The taxi driver didn’t say a word. Was it just Emily, or did he look nothing like the man on the license? It was hard to tell with the driver’s incognito appearance. Maybe Emily was just imagining things.

Emily wanted the two to talk. Talk about what, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to bring up the past, so she wouldn’t mention talk about their previous relationship together. “So how long have you two been in the Big Apple? I’ve been here about three weeks. I tell you what, it’s so different than back home. I’m from New Orleans, you see, originally. But I’ve been living back in the Bayou for a few years now and it’s so different up here. Don’t get me wrong, I like it up here. Just still getting use to everything.”

Emily was running her jaw so much she didn’t even notice that they were no longer on a main road. It looked like a storage facility. How did they get in here without her noticing? The gate had already been opening when they entered. This couldn’t be good.

“I was born here. I’ve spent the majority of my life in Manhattan, only been out of New York city a hand full of times, and never out of the state. The only thing that I really miss when I am in the city is the stars, it is amazing how the sky looks when there aren’t hundreds of city lights obscuring your vision of them.”

Aedus talked right back trusting in the driver to take them to where ever they were supposed to be heading. The look on the face of Emily and Lydia seemed to mirror each other, confused concern.

“Hey Dalsim,” Aedus looked from the I.D of the obviously Indian man, to the Dark Latin driver and realized that even as observant as he was of his driver, he had made a mistake, the latin Man was no Dalsim. “Where do you think you are taking us? “

((Its your show Emily, I’m not sure what the cabbie is up to but I love the twist!))

The storage facility had countless rows of units. Strangely this section had no lights and by the look of it there were no cameras. One of the units slowly opened up from the inside. No one could see into the unit because someone had set up black drapes.

Out stepped three individuals, too well dressed to be gang-bangers. When they walked out they pulled back the curtains. If one looked quickly enough, they would see several cages and a dentist’s chair. The chair had restraints for the legs, arms, and neck.

The taxi driver started breathing more heavily. “The smell smell smell…sooo gooood! We we’re gonna cut you…cut cut cut!” As he got more excited, he grunted more often.

Two of the men had guns. Big guns. Guns that would rip Emily to pieces if they were shot at her. Another man stepped out behind the curtain. He wore a white lab coat and smiled sweetly at the people within the cab. “Please excuse my friend here. He gets excited whenever we have new guests. Pig, good job sniffing out these mutants. You see, he can smell a delightful morsel such as yourselves as pigs sniff out rare truffles.”

One of the men opened the door on Emily’s side and dragged her out. Another man pointed the gun in her direction. The man in the lab coat spoke again. “You see, in ancient times tribes would consume parts of their enemies to gain their power. And that is what I am going to do to you three. But first I shall experiment to see what makes you tick. What makes you so special that you have powers while the rest of us have nothing. Pig, what do these guests smell like?”

Pig started giggling as he stepped out of the cab but did not stop his snorting. “Man smells like rock rock rock. Girl smells like change change skin change. Other girl…smells dead very dead dead.”

The man in the lab coat smiled and patted Pig on the head. “Good boy, Pig, good boy. Boys, put the dead one on the table. Put the other two in cages. Are the camera’s set up inside? Then let’s get started!” The man turned around and walked back behind the curtain.

Aedus turned to the women after pig exited the car and attempted to devise a plan in the time they had. “When the time comes run as fast and har out of here, try to get the car if you can I will cover you guy’s escape, if either of you get out call, MRC and try to get them here. It is going to be hard to work in this situation with those guns.

The men pulled Emily out of the car and were paying attention to sir snorts over there. The pig got out in excitement leaving the keys in the ignition “Lydia, when I get out of the car, climb through the window and get into the driver’s seat and get the hell out of here. Call the MRC and keep your head down in case they fire on you..

Aedus exited the car on his own to add to a distraction, Pig was coming around the car to put him in a cage and Aedus punched the snorting man as hard as he could across the Jaw. The man went down hard holding his Jaw. Aedus brandished an obsidian smile. The car behind him took off at a wild speed. Hopefully Lydia would get clear and get help. I t was their best hope.

The man in the lab coat Shrieked at him for damaging pig and then started shouting “ Dont shoot the car. The third girl is no use to us dead!” The gunmen turned on him holding the weapons steadily at him; he glanced to see that none were pointed at Emily. That was a relief.

“You think I am going to let you put me in a cage when you plan to butcher me anyway? I think I’ll take my chances.”

Emily barely heard Aedus when he spoke. She was in crisis mode. All of her energy was focused on the man in white. Soon she was out of the taxi. Aedus rushed out and attacked Pig. All of the guns were suddenly on him. She knew he told her to run, but Emily wasn’t going to leave Aedus behind. She did not know if his rock body could withstand the blow from these bullets. Emily couldn’t live with herself if she let someone die, not for her sake. She had lived a long enough life; she was willing to sacrifice it for this man she just met.

The man in the lab coat seemed slightly annoyed with the new predicament as he popped his head back out of the curtain. “I do hate when our guests do not feel welcome. Sam, please bring the dead one into the lab. The rest of you, please help this guest relax. Hmm, his skin might pose a problem with a stun gun. But you boys have dealt with worse.”

Sam yanked on Emily’s arm hard. She could feel the stitching starting to come undone. If she pulled her arm toward her back hard enough her arm would come off. But she didn’t want to lose her appendage just yet. There had to be another way to get out of this. Sam dragged Emily behind the curtain. The man in white stood quietly next to the dentist chair. “Let’s see how dead you are, shall we? Oh I forgot my manners. Dr. Straus is my name. Do not worry; I use sanitary equipment and morphine to dull the pain. I’m not a monster.”

Emily heard the door drag shut. Aedus was still out there. She hoped he was ok. Her thoughts were interrupted by the doctor as Sam finished strapping her into the chair. “You have no vital signs I see. Your skin is pale. You do seem to be dead. I shall slice your wrist to see if it bleeds. Hmm, no blood I see. Your body does not react to pain or any stimulus. I will now pierce you with these long pins, one in your heart, others in your vital organs. Nothing. Very promising subject. Very promising indeed. My theory is that you need your brain to stay alive. If alive is what I want to call you. I see you already have wounds around your neck. Has your head been removed before? Well let us see what happens when we do it.”

Soon, Emily’s head was in a pan next to her body. Good thing she doesn’t bleed, otherwise this would be a mess. She blinked her eyes a few times for show. The doctor was working fast. But she wasn’t going to be a compliant patient. She kept her body still so the doctor would think it was immobile without her head. Dr Straus suddenly received a phone call. He spoke for a while in a language she did not understand and gave a heavy sigh when he hung up. “It seems, my dear, our appointment will have to be cut short. I have a meeting I seemed to have forgotten about in the excitement. My associate here will take care of you; make you comfortable, until I am able to return. I shall see you soon.” With that, the man left through a door in the back of the unit.

Sam began to unstrap her body from the chair. When her arms were free Emily quickly came to life. She took two pins out of her body and stabbed them into Sam’s face. He screamed and fell back. The dead girl grabbed the nearest heavy object and smashed it on his head. He seemed to still be breathing, but he would be out for a while. Emily grabbed her head out of the pan and put it under her arm. She grabbed a big gun with her other arm. She had no time to remove the other pins, she had to help Aedus.

She opened the door and stepped outside.

Aedus wanted nothing more than to Help Emily, no one was going into that chair if he could help it, no one was getting cut cut cut. Aedus however didn’t count on what happened next. He doubted he was bullet proof, so far he had only tested thing like slamming his arm in a door, and charging a wall as hard as he could, both times he hadn’t been any worse for wear. He went free running and would trip and fall on purpose. Allowing his environment to do its worst and yet he was fine each and every time.

The men shot a taser at him, but in this form he was always grounded and the sharp points merely bounced off. When they fell to his feet and lit up pig, the men didn’t seem to care, he wondered if they treated this mutant finding man any better than those he tracked. He doubted it. since one of the gun wielding men went with Emily he only had to deal with one with an automatic weapon.

As he thought they might they sent the man without the gun to deal with him and the other to cover. It was foolish because it offered Aedus a shield, Aedus put all of his increased weight into a hard right cross, his stone hand slammed into the man’s head, but to his credit he only seemed dizzied. He was blinking away the stars but he was still up.

The obsidian man grabbed the human’s arm and twisted him in a circle to face the man with the gun and rushed him forward. He was happy to find that they valued each other more than they valued pig. The man didn’t unleash a volley of bullets on them, thankfully. He tossed the dizzy man forward into the other and lunged for the man with the rifle. He raised the barrel of the gun to the sky with his right hand and slashed at the man’s throat with his left, with his fingers out stretched.

It wasn’t something he liked to do, he would happily leave everyone alive but, they certainly were not playing by the same rules.

When Aedus realized that he was completely made of obsidian he read about the properties. One thing he always came across was the leaps and bounds medical treatments were able to make in surgery due to obsidian scalpels, you see when obsidian is sharpened it cuts cleaner than any other blade in the world. So while he left his right hand alone, he sharpened the nails on his left hand into dangerous razors. The man slumped to the ground and the other man looked up.

“Mercy?” the man said groggily as if that first punch still had him dizzy. It only took a moment to realize how much mercy they gave others. His left arm raised and slashed down at the man’s neck and opened his throat to.

He pushed the dying man out of his way and sprinted toward the door. He stopped in his tracks as the door burst open and the woman from earlier was standing there…with her head under one arm and a gun under the other.

His Jaw dropped in shock until his eyes met hers. “Are you ok?” he was dumbfounded and only had a stupid question for her…though this did make the earlier situation on Broadway a bit clearer.

“Yes. Yes. I’m fine.” Emily surveyed the scene in front of her. It was not a pretty sight, but she guessed it was necessary. She threw the gun on the ground and pulled out the rest of the pins in her torso. “Should we wait here until Lydia comes back with help?”

Now that the chaos had passed, Emily was finally able to think properly. Aedus, Emily, and Lydia were all mutants. It was obvious that Aedus was, but she was unsure if she liked that he knew what she was. She felt a little exposed, especially with her head under her arm. Unfortunately she knew she was going to have to ask Aedus for help to put her head back in place. She hoped he knew how to sew. “The Doctor got away. There was nothing I could do to stop him.”

Emily didn’t know what else to say. This was the first time anyone had seen her like this in decades. There had been a few incidents during the unlife where people questioned why she didn’t bleed or she had to explain why her skin was so cold. But this was obviously an unnatural sight: a woman with her head in her arms. In New Orleans, people would write it off as voodoo, but she didn’t have that luxury here. She just stood there as sirens began to be heard in the distance.

Aedus nodded and tried not to stare. “ I don’t know to be honest, we could wait, and that bastard could come back with more thugs. “ He glanced at the ground toward the men that he had ended. “ I was trying to get to you. “ he started to make an excuse but changed his mind. ”I’ve got a feeling mutants might be better off with them dead though.”

Aedus nodded and then looked to pig. “its not your fault, we both did what we had to, but I bet we know someone who could find him.” his glowing eyes closed almost nearly to slits, he was going to a restaurant with two lovely mutant ladies and this is how it turned out.

He turned his head and looked to Emily’s eyes, ”is there anything I can do to help?”

“Let us see if the police are coming here. To be honest, I’d rather not be seen like this, but it’s are duty to report such crimes.” Emily wondered how many mutants had been guests of the doctor. And now that he had escaped, how many more would there be. Who had been the person on the phone? By the tone of Straus’s voice, it was someone he might be working for.

“After this is over, I may need help putting my head back on. You’ll just have to attach the spine to the rest of my spine, and then I can do the rest. If you are uncomfortable with that, I understand.” It was an odd request, but to get it perfectly aligned, she needed assistance.

The sirens quickly got louder and soon flashing lights could be seen. Two police cars rolled up and it seemed that Lydia was inside the first vehicle. She had found help. Thank goodness. “Can you speak to them, please? I’d rather not have to deal with it if I can. Are they going to take us in for questioning or reporting or anything like that?”

" You could hold your head, where it normally goes, might change the effect a little bit, but if you don't want to report or deal with questions, you could pretend to cry over there and let me handle the rest." He looked closely for the first time at some stitches that he was making a point to not notice earlier in the evening. “I am a fair hand at sewing, I'd be glad to do the stitches for you, I bet its hard working on yourself. if I am never not around I could give you a few numbers of some family that would be sympathetic to the situation..most of mine are x gene positive so, there isn't a lot we haven't seen.

Aedus shook his head. " I think it is reasonable that we insist they aren't taking us anywhere, it was cab last time, this time the police. Nah we can work the Angle."

The officer drew a pistol and looked at the ground, Aedus rose his hands only to be crashed into by a hug From Lydia. He pat her on the back we are ok.

“Thanks for showing up Fellas. But unfortunately we couldn’t wait, they had rifles, and were going to use them to cage us and then butcher us. That guy right there is your best and only lead. Maybe another in the back “he added thinking about the shock on Emily’s face momentarily at the bodies. He nodded to Pig. He was giving up their sniffer to track down the doctor but it was the only chance they had not taking a ride to answer questions. “That guy was how they were finding their victims and they apparently were working out of this place.

A female officer with MRC badge walked over and kicked at pig to get up, apparently Lydia had done some of the ground work for them. Another officer walked up and shook his hand.

“Look I realize you guys will have questions, but I just want to get these two home right now. Is there any chance we could go ahead and get home?” He would be handing those questions over to his brother and the family lawyer. He could sense what people believed, he could change tactics on the fly when a jury wasn’t taking the bait, and he had a very good record. They wouldn’t be seeing any charges for these bastards.

Emily followed Aedus’s plan. She placed her had back in its respectful place and wrapped her scarf tight. It wouldn’t hold it on. But she sat a little away from the scene and cradled her head in her hands, pretending to cry. And after what she had been through, she didn’t have to pretend very hard.

Emily hoped Aedus would be able to take care of everything. She would stitch herself back up. She had done it for so long, she only trusted herself to do it right. She believed in Aedus’s skills, but the woman felt more comfortable if she did it herself.

The undead girl was happy Lydia was ok. She was happy everyone was ok. New York might turn out to be more of an adventure than she bargained for.