Snippet #2378577

Xander stepped in only after Gwen got a solid crack at the kid’s face with her arm. At first, he thought it was because it was a way to let her blow off steam without having it go beyond the chance to talk with the guy. He wasn’t going to be much use with a broken jaw, and that was why they’d always been so liberal with the mental overloads: all the pain and motivation they needed to spill their guts went into it minus any serious side-effects, unless ‘irreparable mental trauma’ counted. Around the time Alex realized who he was talking about and that Xander would never stop a fight before it ‘got to the good part’ without a reason, the kid’s face broke out into a furious snarl. He started gnashing his teeth and lurching forward as far as he could while bound. Before Gwen could think about landing another blow – if she’d even meant to land the first one – Xander caught her, grabbed her, then stepped back from the howls of rage erupting from the kid’s throat.

“I’m guessing that’s the banshee again,” he muttered.

Think the syrup’ll get rid of him? Or her or whoever?

“He’s not looking very hungry,” Xander said. “For whatever’s not human flesh, I mean.” He frowned as he thought it over, then let go of Gwen and stepped towards the kid, barely far enough away to avoid the harsh chomping. “Okay. This is interesting.”

Alex wanted to frown. Everything she’d said to the kid, every accusation and every floating thought, hit a chord with him. It must’ve rung in Xander’s head, too. He was an idiot to still be here, what with the Agents on the way and the chance of this guy already being an Agent...

What’re you gonna do?

“Dunno.”

You don’t know? Again? Ask him something!

“Ask him what?” He’d said it flatly, like he wasn’t listening. It was because he wasn’t. He knew it was pointless because of the kid’s Xander-stand-in taking over. Alex knew it too, but he would’ve still done something. They needed answers. “Well – we could try this.”

Another zap, not as sharp as the one Xander had made in the restaurant, but enough to knock the kid out for... He didn’t really know. Without being in control of his body, he couldn’t feel the bridge forming and the force flowing through his eyes. He was about to – if he could’ve – throw his hands in the air and demand what the point of letting ‘David’ talk if they were only going to beat themselves in the face with more questions than anything when, slowly, the young head that’d limply dropped as the banshee went back into hiding twitched and slowly raised.

“Y’know, mate, I can feel that in there. I don’t know if you’re tryin’ t’be careful, but you’re really bad at it.” Oh good. Now the indirectly murderous guy was back instead of the crazy cannibal. “Did she... did she punch me?”

“Elbowed you,” Xander said. “It’s different.”

“And – what... what th’ hell was that? She’s... well... the oth’a one’s not making any noise...” Weakly, he cautiously eyed Alex. “Was’at –”

“Her again.” Gwen got a thumb jerk in her direction. “Trigger happy. I can’t control her – she’s like a loose cannon.”

Now David was beginning to look scared.

“You... did that from all the way over... What - did you use your brain? Was that you in th’ restaurant? I thought he had a tazer!” He recoiled in horror, flattening himself against the back of the chair so heavily that he almost made it fall over. “You can kill me with your brain – that’s your power? Well – lit’le fuckin’ wonder they want you so bad! You’re a monster!”

If Xander was flattered, he wasn’t showing it. He probably was, though.

Tell him to answer, Alex said. We have no idea if we can trust him and we need to get out of here. We can’t spend hours making sure he’s safe if we’re going to leave him behind.

“She brought up a good point,” he said, “in case you didn’t hear through all those fists of fury. You picked up everything you knew from a few bits of paper and a couple of conversations by your bed?”

“Well – don’t make it sound like I was only there for a week,” David protested, sounding more offended than scared. “I was there f’two months, and as th’ most recent of their captures, I was closest to whatever door they were comin’ in. They brought all these... official soundin’ people who, naturally, were interested in th’ same stupid things, so I ‘eard the same five damn answers every oth’a day: what’s his power, who else is goin’ in, what’s their power, what ‘appens if they escape, where’s the rest of th’ files on this stuff? And – y’know – usually it’d be a real quick answer, real brief stuff like ‘it’s fine if they escape ‘cause they can’t make it for long on their own’ or ‘th’ cabinet’s down the hall on the left, second door on th’ right, it’s the big black one and the key’s on th' desk’. Every so often, though, someone would make full use and demand more explanation. That’s ‘ow I found out they weren’t worried about us gettin’ away. Guarded as hell, mate, I’ll say that much, but without th’ strawberry and syrup thing one doc or another insisted on goin’ into full detail about, I don’t think I would’ve lasted a minute on the outside, let alone the week I’ve been runnin’. She was no help either, in case you were wonderin’.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Oh.” The kid’s eyes flashed and he indignantly snorted at Gwen. “As f’ what you wanted t’know, Miss Maniac Brain Blast, I wasn’t ‘like some kid spying’. I had nothing better t’do since they’d kept me in a state of 'unconsciousness'. I floated in’n’out of madness f’four weeks – those conversations were all I had to keep me grounded. S’not like I asked t’be the one they ‘presented’ whenever a higher-up wanted t’know what was goin’ on. And I never said there wasn’t a cure, either! I mean – that part should be obvious!”

Xander latched onto those words immediately.

“‘Obvious’ in what way?”

And now the kid scowled as though he’d already said it a million times.

“If you aren’t th’ host of the body or set up t’be the host by them, then y’can’t get anything but a timer that’ll countdown ‘til you vanish. The only way to ‘cure’ it –” He stopped to roll his eyes again. “– is t’get out of there and get your own body. Be a host yourself – that’s‘ow y’do it.”

Alex felt a painful wave of fear come over him. He trusted Xander enough to know that, for as long as he thought he and Alex were one and the same, they’d be fine. Just from the way David was talking, though, he knew there had to be some kind of idea forming in his roommate’s head. He could guess what it was. If it came down to it, it’d be a fight to the death. The horrifying reality was, powers or not, Alex didn’t know if he could win.

“How the hell would you do that?”

He didn’t like that question. Alex didn’t like that question at all.

“I don’t know,” David luckily answered. “I guess you’d do what those people did gettin’ me in here. You’d ‘ave to change it somehow, either make it more of a transf’a so you’re not just donatin' your powers or drop into a body that’s unoccupied. They’ve got rows and rows of ‘em, y’know. Like I said, they keep 'em all in jars, all the bodies of whoever was transferred and whatnot. Sentimental, I suppose, but it’s really creepy. I ‘adn’t ‘eard a damn thing about it from anyone so, when I got up an’ started walkin’ around, I was face-to-face with the handful of successes and the thousands of failures in minutes. And I mean thousands - literally thousands, and you would not believe how many of my kind of people they’ve hunted down and tried t’do this to. This process they’ve come up with... It was not an overnight thing. It must’ve been goin’ on f’decades, and just remembering ‘ow pissed they were when one o’ the blokes supposed t’be in here didn’t take, I can just guess how furious it made them to go through so many different people without a lick of luck. Well – persistence is everything, right? They did it. In the final, bitter end, they did it, and I’m the newest leap t’wards –”

“Blah, blah, you’re special. Where was the place they had you? Are you seriously trying to say you ran around for a day and never found an address?”

“If I’m not stupid enough t’spend the whole day readin’ files – and I simply gave a cursory glance over th’ones I did read and then stuffed the important bits in my bag – I’m not wastin’ my time tryin’ t’ look th’ place up. The point’s never t’go back there again. The less I know about it, th’ better.”

“Right. Great.”

Alex knew it was a matter of self-preservation, but the disappointment in Xander’s voice in not knowing where the lab got to him.

Okay, he’s not helpful anymore. We’ve got two minutes left, so let’s –

“He’s coming with us.”

What?

“He’s coming with us,” Xander repeated. “We’re gonna find that lab and he’s gonna show us where the hell everything is.”

Xander, I know you say a lot of crazy things, I know you like living on the edge or whatever, but that, even for you, is the most suicidally terrifying thing that’s ever come out of your mouth. We’re not taking him! He doesn’t –

“The goggles." He turned to Gwen. “If you can find the Agents on that thing, you can find their headquarters. The information has to be in there somewhere.”

Alex’s head hurt at the thought of it. The headache still had yet to hit, but he felt a yawning at the edge of his mind that seemed to assure him it was on his way.

You exploded when Peter betrayed you and you freaked when I told Gwen. None of that – neither of those two things – hammered into your head what a bad idea it was to let more people know who you are? Xander wasn't talking to him. Answer me!

“The lesson I learned is that I can kill anyone who gets in my way.” And he was completely serious. His voice was cold and still. For the first real minute of the day, Alex remembered who Xander was – merciless and lethal, exactly like an Agent was supposed to be. The spurt of warmth in the guy’s next words seemed to miss the mark of sounding calm. “You’re panicking again. Cut it out. So he’s got a few powers. He can’t even use them.”

“Well, actually –” Every tray still on the cart blew up like a grenade had been stuffed down the throat of each of them. The violent noise scared the shit of Alex, and Xander, despite himself, jumped too. The silverware was suddenly black and they’d shot off into the air to land with an ear-ringing clatter. Bits of pancake flew everywhere and the pitchers of syrup and bowls of fruit had been decimated. It took them a minute to catch their breaths, and by the time Xander looked back at David, the kid was grinning like a fox who’d found a limping squirrel. “I told you, mate - their powers might be inaccessible, but I’m here ‘cause I’ve got a gift of my own. And if you don’t let me go, I won’t waste a second usin’ ‘em on you. Come on, brain-girl! Y’think that’ll work if y’don’t ‘ave a head on your shoulders?”

David went limp and stopped talking. Xander shut him up with another fierce mental push. Then unbelievably – psychotically! – he started to untie the guy.

“We’re taking him. It’s not like we’re running in any real direction anyway,” he said. “Gwen, find whatever the fuck he was talking about. We’re going. And we’re going right now.” Without another word, he grabbed his bag from the floor and swung it over his shoulder, then picked up David and threw him over the other. ‘At least’ he had the decency to say, “If anything goes wrong, I’ll kill him.”

Believe me, that’s not the part I’m worried about.



Benoit had held off answering until Jean had taken them to the first, halfway decent area to eat he drove by. His lead seemed deep in thought, turning over both ideas in his mind and judging them expertly. More than anyone, he had absolute insight into everything Alexander was capable of. No one was better prepared to call the final order than him. As such, Jean was content to let him think in silence, even as the boy behind them continued to be a pest.

“I think I’ll pass on eating...”

He’d said it quietly, as though he hadn’t wanted to bother anyone. Jean gritted his teeth. If that was true, he would have been quiet in the first place. Benoit might have been friendly enough to attribute the choked breathing and low, quick moans to the child’s loss, but while he would never dare to say as much out loud, his lead had neglected the very honest fact that Jason had brought this on himself. Jean had no sympathy to give. Fortunately for everyone around him, it was not his job to do so.

“I have decided,” Benoit said, after they had entered the gentle bistro and settled in their seats. “There is no use of a plan hinging on Alexander. If he has not used his powers by now, a chance I find slim at best, it is unlikely we will find him before he does. As such, I am delighted to hear your alternative.”

“Sir?” A wirey man had bounded up to their table and stood at Jean’s side. He was talking to Benoit, however, and he knew the problem before the server had finished speaking. “There’s no smoking in here.”

“Jean.”

So Jean threw his fist out and squarely slugged the idiot in his gut. As the server doubled over, he calmly took his gun out and pointed it at the man’s foot.

“Go away,” Jean said.

The man did not leave. For some reason, he was in pain.

“Honestly, Jean, I can’t take you anywhere. Pay him.”

Oh.

So he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills. Three... four hundred. It should have been enough. He put it in the server’s hand, who graciously accepted before hobbling away. How undignified.

“I think we may have a new server this morning,” he said.

“I think you may be right.” Benoit was laughing into his cigarette, which he proudly continued to smoke. “If you can do as you say, Miss Agent, your idea is sound. These ‘seeds of doubt’... I forget not every case is as complicated as mine. The simplest plans often have merit outside of his involvement.” He politely nodded. “Things have changed. She gives him a weakness. This could work.”

There was a growing air of excitement around Jean’s lead. The woman’s thinly veiled hunger to wrap up this work and claim what was hers was catching.

“Provided,” Jean put in, returning them to realistic expectations, “he has a need for her. Even a ‘want’ would suffice. We have no proof of either.”

“Jean, have you seen this girl? You have access to that part of the profile,” Benoit said. “I say it can be done. The flaw I gave him on its own is enough to assume he would keep her near. Unfortunately...” He paused to decide how to phrase his words. “I cannot say with certainty he has enough concern for her to risk his life. The host, perhaps, but Alexander-the-guest is... fickle with his trust. Your target was stalked once before? And how long has that fear taken to wear off? Imagine it with him, but stronger, more prevalent and constantly reinforced. There is no sense in risking the sake of this plan to have him abandon her and run to higher ground. I would wait, if you feel you can bear it.”

She didn't have to, Jean knew. Either plan gave the woman and her pet full access to their target. In a way, they would be doing Benoit a favour by offering up their case as bait. Charming, really, and Jean appreciated the sentiment, but he took offence at the implication; they were more than equipped enough to handle this on their own.

“You’re not ordering that,” Jean grunted. “The main ingredient is butter.”

“Jean, who is in charge of this case?”

“You are, Benoit.”

“And if I want to eat butter, who are you to say otherwise?” Jean frowned at him. Benoit his gave his menu up. “I may shoot you if you order something shit like salad.”

“Duly noted.”

If it weren’t for Jean, the man would have died years ago from a heart attack long before Alexander factored in. It was a thankless job, but it was his.