This story refers to and uses a few lines of dialogue from the episodes ‘The Shock of the New’ and ‘I Scream the Body Electric’ – it might not make much sense unless you’ve seen those. Mutant X is copyright Tribune Entertainment. No copyright infringement intended, no profit made.

Emma and Brennan officially joined Mutant X today.

Emma made her mind up before our visit to Genomex eight days ago, but Adam held off giving her the ring even though he had had it ready for some time. At first, I put it down to us all being busy building up believable backgrounds for all the new mutants we had rescued from Genomex. Even though we have a very good operation, it’s still a lot of work to make sure that the new identities of a dozen people can stand up to official scrutiny.

Last night, Adam told Shalimar and me that not everyone we’d rescued was leaving, after all. During the week that had passed since our mission, Adam had somehow found time to talk at length with Brennan, who had also agreed to join us.

I guess I wasn’t that surprised at the news – I know Brennan has a bone to pick with Eckhart, and Adam can be pretty persuasive when he so desires. As perverse as it might sound, the fact that Mason Eckhart had been so eager to have Brennan on his team probably was the best recommendation he could have hoped for as far as Adam is concerned. Even so, if I’d been betting on it, I wouldn’t have put my money on Brennan being interested in joining a cause that’s not geared toward making money. Looks like I might have been wrong.

So, earlier today, Emma and I picked up Brennan from the city and brought him into Sanctuary. He’s one of the very few people who’ve arrived here for the first time without being ‘blindfolded’ by Adam’s neat little electrical toy. I guess that counts as an accomplishment.

Anyway, as soon as we arrived, we had a little ceremony welcoming not one, but two new members to the team.

Standing opposite Emma and Brennan with my old teammates, I could see Shalimar reach her hand towards me behind Adam’s back. I held out my hand and accepted the sleek metal box from her. As I once again looked at Brennan’s handsome face, trying to interpret his expressions, there were suddenly butterflies in my belly.

At Adam’s nod, Shalimar stepped forward. Standing in front of Emma, she opened the lid of the box she was holding to reveal the ring inside. Even I had no problem interpreting the stream of emotions reflected on Emma’s face, and her wide smile seemed to brighten up the whole room. After picking up the ring, Emma hugged Shalimar, and I was pleased to see Shalimar give her a warm hug back. It’s nice to see they’ve become such good friends after a slightly shaky start.

Then, it was my turn. I stepped forward, feeling very self-conscious, and flipped open the lid of my box. Brennan looked at his ring, then looked around at everybody but me before picking it up. When he finally looked at me, the words ‘What, no hug?’ were out of my mouth before I knew what was happening. Luckily, everybody took it for a quip, but when Brennan’s lips turned up into an amused smile I came to a sudden and quite startling realization - a part of me wasn’t joking.

Of course, Brennan had to make a joke about hazing and handshakes to make light of his commitment, but at least I managed to crack one of my own, too. I don’t think anyone noticed anything wrong with me.

Not that there’s anything wrong with me, at all. I’m just a little confused about Brennan and certain things related to him – like the fact that the moment I first saw him is etched into my mind in sharp, bright, Technicolor detail. Which is kind of surprising, given the circumstances. It’s not like I really had time to concentrate on him or anything.

I arrived at the Skycourse a couple of minutes behind Shalimar and from the exact opposite direction. She told me Eckhart’s men had caught up with Emma and her mystery companion and that there was a fight going on, then joined the fun herself. Running to catch up with Shalimar, I came upon two of Eckhart’s men at the other end of the hall. Gliding to a halt and massing out, I let the first guy run right into me. He went down in a heap.

While the other goon took a few seconds to figure out how to attack me, I had time to check what was happening elsewhere. Looking past my opponent, I saw that the main fight was taking place on a landing one flight of stairs up from the main corridor where I was. As I watched, Shalimar flipped gracefully through the air with her long, blond hair flying behind her like a halo, looking the very personification of feral. I also a caught a few glimpses of a tall, dark haired guy in a long, black leather coat fighting against at least two GSA agents.

Then, my attention was back on my own fight and the second guy who had decided to come at me with a barrel. I phased out, and he took his buddy – who had just managed to scramble back to his feet – down again for me. After that, all I had to do was kick down guy number two. I always enjoy showing people how hard it is to fight a truly insubstantial opponent.

As I started towards the others again, I saw the mystery guy go down, his body bathed in flashes of electricity. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I filed away the sound of his cries of agony and Emma’s frantic call for ‘Brennan’. I spurted up the stairs, but the fight was over by the time I reached the landing. Actually, I was ready to continue fighting until the sight of a gun aimed at Shalimar froze me in my tracks. Adam, who had also caught up with us, told us to just let them go, but for some strange reason, I felt tempted to disobey him.

As we watched the GSA agents drag Brennan’s limp body away with them, I kept repeating Adam’s words ‘This isn’t over yet’ in my mind. I really don’t like losing, but I was a little baffled at just how bitter the taste in my mouth was. We had managed to save Emma, after all.

When Emma told us that Brennan was a fellow new mutant, I really felt like we’d let him down. Adam got pretty grim when he heard that Mr. Thorpe had not only known Brennan’s name but had also been familiar with his mutant ability. The possibility that this time Eckhart’s men might actually have been after Brennan and not Emma as we’d assumed meant that Eckhart either wanted to study Brennan or wanted to exploit Brennan’s gift for his own purposes. Either way, we were screwed, and chances were that Brennan wasn’t enjoying himself much, either.

Although, I couldn’t help thinking that a guy like Brennan might have decided to go over to Eckhart’s team after all – and, naturally, I voiced my thoughts. I could tell Adam was also wondering about that possibility, but Emma, who wanted to think of Brennan as her hero, didn’t like my idea. Sweet, innocent Emma – she still didn’t have a clue about what Eckhart and his henchmen could do to a new mutant. As much as I wanted to think Brennan wouldn’t turn against us, having checked out his background after the fight, it seemed to me that Brennan had played it fast and loose all his life. I really couldn’t see any reason why he would even try to resist ‘recruitment’ for long, let alone be successful if he tried.

The question of Brennan’s loyalties became acutely interesting a few days later, when the GSA agents attacked our safe house. I managed to take several of them down, but eventually found myself in the middle of a ring of agents. I was looking around, trying to find a weak link that might give me a chance to escape, when I heard footsteps approaching.

Turning toward the sound, I saw Mr. Thorne. He was followed closely by Brennan – it’s funny how I was calling him by his name in my head even then although I didn’t really know him at all. Brennan was looking at me, and suddenly all I could think of was whether he’d noticed me at the Skycourse. Which was totally insane, of course, because I should have been thinking of what he would soon do to me.

I kept my eyes on Brennan as he walked around the agents surrounding me. I had a feeling he wasn’t there just to witness the effectiveness of the GSA team. Also, it was the first time I got a really good look at him. I think the phrase ‘tall, dark and handsome’ could have been coined just for him. Can you see why I’m confused? There I was, in more serious trouble than probably ever before in my life, and I was thinking about the guy and how much I’d like to… Never mind.

When Mr. Thorne said, “Alright Mulwray, your powers are back on,” I knew Brennan hadn’t really embraced the GSA agenda, and a part of me rejoiced. At the same time, I realized he was obviously under Mr. Thorne’s control. It didn’t matter how much he wouldn’t enjoy zapping me, he would take me down just the same, and it would probably hurt like hell. Still, he just stood there, prompting a threat from Mr. Thorne. It seemed like Brennan was trying to make sure I understood that he wasn’t a willing participant in the game, but I couldn’t see why that would matter when I was about to be incapacitated and captured or maybe even killed in the next few seconds.

Finally, Brennan took a few steps toward me, then slowly moved his hands into position. I kept staring at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights, trying to read my future in his dark eyes. Since Mr. Thorne hadn’t given him any explicit orders, I figured Brennan knew what they wanted to do with me. As the electric charge started building between his hands, Brennan looked down, concentrating. I could feel my heart rate increase as my mind came back online and began frantically looking for a last second escape. Then, Brennan looked up at me, and although his face was still as passive as before, I could suddenly read his eyes. I phased out a fraction of a second before Brennan shot the electricity at me, and it hit two GSA agents, instead. He was still looking straight at me as I let my body fall through the floor.

On the way back to Sanctuary, the scene kept playing in my mind over and over again. I relived every word, every gesture, trying to make sense of what I’d seen and heard. It was obvious that there was no love lost between Mr. Thorne and Brennan, but just as clearly Mr. Thorne had some way of controlling Brennan. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out exactly what Mr. Thorne had meant by ‘jolt for motivation’. I hoped it would mean something to Adam, because now more than ever, I wanted to get Brennan out of Eckhart’s hands as soon as possible. I knew he was probably in even more trouble than before for letting me get away.

Telling the others about the incident, I initially kept to the bare facts. Although I was absolutely convinced that Brennan had purposefully helped me escape, and I knew I had to convince the others about that as well to make sure they’d agree we’d need to return the favor as soon as possible, the idea of telling them about ‘knowing what was on Brennan’s mind’ didn’t appeal to me. I mean, how sappy does that sound? I can control my body density – I’m not a telepath.

In the end, Emma’s faith in Brennan saved the day for me. After her emphatic statement in his defense, it was easy for me to say that Brennan had given me a look to let me know what to expect. Which is exactly what happened – only thanks to Emma, the idea didn’t sound so stupid anymore.

It’s funny how sometimes the tiniest word can change the entire content of a sentence. I know Adam was genuinely glad that Eckhart & Thorne hadn’t been able to suborn Brennan, but all I could hear was the word ‘yet’. It made my stomach clench. It also made me silently support Shalimar’s idea of charging into Brennan’s rescue, although I’m not usually that rash. When Adam reminded us that we didn’t even know where the captured new mutants were being held, I was a little embarrassed. Shalimar just shrugged the whole thing off like a true feral.

I could have kissed Emma when she said she could find Brennan. In the end, Emma not only found Brennan, but also agreed to Adam’s plan and went fishing – and Mr. Thorne caught the bait. Of course, both he and Mr. Eckhart thought they’d finally managed to catch Emma. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, I’m sure.

When we sneaked into Genomex, I was quite happy to let Adam and Shalimar play with the computers. I wanted to go rescue the others, because I needed to see for myself as soon as possible that Emma and Brennan were all right. Waiting for the word from Adam about where to find them seemed to take forever.

When I finally marched onto the terrace and saw both Emma and Brennan looking unharmed, I couldn’t help grinning. Taking care of the guards outside the cage was no problem – they bought my GSA uniform and didn’t pay any attention to me. They never knew what hit them.

My good mood took a slight slip when I thanked Brennan for the heads up at the safe house, and he pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about. I still don’t get that. I mean, what was he trying to prove? I guess he could have been pissed off because Emma hadn’t told him about our rescue mission, but why was he taking it out on me? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

It was still cool to see Brennan zap the two new guards and open the gate for us. I complemented him on that, and, again, he brushed me off. It’s like the guy doesn’t know how to act around people who are trying to be friendly to him! In the end, I was happy to help Emma get everybody out of the Genomex complex and let Shalimar go after Brennan.

I’m glad Emma finally decided to join us. As I said to Shalimar when we first brought Emma to Sanctuary, it’s nice to have another female in the team, and I think Emma will fit in well.

I’m still not sure how I feel about Brennan, though.

Emma told me that Eckhart had decided to put Brennan into stasis, so I guess I’m glad we got him out of Genomex when we did, but I don’t know how well we’ll work together. I’ve talked to Adam about him, and Adam says I should cut him some slack for now. Naturally, I haven’t told Adam what really bugs me about Brennan – and I never will. I’ll get over it. Actually, if Brennan keeps acting like he’s been acting so far, I’ll get over it very soon. Which is good. Really, really good.