John opened his eyes to see the Council Leader locking the heavy bolt on the safe room door. To his right Selena was still unconscious, Leon fighting against his bindings to his left. The Council Leader walked down the stairs slowly. "You have been a serious pain in my ass, I do have to give you that 590." He walked a bit closer to John and then nodded to a man standing behind Leon that elbowed him to make him stop fighting the ropes.

The Council Leader put his hand on the gag that was stopping John from just telling the man to kill himself. "Before I take this out and have a conversation with you, know that there is a man right behind you that has a gun pointed at your dear friends and will blow their brains out if you try anything."

He pulled out the gag and John sputtered. "How in the hell did you find us?"

The Council Leader laughed. "You probably thought you were so clever controlling Berty." He shook his head. "I sent two men to each of a list of locations over the last few days. One pair of them spotted you going into this house, but came back to me when they saw the security. At the mall, another pair spotted you. I told them to get one of them seen. That was Berty. The other watched you. He saw that you had to be facing them to control him and the clerk. Then another pair saw that your good buddy Leon here had gone to see one of his old pals. He should be dead right about..." He looked down at his watch. "Now."

John shook his head. "But how did you get in here?"

"We intercepted the call between you and Leon. It doesn't take a genius to know that at some point you are going to need to communicate again, so we just waited." Stevens told him.

John stared at the man. "What do you want?"

Stevens sighed. "Honestly? I just want you out of the damn way. I am making huge strides and then you have to go and kidnap Selena here." He shook his head.

John looked around. "Then why haven't you killed me yet?"

Now the Council Leader laughed. "Oh how I wish we could. Unfortunately, you are too useful for that. Besides, it's too messy."

John didn't know what to do. "Then what are we doing now?"

An awful smile crept onto Stevens' face. "Now we are waiting for Selena to wake up."

True to his word, they waited and then Selena started to stir. "Rise and shine sweetheart." Stevens said to her. It twisted John's insides not to be able to stop him. If he had some way to spin around the chair he was tied to he could stop the guy with the gun behind him, but it was no use.

Selena looked terrified. "I'm so sorry Daddy." She cried.

Stevens pulled out a needle. "It's unfortunate that we need to go back to the stone age with this, but oh well."

Selena struggled with her bonds, but Stevens injected her with whatever was in the syringe. "There we go. At least MK49 doesn't stab you in the back like 591 does." He said to no one in particular. He looked at his watch and then when he had decided the concoction had been floating around her bloodstream long enough he looked into her eyes. "Wipe Subject 590's memory and command him to be completely obedient to me."

John started to really get scared when she nodded. Stevens turned her chair to face John. She looked into his eyes.

For the third time, he saw it. Her eyes were a pool, but now there was something drifting in it. He dived in, but this time he stayed underwater. He pulled out whatever was tainting the pool and then saw a shift in her eyes. It was like she had been half asleep and then snapped awake.

John hadn't left her pool though. He could feel her mind flowing around him. "Blink twice if you can hear me." John said in his mind, trying to hold himself under the water. She blinked three times, but it had also cut off his access to her mind. Duh. Luckily she was quick to think.

"Forget everything John. You are now completely obedient to Council Leader Stevens" She said to him, making it sound like she was controlling him.

He quickly reconnected to her mind. "When I turn left and control the guy behind Leon, I need to make the guy behind me shoot the guy behind you. Can you do that?" He thought to her.

This time her heard a faint. "Yeah." She was learning this as quick as she could.

He turned his head left and looked the gunman behind Leon in the eyes. "Shoot Stevens in the leg." At the same time he heard Selena tell the man behind him to shoot the gunman behind her. There were two incredibly loud blasts and Stevens fell the the ground and the man behind Selena dropped.

John had planned on telling the man to shoot the gunman behind John next, but they couldn't hear him because of the ringing in their ears. Before the man behind John had the chance to kill him, John jumped into the man behind Leon's mind.

"Shoot the other gunman and then free the three of us and hand Leon your gun."

There was another bang and then the gunman started cutting all the ropes. As soon as Leon was freed he took the pistol and then ran over to the two other gunmen writhing on the ground and kicked their guns away from them. Then he held the gun towards Stevens. The ringing in John's ears was starting to dissipate.

He looked at the man who was still standing. "Call an ambulance and tell them that there was a shooting and that there are two injured. You are going to stay with them and do your best to make sure that they don't die. Make sure you tell the police that you three committed a failed attempt at murder and kidnapping. Then, after you admit to your crimes you are going to forget the three of us." John said something similar to the two rolling around on the ground.

He was about to handle Stevens when the man started laughing. Blood trickling down his chin. The gunman opened up the safe room door and called the police, but as he did, the two named ones walked in. One had his eyes closed, the other had his ears covered.

"You can only control one of them John. Can you kill a man or are you going to play nice. Or have this entire town leveled, that's always an option." The Council Leader held his hand over his wound and tried to stand.

Leon turned to make the decision himself, but Stevens slammed into his legs and tried for the gun. Leon kept his gun trained on him after that. "Of course, you can't kill me because you want to put me in front of the Eld." He said you John and Leon. "But if you don't keep that gun trained on me I will try something." Leon's finger twitched on the trigger and he quickly added, "And you can't shoot me or brainwash me or the named ones will kill you before you can turn to them. If you tell one of them not to kill you, the other one will and you don't have the balls to make them kill anyone."

"Selena. Why don't you just save everyone the trouble and just do as I told you?" He said to her. "Then we can go back down to the lab. If you are good, I will be gentle with you, I promise."

The way he said it sent John's stomach lurching. He didn't hesitate. He didn't jump into the named one's mind. He just sent a command towards him so strongly that the named one physically shook.

Tear that scum atom from atom.

As the Council Leader turned to dust, Leon spun around. "Shit!" He put a bullet in each of the named one's heads before they could kill everyone. He definitely had a military background.

John was still shaking with rage when he vomited all over the floor. He just killed a man.