I could only sit back in my chair and groan while people cleaned up the mess I’d made on the carpet. The fact that the mess was the blood and brains of my former Chief of Staff was something I was doing my best not to dwell on at the moment.

Numbly, I took my weapon, a very nice Berreta 9mm, once again made sure the safety was on and thumbed another round into to magazine to replace the one that had saved my life by taking another. Once that was finished, I replaced the weapon in the clip that held it under my desk. Okay, call me paranoid, but that had just saved my ass and I’m not going to argue the legalities of keeping a holdout weapon in my office.

Major Shu was coming around, with groans of his own to go with mine, and Laramie, my team’s healer came back to me and shook her head. “Girl, you need to let me really look at you here.”

“It’s just a headache, and reaction.” I protested.

“Another headache,” Laramie shook her head and I had a brief flash of admiration for her lovely chocolate colored skin, “Out of how many since you got here?”

“Every day.” I answered. “The pressure of the job, the… Dammit! She was trying to bend me from the moment I got here!”

The ‘she’ I mentioned was Captain Lacy Hume, my one time Chief of Staff and a dominator working for an opposition we still hadn’t really found. A dominator, for those of you paying attention here, can literally make someone do whatever the dom wants them to and can either make the poor schmuck forget about doing it, or just make it seem like nothing had happened at all. Lacy Hume had compromised more people in Beta site, the still being completed backup for the Center, than I could count and had either arranged two murders or done them herself since I’d arrived two weeks earlier to take overall (temporary, thank goodness) command of the facility. Right under my nose and the very sensitive noses of my whole team. While cheerfully and efficiently fulfilling her duties as Chief of Staff.

The perfect position to suborn someone, anyone, and unless a very bright, or lucky person noticed some small mistakes, one that was beyond and above suspicion.

Laramie made soothing noises while taking my head in both hands and closing her eyes. “You didn’t know, neither did anyone else. I sussed it when she told you she could never be sure you’d stay under her control. She’d been trying to take you but hadn’t been able to.”

“Why not?” I winced as her fingers, mental not physical, probed a particularly tender spot. “I didn’t actively resist her attempts. Hell, I didn’t even realize she was trying to dominate me.”

“Your brain physiology is a little odd.” Laramie answered. “Probably because of your probability warping, and the rest? Maybe because you’re one stubborn, opinionated, strong willed bitch?”

“Yeah, I love you, too, Laramie.” I sighed as some of the dull throb faded. “Keep doing that, it feels really good.”

“I’m healing some damage to your frontal lobes.” She informed me. “You fought the intrusions but didn’t get out of it for free.”

“The headaches.” I sighed as more of the pain faded.

“Yes, Ma’am!” Laramie grinned as I started to ream her out for that one and put a gentle finger against my mouth before I could say anything. “I don’t know how you did it, and it’s going to drive the science types nuts because they probably won’t be able to either, but you resisted a dominator for two solid weeks when she was almost right beside you the whole time.”

“I had help.”

“Johnny?” Laramie actually smiled when she mentioned his name. Not a humorous smile, but more the girl friend or planning to be girl friend type of smile one girl gives another when talking about a guy she likes. “He didn’t keep it from happening. You did.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because,” she grinned again, “I’m healing two weeks of cumulative damage in here, and I don’t feel Jon-jons presence at all.”

“Great.” I groaned again, seeing my glorious future as a lab rat right in front of me. The science types weren’t going to let go of this one no matter how long it took to solve how I’d managed to do it.

“There!” She gave a satisfied nod. “All fixed. Now I’m going to go take some Tylenol.”

“What happened?” A groggy male voice questioned as Laramie left the room.

“Nothing you could do anything about, if you even remember any of it.” I told Shu as we both gave the other slightly dazed looks. “Oh, I need another Chief of Staff. Any recommendations?”

Major Gregory Fitzhugh, my new — and quite thoroughly checked out — Chief of Staff called me on the intercom. “Ma’am? Major Shu to see you.”

“Good, send him in, Greg. Hold anything else until I’m finished with him.”

“Very good, Ma’am.” The guy was efficient, and relatively personable in most cases, but I still expected to hear and even see the traitorous Lacy Hume when he called or entered my office. Oh, the damage that girl managed to accomplish. It was staggering, and worse, had been happening right under my nose for several weeks.

Once Shu had entered and saluted me, I waved him to a chair. “Have a seat, Major.”

Once he’d done that I held up a sheaf of papers and gave him a questioning look. “Just what the hell is this?”

“A request for transfer, Ma’am.” He responded a bit stiffly.

“I can see that.” With a frown I set the papers down and looked directly into his eyes. “What I would like to know here is the why? What makes you feel as if you need to leave?”

“I didn’t think the base commander would either trust me or want me around after what happened the other night.”

“Martin, Martin.” I sighed and shook my head. “Do you even remember what happened the night Captain Hume was killed?”

“Not all that clearly.” He admitted then shook his own head. “But I do remember pointing a loaded weapon at my base commander. With intent to kill you.”

“Let me make this very clear, Martin.” I refused to look away from him and wouldn’t allow his own eyes to leave me through what I was learning to be something called ‘presence’ and force of personality. “That was NOT you. It was Lacy Hume working through you. You didn’t come in with that intent, and you definitely had no intention of harming me before Hume got to you.”

“That makes no difference, Ma’am.” He stiffly answered. “I did it. That is unforgivable.”

“NO.” I actually glared at him for that one. “YOU didn’t do it. Now let me explain a few things about what Lacy Hume really was here, and don’t interrupt until I’m finished.”

He nodded and waited.

“Hume was a particularly nasty kind of emerged.” I started out slowly, gathering my thoughts and working out the best way to tell someone who didn’t really understand any of us weirdly powered teens. “One called a dominator. Her power allowed her to literally push into anyone’s mind, rearrange things once she had, and leave commands that whoever she worked on had to follow whether they would be inclined to that sort of thing or not.”

He nodded. “So I’ve been told, but it is still…”

“No interruptions, major, remember?” I stopped him and he let out a sigh while nodding.

“You didn’t do anything, and I did see you trying to fight the compulsion. You can’t blame yourself for something like that, especially when even the people who know about the emerged can’t anticipate what kind of powers are going to appear or how they’ll work when they do. Besides, I’ve been paying attention to the other things you do around here and even though I’m not an engineer, can see that you’re doing far more than a good job. I don’t want to lose you, and don’t intend to do that. If you still have difficulties with what Hume did to you, and she got to well over a hundred people that we’ve found just now so you’re far from being alone in that, I know a few people I could call to help you get through it if you like. But I can’t be happy about transferring you over something that wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, if that’s the way you feel…”

“It is.” I grinned and picked up the transfer request. “Now should I wait till you leave to tear this up?”

“Do it now.” He smiled back and shook his head. “You know, even after our first real talk, I had my doubts about you here. You are so young and obviously not military at all. But those are gone now. Anyone asks me about you, I’ll quite freely tell them you’re one of the best commanding officers I’ve ever served with.”

“I appreciate that.” I was actually blushing and was glad I didn’t have a pale complexion that would really show that. “Now, is there anything else?”

“Well,” he nodded, “I do have some questions about the lighting in the living quarters you might be able to help with.”

“I’ll have a look and see if I can come up with something constructive to tell you, unless you have the specific specs handy?”

“No, just want you to take a look and let me know how it feels. I tried to simulate actual sunlight as much as possible since the whole place is underground.”

“I’ll take a look then, but from everything else I’ve seen I’m pretty sure I’m going to be impressed.”

“Please let me know either way, Ma’am.” He rose to leave. “With your permission?”

“Go. Get to work.” I waved him towards the door and had a thought. “Oh, Martin, if you’re comfortable with the idea, at least in private, my name is Luce.”

“I’ll remember that — Luce.” He answered with a grin and waved as he left.

Ahh, I love it when a crisis is resolved so easily. I really hadn’t wanted him transferring. One thing I’d already learned was when you have good people do whatever you have to do to keep them around and happy.

Limon, Colorado was a small town, at least compared to Colorado Springs and surrounds that rested on the plains east of the base. Fortunately, the place had a surfeit of SUVs and other related vehicles so our six four wheel drive Suburbans weren’t all that out of place even if they were the ubiquitous black that seemed to be the only color the Center had other than military camouflage. I made a mental note to try and get some in different colors just so they wouldn’t stand out so much.

“Xiang.” I answered my phone while watching the target area for any sign of movement that would betray that our presence was known. Lulu had traced some things and the unassuming warehouse and smaller outbuildings surrounded by a simple chain link fence is where some of that, along with plain old detective work from others, had led us.

We believed this place to be where Shaugnessy had been killed, and hoped that his still missing laptop might be there. Given the untimely, and messy death of Lacy Hume, this bunch’s in place agent, we’d had to move fast, faster than I really liked, and weren’t at 100 per cent by the time we’d arrived.

“Teams in position.” Josh Tecumseh, my new security chief informed me. “Ready to move when you give the word, Ma’am.”

“Charlie Team?” I questioned through the communications headset I was wearing.

“On the roof and ready, Sarge.” Leon’s voice came through.

“Delta team at the warehouse shipping doors.” Johnny chimed in. “No evidence that they are aware of us being here, Luce.”

I didn’t much like it, but had split my own team so they could come in from different directions, also giving support to the regular military troops assembled for this action.

Claire was with Leon’s group, Charlie team, to make use of her photokinetic abilities from a position where they would have the most impact — above. Her role was equivalent to someone being ready with a flash-bang. A really big flash-bang.

Sam, our combo Hydro/electro kinetic was with Johnny at the bay doors. Given the setup there had to be ample supplies of both water and electricity for him to make use of in that spot.

Kelly was with Tucumseh’s team, since they would be breaking into the office area and a tracker/token reader could prove useful there.

Laramie and Lulu were with me in the command vehicle. Lulu industriously working to override the building’s security and alarm systems at that moment, while Laramie as our healer was waiting for things to finish so she could pick up, and patch, the pieces.

“Lulu?” I questioned.

“We’re in, boss.” She grinned and in the excitement had forgotten to use her faked Caribbean lilt, thank goodness. “It’s a go.”

“All teams, on my count.” I spoke into the communicator. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go!”

And all Hell broke loose in Limon, Colorado.

“Alpha Team, move.” I ordered as I exited the SUV with Lulu, Laramie, and four soldiers from my ‘personal guard’ as my original squad was calling themselves and moved towards the front gates of the place. As we did the interior of the central warehouse lit up like a bomb had gone off inside.

The gate guard in a little kiosk beside and just behind the gate was obviously the rent-a-cop variety and totally out of his depth where simply checking IDs wasn’t what needed doing. I did stop him sending out an alarm by simply eliminating the button that would do it. Then I unlocked the gates with a quick jab from my mind into the mechanism making it go into the open position.

“Hold this one right here.” I ordered two of my guys. “No calls out, and business as usual otherwise.”

“Who are you people?” The security guard, young and nervous — understandable in the present circumstances — questioned shakily.

“Homeland Security.” I answered, showing him my badge and ID. “Behave yourself and you’ll get through this just fine. All we’re after here is having a talk with your employers.”

I could see the breached main doors and a broken shipping/receiving dock door as we left the guard station and moved towards the first of the outbuildings. Our job was to check those and make sure no one was either using them for a hiding place or an ambush point.

“Beta Team is inside.” Tecumseh’s voice told me. “Light resistance but that’s it so far. Offices secured.”

“Charlie Team is in and collecting prisoners.” Leon intoned. “Central warehouse secured.”

“Delta Team in and docks secured.” Johnny informed me. “Encountered light resistance, but they’ve largely given up.”

“Roger that, all.” I answered while leading the search of the mainly empty outbuildings. “Stay alert.”

After half an hour of poking among discarded machinery and spider webs, I entered the main building through the front doors to be met by Captain Tecumseh who smartly saluted me. “All secure, Ma’am.”

“Good.” I nodded, and looked down the corridor. “Prisoners?”

“In the central warehouse area, Ma’am.” He took the hint and started leading the way.

We passed several groups of people under guard wearing semi-military uniforms in solid black and I gave them a once over before moving on. If any of them had useful information, Jon-jon would get it out of them. If they tried to break out, the guards had orders to shoot with extreme prejudice. In other words, if one of those people started trouble they were going to be very dead, very fast. I didn’t like giving those kind of orders, but had felt the situation warranted them. It wouldn’t do at all for anyone in this place to escape and warn others in their organization of what had happened.

Besides, with what we suspected these people had done, none of us felt much in the way of sympathy for them.

In the central area, surprisingly clear of the usual racks a normal warehouse would contain I saw two groups of people under guard. One of those was made up of obvious worker types, so it was the other one I moved towards first.

One of those people wearing an expensive suit forced his way forward and glared at me. “Are you charge of these — ruffians?”

“I am.” With a nod I deliberately looked elsewhere, taking in a few things that boded very dire consequences for at least some of our prisoners, but managed to keep the bland expression on my face.

“I demand that you and your people leave the premises at once!” He barked out like someone used to having his orders followed. “This attack, yes, attack is an outrage.”

“Shut up.” I quietly told him.

He stopped, but immediately puffed up and started another tirade. “We have rights…”

“I SAID to shut up.” I gave him a cold, predatory stare. “Until I say otherwise you and your people have no rights. You’re suspected of compromising the security of the United States, and as such can be held without communication with anyone for an indefinite period of time. I’d suggest that you cooperate with us or things will get very unpleasant for you and your people very fast.”

“Found this hidden in concealed cabinet, Luce.” Kelly handed me a military issue laptop that I knew without asking didn’t belong in this place.

“I think your threat level just went off the charts.” I told the gathered prisoners. “If this is what I think it is, you’re not only spies, thieves, and saboteurs, you’re also murderers.”

“Transport will be here in ten, Ma’am.” Tecumseh informed me. “Tech people in fifteen.”

“Good enough.” I gave the gathering a look that would have chilled a snowman. “If any of these people give the least bit of trouble until we can pack them up, shoot them.”

“Luce, I think you need to see this.” Claire waved me over to an out of the way corner. Once there I had to stop and consciously inhale because what I was seeing had caused me to forget to do that for a few seconds.

Oblong, cylindrical coffins, five of them, and two were occupied. By unconscious teen aged girls. “Are they alive?”

“Barely.” Laramie had joined us and was checking the kids without opening the access hatches spaced over the coffin-like monstrosities. “I’m not all that sure what was done to them, but they’re both missing important parts.”

I added kidnapping, endangering minors, and possible vivisection to the list of charges I was gathering. “Do the best you can, Laramie. These get priority transport back to Beta. I’ll see to it.”

After a quick call, I barely held my rage in check as I returned to the group of prisoners I’d confronted minutes earlier. “For you information, what I just saw effectively forfeited any chance you people ever had of a fair trial. If I was a slightly different person you’d all be dead right now. Pray that those two girls over there survive.”

“Got an incoming message from — Arizona!” Lulu informed me as she was going over the mainframe housed in a nearby cubicle. “It says, and I quote “Mission compromised. Eliminate all evidence and close up shop.”

“Can you pinpoint where it originated?” I questioned.

“It’s gone through several blinds and loops, but oh, yeah, I got ‘em dis time, boss!”

“Is an acknowledgement expected?”

“Seems so.” She nodded, but I don’t have the code.

“I think I know who does.” I grimly answered then called. “Jon-jon, over here!”

A few seconds later Johnny shook his head in exasperation. “He’s got the information but is hiding it very well.”

“Just get it, Johnny.” I wearily answered. “Try not to rape his mind too much, but get the codes we need.”

“On it, Luce.” He nodded, grim faced as the rest of us and turned to the suit who had started out protesting at our violation of his rights.

Thirty seconds later we had the codes, they were sent, and the whole system started to shut down. Which kept Lulu very busy for a few minutes.

“Would you really have had those people shot?” Sean asked as he gently massaged my still knotted up shoulders.

“Probably not. But with what we’ve learned over the past few hours, it’s an option I’m still considering.” I returned with a sigh as a particularly hard knot of muscle finally started to relax. “Even if that’s too good for them.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask.” He sighed in response to my tensing up all over again.

“I don’t blame you.” I answered. “I’m going to have nightmares for a long time over this one and it isn’t close to finished yet. The two girls we recovered were lobotomized, and then had other vital organs removed. They didn’t survive coming out of those tanks. There was lab equipment designed to reduce tissue and bone to liquid and genetic mapping devices in there that the science types are still trying to completely figure out. And the files we got out of their mainframe before it melted down are too awful to describe.”

“Why?” He questioned. “Why would they do something like that?”

“To find a cure, according to Langston.” I quietly answered. “A damned ‘cure’ for our ‘condition’.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, road to Hell and all that.” I answered then changed the subject. “Speaking of… Were you able to contact Hume?”

“Uh huh.” He nodded but his revulsion was so clear it hurt to see it on his face. “That one was a real piece of work I can tell you that much. She warped the minute she changed, hated who and what she became, and started hating everyone and everything else around her. She personally killed Shaugnessy, that med tech, and several others that had been thought to be accidents. And she enjoyed doing it, Luce. She gloried in it.”

“I can see I’m not the only one who needs a long vacation right now.” I turned and gave him a tight hug. “I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“Had to be done.” He said bleakly. “But about all I could get out of her ghost was hatred, and rage that you wouldn’t give in to her and killed her before she could get more ‘revenge’ like she felt she deserved. Believe me when I say this Luce, you did the world in general a really big favor when you killed that bitch.”

“Hey.” I greeted the new girl with a tentative smile. “How you feeling?”

“Better, thanks.” The girl still named Jerry shrugged without much enthusiasm for anything at all, but to give her credit, she’d only been really conscious for several hours. “I guess I owe you some kind of thanks but right now I’m not so sure that keeping me alive was doing me a favor.”

“I know what you mean.” I nodded and carefully seated myself in a chair beside her bed. “Been through the changes, myself. Oh, I’m Luce, by the way.”

“Luce.” She nodded.

“Short for Lucinda.” I shrugged as she continued to stare at me. “Well, the name Evan didn’t fit me after my transition.”

“Transition. Is that what you call it? This?” She gestured to her body and shuddered.

“You’ve been told why and how this happened, right?”

“Yeah, but it still seems so unreal to me.” She shook her head. “One morning I woke up and things just went wrong, all wrong. The next day I woke up like — this and was so afraid, so confused. Then people started chasing me. I didn’t know what to do or why things had happened. All I wanted to do was die, to be honest.”

“But you didn’t.” I firmly told her.

“It would have been a mercy.” With a shudder the tears started running down her cheeks. “Everything I was, wanted to be, anything I had done — gone. I might as well never have existed. At least that way my mother would still be alive and my dad wouldn’t be grieving over losing the rest of his family right now.”

“Yeah.” I softly answered as I gathered her into a hug. “I felt the same way, still do at times, but there is life after the transition. I’m proof of that and I went through a meltdown for the reasons you just mentioned that I hear reached almost epic proportions. But things get better after awhile. You don’t believe that right now, I know. But they do, and will if you’ll let me, and other people help you.”

I couldn’t say anything else just then. Just held her while she cried hard enough to hurt.