be his cellphone, the caller ID registering the caller as Jean.

Jim stared from his cell to the intercom, then back again. He accepted the call and lifted the phone to his ear.

"Jean?" he said, backing away slightly from the distorted music coming from the intercom. "Did one of the kids do something to the gate?"

His question was met with rhythmic breathing, decidedly unfeminine, that soon erupted into a laugh.

"No, not really," a hard, unfamiliar voice said.

"Hello Jim," The voice was low and graveled, tinged with a slight accent that lent to the roughness of how he spoke.

The unfamiliar voice hit Jim like a bucket of icewater to the face.

Forcing his voice to remain level, the telepath said, "Who is this, and how do you know that name?"

Haller's demands made the man chuckle. "I know a lot of things about you, and your school. You wanna know where I am right now?" he said.

"You'll never guess. Or, maybe you will. Hope so. Gives you more time."

The telepath's jaw clenched. "Inside, I assume." His voice had dropped a few octaves, and one of his eyes was bleeding to grey. It took an effort to fight it back. "What did you do to the students?"

"They're fine," the man said. "The ones not here anyway. The rest...well, they're alive but not having a good time. Whether or not they stay alive...that's up to you and the lucky ones."

Jim had had enough of this. Even as the man spoke he reached out for Charles, seeking the well-traveled path they'd built over the years. The telepath reached for his father,and found ...

Nothing.

That shouldn't be possible. He was certain the professor was in the mansion, and even if he'd left Jim should've felt something. They'd worked together for so long their connection circumvented the normal restrictions on his range. Unless he'd taken an impromptu flight on the jet, there was nowhere Charles could have gone that put them out of each other's reach in such a short time.

Calm down, he thought, fighting the flash of panic. He forced himself to be logical. The odds Charles was dead were vanishingly slim. Numb or not, he was certain he would have felt something from that.

He had one more option. It was a longer shot, and he already knew they had her cell, but maybe they hadn't taken the same precautions. He gave telepathy one more try. #Je--#

Feedback screeched. Instead of Jean's familiar warmth he found himself caught completely off guard by a sensation akin a buzzsaw trying to cut through steel. Screaming, Jim dropped the phone and fell to his knees, head clutched in pain. Even though the contact had lasted only a moment he could still feel the throb of it in his skull.

Silence fell for the moments after while he tried to compose himself, save for the static that still remained on the intercom. The voice was waiting patiently.

Through the pounding in his skull, Jim felt the telekinetic alter moving up behind him as he spat bile-tinged saliva into the grass. Psychic glass jaw, Jack remarked. Go pull yourselves together.

The words were harsh, but the tone was uncharacteristically free of mockery, which meant they were having a rare moment of shared concern. Nodding vaguely, Jim relinquished control. Headache now safely isolated to the telepath, Jack spat into the grass one last time, picked up the phone and got to his feet.

"Enough dancing around," said the telekinetic, his voice cold. "The fuck is going on, and the fuck do you want?"

"How's your head? Try it again, someone dies," the man said.

"There are four members of the Brotherhood currently being held by SHIELD. We want them released by this time tomorrow or we kill all the hostages here in your happy home."

"So, hostage exchange." Jack thought for a moment, then slitted his grey eyes. "You got an FBI agent right there with you -- that tall Canadian. You should deal with him if you want something from SHIELD. Not to say I wouldn't love to help, but I doubt they'll be much moved by the demands of a school guidance counselor."

"He's busy right now, not really able to talk at the moment," the man said, a note of amusement in his voice.

"Surely one of those personalities rattling in there is smart enough to find a way. But contact the FBI and they die quicker."

Jack's eyes narrowed further. Around his feet the grass began to stir with barely-contained telekinetic leakage. "For someone demanding results, you're pretty fucking picky about how you get them. No feds, no contacts -- what do you expect me to do, break into the goddamn Vault?"

The man's voice turned into a snarl. "And I am the one with the power here! If you want your people to live to see Saturday night, you do what I fucking say, when I say it! If I say no Feds? Then no goddamn Feds."

His phone beeped, signaling a new message.

Gravel in the drive started to roll, but Jack managed to restrain himself before he inadvertently did something to aggravate the voice on the other end of the line. It was not a game you played with someone whose go-to response appeared to be "everyone dies". Even if Jack was correct in his suspicion that anyone this smug was probably more talk than threat, it was not something he was prepared to test with students inside -- and considering what it would have taken to incapacitate the mansion's occupants, he didn't think whoever he was talking to had been working alone. Quashing his anger, the telekinetic checked the message.

In the picture was what appeared to be an very sophisticated bomb. It was difficult to determine the size from the picture, but it was apparently large enough to do some damage.

"How do you feel about urns for the funerals? Try me again...take a wrong step....You might have to hire a few new teachers."

Jack stared at the image for a long moment, running the odds this was a bluff. Running the odds of what would happen if it wasn't.

"Twelve hours, huh?" he said finally.

"And counting," the man said.

"Don't keep them waiting."

The phone died with a click.

Twelve hours. Jack lowered the cell. He needed to think -- which, unfortunately, meant turning things over to Jim. The telepath was still curled up in the back of Haller's mind, nursing the last effects of the feedback, but it wouldn't be long. In the meantime there were one or two numbers he could try.

Anything happens to the people in there, Jack thought to the mystery voice as he calmly input the number for Snow Valley, I won't need a bomb to make you fit in an urn.