Brotherhood

One Happy Family

Blake sat at the table in the safehouse, a cold beer in his hands and his eyes fixed on the three figures in the beanbag. Part of him still couldn't believe that One and Five were really there. But there they were, back in their familiar group hug in the beanbag, integrating once more with Adam. None of the three had spoken a word since One had greeted Uno at the Terra base. They'd simply clung together and, on arrival here, gone directly to the beanbag.

The outside of the house was crawling with the Company operatives who had helped in the rescue mission, ensuring there would be no more trouble. But all of Shard was inside. Murray was curled up on the sofa behind the brothers, working on her laptop and occasionally dropping a hand down to brush over Five's hair. Unum was in the other room, speaking softly in French with Uno and Dos. Blake hadn't been sure what to expect, but the gentle way that Unum spoke with and touched the wayward psionics had surprised him greatly. It didn't seem that anyone was angry with the two at all. If anything, Unum appeared to feel sorry for them. He'd spent much of the ride over assuring them that they would continue to search for an empath for them and urging them to be patient, or at least that's what Elton had told Blake. That conversation had also been in French.

"Boss, I want to say, I'm really really glad you're alright," Elton told Blake. "When I heard those shots and saw the mess in the music room, I about panicked. Then the house was full of Terra and I was fighting for my life with no idea of where you'd gone. By the time I got through them, they'd already taken you. And there was One, missing his face and just about dead, and the doc on the floor with his eyes rolled back. When I saw Seven was missing too, I figured out that Uno and Dos had taken you both, so I did the only thing I could do. I told you how I'd only taken the resiliency portion of the chi power, but it's been growing? Well, it came in handy. I can't heal like the doc, but I kept One alive. Barely. Poor Three, with the way she angled that gun under her chin, she hit herself square in the brain stem. But the human skull from the front is built tough, you know? It's why I trained my men to aim for the back of the head. But even so, three shots to the face? One almost died! Took me hours to heal him, drained me until I literally passed out, and meanwhile, One had been so far gone that he couldn't maintain his trio and his alignment with the doc was down to shit. Thought for a bit there that I was going to lose him. I'm betting it was worse with Seven, especially since he'd already been pulled partially out of their integration anyway. He probably felt like One died!" He shook his head. "Poor guy. Seven must have come close to falling out of it completely. We're lucky he's even still alive!"

Silence from Blake. He held onto the untouched beer, his eyes on the brothers. The skin on One's face was slightly paler in places on careful examination, giving the telepath's face a patchwork appearance that marked where new flesh had grown over his terrible wounds. The ruby ring on his hand glittered as he clung to his brothers.

"Of course, you were our biggest concern," Elton continued. "We knew Terra had you, and honestly, we had no idea what they'd do with you. Our most likely scenerio was that they'd just keep you hidden until Unum died and they could hook you up with the shards. And you know, that's the thing that pisses me off the most about those guys. They go on and on about how they're saving humanity and keeping the entity from taking over the planet, blah blah blah, but the dickhead in charge was mostly just was pissed off because Father didn't want him. If he could have become Tres, he never would have given the rest of humanity a second thought! I'll grant, he's the reason that I started watching my own levels, because he started grumbling that the entity was getting stronger in Unum and Duo. But based on what we've gotten from Terra's files, they didn't want the entity dead. Oh, sure, they'd planned to destroy Father if he became hostile, but they wanted to try to control him, first. How's that jive with their grand philosophy, huh, boss? If they really thought Shard was such an abomination and needed destroyed, then why try to control Father? I mean, and don't take this the wrong way, boss, but if I was so sure Father was a monster, I'd let him get in you, have you break the shards, and then just shoot you, you know?"