Invisible Death

Snack Time

In the tank, Donna's skin was almost searing Adam's hands. He looked up, but his tear-filled eyes could barely see. No matter, they had won the battle. He knew they had won the battle. And he knew Donna's release from her high tech coffin had plunged everybody into a stupor. Action! Get a grip! Do something! "Samihah!" he shouted as loud as his hoarse voice allowed. "Get... some... water in here!" he choked. "She's boiling hot! It's hyperthermia! Datura poisoning..." he gasped. "It causes hyperthermia! April!" he howled. "Where the hell are those paramedics!"

The invaded laboratory burst into sudden activity. Samihah Shah ran back to the computer and entered the command to fill up the chamber with water. April summoned the medical unit working at the hospital's secret plague ward to the Vault on the double. Brennan and Shalimar ran to Adam's side, helping him stand and hold on to Donna's body. Water was pouring into the tank and the chamber was filling up fast. When it got to waist level, the pouring stopped. Slowly, gently, and keeping her head above the surface, they lowered the comatose woman to the water to cool her off. Touching the liquid, half submerging in it, the woman's eyelids fluttered open again, but the orbs never focused on anything or anybody. Her lips moved in a soundless speech and her neck, a subdermal governor firmly inserted on its base, couldn't possibly hold her head as it rolled in circles. Her arms shook chaotically and her atrophied legs quivered, her whole body shook and her head jerked back, gurgling sounds coming from her throat as the spasms grew more severe.

"She's seizing! Shalimar, hold her above the water!" Adam forced Donna's mouth open, pulling her tongue out and keeping her air passages unencumbered. They held her like that while the paramedic unit came down to the tank. Finally, Brennan had to pry his friend's hands away from Donna and force him to surrender her to the medics care.

Adam's knees buckled under him and he plunged into the water half filling the tank. Pushing Brennan away, he knelt, bending his head till he was totally submerged. He had to cool down himself or he would lose the tenuous grip he had over his emotions and it was clear to him control was of the utmost necessity right now. His work in the underground palace of horrors was far from finished.

When he finally stood up, water dripping off his hair and clothes, he was his old self again, not only in command of his own heart, but of his team, too. "Shalimar!" his voice was a bark. "There are other victims here who need help bad. Carly Leung, Angela's secretary, is in that holding cell there. You and Samihah, take care of that for me, please." He looked around. "Brennan! You... Terra! You're both with me."

With a last look to his Donna, now in the hands of April's medic unit, he leaped over the broken bay window. The elemental and the rat feral flanked him and the strange trio climbed the stairs to the entrance mezzanine. The deadly look on Adam's face made everyone they met on their way up step aside and let them pass, even April's agents. No one dared confront them on pain of instant electrocution. Or worse.

At the top of the stairs, Adam's eyes fell upon Kenneth Harrison, the mind behind the mutant extermination plan. The man was trembling like a leaf, but he still tried to keep his composure, something his lover Thomasina Hobson had already lost.

"Hello, Ken, you pathetic little worm." hissed Adam. "You ridiculous excuse for a man of Science. Do you know who that woman down there is?"

Harrison's heart was the size of a shriveled prune. "Just one of the specimens he provided," he answered, pointing to St. Clair.

"You pusillanimous bastard! You are already pointing fingers and trying to save your scrawny ass." Adam's tone was icy cold. "You requested a multipsionic to satisfy your perverted curiosity, you overgrown sadistic little brat!" He grabbed Harrison by the collar of his shirt and pulled his face closer. "She is not a number, you son of a bitch! Her name is Donna Gryphon and she was to be my wife."