Jean and Adrienne: Cellphone's Dead (Backdated)

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Adrienne reads Vanessa's missing cell phone with Jean 'listening in' on the reading telepathically.




"I come bearing a cell phone," Adrienne chirped as she entered the medlab, having retrieved the phone from Fred Duncan at the FBI. "Which is sort of like a gift, if it leads us to Vanessa, right?" She'd chosen the medlab because the last time she had read something from someone who was missing, she had been horribly sick. If she saw her best friend being ripped apart, at least she could save Jean the step of having to bring her down to the medlab when she passed out and/or threw up, right? "Are you ready to do this?"

Jean slipped her pen behind her ear, then took off her reading glasses. "Remind me to send Fred a fruit basket at Christmas. Or a gun. He'd probably enjoy that one better," she said. He likely collected them like trading cards.

Letting out a breath, Jean wheeled out to more of the center of the room from the desk. Another chair slid over to face hers and she nodded.

"Let's do it."

Visions were interesting things. They weren't really like mental images but definitely something realer, almost more tangible.

Adrienne let her mental shields down as she sat in the chair Jean had put in front of her with her powers. She balanced the phone on her knee, thinking it would be easier to disconnect from her hand if she saw something horrible if it was balancing precariously. With a deep breath she turned her head away and winced in anticipation as she stabbed a single finger at the phone.

~Scenes from the phone's timeline jumped in and out of focus. Being dusted in a lab. Laying in the dirt of a field. Darkness. More Darkness. Laying in a dark room with shadowed figures moving around. Clutched in Vanessa's hand as she typed on the keypad. The scenes halted, then hopped forward a bit again, jumping from a night at a club to a day on a table while Vanessa slept and then to a night again. The phone was up, taking photos of some kids dancing in a club, then the scene sped up as Adrienne fast forwarded the timeline. It was swallowed by darkness when Vanessa slipped it into her back pocket and didn't emerge again until she tossed it onto a table. The timeline sped by until men showed up in the room, then halted and rewound to just before their entrance.~

Adrienne pulled out of the reading, still not having mastered being able to speak while she was in a reading. Even with Jean in her mind with her, she couldn't seem to focus on both the reading and conveying thoughts to someone else at the same time. "Recognize anyone?" she asked hopefully. Since she hadn't been involved in Vanessa's life in more than a year, but Jean had, she was hoping maybe the men would be familiar to Jean.

Blinking a few times, Jean looked around as she got her bearings. It was almost like being on the astral plane but not being able to control where you were going. She shook her head. "Not yet," she said. Unfortunately Jean and Vanessa's circles often did not intermingle outside of the X-Affiliated.

The psychometrist nodded, assuming that that would have been far too easy. "Alright, let's go again."





~The rush of water from the shower could be heard coming from the direction of a lit room with a door left partly open. In the opposite direction a metallic sort of click happened before silence resumed in that direction. The door opened and three men entered, sweeping the area visually, gun barrels pointing in the direction they looked. "Clear." Another four men entered, one of them exchanging a nod with one of the men who had made the initial sweep of the room. The group of four went to the ajar door.Two entered and paused suddenly. Vanessa's voice soon followed, "Who the fuck are you?" The answer wasn't intelligible but two of the men entered. Not long after Vanessa was carried out, wet and naked.

The inexplicably unconscious metamorph was laid on the bed and dried off while one of the men from the bathroom gave the man he'd nodded to directions to find and ditch all of her electronics. He said they were taking her to facility eight. Vanessa was dressed as the search began and was then carried out of the room in the arms of one black-clad man who had handed off his rifle. The three men who had initially entered the room tore the place up in eerie silence. Vanessa's personal cell was found stashed in the back of the closet. Her laptop came out from a drawer. No other electronics seemed to be present. Her stuff was all packed up and taken by the men who also took the Xavier's phone.~

The sight of her best friend naked and unconscious had Adrienne's stomach lurching, but she forced herself to focus on understanding and asking questions about what she and Jean were seeing. "Well, there's everyone's answer about 'forced abduction'," she murmured sadly to Jean. "What the hell? What do they want her for?"

"Whatever it is," Jean said as she rubbed her forehead. "They were mindful to cut off any leads to her whereabouts. And if they're carrying weapons its possible they may be human or mutants with passive abilities, otherwise they might have used their abilities to subdue her. I didn't hear any fighting from the room, though...She may have been tranquilized."

She was aware of how cold and direct she sounded, but if she didn't she knew her emotions would get the better of her and she had enough experience to be able to try to take things from a more focused perspective.

Adrienne let out a watery laugh. "I'm willing to put my money on that. If they'd been fighting fair, Vee could take on two men with one hand behind her back, even naked." She sighed and bit her lip, hand hovering over the phone. "Maybe we can see where they took her?"

~The timeline sped up until the three men were in the back of a van and seemingly on their way. "She's gone to facility eight," the apparent leader said. "You know what that means."

The other two men nodded. "South America?"

The leader nodded and handed over the cell phones. "Just in case the laptop can be tracked I'll take it to the Philippines after copying everything off it. Maybe there's something interesting in there."

"What about her stuff?" one man asked, gesturing to the packed suitcase.

"That goes to Eight," the leader replied. "There might be something in there they can use."

The phones went into a pocket and into darkness. Silence reigned. ~

"Does that mean they took her to South America?" Adrienne asked, hopeful again. "That's where Warren found this, right?" she asked, jiggling the phone on her knee.

Jean shook her head. "I'm not so sure. They probably have a designated drop off point in South America and other places they use to throw trackers off their trail, like the Philippines for her laptop. I don't think they would be foolish enough to keep her anywhere close by her cell phone. Speaking of which, if someone hasn't gone to the Philippines yet we need to tell them to do so."

"Not having money sucks," Adrienne expostulated. "If I still had money, I could go to the Philippines. But I bet Bishop or Warren has money. Or X-Force. We can tell them to go. It'll be like they're our minions, doing our bidding, mua ha ha." At least the mental image of that made her smile as she put her hand back on the phone.

With a noise that was as close to a growl as Adrienne could make, she jabbed a finger at the phone again to take them back into the reading.





~The men devolved into conversation about nothing pertinent and the phones plunged back into the darkness of a pocket. The timeline sped up. There was a sensation of motion, uneven and bumpy because of the road the car drove down. The men sang along - and poorly at that - to a tape in the car until the car stopped and they got out of the car. The sound of grass and gravel underfoot preceded the phones being pulled out again.

"Man, I want a burrito."

"Wrong country."

"Fuck. What do they eat in Brazil?"

His companion smiled. "Pussy."

The men hiked through the brush, leaving the car behind on the street. "Where are we headed after this? To Eight?"

"Nah, we need to meet up with Bruckheimer at Three."

"What's at Three?"

The other man smirked. "HQ."

"Shouldn't that be One?"

"Too easy. One's bait."

The phones were left buried under some vegetation in a clearing and the men turned to make their way back to the car without any apparent further thought. ~

"We know where she is now!" Adrienne crowed triumphantly, having put the phone down on Jean's desk. "At Eight! We just have to figure out where the hell that is. Shit, they have at least eight facilities, who the fuck are these assholes?" Her earlier enthusiasm evaporated quickly.

Jean opened her eyes, leaning back in her chair.

"Okay, so far what we know is they are a organization that has, like you said, at least 8 facilities in various places including South America and Brazil. They may have one in the United States if they were aware of Vanessa in the first place and were able to keep track of her whereabouts up until capturing her. The men may be human, but it's hard to tell at this point. Their headquarters is in their third facility and one of the people who are at that facility is named Bruckheimer. Their first facility, described by them as 'bait' will likely be somewhere that will be easy to find but hard to get out of," she said, trying to collect her thoughts by speaking them aloud.

"Vanessa is likely located at facility 8, which sounds like it may be a place where they keep whomever they capture. They have 'standard procedures' and call the people they take 'procurements.' One of the men was new, which means they may be actively recruiting. They were likely aware of at least some of Vanessa's affiliations, or at least the fact that they'd know people with the means to do it would be searching for her, which means they may be aware of X-Factor. The organization may be called Sun, New Sun, or a different combination of the two words."

She picked up her glasses, then smiled.

"You're very handy, you know that?"

"Well, I'd feel more handy if we were on the X-Jet right now going to get Vee," Adrienne shrugged with a wry smile, "but you listed a few things just now that we didn't know before, so I guess I'll take what I can get right now." She grinned at Jean. "I'm glad you were with me on this, y'know? It's nice not to feel so alone while I'm trying to be handy. Knowing you're there with me, seeing what I'm seeing, it... it's nice." Christ, she was bad at being friendly. "Plus, knowing you're a doctor, that if I see something that makes my head explode you can help, is really comforting," she smirked. Jean laughed. "I'm not sure if I'd be able to help much if your head explodes, but figuratively speaking...I'll do my best to put you back together again, body and mind," she said, learning forward as she rested her chin in her hand.

"And I wouldn't have found any of that out without you. A pure example of teamwork. I usually need to organize my thoughts so when no ones around I sometimes say them aloud or recite them to myself," she added, then shrugged.

"Well, it's a good thing I'm here then, isn't it?" Adrienne smirked. "We don't want people to see you talking to yourself and thinking you're crazy or something like that, now do we?" Jean grinned wryly. "Ah,I usually use the 'bluetooth in the ear' trick," she said, tapping the side of her ear in reflex.

"With my hair covering it most people think I'm on the phone. Most people automatically make up an excuse for most things in an attempt to find a rational explanation. At least...those who don't live the way of the X," she mused. She smiled again.

"But you're still helpful."

"I'm as helpful as a piece of plastic you shove in your ear, well that's encouraging," Adrienne laughed. She stood up and stretched lazily. "Should we go tell Bishop and Warren what we've learned?"

"Telephones are pretty helpful," Jean said. And...harmful, depending on how much alcohol you have and if you're of the inclination to drunk dial someone. But she didn't mention that.

Nodding, Jean got up from her chair and slipped off her doctor's jacket.

"I think they'll be eager for any type of new news right about now."