She was the dark

[Nick]

1

In the rain, Spideydude waved goodbye, the light shower outside suddenly erupting into a downpour which slapped him in the face. He shut his eyes, with his right hand spread his fingers and vertically wiped his face clean of water; when he opened them again she had disappeared into the night.

"Nick," Spideydude said, "who was that woman?"
"Hmm?"
"The woman who just left."
"What woman?" Nick asked, a slightly confused look on his face.
"The one who just left. Wait, you didn't see her? That's odd. I was just talking to her."
"Your memory playing tricks on you again, my friend? Should get that looked at," Nick laughed to himself, a small shake of the head dismissing Spideydude's question but letting his friend know he was just messing with him.
"Yeah," said Spideydude, who frowned and began to climb the stairs.

On his way up he met K-Cee who stopped to speak to him.

"Bad luck to pass on the stairs. Best to chat a bit and maybe it won't rub off on either of us" she said.
Spideydude chuckled to himself, said, "Hey, you didn't happen to see a woman around here the past, uh, hour or so I guess? She just left."
"Can't help you, pal. Why, you losing track of who you're sleeping with now?" she let out a short burst of laughter, amused by her own level of wit, but cocked her head to one side to indicate that she too was only fooling around.
"What? No, I don't know. I just said goodbye to her and she left, but I don't remember her actually being here apart from that."
"Well now that is strange. But hey, I'm in a bit of a rush here so, you now, sorry," K-Cee smirked at Spideydude rather too much for his liking, and then she went the rest of the way downstairs, noticeably laughing to herself, leaving Spideydude in the middle of the stairs feeling more than a little beweildered.

Spideydude tried to go to sleep after that, but kept feeling a pair of eyes watching him every time his consciousness got to the point of giving in to rest, so he would always find himself wide awake again. This continued for fifteen minutes, then finally he sat bolt upright in bed and said aloud, "hmmm." Getting up, he opened a few extra windows and widened the ones already opened, then took a cigar from his desk and sparked it, inhaling as the smoke travelled down into his chest and then breathing it out again, trying to relax. He just about managed to, although there was a visible sense of unease about his person, and he felt somewhat jittery as he smoked the rest of the cigar; like someone is watching me, he thought. He stood up and walked around the room a number of times, pacing back and forth. He went to the window once and brushed the curtain aside, looked out, kicking himself for expecting to see, what? He had no idea, and this pissed him off even more. He dressed again and went back downstairs.

"What, does no-one sleep around here?" Spideydude said as he entered the living room and saw Groble, K-Cee, Nick and BJC relaxed in armchairs and on the sofas watching the newest Indiana Jones film. He looked at the television, started to say something.
"Don't look at me," Nick said, "I told them a hundred times: watch one of the originals, but no-one listens."
"We can't watch one of the originals," Groble said, "because apparently Deadpool has them. I wonder how that could have happened," and Nick shut up then.
"Anyway," said BJC, "we're not paying much attention; talking all over it. Just came down for some beers, really. Speaking of which -" he caught a bottle in his hand, "- thanks buddy."
"Oh, Zach, you want one?" Webhead said, disappearing back inside the kitchen again before Spideydude had a chance to answer.
"Thanks," he said as Webhead passed him a bottle, and they both sat down on one of the sofas.
"Eugh, warm," K-Cee said, vanishing and seconds later reappearing in the same spot with a cold bottle.
"Ooh, lazy," Groble said. She raised her eyebrows at him, nodded gently, a smile tracing the corner of her mouth.
After an hour or so of chatter, K-Cee said, "So are you thinking a psychic? Mutant maybe?" gently reminding her team-mate that no matter how much they all might jest, they cared.
"I'm not sure. That would be the logical explanation, I suppose," Spideydude said.
"So who have you gotten on the wrong side of lately?" BJC asked, "Unless it's Jean or someone playing an extended joke on you. Come to think of it, you did make Logan pretty angry the other day. You shouldn't push him, Zach, no mater how funny it seems. I'm certain he wouldn't stoop to bringing his friends in on his private little vendetta with you."
"It's not Wolverine. That stuff in the danger room was only payback for something happened a couple of weeks back anyhow, plus it was all in good fun. This felt like there was something behind it, something with menace," Spideydude told him. "But you're right, it probably is a telepath messing with me. Sure like to know who though."
"Hey, the film's almost over," K-Cee said.
"Thanks goodness for that. No more of that next time, I think."
"Nick, you don't get a say until you speak to Wade. Until them, I might make you watch as much crap as I can find. Might even do some strategic renting on some of your favourites. Can you say, 'Pearl Harbour?'"
"Actually," Nick quipped, "apparently one of the commentaries is supposed to be hilarious."
"We won't be listening to the commentaries."
"Oh."

The next day was slow, nothing much happening and Spideydude even found Brad taking a break from monitoring the emergency channels. So he threw a coat on and stepped outside and, feeling like the day would be uneventful, briefly considered visiting Doctor Strange. The thought spun around his head like a disc, ricocheting off the synaptic pathways and nerve endings then eventually being absorbed into the mind for storage until, at some point in the future, the mind becomes too clogged with useless information and half-formed thoughts that it wipes the slate clean and begins anew. But for now, he decided to just walk through the city and try to clear his head, or at least, what, figure something out.

"You know," Spideydude began, before realising he was talking aloud to no-one in particular and stopping himself, continuing the sentence in his head where it should probably have started. I'm fairly certain, no, positive, that there was a woman with me at the door last night, probably for a good portion of the evening in fact. I wonder why no-one seems to remember her, why I don't remember her. Or why I do remember saying goodbye to her but nothing before that, not even what I was doing if I had apparently been alone, which I'm pretty sure I wasn't.

He stopped walking then, planted both hands on his hips and cocked a single eyebrow. "Hmm."

*
To be continued, probably.

[Nick]

2

"I think you're beautiful."
"Good," she said in soft, piercing tones.
"Your lips, skin, driving."
"Mmm. Do you want me?" the room felt her blink, considering in careful and measured notes.
"I do. I want you."
"So you should," and a hand extended out of the darkness, "take me."

Spideydude, awake now, sat bolt upright and felt the sweat covering his body stick to the sheets as he stood up. It wouldn't leave him, this image, memory, whatever it was. He knelt down and checked under his bed, got up again, wondering why, for one brief moment a dormant memory from his childhood took to resurfacing now. Like a switch being flipped, he imagined the dream travelling down the neural connection, stimulating a memory in deep storage and detaching the anchor from its moorings so that it shoots to the surface. There it stays for a brief time, floating on the open sea of his mind until it is time to be forgotten again, and so it travels back down those same pathways and finds its old home somewhere deep in the mind beyond where any probing will ever reach. The memory of the woman, too, will not leave him and, in time, perhaps it too will recede into his thoughts so deeply that it only ever surfaces again once or twice for the rest of his life, but then it could stay with him forever. Spideydude decided then that he had to know, had to understand who this woman was and what she had done to him.

*

That afternoon, the group would respond to an emergency call Brad Douglas has picked up and would find themselves fighting the super-villain Tiger Shark on a pier off one of the old warehouses used by Norman Osborn in his early days as the Green Goblin before things had gotten complicated. It hadn't been a very long fight, and in the end The Crawl Space Avengers had Tiger Shark unconscious and on his way Ryker's Island for what promised to be a long stay.

Back at the mansion, the team relaxed and licked their wounds, for while it had not been a long fight it had nevertheless taken its toll and rest would be required if they were to do the same another day which, inevitably, they would.

"I think my arm is broken," Groble said when he finally reverted to a fleshy form, "hang on." His entire left arm and shoulder turned a dark greenish-brown - resembling more the bark and roots of a tree than any human being, he convulsed slightly, and after what could have been the sound of a branch snapping the upper-left side of his body resumed its normal appearance.
"That looked quite painful," said BJC.
"No more painful than listening to Zach play guitar."
"What's that?" Spideydude said.
"I was saying how much I like your guitar playing, my friend," Groble said, Spideydude considering the smile adorning his team-mate's face for a moment.
He said, "Well all things considered, that went well."
"What was it he was trying to do again?" BJC asked.
"I think when Groble punched him in the face he was, ah, trying to talk to some fish," said Nick.
"I mean what was he doing other than being Tiger Shark that caused Grobes to punch him in the face?"
"There were some people tied up in that warehouse behind him. K-Cee 'ported in and found them, then Grobes punched him in the face."
"Oh," said BJC, "well thanks for the explanation, I guess."
"No problem!" Nick said, a little louder than was necessary.
"It was a resounding success, if I may say so myself," Webhead announced.
"Sure was," said Groble, "first real action we've seen in almost a week now. Maybe things are easing up a little."
"Doubt it," said Spideydude.
"Don't be cynical," K-Cee said, pausing, "although you're probably right," she paused again, her face now seeming to say aloud 'why did I say that?' and then said, "Well, you are right."

The rest of the group gave her a joint quizzical stare, and Nick gave her a thumbs up. She widened her eyes and frowned.

Spideydude said, "You know, I'm still worrying about that woman. The one I mentioned the other night."
"You mean the mutant," Groble said.
"Well yes, probably the mutant," said Spideydude.
"She doesn't have to be a mutant," Webhead said.
"No, that's why I said probably."
"Did you? Look, point is, I know you all must be thinking this is the doing of a telepath, but it doesn't have to be."
"Actually," began Spideydude, "you know, it doesn't feel like a mutant."
"What do you mean?" BJC said.
"I'm not sure. It's hard to explain I suppose, but I just have a feeling it isn't a mutant."
"You have a feeling," Groble said.
"I have a feeling. Look, I know it doesn't exactly make sense, cross all the i's and dot all the t's of your 'I saw a woman but now I don't remember meeting her handbook,' but I have the strangest feeling about this."
"Maybe you're losing your mind," Nick offered.
"I do feel this kind of unease, I'm not sure where that's coming from."
"It's connected, probably," BJC said
"Yeah, I know its connected, I'm just not sure how or why."
"Here's both," Webhead said, "well not as any sort of answer, but you think you saw something - and I'm not saying you didn't, maybe you did - and your brain's trying to make sense of it all and in turn it's messing you up further."
"So what are you saying there? Irrespective of what I did or didn't see, my brain is not working as it should."
"Technically, that's pretty much what he said," Groble joked.
"No, I mean you're not sure what you saw, right Zach?" Webhead said, "and it's precisely this indecision that's messing you up. The brain can't cope, that's all it is. It's trying hard but it doesn't know which way's up and which way's down."
"That isn't exactly comforting," said Spideydude.
"It wasn't supposed to be," Webhead told him, "and hey, I'm probably wrong anyway."

Spideydude held his hand out in a half-hearted gesture mixing thanks and what now?, said, "I'm going to go down to the hospital unit; I think I might have cracked a few ribs." The others nodded and watched him leave to head downstairs.

"I'm worried about him," Webhead said.
"You did a good job letting him know everything was okay," BJC said.
"It won't do any god just to tell him 'everything alright, you should forget all about it and go to sleep.'"
"He doesn't really seem himself lately," Nick said, "even when he's not talking about it, you can tell something's bothering him. No way he would have been blind-sided like that if his head was clear."
"I think we should give him some space, let him try to work things through in his own time," K-Cee said.
"You don't think he needs our support?" Groble said.
"He's go our support, Groble, but this is something he'll need to sort out on his own. Doesn't sound particularly in the spirit of team-work and friendship, but that's the way it is," she said.
"Suppose so."

From downstairs, a shout sounded, then an explosion.

"Who are you?!"

[Nick]

3

Spideydude descended the long stairwell that would eventually bring him into the basement level of the mansion, where the team’s fully-functional hospital unit resided, wondering why he had lied to his friends and furthermore why he had come to the hospital unit with nothing wrong with him. The hospital unit had played host to a wonderful assortment of injuries over the years, and in the back of his mind there was always something that unnerved him when he came to visit it. Whether it was the sense that whilst he was down here society slowly ebbed away in the isolation of the basement, or the feeling of paralysis he sometimes got when his harness had taken a beating and he had to be helped out of it like a sort of cripple he did not know. He did not like the feelings in the basement, though, that he did know. Why have I even come here, he thinks. There’s nothing wrong with me, and I was having quite a fun time upstairs with my friends. With some sort of absurd reflexive motion, he checks his ribs for damage, running his palms softly along the skin to check for any protrusions or bruises, then stopped. What the hell am I doing? I’m not in any pain here. There was never any pain here.

Again now, he feels something; a presence here with him, like eyes slowly boring into the back of his head no matter which way he turns. He scratches the back of his head, for a split second wondering if the woman is hiding in his hair, then breathes heavily and throws his arms back by his sides. He walks out of the doorway, checking the hallway and gets to the foot of the stairs before scrutinizing himself once more, walking back to the hospital unit and scrutinizing himself again for coming back here when he has no cause to. The eyes keep watching him and, panicking now, he tries to ignore them as he rummages through cabinets and drawers looking for some sort of sedative that will put him to sleep for a while, and give him some bizarre kind of freedom.

“Zach, what are you doing?” she says, in a whisper so low he can barely hear it and yet so defined he can pick out each individual syllable like they were each a thousand-page manifesto from God Himself.

Unthinking and fearful, Spideydude whirls around as if he were in a stupor and fires a barrage of rockets at a point immediately in front of him. In the split-second before the rockets impact, he sees a figure dressed in black vanish in front of him, and then bricks, mortar and bright flame as the wall explodes and he loses consciousness.

*

When he awakes, he sees a glimpse of a chaos which reminds him of war; sparks seem to be flying everywhere, Groble and BJC are dashing from side to side with fire extinguishers in their hands, Nick and Webhead are lifting a wide slab of steel – a door that led to a side-room – off of his legs and K-Cee constantly appears then disappears as though she is searching for something. Only after a few more seconds does he notice Brad, standing over him, shouting what would probably be obscenities if only his hearing would come back.

“- they go?” Brad’s voice, now all of a sudden audible.

Spideydude looks at the team’s leader, uncomprehending.

“Where did they go, Zach? Quickly!” Brad says again, looking as if he is more angry than concerned, “K-Cee has almost searched the entire mansion, they must still be here! Zach, pull yourself together man,” he continues, the orange glow of the fire across his face slowly disappearing as the flames themselves succumb to the jets of watery foam being focussed continuously on them.
“Are you hurt?” Webhead asks as he drags Spideydude out from beneath the door, which Nick drops as soon as his friend is free.

Spideydude dizzily shakes his head and says to K-Cee when she teleports back into the room, “K-Cee, stop it, she’s not here anymore. She’s gone.”

K-Cee stays in the room this time, and Spideydude notices everyone is looking at him.

“She’s gone,” he says.

*

Later, when the fire had been put out and construction company contacted about repairing the damage, Spideydude felt as if his friends somehow didn’t believe his story; wouldn’t believe his story. He imagined them all huddled together, discussing in intimate detail the reasons he had decided to destroy the hospital unit. ‘What will he do next?’ they will say in unison, quietly so as not to alert him. ‘Exactly hat are his plans?’ and ‘we have to stop him.’

Becoming aware suddenly of his surroundings, brought out of his thoughts by a light knock at his door, he blinks before standing to open the door. Groble greets him with a smile, goes to raise his arms as if he was preparing to give a hug, then drops them and extends a single hand.

“Hi, Zach. You okay now?”
“I think so,” Spideydude says, grabbing the hand and shaking, “when is that company coming over to fix the damage?”
“They should be here any time soon, but it’s not that bad really. The fire made it look a whole lot worse than it actually was,” Groble said.
“That’s good. I thought I may have caused some real damage there.”
“Nothing we can’t fix. Don’t beat yourself up about it too much,” Groble says, “Hey, so you finally saw your mystery woman then?”
“Only for a second. I guess it was more like a projection, unless she can teleport,” Spideydude says.
“Maybe,” thinks Groble, hoping he can help his friend in some way other than offer largely meaningless condolences, “though both would explain why K-Cee didn’t find anything.”
“I don’t think she can teleport, Groble,” Spideydude says, a statement more of fact than of theory,” she’s definitely in my head. I don’t like it.”
“Come downstairs, the others have some ideas as well. Plus, there’s always the outside chance that we may dig up a clue.”

Groble knows his friend probably doesn’t want to hear any more suggestions of what might be messing with his mind or who this woman is, but he can’t think of anything else to say. Anyway, his friend still seems very shaken up by the whole incident and, Groble thinks, maybe he blames himself. If nothing else then hopefully we can dispel that particular notion, he thinks.

In the lounge, Spideydude listens to his friends tell him how; yes, they believe he saw the woman downstairs, no, it wasn’t his fault that he blew half of the wall apart and no, apart from what they’ve already told him they haven’t got any ideas about what is happening to him. “Thanks”, he tells them, “but I still think it’s something more than a telepath coming and going in my head.” They look at him quizzically, and he agrees that he also doesn’t know what he means. He frowns, the paranoia that temporarily clouded his judgement beginning to dissipate only to be replaced by an almost blind rage, thinking again that he will get to the bottom of this. “You bitch,” he thinks, “just who the hell do you think you are?”

[Nick]

4

Vast chasms reach out to pull him below, where the blacks of the endless cliff edges wear their shadows like giant opaque ribbons nestled in a land which surely, he thinks, must be ruled by the blind. As if in answer to this, a singular light bleeds out of the darkness, impossible to tell how far away it is without continuing on this damned voyage, so he does exactly that. And even though at the centre of his mind he knows he is not really there, he feels each hollow observer watch from behind a black veil as he keeps going downwards, to discover an answer, maybe a kind of truth as well. The eyes – thousands of individual pairs of eyes - follow his movement exactly, shadowing him like they were attached, and who knows, maybe they are.

He waits for the knowing feeling of acceptance down here in this dark hole, hoping to be greeted by a woman he cannot remember and does not want to know. Yet here he is, exploring his subconscious with the daring nerve of a man possessed. He keeps waiting for those eyes – that exact pair of eyes who have dogged him these past few days – expecting at any moment to be pulled under by wave after wave of inhospitable misery, taking him to a place undisturbed for hundred of years. In his mind, the reservoirs fill themselves with legends and folklore and fables, all the while he forces himself to keep believing that he is here because he wants to be.

K-Cee watches her friend, absentmindedly playing with the strands of her hair while he continues his experiment. She hears a shrill knocking at the door and, keeping her eyes fixed on Spideydude, moves to open it to see Nick wearing a look of concern.

“You can probably talk, I don’t think he’ll hear us,” K-Cee says to him.
“How long has it been now?” asks Nick.
“About half an hour. He’s still just sitting here like a stone,” she says.
“Almost as if he’s dreaming.”
“I think he is, in a way. I’m not really sure what he’s doing but if it helps him sort through his problems I say leave him be.”
“Mmm,” Nick agrees, “are you still comfortable here with him? I can take over if you like.”
She smiles, saying, “Better not. I don’t want to come back to find he has grown a moustache and spectacles.”

Nick gives her with a whimsical look, widens his eyes, then mouths, “bye,” before disappearing back down the hallway.

K-Cee looks at the man sitting next to her, his face emotionless and at the same time on the verge of discovering something both essential and terrible. She sighs quietly as she sits back down, dabbing at the sweat on his forehead with a tissue, then stands again and follows Nick downstairs to the kitchen.

*

Even deeper now, he finds a new sense of confidence in his direction; no longer is he a passenger of the tide, being swept this way and that on pre-destined rail taking him to a location already decided upon. Now he finds within him the ability to choose which path he will take. If he were fully awake now, he would probably lampoon the sense of excitement of picking his own path through his own mind, but right now where conscious thought is a far-away dream he welcomes the addition with a single knowing steer in the direction where even the darkest blacks leap out like a coiled spring. Down here, he sees a movement, a black travelling in tandem with him almost, and he knows he is there.

The black seems like a shadow unto itself, and with careful precision he discerns it is a figure or, rather, a cloak of some sort. Getting closer, he sees the distinct whiteness of arms, legs and, finally, a face. He reaches out, and brushes deep, dark locks of hair from the face until something in him realises. You, he thinks.

The woman nods in acknowledgement, happy that her prey has now sought her out and hence done the work for her. Not that there is really a great deal of work to be done with these thoughts of things, she reasons, and suddenly he feels trapped. He does not know why, but he reaches out further, pressing gently as his hands travel down the length of her cloak, becoming lost here and there in the blackness of it.

“I am no mutant,” she seems to be saying, her body moving to a beat that seemingly she alone can hear. She puts a single finger to his lips, anticipating what he will say before he knows himself, “shhh.” She strokes his cheeks, drawing him in further, silently asking if he would like to dance with her. Without knowing how or why, he agrees.

*

Reaching the top of the staircase, K-Cee shouts down to Groble, who is sitting downstairs in the lounge occupying his body rather than his mind playing video games with Nick and Webhead. "I'm going back up," she shouts down, "you stay down there and I'll be all right on my own, thanks," but no reply is forthcoming. Though probably that's because the volume is turned up so high it is difficult for her friends to hear themselves let alone anything else. K-Cee feels herself becoming angry now, but she knows the others will do their part a little later, watching over Spideydude as they are in a thinly-defined shift arrangement.

She carries the glass of water to the door, unsure if she will have to pour the water into her friend's mouth, and unknowing, walks back to a room now empty.

[Nick]

5

There is a faint impression on the side of the bed, as if someone has been sitting there. In fact, someone had been but now he is gone, lost, elsewhere.

A sudden urge to drop the glass tries hard to overcome K-Cee, and she thinks how much fun it would be to succumb to such a cliché even considering the circumstances, but she holds it tight in her hand. But otherwise she does not move. For a time she does nothing at all, and then she too vanishes. But then she reappears downstairs, in front of the television, something Spideydude will not be doing in the immediate future. Groble, Nick and Webhead look at her angrily for only a second or so before they see the concern in her face, the panic now enveloping her like a blanket that refuses to let you go in the mornings.

"He's gone,” says K-Cee, the room now silent.
"What's happened?" Groble says, his fingers no longer twitching over the pause button on the controller.
"He's gone. I don't know, he isn't in his room anymore."
"Okay, wait a minute, maybe he's in another room," Nick says, practically, hopelessly, sure in his own mind that something has happened.
"Something has happened," Webhead says.
"Where could he have gone?" asks Groble, pausing, "Maybe the mutant got him,” he says presently, answering his own question with a bewildered look on his face, unsure why he spoke.

*

Outside the rain has begun to fall again. It falls hard, in sharp, precise bursts like a rifle, finding its ways here and there, leaving no surface within its reach untouched. Surface water now, it sweeps across the floor, slanted at an angle, and begins to collect in the corner the slope leads into. In a room somewhere the rain is still falling, absurdly, as if out of nowhere. Spideydude sees the ceiling, sees the water pouring from nowhere beneath it, thinks. Or at least he tries to. His present situation does not readily invite thought, and quickly his mind is a blank slate, being worked on by a tool. Somewhere there he wonders why this is happening to him, why not someone else, but of course he does not realise this. He cannot. The thought is so far inside his brain, tucked deep away in a safe place; somewhere secure but at the same time inaccessible to all, like a world unto itself.

His eyes observe the woman in front of him. She is naked, all but for a black cloak that does a poor job of covering her body. If he were able, he would realise that he is naked too, but such things are of no concern to him now; few things are. If he were able he would discern he is in a room with three sides, no windows, no doors, no exit. A room of similar shape seems to criss-cross the one he is in; seemingly because it exists and at once it does not, the two rooms mingling amongst one another like twins between dimensions, anchored by the woman. If he were able he would watch this person in front of him, try to predict her next move and use it to his own advantage, to aid in the inevitable escape.

But he is in the witch’s house. There is no escape, at least not yet. In time perhaps his mind will wriggle free of the spell he is under. Of course, probably, this will happen; such is the nature of things, but for now he can only be still and wait. This isn’t a problem. Outside there is nothing, and inside it is raining, but it is okay. In time he will be alert, able to think on his own and to form plans and so forth.

The woman casts her hands down across his face; through his hair, over his eyelids, around his nose and mouth, where they rest and linger.

In the distance of thought names hover like fog, lifting occasionally and then at the point of revelation they tighten around him. But this is good, because gradually his memories will stir, and then he will stir, and then he will escape. For now all is lost to him still, and he knows no better than to accept it. He is being touched, and he knows no better than to accept that as well.

*

“You really think it’s a mutant?” Webhead asks.
“Well what else is it going to be. Fine, yes, it might not be, but it probably is,” says Groble, wanting to leave and start looking for his friend.”
“I bet it was that woman he kept on about,” says K-Cee quietly.
“It’s possible.”
“No, we need to leave now and find him,” Groble stated.
“We have no idea where he is. If it was a mutant he could be anywhere now,” Nick said.
“Or he could be close. Most teleporters don’t have a huge range,” Webhead said.
“How do you even know that? We know plenty who can cover huge distances in the blink of an eye, man, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that.”
“Groble, I don’t know. Fine, he could literally be anywhere in the world, I have no idea. I’m saying we can’t just walk out the door and expect to find him,” said Webhead.
“I’m not saying it will be easy, but –“
“No, man, it will be impossible. He could be anywhere. Literally, he could be anywhere. It could have been some prick beamed him out of the room into a spaceship for all we know. Be realistic, at least. You know I want to find him too but we can’t just snap our fingers and expect it to happen.”
“I’m sure it was that woman,” K-Cee said flatly, as if she hadn’t been listening.
“It probably was,” Nick agreed.
“And I’m sure she wasn’t a mutant.”
“Why?”
“Because he was so insistent she wasn’t. You could tell he was sure there was something else going on. The signs do point to a mutant, an empath or something I guess – well, one who can teleport at any rate – but he was so sure it wasn’t that. If you want to keep thinking that, or pursuing that line of thought or whatever, fine, but I’m telling you it’s a waste of time.”

Brad came into the room, disturbed by all the commotion at first but now listening intently. He said, “Okay, but if we do decide to investigate the possibility of a mutant, I need to know you’re still with us.”
She seemed to take no time at all in saying, “No, I won’t be,” which at least told Brad where he was stood in the exchange. He respected her for remaining in her position, but at the same time he could see the problem right away.
“K-Cee, so tell me what you will do if this happens.”
“I’m not going to run off somewhere if you do, don’t think that. What would be the point? Just because I don’t agree with you it doesn’t mean I have a better idea where he is. I’ll come along, but I’m saying it would be a waste of our time.”
“But you don’t have any better ideas.”
“No.”