Dinah saw Marc into the CE rig, wincing inwardly as the thing connected to his brain. She wasn’t sure she’d go that far to turbo charge her power, but then she wasn’t a guy. Then she said good bye to Reno, letting him know where to find her if he needed her and zapped herself to the hotel. She’d checked with Trevor before hand and in light of Mabel, Jeeves and Julian, not to mention the Jo’s, he allowed as how she could dispense with the body guard.

She appeared outside by the pool. It was already occupied by the usual assortment. The Jo’s sunbathing while Seth and Josh ogled them. The Jo’s would be leaving any day now, heading back to work fighting crime. Millicent and David were at a table playing cards and Bertie was practicing his putt again.

On the other side Julian and Jeeves were fencing. Dinah watched them silently for a few moments, an idea taking root that made her smile broad and almost feral. Then she went and got a cup of coffee and settled herself to wait until Julian was finished. She didn’t know what fixing the thing in her head would entail and she was in no real hurry to find out, either.

Julian and Jeeves finally allowed as how they'd had enough for the morning.  Jeeves went off to repair his attire and resume his duties, while Julian sauntered over to sit across from her. "So, Lady, what's up?" Julian asked with a grin.

She growled, low in her throat.  Then she recalled her idea.  "After you fix this thing in my head, think you could teach me to do that?" she asked him.  "To fence, I mean?"

He cocked his head and looked her up and down. "Don't see why you couldn't learn. You dance well. It's really all about footwork and balance."   Then more seriously, "Well, what do you mean fix that thing. Do you want to control it, or lock it away and not have access to it. One is easy the other more complicated."

"Control it, Julian." she told him, equally serious. "In fact, I was hoping you could actually teach me how to do that as well.  I've no idea what having it means in terms of what I can do with it.  So I'm sort of throwing myself on your mercy....with limits," she added quickly, eying the look on his face.

He laughed. "You are safe from me. Nimue would castrate me. With my own sword. Not that one. Now, as to that in your mind, if you would allow me to study it I can hopefully come up with a plan."

Dinah nodded and then relaxing back in her chair, she opened her mind to him.

He entered her mind and it was, again, different from when Marc had done it. A different sort of feel, magic versus awakened powers. He showed her what he was doing. He was, pretty much, poking the thing there, watching it as it tried to connect to her mind, testing it's flavors was the word that came to her mind, and he approved that choice she knew.  Then he withdrew from her mind and sat there regarding her with a frown.

"Interesting. I'll have to develop a control mechanism for you. A way to turn it off and on, that won't depend on merely will. Because, if you are angry or frightened, will isn't always that helpful. Your body will overrule your thought processes and that is when problems begin. I'm thinking of a sort of switch, automatically triggered by a specific thought."

Dinah tilted her head thoughtfully.  "Okay, we can do that.  But, you said that it was set in there in the wrong way?  How could that be?"

"Well, something seems to have altered from when I first studied it. I think it is ... settling in? Learning its new home?  Perhaps it is adapting to your mind. We will help it do that with what I have in mind, make the connections clearer, teach it. Teach you."

"When can we start?" Dinah asked.  "I'd like to do it sooner rather than later, obviously, plus I don't like the idea of not knowing what I might do accidently."

"Yes, I'm sure. Let me ponder it for a few hours and then this afternoon perhaps we can take the first few steps."

"I'll be around, then.  Just come find me when you're ready to start," Dinah told him.

A few hours later Julian found Dinah sitting in the kitchen sharing tea and a few stories of far off places with Mabel.

"Eye of newt?" Julian asked as he sailed into the room. "A semi-large cauldron?  Perhaps toad venom as well...." he pondered, taking a seat. Mabel got up to get him a cuppa too.

"You'll have to drink something that tastes like Virginia Beach sewer water," Julian warned Dinah.

"Do behave, Julian" Mabel directed as she placed the cup in front of Julian. "Or I'll make your tea taste like horse pee."

"EWwwww. I'm trying to make her laugh in an effort to relieve her tension," the mage protested with dignity.

Dinah laughed at the look on his face.  "Considered me relieved, Julian.  Is it show time?"

"Yup.  We should go somewhere where I won't be distracted."

Dinah raised an eyebrow. "How about my apartment, upstairs?"  she said and led the way.  Mabel had kept it aired and cleaned.  Dinah waved him to a seat in the living room.  "Do I need to do anything or is it just a case of holding still?"

"Why don't you lie down on the couch. I'm not sure how long this first try will take or how much I can actually do. Mostly it'll be a matter of me checking how its hooked into you and and putting in a few, uhm, blocks, so you will be able to control it. I've unblocked things mostly, so this is a bit different. Same principle, but still, I'd rather be safe than sorry. I'm sure you'd prefer that too."

"Oh yeah," she agreed, getting comfortable on the couch.  "Ready when you are, chief."

Julian knelt down beside the couch and laid his hands on her head. "I'm just going to send energy into you, you'll feel it as a warm stream of light maybe. Hard to explain, I just don't want to surprise you with it."

"Okay.  Thanks." she told him, closing her eyes and consciously relaxing.

She felt him enter her mind again and examine the netting he'd put around the object yesterday. She felt the same warm glow and began, she thought, to sense a difference. A tension in her she hadn't even known she had seemed to ease and then faded away. She opened her eyes.

It was fully dark now, and Julian's outline was all that she could see.

Sure enough, she felt his hands grow warm. She felt safe and sure and then felt the warmth he'd spoken of. It sort of wrapped itself into her consciousness.  And it streamed around something that felt alien in her mind. It was like a mesh sort of net that surrounded it, holding it in, containing it, keeping it apart and marking it as 'not Dinah."   How long she lay there she wasn't sure. It was as if she watched what was going on, as Julian built that mesh net one strand at a time.

Then suddenly he was gone out of her mind, the warmth fading. She looked around and saw him sitting beside her, pale and drawn looking.

"That's as much as I can do for the moment. We'll need to continue this tomorrow. After I get some rest."

She put out a quick hand.  "Julian are you alright?  Can I get you something?"  she asked him, worry on her face.

"I'm fine." He managed a smile. "It is just taking a lot of energy. You have less to worry about now, though. So you get some rest too."

"I will.  Are you sure?  I can get Charles if you'd like." she added, still not liking his pallor.

"I'm good," he replied and did manage to get out of the apartment, although she didn't see him that night by the pool.

She found him by the pool the next day watching the Jo's take putting lessons from Bertie when she returned after lunch the next day.  She took a seat that didn't obstruct his line of sight and grinned at him.  "What are you gonna do for entertainment when they leave in a couple of days?"

He frowned, thinking. "Maybe I'll pester you all at the Refuge. Puff says he doesn't see enough of me."

"You're certainly welcome, I'm sure.  You can spend time with the Reverend, too." she suggested.

A glint lit up his eyes.  "Ah, now there's a thought.  How is he handling the dragons?"

"He's praying a lot.  In a loud voice, too."  Dinah laughed.  "Clem, I understand is at his wits end with him.  He wants Stephen to find him a new home or something.  You could distract him."

"I'll give it some thought. You ready to resume our psychoanalysis and deep probes?"  He wriggled his eyebrows. "Where's Marc anyway?"

"Only if you don't over do it, like yesterday," she told him.  "Marc is scouring the universe for Lily's children from a coffin at the Refuge.  You haven't said but I'm sure I'm losing my glow."

"Yeah, I noticed but was too kind to say," Julian replied with a grin as they walked up to her apartment. She resumed her position of yesterday. "Okay, it was fighting me a bit yesterday, so I think I've come up with a solution so I don't lose energy quite so quickly. With luck we can wrap this up today."

"Good.  If we do and you aren't exhausted I'll buy you dinner afterwards if you'd like and you can tell me tall tales about your past while I nod adoringly." she told him, opening her mind to him and settling back.

She felt him enter her mind, much like yesterday. And the warm touch of his hands on her forehead and the flow of warm energy swirl into her mind. She watched as he examined the netting he'd placed there yesterday and then she began to feel a difference. It was as if a tension she didn't know existed was easing. Things began to click into the right grooves, and a calmness in her mind that she hadn't missed until now returned. When she opened her eyes it was fully dark. All she could see was Julian's outline.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She did a quick inventory and then grinned.  "I'm fine.  How are you?"

"Much better than yesterday," he replied and zapped up a magical light. "You'll need to practice with it, but you just need to visualize that netting and opening it a bit to utilize the energy and its powers. You could try it on the reverend. Or maybe on Marc when he pisses you off."

She laughed.  "No, I don't think so, at least not on Marc.  So, uhm," she asked, feeling stupid, "what can I do with it?"

"I'm not sure. It's dense and complex.  I think it mostly is something to do with altering physical things. Like, alchemy, only on a more basic level.  You could, I suppose, try to turn the Rev into a statue."

"You telling me I got the philosopher's stone here in my head?  Or something like that anyway?  I can turn like lead into gold?" She looked incredulous.

"Maybe. Why is that harder to believe than being able to change someone's genetics?"

Her mouth formed a little 'oh' of surprise.  "Well clearly we're going to have to experiment, then." She looked around her apartment, a speculative gleam in her eye.  "Any suggestions?"

"That seashell," he said then picked it up magically and dropped it into her lap.

She picked it up and focused inward, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth, picturing the mesh netting as he'd said and then picturing a small opening in it.  The energy flowed in a thin stream from the opening, glowing brightly in her mind.  Then she said a small prayer, reflected her insurance premiums were up to date and directed it mentally towards the seashell.  She felt the shell growing warmer and then shrinking in her hand.  When she looked at it her mouth formed another 'oh' of surprise.  She'd done it.  In her hand was a small life-like, sparkling crystal statue of Nimue. She held it out to Julian.  "Just a little thank you gift, from me to you."

Julian laughed. "And just how exactly did you manage to get THAT detail just right," he asked grinning, examining the naked statue.

"I'm good, Julian," she said smirking.  "Very good indeed.  Besides, you're the teacher."

"Okay," he said. "So, can you conjure us dinner? Just think, no cooking ever again!"

"Sure she said," getting ready focus again.  "Unless you'd rather go out for crab and lobster by the pound accompanied by cajun music?"

"I'm not sure I'm ready to risk my bodily health on your food yet. Let's go out for that lobster."

She laughed and zapped them out of there.

Marc's last vision was Dinah's pale face, wide eyed, watching him. Then his mind went into shock as the cerebral enhancement connected to his human brain. He rode out the agony of the actual connection, aware that the audio was on. Hopefully Dinah had left, but he didn't dare risk letting out a scream at this point. He passed out from the pain as he always did. Then, a moment, or maybe a lifetime later, he awoke.

His perceptions wavered, altering to suit the widened spectrums of vision, sensation, auditory stimulations the rig gave him. He opened his eyes onto the wavering colors and eerie stillness of an existence beyond anything a human should ever experience.

It was a heady experience. He'd gotten lost in it before, almost forgetting his own body back on Earth as his mind wandered the stars, experiencing the wonders and beauty and freedom of a mind released from the limits of a physical body. It was all about his dream, of a brain free of the limitations of the flesh, so that minds like his brother's wouldn't be tormented with pain and locked into a body that couldn't support its needs.  How much greater Jack might have been untied to his body... How much more could be done, could be accomplished without the  needs of the flesh, the responsibilities, the desires...

As always he floated in the nothingness and considered just leaving it all behind. Losing himself in the beauty and the peace and the painlessness of it all. No guilt, no regret.... and he vaguely began to think of a face. It wasn't clear, it was a lifetime ago. Eons ago.  He concentrated and brought the face into focus in his consciousness, the face forming against the starry backdrop of space...  Dinah's face. How she'd looked asleep before... A lifetime ago... No ..   Wait.. What.. What was it...

His mind gradually began to focus and his will fought back against the death-wish for oblivion and the minds he'd seen from Doni began to emerge and take shape.  He dragged them up out of thousands of years of memories, concentrating on them, blocking out the temptations to ... No... The children. They'd be older now. Suffering. Who had them, for what purpose?

He reached inside himself then and touched the new powers he acquired, testing them, feeling them, tasting them.  Fitting them in here, expanding his senses there, his powers, ahhh... powers... He could wreck a universe with these new powers. How interesting....

His mind wandered, then, the children momentarily forgotten as he found that instead of having to d-jump the unit through time he could just....

That was when the cryounit that held Marc's body disappeared from the shack where Reno sat watching it.   Reno jumped, as he always did. He hated that the damn thing just... dematerialized. Was Marc still alive? No earthly idea. Would he return?  Maybe, maybe not.

Reno began dialing the controls, listening trying to pick up something, some noise, some hint, some something, dammit!  He grabbed the mic hooked to the audio unit and pounded it against the desk. "Answer me dammit!" he shouted.  Nothing, there was nothing....  He fell asleep his head cradled in his arms, to exhausted to keep his eyes open longer.

It was days later, Reno having paced the shack a hundred times over.  He was outside, sitting in the moonlight, wondering what to do. There'd still been nothing from Marc. Far longer than he'd ever gone totally silent on him.  And with the genetic changes, maybe Marc had lost control of the electronics?  Was he stuck somewhere, hanging in space, dying from lack of oxygen or ... or whatever.

That was when he heard it again. A pounding, a metallic pounding. He raced inside, expecting to see the CE coffin back where it belonged, but no.. it still wasn't there.

The noise came again and he realized it was coming through the speakers connected to the equipment.

He picked up the microphone and shouted, "Marc!  Marc! Get back here!!! Here! Come home!"

Nothing there was nothing, except the intermittent metallic sounds coming from out of nothingness, with not a hint as to what it all meant. Then, suddenly, a blast of icy hurricane strength wind blew through the shack knocking Reno to the floor as it hit his chair. He grabbed at equipment as it started to crash too and fought to right it, checking the readouts madly, hoping that nothing vital was unhooked or god forbid broken... Maybe Cal could figure something out?

A second blast of icy air shot thorough the shack this time leaving behind two small somethings... They were round and had leads on them, that were broken. Reno didn't dare touch them as they were space cold, and his skin would have frozen if he'd touched the metal. He stared at them, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. Then he noticed a tiny bit of light at one end of the thing. He went to investigate and realized it looked like a ... a window?   He pulled off his shirt and tried to wipe away the frost that had formed on the glass, careful not to let his skin touch the still space cold glass. That was when he saw a .. a head?

He screamed for Tabitha.

Tabitha, who'd been doing her books, appeared on the instant, pen still in hand.  She looked at Reno and waited.

"Here," Reno yelled. "Marc sent them back. I think... I think there are kids in them! Babies maybe be. Look!"  he pointed to the tiny window now clearing of frost.

She moved then, looking.  "I'll take care of them, you get him back," was all she said as she drew power to her, delicately, gently, with infinite care, her need too important to hurry.  Then she used it as if it were a can opener and sheared the tops off each container.  When they were open she drew each baby gently out, lifting them as lightly as thistledown up and into her arms.  As soon as she had them secure she was gone.

Reno picked up the mic and yelled into the nothingness, "We've got 'em! Come home! Marc, come home!"

Marc, although Reno didn't know it, couldn't know it, heard. He was trying to get home, but he'd used the last of his strength to send the babies back. He was sitting somewhere, in the black nothingness between worlds, between times, outside of normal space. His energies were spent, the nutrients not good enough for his enhanced brain power. He was dying.

But he'd gotten them back. And there was that. He felt a thrill of pleasure that he'd managed it.

Tabitha, meanwhile, had re-entered the infirmary calling for Doni loud enough to be heard in the next county...mentally anyway.  She handed the boy off to her and went to work on the girl, flowing into her, bringing warmth and energy, clearing her tiny body of chemicals as fast as she dared, then manually restarted her heart and lungs.  They didn't want to restart, so Tabitha stayed with her, managing her autonomic nervous system while she checked every last molecule of her.  She'd held this tiny woman-child within days of her birth, and she'd been perfect then, and she still was.  The cyrogenic suspension had stopped time for her, but it hadn't damaged her at all.  As soon as her heart remembered how to beat she'd fine.

Doni, as familiar with Christopher as his mother had been from treating his baby illnesses, was performing her own evaluation, and reaching the same conclusion.  She wrapped him warmly and settled down to wait, holding him close and crooning to him as she rocked him gently, her mind filled with memories of his mother.

Back at the shack Reno was near to panic. He had one last hope, the dead man switch that would recall the CE rig from wherever it was. He went to hit it when suddenly one side of the shack began to disintegrate. A dragon roared and Reno jumped, trying to save equipment again. Quinn, hearing Cola's frightened call, reached for Dinah's mind, mentally shouting for her NOW!

Dinah, fencing with Julian just dropped her rapier and was gone, leaving Julian shaking his head.  She reappeared at the shack, took one look at Cola and told Quinn to get Kalket and Morrigan to take care of Cola.  Then, her heart in her mouth, she looked at Reno.  "Is he...is he...?" and couldn't get the word out past suddenly numb lips.

"He's sent the kids home. Tabitha has them. But I can't get a sign from him. I've only got one shot at getting him back, Dinah. I've no idea where he is. How far away he is, what he needs, or if I can give him any help."  Reno was pale, as he kept scanning the readouts. "He's alive, I think. But his vitals aren't good."

"What do you need me to do?" was all she said, her mind already searching for his in a way she didn't understand and didn't try to.

"I dunno," Reno wailed. "I can hit the switch, but it could kill him. It'll bring the CE rig home, and maybe destroy him as it does. Can you hear him? You two are connected right? I can't hear him. Never could when he's off in that thing."

Dinah barely heard him, all her attention focused on what her mind was doing.  It was like she was looking at a monitor and points of light were appearing and disappearing as it scanned some dimension she'd never imagined.  As it did she began to have an overwhelming sense that she needed something, some pattern to show this part of herself that she'd never known before.  Without consciously willing it, her hand lifted, palm upward and the sigil began glowing, a fiery gold and silver and a helix arose that she immediately understood was Marc's.  As it suspended itself the screen in her mind began shifting faster and faster in front of her inner eye, the points of light blurring and finally resolving into, becoming one.

Dinah felt him jump into her consciousness. He was barely aware. When he felt her, she sensed a mind smile.

A smile curved her mouth as she felt it.  She *read* the monitor in her mind in a way she didn't understand and she had him, she knew precisely where he was.  "Reno," she called out, "he's here," and began feeding him a series of vector gradients that identified Marc's location in the space-time reality she'd been searching.

Despite the wreckage of the shack and Cola still having a hissy fit outside, Reno managed to input the numbers into the navigational computers and then hit the enter key.

The hardware began to whine and he and Dinah exchanged a look. "Is he... okay?" he asked worriedly.

"He's alive, exhausted and very weak, but alive,"  she told him, most of her mind still with Marc.

"It's returning," Reno said after a minute. "Thank God, he's coming back."  The shack shuddered and suddenly the CE rig materialized.  Reno jumped toward it, and began hitting buttons on the side of the thing. which retracted the cover revealing Marc lying there, his eyes still closed.  Reno stepped over and began removing the helmet, and Dinah watched as the needles pulled out of Marc's brain and flesh, leaving a series of bloody spots along his forehead.

As soon as he appeared Cola shoved her head inside, forcing her way in until she had her nose right over him, totally unbothered by the vile smell of the liquid he'd been laying in.  Her appearance shook Dinah out of her trance and back to reality.  She looked Marc over and then made room for Kalket, who was glad to leave over dragon pacifying and check out his friend.

Dinah met his eyes as he finished.  "His house, I think?" she said.

"Yeah, if we can stand the smell," Kalket replied. Cola trumpeted alerting all the dragons that he was home.

Dinah laughed and zapped him back to his aerie, where she cleaned him off with a thought and then put him to bed, Kal helping, content to sit with him until he woke.