Underworld

by Alicia McKenzie

The Tower's blueprints had this room listed as 'holographic sub-gymnasium sixteen' or some such thing. No one ever used the official designation. Like the nineteen other identical rooms in XSE Headquarters, this was a Danger Room. Junior officers, command staff, everyone used the old X-Men term.

Old habits died hard, Zara Logan reflected. Sort of cute, really. She slashed her psimitar through the air in front of her a few times, trying to loosen up the shoulder she'd dislocated sparring with Nick last night. Her healing factor had done its work, but the muscles were still stiff, even twelve hours later. I envy Dad sometimes. Then again, she and Nick didn't have their father's feral tendencies to deal with, and she figured that was a fair trade for weaker healing factors.

"You ready?" she asked her sparring partner, and brought her psimitar to an on-guard position.

Clare Summers raised an eyebrow at her from where she sat cross-legged on the floor, her psimitar resting across her knees. "For the last five minutes," she said. "Is it that much of a hassle to wear body armor?"

Zara tossed her a blazing smile. "Only when you don't need it." The black body armor they both wore was regulation for psimitar training, but she hated it; it restricted her movement too much. Tugging the vest downwards, she arched an eyebrow at Clare. "Some of us do have that advantage, you know," she pointed out, mock-haughtily.

"Just because you heal doesn't mean you have to let yourself get hurt," Clare said, her tone neutral as she got up.

Zara watched her 'cousin' thoughtfully, not liking what she saw. She's not moving right--well, she's out of shape, she reminded herself. Clare had been borderline catatonic for nearly three months after getting caught in the rift on the astral plane when the Unity had attacked Denver. Eight months later, she was still acting like a member of the walking dead. The lights were on, but Clare - the Clare they all knew - had checked out months ago.

"You don't learn without bruises," Zara finally retorted, pulling on her helmet and making sure that the seals linking it to her body armor had locked properly. Healing factor or not, she was careful about risking head injuries; a concussion was a complicated thing for a psi.

"You sound like my father," Clare said, donning her own helmet. She was moving so damned mechanically, Zara thought, inwardly distressed. Clare had always been so graceful, in that long-limbed, flowing way that people Zara's size could only envy.

"Well," she replied with a smirk, to cover her reaction in case Clare was 'listening', "I can't help myself. He's just so quotable. Don't you even wonder how many of those sayings of his are authentic Askani proverbs, and how many he makes up off the top of his head to suit the situation?"

"Why don't you ask your mother?"

"That'd take all the fun out of guessing," Zara said with a perfectly straight face, and lunged at Clare before the last word was out of her mouth. Bringing her psimitar around in a wide, sweeping arc, she channeled a half-strength TK charge through it.

If it had connected, it would have knocked the psimitar out of Clare's hand at the very least. But Clare parried easily, launching her own counterattack on the downstroke. "You always were easily amused," she said, and Zara grinned despite herself.

Almost like old times-- A telekinetically-assisted backflip took her out of range, and she extended the move, running up the side of the wall and leaping outwards, twisting in the air to avoid Clare's attack as she launched herself upwards to intercept.

Gravity didn't really apply in telekinetic combat; that was half the fun. "Well, come on," Zara continued challengingly, landing on her feet and ducking as Clare's psimitar swept over her head, so close that the breeze would have stirred her hair if she hadn't been wearing a helmet. "You're not even trying, here!"

"You talk too much," Clare growled and closed with her. Goading her any further was abruptly the last thing on Zara's mind as she blocked, parried, and parried again. Clare always had the advantage close-in like this; she was taller, stronger, and wasn't above using her psimitar like the conventional weapon it wasn't. She was mixing the physical moves with little flickers of telekinesis, and Zara swore as one knocked the psimitar from her hands.

But Clare backed away, her psimitar in a defensive position, giving Zara plenty of time to retrieve hers. Summoning it back to her hand telekinetically, Zara gave her a suspicious look. "You're not usually that bad on the follow-through," she said. Clare had had her, dead to rights--why the hesitation? "Come on, pick it up," she said as Clare continued to stand there, staring at her. "What's the matter, Summers? Getting slow in your old age?"

Behind the visor, something sparked in Clare's cold gray eyes, and part of Zara thrilled to see it. Under it all, Clare's temper was even fouler than her own, and if she'd just let it go a little more often, she'd be in a much healthier state right now--

Okay. So maybe the body armor hadn't been such a bad idea after all. The safety shields caught her before she could slam into the wall, but even so, the impact drove the breath from her lungs. "Better," she wheezed, catching herself. "I didn't even see that coming." Clare hadn't moved at all; she'd projected her telekinesis outwards from the shaft of her psimitar, like an arrow from a bow. That was new; she'd have to remember that one.

But again, Clare hadn't followed up. Zara grumbled a curse and launched herself forward. Clare finally followed suit, and they clashed at the center of the room, ten feet off the ground.

#Better, much better,# she sent, parrying and whirling and finally catching Clare off guard.

Clare went spinning into the wall, but went with the momentum and came back out of the fall, lashing outwards with her telekinesis and nearly knocking Zara right out of the air. #Don't patronize me.#

#I'm not,# Zara retorted as they closed with each other again. #You asked for my help, remember?#

#So shut up and fight!# Clare put a little more force than was necessary into her next attack, and overbalanced. Zara leapt on the opportunity, and Clare parried, just barely, with the staff of her psimitar.

Zara retreated, grinning. "Getting pissed?" she asked sweetly, aloud.

"No," Clare said in a low voice, and threw herself forward again.

No more room for words. First they were on the ground, then airborne. Then back to terra firma, up the wall to the ceiling, every square inch of the room a fair battleground as they fought, attacking and counterattacking every step of the way, their bodies struggling to match the speed of their thoughts. This sort of sparring was all about willpower, willpower and endurance--

Which Clare, for the first time that Zara could remember, seemed to be lacking. Her patterns were getting rougher, breaking down as the minutes flew by. She's out of practice, that's all, Zara told herself. They could fix that. And under normal circumstances, to be scrupulously fair, Clare had always been very slightly better than her with a psimitar--

Rough edges or not, Clare found a way past her defense and sent her reeling backwards with one well-placed stab of telekinesis.

And yet again, she didn't follow up. Frustrated, Zara took advantage and lashed out a little more forcefully than was standard for sparring sessions. Clare didn't shield in time, and was knocked right out of the air, the safety shields only managing to buffer some of the impact as she hit the floor.

The clatter of her psimitar as it fell was thunderously loud in the silence. She didn't make a move to reach out for it, or even sit up, but just laid there, her chest rising and falling in a ragged rhythm.

The fall had probably knocked the breath out of her, Zara thought guiltily, floating back to the ground and pulling off her helmet as she did. "Clare?"

Clare didn't answer, but she did reach up and take her helmet off, letting her head fall back to the ground as soon as she did. She turned over onto her side, still breathing far too heavily, and Zara bit her lip, going over and crouching down beside her.

"You okay?" She wasn't sensing anything that would tell her Clare was hurt, but that wasn't particularly reassuring, given that Clare's mind was locked up tight, just as it had been ever since Denver.

"Fine," Clare managed. Zara offered her a hand, and Clare stared up at her for a moment before she took it. "Think--I need to take a break, though."

"I think you need more than that," Zara said, her relief making it come out more sharply than she'd intended. She shook her head at Clare. "What's the matter with you? You had all kinds of openings. Why didn't you finish me off?"

Clare grimaced, rubbing at the back of her neck. "We're just sparring, Zara," she protested.

It was weak, as excuses went. "Sparring. Right. And sparring is what we do to get ready for combat," Zara continued sarcastically. "If this had been real, you'd be dead, you let so many chances pass--"

"Maybe."

"No maybe about it!"

Clare hauled herself back to her feet, glaring coldly down at Zara. "Point taken, all right?"

Zara rose, giving her a measuring look. "No, not all right," she countered. "You can't expect to be put back into a field position if you hesitate like that."

Clare muttered something under her breath and turned away, striding over to where they'd left the rest of their gear and taking a long sip from her water bottle. "I wanted you to help me get back in shape," she said icily. "My motivations are my own business."

It was a moderately ridiculous thing to say, and Zara was about to tell Clare so when she suddenly thought better of it. She knew the problem--hell, Clare herself was probably perfectly aware of the problem, and browbeating her about it wasn't going to do any good. Even if I do want to shake her until she wakes up a little--

Clare might say she wanted to get back in shape, get put back in a field position - and she probably did - but her heart wasn't in it. Just like her heart wasn't in living, period, these days. She was still trying so hard not to feel.

Then again, Zara reasoned rather bleakly, if SHE'D been the one at ground zero when a city of four million people died screaming around her, maybe she'd be afraid to deal with the emotional backlash, too. But just because she could understand didn't mean she approved.

Besides, she couldn't see Clare with a desk job--she'd hate it, but that was where she was going to end up if she flunked her field recertification. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" Zara asked, half-diffidently, as Clare set her water bottle back down.

"For what?"

"Being back on the job." Clare gave her a sharp look, and then shrugged minutely. Zara sighed. "I'm detecting a definite lack of enthusiasm here."

The corner of Clare's mouth quirked upwards for an instant. "Sorry. I'll try and do better. All these damned psych evaluations have been a pain."

"I can imagine." Three solid days of test scenarios from the XSE's best and brightest shrinks would have tried the patience of a saint, which Clare certainly wasn't. Zara grinned wickedly. "What say we get out of here and cut loose for a while? I can take twenty-four hours leave, and you're still on the inactive list."

Clare's eyes narrowed slightly. "Get out of here and do what?"

Zara laughed. "What do you mean, 'do what'? The obvious, Summers--blow off some steam, enjoy ourselves." She held Clare's gaze with her own, daring her silently to take up the challenge. "You know. Alcohol, dancing, cute guys, maybe a little property damage. The usual."

Clare snorted. "Your usual, you mean." She seemed to consider it for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, how can I refuse an offer like that?"

Zara grinned triumphantly. "You're so predictable."

***

"Why are we shopping?" Clare asked, irritated and trying to pretend she wasn't. She was beginning to wish she hadn't agreed to this. A night away from the Tower had sounded like such a good idea - even if it was with Zara, who could get into a truly staggering amount of trouble even when she was only half-trying - but she hated shopping. You went shopping when you knew exactly what you wanted, and could get out of the damned store in as little time as was humanly possible. But at the moment, they were browsing.

She hated browsing. Especially when the browsing was taking place in a store that looked like something out of a dominatrix's happiest dream. Leather and PVC, everywhere she looked.

"What, you wanted to go out wearing your uniform or something?" Zara asked, appearing from around a rack of dresses, few of which had more fabric to them than the average postage stamp. She grinned and held up a strapless, crimson-red number that made Clare wonder exactly how the person wearing it was supposed to breathe. "What do you think?"

"I think your father would have a coronary."

"Exactly," Zara pursed her lips. "Not enough room to move, though," she said regretfully, and put it back on the rack.

"Where exactly are we going that you would consider dressing like that?" Clare asked, trying to keep the suspicious edge out of her voice.

Zara grinned. "Bacchanale. Where else?"

Clare's eyes widened. Zara merely threw back her head, laughed, and headed over to the next rack of clothing.

"Zara--" Clare started uncertainly.

"Going back on your 'yes' already?"

"No, it's just--"

"Then we have no problem, do we?" Zara looked back over her shoulder, her expression challenging. "Do we?" she repeated, more softly. "Unless you don't feel up to it."

Clare bridled, almost despite herself, at the mixture of amusement and mild contempt Zara was projecting. "I'm up for anything you are," she growled.

"Oh, good."

Well, I fell for that. Glaring balefully at the back of Zara's head, Clare trailed along behind her, trying to process the new information. When Zara had suggested this, she'd assumed they'd be going to a bar or something. Not to every New York psi's favorite night-club-slash-meat-market.

Bacchanale wasn't 'a night out'. She'd been worried about Zara's predilection for making trouble, and she shouldn't have been. If you went to Bacchanale, trouble was inevitable. For everyone. The normal rules didn't apply, when you had a twenty-storey building full of telepaths.

When you were inside, you could do anything you wanted. Be anything you wanted. The limits of your experience were defined only by the limits of your imagination. The owners frowned on dead bodies, of course, but anything short of that was available for the asking. And the authorities made a habit of looking the other way, so long as what happened inside the club stayed there.

Her father had actually approved, Clare remembered, of Bacchanale and the handful of other clubs like it, scattered across the world. It's much better to have a place for telepaths to go when they want to indulge their darker impulses, he'd said. All of us have that urge sometimes. If the people around you are all telepaths, there's much less chance of anyone getting manipulated against their will. It may not be pretty, but the dark side of being what we are rarely is.

However, he'd very strongly disapproved of opening the doors to the headblind. It was a recent development--only Bacchanale here and Astral Evening in London allowed it. For an astronomical sum and a signed waiver, non-psis could gain entrance. Clare imagined a normal human lost in the chaos she remembered from her visits, and shuddered. They'd be helpless. Fodder for the psi-storm that raged inside Bacchanale's walls.

Zara laughed softly. "You used to like Bacchanale, Clare," she reminded her, holding up a leather top that was clearly in Clare's size, rather than hers.

"That was before," Clare muttered, and stared at the top. It was black. That wasn't so bad. The fact that the front of it was made up of a set of criss-crossing leather straps, on the other hand--

"Well?"

Clare glared at her. "Maybe if I wore a shirt underneath it."

"You're no fun," Zara complained, putting the top back. She looked Clare up and down, a half-amused, half-contemptuous glint in her eyes. "Don't think I haven't noticed your sudden lack of a fashion sense--"

"Oh, fuck you." So she wore a lot of black--okay, only black. Zara wasn't the only one who'd commented, either. Ian had--Clare shoved the thought away forcefully. She just felt more comfortable in black these days. It--fit her mood.

"Come on, Summers. It's not like anyone with working vision hasn't noticed you've gone a little gothic." Zara looked back over her shoulder at her, those dark blue eyes sparkling maliciously, now. "Nick thinks you're trying to make some kind of statement. I think you're just doing it to get attention."

Clare gritted her teeth. She's just goading me. It's just Zara, being Zara-- "Everyone's got a right to their opinion," she muttered, and started to sort through the rack in front of her, hoping Zara would take the hint and back off a little. Then again, what was the chance of that? she wondered ironically. She knew what this was about, this little 'outing'--Zara's methods were different from everyone else's, but she was shooting for the same end result.

And she wasn't going to get it. None of them were. It was taking all of her strength to put her life back together into some semblance of what it had been. She didn't have the time - or the inclination - to cry on anyone's shoulder.

But she was so tired of not feeling anything. There were things she couldn't feel, things she had to keep locked up safely if she wanted to be able to function--but she was starting to feel like she was suffocating. Surely there had to be something safe to feel, something that would--put a little color back into the world.

Still. Bacchanale was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Walking into that sort of atmosphere was a real risk. Her shields weren't quite that steady, yet, and she wasn't sure her self-control was, either.

But she wasn't going to let Zara think she was afraid. It would be a good way to test herself, anyway. A good way to--

"See anything you like?" Zara asked.

"No," Clare muttered.

to be continued...

[FOOTER]