Part 3

Open Space, 10:41 PM

Klaxons screamed all over the area as Max caught up with Zack. The flaming remains of the

helicopter still lay amid the burned-out fuel barrels, but in destroying the chopper they had alerted the

whole base.

"Zack, that was crazy!" Max half-screamed. "Now we've woken everyone up and they're going

to be pissed!"

"Well that gives us incentive to be faster!" Zack said, smiling insanely, and leaping toward the

building labeled "B."

Building B, 10:42 PM

Flanked by four elite troops, Lydecker walked up a flight of stairs to emerge from the

underground C&C facility. Colonel Stanfill had remained behind, to keep an eye on things, but

Lydecker wanted to be there when the Manticore escapees were dealt with. He smiled at the thought.

The one who led the escape would be the first to be recaptured. He made a mental note to find out

how exactly Zack had survived Lydecker's attempt to kill him ten years in the past.

He was unprepared to find the person in question burst through a heavy metal door, squeezing

the trigger of a M-16 rifle. Two of Lydecker's guards went down while Lydecker and the two

survivors ducked into a room, weapons at ready. Max came up behind him, bearing no weapon but

eager to go at it hand-to-hand. Zack removed a grenade from his coat and rolled it next to the

doorway in which Lydecker and his men had taken shelter. After a few moments, the bomb detonated.

Lydecker staggered out of the room a moment later, bleeding from several shrapnel wounds.

Groans from within indicated that Lydecker's guards had been wounded.

"Time to die, Lydecker," Zack said, raising his rifle. "Any last words?"

"Yes," Lydecker said, his voice sinister as always. "Look behind you."

"Do you think I'll fall for that one?" Zack said. "Is that it?"

Gunfire roared and Zack was sent spinning forward, struck in the back by several M-16 rounds.

His rifle clattered to the ground next to Max, who was apparently not a high priority target. Max

looked to see several soldiers running down the corridor, guns at ready. She was too far from them to

leap amongst them and defeat them in hand-to-hand combat and the gun was next to her. She

remembered her refusal to take the weapon offered to her by Logan, remembered the night of the

escape where a similar choice had been presented.

Ah hell. She picked up Zack's gun and opened fire at full automatic at the soldiers. Three of

them collapsed and the remainder ducked, firing back. "Move!" Max said, leaping back to a spot

between Zack and Lydecker. Zack staggered to his feet. "Bad shotnearly hit my heart and killed me

outright." He slowly took a grenade from his coat and threw it back, scattering the government forces.

Both Zack and Max looked at Lydecker. Lydecker just stared back, statement neutral.

"You can't win."

The grenade went off a moment later, killing at least one of the survivors of Max's attack. Still,

more soldiers were pouring into the building and Lydecker just stood there, looking superior.

Two grenades rattled down the corridor. "Run," Zack said, snatching up his rifle. Zack and Max

dashed away from the fragmentation grenades, leaving Lydecker standing there. He just smiled in an

insidiously evil way and stepped back into the room where his two wounded still lay. The grenades

detonated, leaving dozens of fragments embedded in the walls, but didn't hit the targets.

Building B's Roof, 10:46 PM

Zack and Max burst onto the roof of the building only to see trouble brewing. Several

Humm-Vees loaded with soldiers were heading for the building and two helicopters were in the air.

The two of them looked around and saw no exits other than the heavy electrified gate, which was

closed. Death was all around them and there was no way out.

"Max, you go," Zack said. "I'll distract them."

"Self-sacrificing to the end," Max said. "Why do this? We can both get out of here,

somehow"

"Go!" Zack shouted, tossing Max off the roof. She flipped in midair to land on her feet, cursing

the man who tried to save her. A grenade arced through the air above her head, landing on the roof of

a troop-carrying Jeep. It exploded, tearing through the flimsy metal roof, killing its occupants, and

igniting the fuel tank. The blazing vehicle spun into the path of another, the collision temporarily delaying

the inflow of troops. Max inhaled, then dashed away from the carnage. If they were all going after

Zack, they might miss her.

But then what? Then, she thought of the truck that brought her and Zack into the compound. If

he could commandeer the truck and crash it through the fence

The truck was there, parked just inside the fence. All she had to do was get to it. She set off on a

dead run towards the truck when two soldiers opened fire on her from the left. The two were

interposed between her and the truck and were standing next to each other. She turned and leaped,

spreading her legs slightly to kick both of them in the heads and smashed both of their noses. Both of

them crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Max flipped up from their prostrate forms and continued

her dash towards the truck.

Building B's Interior, 10:45 PM

Lydecker heard the explosions and knew that eventually his people would triumph. Zack and

Max were only two people and despite their genetic enhancements, they would be overwhelmed and

crushed. He winced at the sudden, stabbing pain in his shrapnel wounds as he smiled, but he dismissed

it.

Ten years of searching now drawing to a close. For a decade, since the night of the escape, he'd

been searching for those escaped children. Those children were young men and women now, but he

still thought of them as those damned brats who escaped his clutches those few months before the

Pulse. Those children were the prototypes of a new breed of warriors who were faster, stronger,

better than ordinary troops and if the plan had succeeded, there'd be special units of them deployed

with every major military force.

Tonight, the first of those who escaped would either be captured or killed. Tonight, one sixth of

those who got away ten long years ago would be dealt with and only ten would be left. At the rate he

was going, Lydecker would never see the rest brought it but it comforted him slightly to know that he

began the process of redemption for himself and the Manticore program.

Roof of Building B, 10:46 PM

Zack pulled the pin of a grenade, counted to three, and tossed it. The grenade impacted the

canopy of a Blackhawk chopper a mere instant before it went off. The explosion tore through the glass

and ripped the pilot into pieces. The helicopter lurched to the side and began a slow angular descent

that ended when it crashed into a nearby building exploded.

"Two choppers down in one day, using only grenades," Zack said through bloody teeth. "I'm

good."

He was also injured. Two chain-gun shells were lodged in his stomach and four M-16 rounds

were scattered throughout his body. Several grenade fragments were embedded in his flesh and his

healing factor was working overtime in order to avoid death. Still, he had to buy time for Max to

escape and if that meant fighting an entire army to the death, so be it.

He saw the food truck beginning to pull away from its parking spot, its rear door partway open

with food crates spilling out. Max had apparently commandeered that truck and was going to ram the

gate. Zack smiled a bit as he tossed his last grenade at a squad of soldiers that had ducked behind an

overturned Jeep. He was now completely out of ammunition and it was time to move. He tossed the

empty rifle aside and leaped off the building onto a third Blackhawk's skids, hanging on for dear life.

The soldiers on the ground wouldn't shoot at him for fear of damaging their own helicopter.

The Gate, 10:46 PM

Max leaped out of an open window of the truck onto the road that led to the gate. As soon as

she landed, she stopped to watch her handiwork.

The multi-ton truck smashed through the electrified gate with a roar. Huge showers of sparks

flew everywhere and blue lances of electricity sparked from nearby metal wreckage. The presence of a

massive object made of a conducting material suddenly interfering with the electrified defenses had

apparently overloaded the generators.

Explosions flared somewhere in the base as smoke began to rise from other areas of the fortress.

Max looked briefly to pinpoint the origins of the explosions, then dismissed them as non-threatening.

She turned her attention to the truck. The massive vehicle had smashed down the heavy steel gate and

slewed to the side, totaling one of the chain-guns. Her motorcycle still stood off to the side,

undamaged. She began to run towards freedom, then stopped and looked around.

Where was Zack? The battle was no longer raging around building B, so he was either dead or

had moved on. She didn't really have time to look for him. She jumped over the twisted cab of the

vehicle and ran to her bike. She jumped onto it and squeezed the starter, setting the engine roaring. She

kicked the gas and sped off into the night as chaos raged in Fort Jefferson.

Fort Jefferson Command and Control Center, 11:00 PM

"Have we found the man or the woman?" Lydecker asked as he hobbled in. He had his wounds

attended to, but he was still a little unsteady. "This is very important."

"No," Colonel Stanfill said. "We're still in the process of restoring power to the blacked-out

areas of the base and putting out fires. Those two really did a job on us. We've lost three helicopters,

five Jeeps or Humm-Vees, and forty-five soldiers. The General will not be pleased."

"I know that, Colonel. The good news is that at least Manticore was successful. Two soldiers

did a great deal of damage to a major military force that, ten years ago, wiped out a massive Iraqi

force twice its size and managed to escape." Lydecker shook his head. "Things fall apart."

"Yes sir."

Space Needle, 1:00 AM

"Well," Max said to herself as she looked out over the city from the dilapidated structure that

was once the biggest tourist draw in the city before the Pulse. "Those were an interesting two days.

Zack shows up out of nowhere and we barely get reacquainted when he has us go off on a suicide

mission and he disappears." She sniffed slightly. "Life sucks."

"Not necessarily," a weary-sounding voice said. Max turned to see Zack standing up on the

Space Needle, holding himself upright by one of the struts. His coat was riddled with bullet holes and

his eyes were bloodshot. He looked thinner and more ragged than when she first saw him. "I figured

you'd be up here, so I came."

Max's eye's widened. "You survived?"

Zack nodded. "I managed to skyjack a helicopter and fly it away. By the time they managed to

pull themselves together, I was long gone. I traded the chopper and the weapons and the corpses of all

the dead soldiers to a bunch of sinister-looking characters who had a lot of money and a lot of scary

tatoos for a little over fifteen grand, which I'll need where I'm going."

"Where are you going? I thought you might want to hang around for awhile."

Zack shook his head. "No. Now Lydecker knows that we've linked up and even with his

resources damaged in our attack, he's still dangerous. I'm going to go away for awhile."

"Where?"

"To California. I've always wanted to see Los Angeles, even before the Pulse."

Max changed the subject. "You look sick. Perhaps you should eat something."

Zack shook his head. "I absorbed so much damage during tonight's little exercise that my body

is devoting all its energies to keeping me alive. I've already had a ridiculous quantity of burgers and a

large milkshake, purchased with a fairly sizable piece of my newfound wealth. Food prices are kinda

high these days. That has apparently stopped a metabolic meltdown but I've got a long way to go

before I can fully regenerate myself. That's why I think I'll take a little vacation. You know, maybe I'll

be an actor."

"Good luck. The movie industry is in the tank these days." With the Pulse-induced economic

depression, few people could afford to see movies and there were correspondingly few features. The

theaters had taken to running vintage 20th Century films at cut-rate prices to keep from going under,

since the newer films were incredibly expensive.

"Who knows? Shirley Temple and Charlie Chaplin made their whole careers during the last

major economic screwup, so why can't I?" Zack sighed. "I've had enough of war and death and

killing. Forty separate engagements during the early post-Pulse anachy plus the recent chaos. I believe

I've killed over two hundred and fifty people and if I needed sleep, I probably wouldn't be able to get

any. It's time for a change of pace."

"My, someone's developing a conscience."

"Yes, I guess I am. Well, it was nice knowing you." Zack turned around and walked to an open

window of the Observation Deck that both of them used to get onto the roof. "See you later." He slid

himself through the window and was gone. Max knew that within a few moments, he'd be climbing

down the huge service ladder that went up the length of the Needle. She shook her head.

"Goodbye," she said softly. She waited a few minutes, then went to the window. She'd stop by

Logan's place and see if he had anything he wanted her to do, like beat up a drug dealer or intercept

an arms shipment. Either that or she'd find some wealthy guy's estate and steal his silverware. Either

way, life went on.

The End

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