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After she was tossed back into their cell, Emma screamed. She was supposed to be sharing this room with Brennan, but now it was her own private prison. A personal hell. She slammed herself against the door, pounding it with her fists.
"Where is he?!" she yelled, throwing a tantrum. "What have you done with him!?"
She kicked at the door, knowing it wouldn't open, yet there was nothing in this empty white room for her to break. She screamed again, wailing until her throat ached and she started to go hoarse. "WHERE IS HE?" she demanded once more before all the shouting and crying only made her cough.
Slumping against the wall, she made her way to the corner and then sat down. She curled herself up as tightly as possible. It wasn't her friend she'd been screaming for; she knew that. Her need was to know what had been done with his body.
Afraid to close her eyes, she laid on the cold floor, not willing to sleep. If she dreamed, she'd find herself back in that lab. It haunted her mind. Yet perhaps it was better her thoughts be haunted than empty.
She couldn't feel anything. Emotions raged inside her head, yet the turmoil was all hers. There was nothing else. Nobody else. In her entire life, she had never seemed so truly alone. He'd left her by herself in this awful place.
He'd left her...
She was once told that when a person met a kindred spirit, they just knew. It was something that would strike them, like lightning. Emma had never imagined it could be so literal. She recalled fondly a time that now seemed an eternity ago, when she'd found him again. She'd taken his hand and he had shown her his gift, something he'd kept hidden his entire life. He'd shared his abilities with a complete stranger. Trusted her for no other reason than that they were alike.
Since that day, he was always there for her. Whenever she needed him. And when she didn't. A soft smile touched her lips before vanishing.
Brennan was gone from her life now. And he hadn't merely left her - not willingly. He'd been taken. She wondered what would happen to her now. If she ever got out of here, how was she supposed to tell Adam, Jesse, and Shal? Tell them that Brennan was dead. That his death hadn't been quick. That he'd died brutally. Drowned.
She'd felt his fear despite the governor. It had taken such a long time for her mind to go silent. The skin around his wrists had been torn when she'd seen his body. He'd been tied and had obviously fought. She selfishly shoved aside her worries about how the others would react to the news. She was the one in pain! They should have been there to comfort her!
Shivering, the tears returned and her body shook with renewed sobs. She traced her fingers along the floor before resting her head against it, trying to get comfortable, knowing she never would. There was no shoulder for her to cry on, no one to hold her and dry her tears. No...
Brennan. She missed him so fiercely it hurt. And she loathed Eckhart with a hatred so true and pure that it frightened her. Emma wished that they would pod her instead of leaving her alone to deal with this rush of emotions that she couldn't even begin to make sense of.
She longed to spend the rest of her life in an artificial sleep without dreams, safe in a drug-induced coma. Away from the pain.
Away from a world in which her best friend had just been murdered.
-----
"Mr. Eckhart!" somebody shouted as he was making his way back to his office.
He turned to the person, feeling the start of a rather bad headache. "What now?" he snapped. He wasn't happy at having his thoughts interrupted. He needed to decide what to do with Miss DeLauro. Putting her in stasis was the obvious choice, yet he almost felt as if he should return her to Adam. There had been a time when they'd been friends. It seemed somewhat unsporting to take two of his team at once.
The messenger fidgeted. "I was sent to inform you that Mulwray woke up as we were taking him to the morgue."
-----
Eckhart shoved open the door to the morgue. Sure enough, Mulwray was sitting on one of the tables with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Perhaps his sympathies had been premature.
Maybe one day he'd learn not to doubt the things which belonged to Adam. It was a lesson he'd soon have all eternity to learn.
"Why isn't he in restraints?" Eckhart demanded.
Brennan flinched from his loud voice, but otherwise he made no response. Jordan helped him to lie down, and Brennan stared at him in confusion before closing his eyes.
"I can't tell you exactly how he was able to revive," Jordan said to Eckhart. "But he choked up the water by reflex."
Eckhart bent over him and noticed that Brennan had lapsed back into unconsciousness. "Wake him," he instructed.
Jordan was tempted to advise against that, but he did as ordered. He looked to Eckhart before administering the drugs. "You should give him a few minutes to come around."
Eckhart waited impatiently as Brennan roused. When he opened his eyes, he stared blankly at Eckhart. His expression held a mixture of fear and bewilderment. There wasn't a trace of recognition.
Eckhart fixed his gaze on Jordan. "What's wrong with him?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out. Hold his arm," he requested, feeling much less tongue-tied around the other man today. When Eckhart did as instructed, Jordan drew a blood sample. Brennan jerked back immediately and clutched his arm like a small child holding his wound. He watched them with wide eyes.
"I asked him a series of questions before you arrived," Jordan continued, somewhat disturbed. "He was unable to answer any of them."
It took Eckhart a few minutes to stop studying Brennan who began to squirm under the scrutiny. "Could this be some kind of stunt on Mulwray's part?"
Sadly, Jordan didn't think that was the answer. "Damage normally begins to occur when the brain is deprived of oxygen for five minutes. Mulwray was clinically dead for over three times that."
"And the strand?" Eckhart asked next.
Jordan gave him a slightly irritated look. He'd just told him Brennan had likely suffered serious brain damage, but all he cared about was his experiment. The pedestal he'd once placed Eckhart on was starting to crumble. "Still perfectly intact. It suffered no degeneration."
"Will he regain his memory?" Eckhart continued, talking about Brennan as if he wasn't there.
Jordan frowned. They were in new territory. He had no way of predicting the outcomes of their tests. "This isn't just amnesia. There's no way to tell. I'd say his odds are fifty/fifty."
Staring at Brennan once more, Eckhart asked, "And right now he can't understand anything we're saying?"
"It doesn't appear so." Jordan had difficulty continuing the discussion with Brennan sitting there watching them. "I'd like to proceed and give him the next injection. If we force him through the rest of the treatments ahead of schedule, it could improve his chances."
"And if we stop entirely?" Eckhart stepped back from Brennan, seeming to lose interest in making him uncomfortable. He was either the best actor ever, or this wasn't a game. "Hypothetically, of course."
Jordan was confused. "You want this to become permanent?"
"It would be beneficial to have a member of Mutant X on our side," commented Eckhart, planning ahead.
"We'd need to start tests on the strand again with a new subject. Plus, Mulwray will either regain everything or nothing. In the state he's in now, he would be useless to you for at least several years. At the moment, he doesn't even understand English. He's missing a lot more than his memories. Frankly, I'm not sure he'll ever be capable of comprehending anything."
Eckhart decided it would be more beneficial to resume experimenting with the strand than to bother with trying to brainwash Mulwray. At least for the time being. "Would it be possible to recreate this outcome at a later date? Finish testing and then erase his memory of only the last few years, leaving everything else intact?"
For a moment, Jordan watched Brennan as he tried using the blanket to dry his hair and clothes. He seemed to have already figured out that he didn't like water. "It's impossible to selectively alter memory," he explained. Besides, he didn't want to repeat this. "And once he's taken the final injection, I don't even think we'd be capable of damaging his memory at all."
"What if we administered a small dose of 216?" Eckhart inquired, somehow remaining stoic while mentioning the virus.
The turn in the discussion troubled Jordan. "After the changes to his DNA are complete, he'll be immune." He preempted the next question before it could asked. "If you try before hand, even trace elements of 216 would be fatal. By the time it's broken down Messiah to the point where the subject can no longer heal himself, irreparable damage will have been done to the host's body. Survival would be impossible no matter how closely we monitor the conditions of the experiment."
Jordan paused, realizing that he'd stopped referring to Brennan by name. He quickly broke himself free from the detachment. He wouldn't allow himself to stop caring. "If you introduce 216 to Mulwray's system, you've killed him."
Eckhart remained nonchalant. "Shame. I had hoped he could be rehabilitated from his outlaw lifestyle." He headed for the door, the conversation over. "Put him in restraints, give him the next injection, and then take him back to his room."
Jordan nodded. "Yes, sir."
-----
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