Episode Two
SISTA TWO
Chapter Three
FAMILY ENCOUNTER
Max
had heard as skin connected with skin. “Logan!” she shouted.
She could not hear any response and so she said more calmly, “Logan.
You there?” Panicking due to
Logan’s lack of response, Max scrambled towards the cabin, careful not to be
seen by whoever is inside. She pleaded for Logan to be okay as she raced towards the
house as silently as she could, trying to listen carefully to the sounds of the
people inside. There were two of
them, she now knew. Logan must be
unconscious. Bracing herself, she
walked up the stairs - the same route that Logan took – and kicked the door
Logan opened a while ago. A fist
would have collided on Max’s face had she not anticipated it.
Catching the fist, she turned, twisting the arms of her assailant as she
kicked the girl aiming to punch her. The
girl fell before she gasped, “Max!”
At
that Max took her eyes off Logan, who was lying unconscious on the floor,
already tied up. She looked at the
girl and a look of recognition came over her face, “Jhondy!”
She immediately let go of the arm she has been twisting and faced the guy
whose arms are hurting by now. “Zane!”
Max hugged him and then Johndy.
They
all said simultaneously, “What are you doing here?” and laughed.
Then
Max, whose thoughts are still on Logan despite seeing 2 of her siblings, ran
towards Logan. “Oh God, Logan!” she said as a look of pain crossed her face.
She opened his jacket and looked through his shirt.
“Jhondy! I need you here.
Fast.”
Jhondy
was immediately beside her followed by Zane. “You know this guy?”
she asked as Max started lifting Logan’s shirt with her leather gloved
hands.
“Check
his stitches. Check for any sign of
bleeding.”
Johndy’s
hands closed over Max’s frantic ones. “Max.”
Max was still checking Logan’s wound. “Max!”
Max looked up as Jhondy said, “Zane only hit him on the face.
It’s okay.” She
noticed a bullet wound was stitched up at Logan’s lower rib.
Max
brought Logan’s shirt down on his chest and immediately walked over to Johndy
and Zane. “Been here long?” she
asked.
“Long
enough, sis.” Zane replied. He
hugged Max again as he said, “it’s nice to see you again.”
“Same
here.”
“What
are you doing here Max?” Jhondy asked curiously.
She
motioned towards Logan, “I… We… we’re looking for this cabin. Some things that might be helpful to us.”
“What’s
up?” asked Zane.
Max
repelled his question with another of her own, “Been here long?”
Jhondy
replied, “No.”
Zane
picked it up from there, “We’ve been on the move soon people became aware of
transgenics. The barcode’s been
harder to keep. We met each other a
few miles from here when we were on our way to Canada.
Police are all over the border and we just couldn’t risk it so we had
decided to camp here for a while… until this all dies down.”
“Who’s
the guy?” Jhondy asked.
Max
looked momentarily at Logan, her eyes softening as she does so.
This did not go by Jhondy and Zane unnoticed, “Logan.
We’ve been trying to track some leads and well… it led us here.
Do you have an ice pack in here?”
Zane
and Jhondy looked at each other and Jhondy motioned at Zane who volunteered,
“I’ll get it!” he ran down as
Jhondy looked at Max, waiting for her to say something.
“Do
you mind if we lift him up towards the bed?
I can do it on my own, but the wound and all…”
Jhondy
replied, “Not a damn bit.” They
carried Logan, careful not to cause any more damage to his stitches.
Zane
emerged with an icepack and carried it over as Jhondy invited Max to go outside
and into the living room, “Zane can take care of him. He’s the one who gave him that whack in the head, after
all.” Max nodded in understanding
as she went down with Jhondy.
<
LIVING ROOM DOWNSTAIRS >
“This
lead that you were talking about, what is it?” Jhondy asked.
Max
walked over the window and saw the same horses that she saw that morning.
“Those yours? They’re beautiful. We’ve
been trying to track a guy named Sandeman.
He was from Manticore and he -”
“I
don’t wanna talk about it.” With that, Jhondy stood up
“We
can’t escape it, Jhondy.” Was Max’s calm reply.
She turned to look at Jhondy. “We’ve tried. And look at us now, we’re all on the run just as we were in
’09.”
“Damn
the place!”
max
let the silence hang before she continued.
“Sandeman was in Manticore. He
made us… he placed something in me in particular. Something weird in my freakin’ genes. But that’s not all...”
She sat in front of Jhondy and proceeded to tell her about Ames White and
the breeding cult, including the selective breeding to which White subjected his
son to. “This cult is the one
responsible for all this bitch against transgenics.
They’re out to kill us… to kill me… and I have to find out why.”
“And
this guy… Logan. Where does he
fit in in all of this?” Jhondy looked intently at her sister, the subtle
flicker of Max’s eyes at the mention of Logan’s name making her wonder just
how much this guy is important to her sister.
“He…
he’s helping me… has been for two years now.
I was caught. We had this
mission of bringing down Manticore a year ago – Syl and Krit were there,”
Max’s eyes flickered for another instant, “Zack too… and Lydecker.”
She told Jhondy about how they blew up the gene lab, about how they had
to get away due to a breech in the security system… how she got shot and so
did Zack… how she was taken back by Manticore and stayed there for three
months till she escaped… how Logan was exposing Manticore throughout that
time… Max started fidgeting with her hands, “…They injected a virus into
me targeted to his DNA – to kill him.”
“Oh
God!” A look of
understanding came across Jhondy’s face.
“Almost two years ago… there was this guy who warned us… It was
him, wasn’t he?” Jhondy stared
at Max, “You don’t have to answer that, I already know.”
Max smiled up at Jhondy gratefully.
“This Sandeman… what exactly are you looking for?”
“We
don’t know. Notes? Experiments? He
left Manticore in a hurry. He also
left his house in Seattle in a hurry.”
“Wait.
There is a laboratory down the basement – second basement actually.
Looked pretty much like Manticore stuff, but it’s a bit too old now.
Zane saw it when we checked out the place.”
Max
stood up, “Can we go?” Jhondy
led the way towards the basement.
Max
and Jhondy went down into the basement. A
normal person would not have seen anything, but the two transgenics scanned the
dark, musky room. Looking around,
Max could see nothing of significance inside the room so she looked
questioningly at Jhondy. Jhondy,
motioned for her to follow her and they went at the back of the stairs where
Jhondy pushed the wall slowly and they heard the faint click to indicate a lock
had been opened. Hondy opened the
wall to reveal a large metal door guarded by a traditional bank vault. Using their enhanced hearing abilities, Jhondy turned the
clock as the two listened carefully to the clicking sound. After turning the wheel 3 times to opposite directions, a
gust of wind indicated that the pressure from the big vault had been released
and they were now free to enter. At
that, Jhondy pushed the door open and turned on the light as Max stared in
amazement at the laboratory equipment present
in this personal laboratory. Test
tubes could be found everywhere, including preservation machines housing
different kinds of genes, gene splicing machines, microscopes, a table, papers
scattered everywhere – preserved for 22 years.
The room looked like it had never been touched.
Max went to walk around the room scanning each equipment as Jhondy went
onto the board to stare at the matrix drawn on it.
It had the Manticore symbol and the Breeding cult symbols, which Jhondy
naturally did not recognize. Between
these two symbols were designations – Zach’s were the first and then the
rest of the X5 escapees were there, even Eva and Jack -, but what caught her eye
was that Max’s designation was encircled… with arrows joining the breeding
cult and Manticore.
“Max!”
Jhondy called out. Max, who was nearing the table turned to walk over to Jhondy
hearing the urgency and the surprise on her voice. “We’re all here. What
does this mean?” Scanned the
board and saw her designation encircled in red ink.
“I think we’ve found our link.”
***********
Author's Notes here
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