Effie was not crying.
She held her ground while her blonde kidnapper (because it was kidnapping, even if she agreed to go, out of fear) paid a cab for her to take her home.
But Effie didn't go home.
She had made a huge, huge mistake. And she needed to do something about it, let someone know, find out if it could be corrected before it was too late for everyone.
She had a lot of things to do before she could curl up and cry.

The cab stopped in front of Iris Clinic. She remembered the name, and it was not that hard to find. She didn't need to pay; she didn't even say anything as she climbed out of the car, leaving the juice and cookies behind. She climbed the stairs, and walked in; moments later, she was standing in the hallway, one hand covering the bandage on her arm, waiting for something to happen.
Anything, really.

"Hello?"

He'd better be here.

Garrett was finally resting in his bed back at the apartment. He had asked DocProf for some time off, since Alexandra had returned. He needed it. Resting was a relative term, however. There was mostly tossing and turning as he thought of Efimia and the day of the picnic. Everything he normally did slipped into the background, melted by the rolling of her tongue over her broken English. He had tried too much coffee to get the feeling back in an artificial way, but all he had succeeded with was heartburn. Then there was the tone of the Clinic door opening. Kealey had not chosen to take the receptionist job and Sebastian had not hired one. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen any of the Csendes clan in a week or two. He rolled over and put the pillow over his head.

--Ping--

A long sigh left the room as Garrett rolled out of bed and slid boxer briefs on. Blackout curtains were pulled back, the afternoon light glaring in. In a moment he had slid on some khaki pants and flip flops, a nondescript yellow T-shirt with a little pocket on the right side chest. He walked out of his bedroom and into his living room, opening and closing the door and making his way down to the Clinic itself. Arriving at the glass door, he entered and tried to compose himself. No reason to take his longing for Efimia out on--- " Efimia?"

His gait toward her increased and at first he smiled, but as he approached her, something didn't seem right. She wasn't smiling at him as he had imagined for the past few days. In fact, she looked quite upset, perhaps even on the verge of tears. Garrett came closer to her, entering the field around her without a thought, instantly awakened from any dregs of slumber. Now it was very clear. Something wrong had happened. His heart sank. " Are you alright? What happened?" His hand reached out and settled on her shoulder. He was very concerned. he had a sinking feeling, considering the circumstances that might have brought her to him. His mind went back to why he gave her the card in the first place.

>>"Efimia?"

Effie drew a shaky breath. He was here. That's a start. She wuld have hated to explain things to a starnger - and everyone was a stranger here, except from the person she came to see. It made all the sense in the world, coming to see him. He was the one who knew about these things the most. He said so.

>>"Are you alright? What happened?"

Effie did her best to compose herself. The Matchmaker made her to excercises for that. You can't let your emotions slip, when there are important things to do. And discuss.
She was still trembing slightly as she hung her head.
He is going to be disappointed.

"I screw up." she confessed "I really really screw up." she elaborated, still not looking up at him "They find me, and take blood from me. And I let them." she took another deep breath to calm herself "The blonde woman you talked about."

Her head hung low, her body shivered beneath his touch on her shoulder. He suspected he knew the answer already. Her neural map was writing itself a fraction faster than last time. By the time Efimia spoke, Garrett could see her nerves shivering too. He closed his eyes and did his best to send calming energy through her body."I screw up. I really really screw up." He nodded and listened on, wishing only peace for her."They find me, and take blood from me. And I let them." He knew instantly who they were. However, something seemed off. The original Haywire strain required a tissue sample. DNA could be gleaned from blood as well, but it seemed the Order was up to something different this time. She took a breath and she seemed to level out, his energy still moving through her to help calm her nerves."The blonde woman you talked about."

She hadn't screwed up at all. Letting her know that was most important. Garrett removed his hand from her shoulder. When he did so, his senses magnified. He could hear her heartbeat and her breaths moving in her chest. " It's OK, Effie. Lori is a dangerous woman who kills at will. I think if you had resisted, she might have killed you on the spot. You would have only made her attack more powerful. I'm glad you are safe." His eyes shot to the Clinic door. Perhaps they followed her as well. " I want you to tell me what happened, but first I am closing the Clinic in case you were followed here. "

His movements were quick, measured and precise. First the front door of the Clinic was locked, the sign in the window switched from OPEN to CLOSED. He then made his rounds through the lower part of the building, turning the lights out one by one until only the glow of the monitors lit the room, apart from the daylight outside. he returned to her side. " Follow me. I live upstairs." He made his way to the end of the hall, opening the door for her. Once she was through, he locked the door to the Clinic and also turned the lock on the door leading out to the back parking lot. Before they headed upstairs, he turned to her. " I'm not upset with you, Effie. You did the right thing coming here. I will make sure you stay safe from now on, just as I promised. I should be the one apologizing, as I could have protected you better. OK?" he looked beyond her to the lot. It was all quiet. That didn't mean much in the realm of mutation, though.

>>"It's OK, Effie. Lori is a dangerous woman who kills at will. I think if you had resisted, she might have killed you on the spot. You would have only made her attack more powerful. I'm glad you are safe."

Was she? Apparently even Garrett didn't think so, for he went to close the Clinic. The things he said about Lori - was it her real name? - were easy to believe, even though he said them so easily. Effie calmed down a bit. At least she was not alone now.
But was she really safe? Was the amount of blood the blonde woman stole enough for all their evil plans? Or will they keep coming back to her for more?
Deep breath, Sveta. Calm down.

>>"I'm not upset with you, Effie. You did the right thing coming here. I will make sure you stay safe from now on, just as I promised. I should be the one apologizing, as I could have protected you better. OK?"

She walked upstairs with him, her hand still on the bandage, and shook her head. "You can't protect me all of the time. Only one that can protect me all of the time is me. And not make mistakes like that. I was" what's the word again? "careless."

She was not worried for herself now, not really. She was worried about what her powers could be used for. She didn't know, and she didn't want to think.
Effie swayed, the blood loss catching up to her since she refused to stay put, or to eat and drink since she was released.

I should have eaten something.

Efimia followed Garrett up the stairs, still holding something on her arm. A bandage. Had the bloodletting just occurred? Lori was going to pay. The Order would in spades."You can't protect me all of the time. Only one that can protect me all of the time is me. And not make mistakes like that. I was...careless."Garrett couldn't completely argue, but still, he could have gone to her earlier, laid it all out for Lori. He still would. There was no doubt in his mind. " Well, don't kick yourself over it now, Effie. You need rest, especially if you just gave blood."

As if on cue, once they reached the top of the stairs, he watched the color drain from her face and she swayed on the spot, dangerously close to the edge of the stairs. Without a thought, he caught her in mid fall and lifted her small frame off the ground. He moved to the end of the hall toward his apartment. He reached under her, lifting her more with the other arm, grasping the doorknob and turning it. As the door opened, Garrett quickly put Effie down gently on his leather couch, then grabbing a few pillows from the corner of the room that he used for meditation. Two went below her legs, raising them, the other beneath her head.

Once she was in place, he turned to go get a ...cold...rag. His hands dropped to his sides as he stood silently, his eyes slightly rolling back in his head. His breathing became shallow and rapid and he sharply dropped to his knees, falling forward and catching himself. His spinal cord raged like a sleeping dragon, driven to life by some great summoner's spell. Outside, there was a car accident on the street. He could hear the metal meeting metal. Birds fell from the sky if they passed over the Clinic, shivering in spasm on its rooftop. It became quiet as people on the sidewalk stopped in their tracks, falling to their knees in a state of nervous overload.

He could no longer focus on people outside or beautiful young Goddess on the couch. His eyes closed as a thin line of drool slipped from his lips. His body shivered and trembled as if he had a lucid fever of madness. Each carpet fiber pressed against the palms of his hands like a luxurious field of silken coils. He focused on his breathing, wrestling with the drop of Divinity that was inside him. Use this moment, Garrett. Focus.[/i] He let his head hang down, feeling the globules of sweat, which appeared as mere beads, sliding over his scalp like giant slugs.

The future's promise. The past's laborious construction. The present's living moment. All one and the same. His body, his mind, his nervous system, his very soul a living entity of power. A force. A force of change. The wave had started somewhere on the other side of the universe and now roiled through his very existence like a great tsunami. All of the opposing ideals took their places on the stage. The seemingly random and jumbled puzzle pieces were shaken...hard.. and dropped on the floor, falling perfectly into place. He was Garrett Theodore Wills. He was Seizure. He was Peacekeeper. The tide rolled off into the horizon and his living universe began to contract, returning slowly to its original state.


((As with little Katrina's colorful parade, a wave of neural supernova buffets the city at the moment of Garrett's epiphany. At that moment, for those two little minutes, he is operating at 51 Mutated Strength. Well...barely handling, but operating nonetheless.))

He caught her. Effie hugged hersef instinctively, making sure their skin didn't touch; for a moment she tensed up, and almost told him to let go, but once she was scooped up she was less and less sure she could - or wanted - to stand on her own. She let the dizzyness wash over her as she was placed down on the couch. At least Garrett knew what he was doing.

Or not.

The moment she felt his skin brush against hers, Effie tensed. It only lasted for a brief moment. Or two.
What happened after curiously reminded her of her first experience with Katrina. Even though it was not the same.
It was not illusions, but it was colors. It was not fear, but it was confusion. It was not outside. It was inside her.

Effie was vaguely aware of Garrett dropping to his knees, and she struggled to see if he was okay; but in the feelings and sensations coursing through her, there was no trace of panic. His enhanced abilites, together with her own, and the dizzyness from the blood loss pushed her into the state between fainting, dreaming, and being awake. There was a component of pleasure in all the confusion, and also the undefineable awareness of being alive, of being a person. An awereness of her own body, and everything that was, or had been, in contact with it.

Who the hell would want to pretend all kinds of things when the world is intense like that.

Effie gasped for air as the effect of her powers slowly faded away. She turned her head to look at Garrett, then slowly, almost too slowly for real time, she pushed herself up into a sitting position, one arm supporting her weight and the other holding on to the back of the couch. She flipped her hair back, or at least did the movement that was supposed to flip it - still too slow to be effective.

"I tell you not to touch me. I tell you it is not good for you." she said, glaring at him "And there you go. I told you. My English may be bad, but not that bad." there was the shadow of a smile in her voice "Hey. Are you with me?"

Update: I received information as to what would have just occurred via Hunter's neuroscience expertise. Sorry folks.

Garrett’s amplified powers work on a line similar to and EMP but only effecting organic life forms. Contrary to popular belief EMPs do not simply overload and turn off technology. They overload and turn off all electrical signals. This includes your nervous system. What an EMP does to a person is essentially shut every neural process down, killing them. Most people will be fortunate enough that their brain will restart almost immediately. Then their brain will try and restart their heart. Those with strong healthy hearts will be fine. But the elderly and those with heart problems might not be able to restart their heart. Garrett has just unwittingly kill several thousand people, either due to failure to restart either their heart or their brain or because they suddenly fell unconscious in a dangerous situation. Driving for example. Probably best not to kiss her again.

(And he only touched her! A kiss would have piled on 17 more MS!)

Garrett slid into the carpet face first, his breathing slowing. One eyes was closed, pressed into the floor, the other wide open, scouring the available surroundings. Was this why junkies laid on the floor? His elbows tried to get leverage beneath his body to push him up, but his muscles were all spent, as if he had just run a marathon. The best he could manage was to roll over on his back and then shimmy to the corner of the room so he could push his neck up and look over at Effie. "I tell you not to touch me. I tell you it is not good for you." she said, glaring at him "And there you go. I told you. My English may be bad, but not that bad."

He formed words but they didn't come out. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe more. Breathing first, speaking second. Garrett couldn't think of anything that had occurred like that before. He was a newborn, though more reforged with purpose. It was like he was looking at Efimia for the first time again, though with new eyes. " It..was an..accident. I just picked your head up ....to put it on the pillow. I..I thought you might...faint from the blood loss." He still felt something for her, but it was lost in the shadow of her ability. Feeling like he might have more strength, he brought his elbows under him again, the left one rolling over some kind of plastic rectangle.

--CLICK--

The sounds of sirens and panic. The staccato chop of helicopter blades. "--is the scene on the George Washington Bridge. Complete chaos, people scrambling from their cars, trying to understand what just happened. We are all still reeling from the phenomenon that has occurred. Hospitals are overrun with cases of heart attacks and apparent strokes. There has been no word from officials whether this was a terrorist attack. Again, if you are just joining us, New York was just hit by what our sources are calling a 'neural bomb'. There seem to be hundreds, even thousands of casualties among the victims. It is another dark day in our nation's history. Our coverage will continue as the story develops."

Fortunately, Garrett was behind the television and couldn't see the images on the screen.The message was very clear, though. Hundreds of lives were lost and he pulled the trigger. His epiphany was no longer a momentous occasion of joy. It was a stern and sobering wake up call. he pulled himself up by will, walking his way up the wall with his hands until he was standing on shaky legs. He reached out to the edge of the sofa Effie was sitting on, using it as support. His head hung low. " I just became a mass murderer. I need a drink." His feet weakly shuffled in that general direction.

>>" It..was an..accident. I just picked your head up ....to put it on the pillow. I..I thought you might...faint from the blood loss."

Things were definitely worse than they looked at first. Garrett was in a worse condition, and sitting up made sure Effie felt worse too. Not to mention all the commotion outside the building. What happened?...
Effie pushed herself up and sat back against the back of the couch, still shaking from the shock. She always knew her powers were... powerful, but this, this was something at least as bad as Katrina's all-city illusion.

And worse.

>>"...New York was just hit by what our sources are calling a 'neural bomb'. There seem to be hundreds, even thousands of casualties among the victims. It is another dark day in our nation's history. Our coverage will continue as the story develops."

Much, much worse.

The last remains of color were drained out of Effie's face as she watched the images on the tv screen. Was that... was that their fault? Did they cause all the panic, and the accidents, and...
Eyes wide, Effie covered her mouth with her hands. She felt like she was going to be sick.

>>" I just became a mass murderer. I need a drink."

Mass murderer. Terrorist. Casualties. Neural bomb.
Murderer.

Effie made a sound somewhere between a sob and a hiccup, and scooted farther away from him on the couch, ending up curled up in a ball, hugging her knees to her chest. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the tv screen.

"What did I do..."

What have I done.

Sebastian was studying in the operating room. He's peeked his head into the waiting room earlier, but saw the back of Garrett's head sitting at the desk there. He had seemed to be busy doing something, so Sebastian had come in here to read. He had passed his medical school entrance exam, but only just, according to his score sheet. Next week he had an application interview at the university, so he wanted to make doubly sure he was ready. He squinted at the small font in his textbook that detailed the nervous system and wondered exactly what happened to nerves when they were incorporeal.

He was surprised when the lights went out, making the page and pretty much everything else impossible to see. The immortal stood and went to the door to investigate. The lights were off in the entire clinic, save for the blue glow of monitors. Footsteps and voices echoed down the stairwell.

>>>“...I could have protected you better. OK?”

>>>“...Only one that can protect me all of the time is me.”

It was Garrett and a girl he didn't recognize. She sounded upset. Sebastian didn't want to interfere, so he turned away and went to look for the light switch that would return power to the downstairs. Which one was it, again, that operated the lights in the back room?

Ah, that's right. It was on the panel in the back hallway. (There were far too many light switches in this place.) The unicorn man reached for the switch.

And found himself blinking up from it on the floor. His nerves burned with cold as if he'd been electrocuted, but he knew that he had not been. That felt different. This was almost as if his nerves had all been turned off for a brief moment.

Sebastian swore in Latin and rushed upstairs. Halfway up, he heard the collision outside; metal shrieked as it ripped and a heavy thud resounded through the building when something heavy hit the brick. Sebastian paused for a moment, then kept going up. Garrett hadn't closed his door. Both he had the blonde girl were collapsed and still twitching; the former on the floor and the latter on the couch.

The girl was just saying she had warned Garrett not to touch her.

Garrett rolled, the television blared.

“Garrett! What happened?”

Sebastian turned toward the girl with a puzzled expression on his face.

“He touched you and this happened? What exactly happens when someone touches you?” His tone of voice was only so slightly raised in pitch. While he sounded calm still, someone who knew him well might recognize the slight trace of panic in his voice. Something odd had happened to his nervous system and right after that cars had crashed right outside. How far did this effect spread?

He felt terrible that he wasn't outside investigating the crash, but if that new announcer on the television was correct, this was much, much bigger than a single car accident.

>>>" I just became a mass murderer. I need a drink."

>>>"What did I do..."

Sebastian's heart was beating fast, watching the images that were already on the new screen only moments after the event. Nevertheless, he was able to keep his voice calm.

“We need to stay calm, and we need to figure this out.” He sounded much more confident than he felt. What if Ghost had been in a car accident? Or Jude? He felt his cell phone in his pocket, but it didn't vibrate to tell him he had a call or a message. At least, not yet.

It wasn't until he was fishing behind plates and glasses for his bottle of scotch that Garrett realized Sebastian was in the room. The bottle had been hidden for the obvious reason of out of sight,out of mind. The manipulator was definitely in mind, so time for the bottle to come out. The little cap was unscrewed and landed in the sink with a small clink. The amber liquid poured gratuitously into a glass. Just because he was upset gave Garrett no right to lose control of himself. he had just regained it fully after nearly two years of wrestling with it. He would need every bit of it to maintain himself in front of thousands of angry relatives. Not to mention the authorities.

Returning to the scene, it was more than apparent to him that he was still in shock. Most people that are in shock just act strange and don't know why. Garrett knew why. He knew more than anyone in the world right now. The foremost expert on why Grandpa won't wake up. A stiff shot of the stuff went down the pipe. The jury was still out on whether it was a good idea, but for the moment, yes, it was. he lifted the glass in toast to his fine immortal compatriot. " Sebastian. Do not touch her. Well,--glug-- it's probably alright if you do. It's not like you are going to heal people to death." A ghoulish echo of a giggle rattled around in Garrett's chest. Humor wasn't appropriate, but neither was the alcohol. What kind of card do you get for the guy who just ruined countless lives? He'd ask Syn sometime.

Straddling the arm of the sofa, he looked over at Effie, who was clearly in shock herself. "Effie, don't kick yourself. You didn't know anymore than I did. I'll take the rap for you anyway. My nerves were the guns. My short sighted ignorance was the trigger. You definitely told me not to touch you." But he did. He looked at Sebastian, unaware of a small tic in his face. " Lori took her blood, Sebastian. Those fools are trying to bring Haywire back from the dead. I only touched her neck for TWO SECONDS!" The glass whipped from Garrett's hand into the wall, shattering. Wow...where did that come from? He knew, but really? He had never had such freedom of expression in the past. Best to have those moments now before he spent the rest of his natural life in a small dark room with a collar on his neck.

>>“He touched you and this happened? What exactly happens when someone touches you?... We need to stay calm, and we need to figure this out.”

He was not calm. Effie didn't know who he was, but he was not calm. Nobody was calm. Not him, not Effie, not the people on TV, definitely not Garrett.

>>" Sebastian. Do not touch her. Well,--glug-- it's probably alright if you do. It's not like you are going to heal people to death."

"No. Don't touch me. Don't." Effie muttered, curling up into an even smaller ball, her knuckles turning white as she held on to two fistfuls of her top "Don't."
Garrett was already drinking. Oh joy. Effie remembered how it felt like being blind drunk. It felt really, really tempting right now. She wondered if Garrett had vodka.
On second thought, screw vodka. Any kind of alcohol will do.

>>"Lori took her blood, Sebastian. Those fools are trying to bring Haywire back from the dead. I only touched her neck for TWO SECONDS!"

Effie winced as the glass was smashed against the wall. Thing were not going to be all right. Nothing was going to be all right. Garrett made a point, clear and loud: if an accidental brush of skin could do that, all that, what could they do with her blood?
Probably anything.
And it was her fault.
I should have run away.

"I'm sorry." she whimpered "I'm sorry."

It was proving impossible to remain calm, particularly when the mention of Haywire brought unbidden to his lips several words he hadn't used in centuries. None of them were polite to use in the presence of a lady, even if she didn't understand the language in which they were spoken.

Sebastian took a deep breath. It wasn't too late, they could still stop this. One did not collect blood samples one day and splice it with virus DNA the next. Not if his medical textbooks were correct about the complexities of genomes.

Garrett forgot to take any deep breaths. He was understandably upset, but it wasn't helping them solve anything to throw down alcohol then throw glassware into walls. Temporarily therapeutic, perhaps, but not helpful.

“Garrett, I need you functioning at your full mental capacity right now. Please refrain from drinking any more until we have you and this girl somewhere safe.”

The telelvision kept flashing images of the destruction on the roads and bridges, interspersed with footage from elderly homes, and maps of New York City. Again and again the announcers repeated their messages. Death. Destruction. Terrorism. Mutant attack. China? North Korea? Russia? Domestic? Threats. Death. Destruction. That wasn't helpful either. The unicorn man didn't bother fiddling with buttons or switches, he just pulled the plug right from the wall.

“Being sorry doesn't help anyone,” Sebastian gently told the sobbing blonde girl. It was harsh, but it was the truth. “If you want to help, you need to pull yourself together first. Then, help us figure out what we can to about all of this. Come. Sit at the table with us.” Sebastian pulled out one of the kitchen chairs for her.

“Garrett.” His voice held a note of warning, lest the man do something stupid. The neural wasn't in his right mind, and had to get back there fast if they were going to figure something out. The immortal man's pointing finger made it plainly clear what he intended Garrett to do. Sit. Now.

Tonight's meeting had a rather pressing agenda. First, make certain that immediate safety was secured. Second, make arrangements for the long term safety of the world.

"Garrett, I need you functioning at your full mental capacity right now. Please refrain from drinking any more until we have you and this girl somewhere safe.” Sebastian was right. Besides, his story would be hard enough to explain to the authorities without them thinking he was soused. But the scotch had done its job, sending cookies out to the angry mob forming inside his body. "You're right, Sebastian. I'm sorry. Just a little too much to take all at once." He looked at Efimia, after taking his own deep breath."Sorry, Effie. I shouldn't have yelled. I just completely underestimated the gravity of touching you. I thought it would be some kind of nice sensation and it would work for us, not..." Kill hundreds of people. Take a bullwhip to his brain, though it seemed he needed it.

Thankfully, Sebastian, in his immortal wisdom, pulled the cord out of the wall, silencing the electric doomsayer. Now he was doing his practiced job of smoothing things over. It became a temporarily funny thought, as he thought of Maya smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. He still doubted they were very passionate, but they were definitely made for each other. Sebastian was pulling a chair for Effie and apparently one for him too, the tone in his voice one of tempered caution. A long pale finger pointed at a chair for him to sit in, so he did.

Garrett pressed his hands flat on the table before him, looking at the twin culprits, who had spent their life so far being awakened by influencing people, one way or the other. He'd listen to what the unicorn had to say, though he had already made his mind up. Garrett was going to turn himself in to the authorities. If the authorities didn't believe him, he'd use these same twin terrors and see if the officer in question noticed any similarities. Then the two would be chained, kept safe from the public. But for now, it was immediate damage control time. getting Effie into something not resembling shock. So he kept silent, waiting ot hear from his elder.