The X-Project

Doug, Kurt, Haller, and Crystal's plan results in deadly consequences for someone on the inside.



"Still nothing," Jim muttered from behind the fingertips pressed to his forehead. Holding open the door that led to his link with the professor was giving the telepath an uncomfortable sense of agoraphobia. Despite the fact the physical proximity of non-psis made no real difference, he was grateful Crystal had taken the opportunity to go procure medical supplies. Jim felt exposed enough with just himself and Doug here.

He wished he'd been able to follow Kurt. Unfortunately, teleportation made a prolonged link difficult even without the risk of attracting the attention of whoever was inside -- his the back of neck crawled with paranoia even parked a quarter of a mile from the mansion's gates. A cigarette would have been nice.

Doug wouldn't have minded giving in to the trope of the chain-smoking hacker, wreathed in cigarette smoke as he hammered away at his keyboard. At least then he'd have something to do with all the nervous energy that was bottled up inside him at the moment. He would much rather have been attempting to infiltrate the mansion himself. But the aftermath of Remy's rescue had left him far too injured to even think about going in. And he couldn't match Kurt's mobility anyway. So all that was left for him to do was stare at his screens and wait. "Nothing here either."

"Dammit." Jim got out of his seat and started to pace around the cramped van. "I have a bad feeling about th--"

His cellphone rang.

"You just had to tempt fate, didn't you." Doug rolled his eyes toward the roof of the van. He thought about going two-for-one with a 'dammit, Jim' reference, but refrained.

The telepath pulled out his phone. It was Jean's number. Exchanging a look of dread with Doug, he took the call.

"Hello?" Jim said. This time, he kept his mind tightly wound behind its own shields.

"Clearly..." the same voice that Haller had been speaking to before came on the line, thick and raspy, but this time, also filled with a dangerous malice.

"You don't know how to follow directions. I thought you were smart. Obviously...don't bet on damaged goods, eh?"

Fuck. Fuck! He gave Doug a look the young man didn't need any mutant power to interpret.

Aloud Jim said, "If you really thought I was smart, your intel isn't as in-depth as I thought it was. And you didn't exactly leave me a lot of options."

"Didn't I? I give you a task...you do the opposite and try sending your team in like goddamn John Wayne. Did you think this was a game?" he said. His voice suddenly turned distant as his phone lit up.

"Tell that to her."

He pulled the cell away from his face and discovered the phone had opened up a video link to the medlab. A rather severe looking, beefy bald headed man had Amelia Voght by the throat. The woman was limp, rather like a rag doll, her eyes half open.

He threw her across the room, where she slammed into one of the glass medicine cabinets, shattering it, and landed on the ground in a heap with a cry of pain.

"Guess what happens next," the man said.

Horrified, Jim could only watch. He was only vaguely aware of Doug behind him, looking past his shoulder to see the screen.

Doug was too well trained at this point to show any kind of reaction to an enemy, verbal or non-verbal. But behind his carefully schooled expression, his mind was a nonstop litany of ~shitshitshitshitshit~, unshielded enough to Haller to hear. Again, Doug wanted to do something, anything, but all he could do was nod soberly to Haller that the feed was legit and not spoofed in any way.

Jim felt the nod and shut his eyes for a moment. "I won't have to," he said quietly, "will I."

"No. Now...tell her you're sorry," the man said as he walked toward her, his back to them.

Amelia tried to move, though it was slow going, until suddenly she grabbed her head, her fingers digging into her temples as a scream erupted from her lips.

"Tell her she doesn't matter."

The woman writhed on the ground as the screaming continued, ripping through the cellphone speakers so loudly it made them cut out a couple of times. Blood began to pour from her nose as her body convulsed in agony.

"Tell her goodbye."

Jim's eyes widened. It's like what I felt -- but offensive--

"Stop!" he screamed into the phone, knowing it made no difference, not caring that it didn't. "Amelia!"

Amelia's cries of pain continued on for a few more moments, moments that felt like hours, until she abruptly stopped moving. Her body slowly turned opaque, and soon evaporated, leaving nothing left but glass shards on the floor and a few droplets of blood.

Doug's eyes narrowed, partly in shock, partly in calculation. The dissipation into mist, that was what Dr. Voght did. The question was, was it somehow a conscious use of her powers, or was it that the mist was the natural state her body wanted to be in, and without her mental control, that was what her dead body reverted to? That was the million dollar question, and the 'they're not dead unless you see a body' trope that had been hammered into Doug's head by television and movies was a thin thread of hope to hang on. He knew all too well that real life was rarely neat and tidy like Hollywood portrayed.

"You son of a-" he rasped, then cut himself off. He was only partly acting. While he knew not to show weakness to an opponent like this, his anger was up, and besides, he justified to himself that he was giving this...person what they wanted to see, which would aid them right up until they started changing the playing field.

Jim said nothing for a long time, just staring at the display and the empty spot where Amelia had been. Thinking about the dour, private Russian. Thinking about having to tell Charles what had happened to her.

A moment later the telepath raised the phone again. "Point made," he said. His voice was steady, but the right eye, the window to Haller's mind, had bleached so grey it was almost white.

The video feed to the medlab flickered out, leaving only the voice again. He seemed to revel in their anguish judging by little hint of sadistic pleasure in his voice.

"Good. Because next time? The next one will be younger. Get to work," he said.

The line went dead.

Doug turned to Haller, their expressions both granite-hard over the shock of what they'd seen.

"We'll get them," he said harshly.