This story starts just after the Pulse. Before Max and Logan have met. It jumps around, back and forth between times, events and episodes. Logan is paralized in the beginning, then it skips a beat. Self-explainatory. It started as a Logan/Max story, somewhere did a lil flip-flop, and one of the background characters decided she wanted to live. If you hate the story, shoot my muse. Email is very welcome, I may not post the rest of the story if no one takes an interest.

Email: [email protected]

Chapter One

‘The Coffee Shop’ was a small shop that like most of Seattle, had seen better days. The coffee was watered down, lukewarm, and sweetened with something that wasn’t sugar, it was also damned expensive and served from the finest cracked china cups.
Lexa stirred the stuff, watching the street from her table in a dark corner, her back to the wall.
It was a gray day, the sky was thinking about raining but didn’t really want to, just a rumble of thunder now and then.
A day to think about the future maybe, and consider moving on.
Thoughtfully, she sipped her cold coffee, and her eyes drifted to the street, and took note of the figure standing across the street, just out of sight unless you really looked. Long coat, hat shadowing the face.
Interesting.
The watcher had been shadowing her for days, just out of sight, but Lexa felt the presence and once she had stopped walking, and turned around ready to challenge the person... and found an empty street.
Now the watcher was back.
In her line of work, it wasn’t wise to let someone watch you for too long and survive to talk about it. It also stung her pride to know that she was apparently so easy to follow, even though lately the work was slow and she wasn’t actively staying out of sight.
He could be a potential client, but she didn’t take contracts in person-she prefered the security of anonymity such as it was.
Lexa frowned slightly. The watcher was approaching, and had entered the coffee shop.
She looked up, watching them directly, muscles tensing.
Easy girl, probly just a perv.
The watcher paid at the counter, picked up a mug and headed for her table, straight as an arrow.
"May I sit?" A man’s voice.
"There are twenty tables, pick another one." Lexa answered.
"If I did that, I couldn’t give you a message that will be very helpful to you."
Lexa shrugged. "You can spill it standing then, and move on."
He put a hand into a pocket, and did it slow, watching her. A second later he produced a cellphone. "My employer wishes me to tell you he can pay you well for some assistance. If you are interested, press 1, tonight at 7pm."
She looked at the cellphone without reaching for it. "Cellphones can be tracked. They can also explode, resulting in a messy situation. As for employment possibilities, I require more info, and you call me." She reached in her jacket, withdrew one of her black cards with a silver number on it, flipped it across the table. There was no name on the card, and the number was a payphone. "I’m available in the vicinity of the number at 7am, noon, and midnight. I decide if I’ll take your contract within twenty four hours, I arrange a drop for half the agreed on amount before I move. Understood?"
The watcher hesitated, then dialed the cellphone himself. "Yes sir, as you expected. My employer would like a word with you." He held out the cellphone.
This time she took it. "Speak."
The voice was mechanical, echoing. Voice-synth. "I know much about you, Lexa. I would like to meet you."
"For what purpose?"
"You are looking for a purpose. I need someone to help me find answers, and you are very intelligent. You need not stay if my offer does not interest you."
Lexa regarded the watcher. "I suppose chuckles will take me right to you, right?"
"Correct."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Sebastian."

Lexa was careful to memorize the area, the map to the building, and the map of the inner building. The watcher kept the hat on, and didn’t speak, which was fine with her.
She stepped through a couple more doors and into what was obviously a lab. Computers, and a small clean room/surgical area that made her nervous immediately.
She came to a stop before the only occupant besides Chuckles, and Chuckles turned and left.
"Hello Lexa. Please sit down." The voice-synth came from a speaker, and it was obvious the wheelchair bound man was the source.
She scanned the room. "Just for your info, if this is some sort of trap..." She trailed off, seeing that he was smiling vaguely.
"No trap. You have an interest in a friend of mine. Max. You are too old to be from Manticore, who are you?"
Lexa studied his eyes, at the mention of Max every muscle tensed. She was careful not to let him see her reaction. "If you know I’ve taken an interest, then you know I’m not trying to hurt Max. What interest do you have in Max and Manticore?"
"I have an interest in many things. I would like to help Max. I would like to help you as well, if you would explain how you are connected to Max."
"Define the job you spoke of."
"I need, a researcher. Someone to do my leg work. Occasionally to be my eyes and ears. In return I will tell you where Max is."
"Okay. In return for legwork for one month, I get info. Is that satisfactory?" Lexa told him. "I make no promises that I will remain in Seattle for long-it’s my way to keep moving."
"Yes, that will be satisfactory." Sebastian intoned.
He began to explain who he was, what his interest was in Manticore, what info he would need.
She went on her first ‘legwork’ task, gathering research in a library’s dust-covered volumes. Easy work, nice guy. Too bad she was going to have to kill him, too bad he had no idea he was her real job.

Logan Cale was sweating.
He cursed the sweat and the feeling of exhaustion that was starting to overcome him despite his stubborn effort to keep pushing, keep going.
Just a twitch, just a little twitch.
A mental shout, at his feet, just a toe.
C’mon!
Nothing. His toes just remained still, dead pieces of-
From the other room, a computer began to beep shrilly in the silence of the penthouse apartment. The sound meant that his global searches had found something interesting, it could be some scum taking advantage of someone, it could mean that one of his databases had come up with something useless - a hit on a word in a Boolean search.
Logan reflected on the last hundred false alarms as he levered himself back into his wheelchair with hands that only slightly shook. He was already feeling stronger as he wheeled into the computer room, privately, he connected his body’s fast recovery powers of late to a rather interesting transfusion just a few months ago... a valuable donation from a friend.
Glancing at the data displayed on the ‘hit’ screen, his smile faded.
Maybe it was time to pay his friend back.
He sighed as the info sunk in. If he shared this, he’d lose her, maybe forever. Was it worth that?

The city was laid out like sparkling diamonds on a spider’s web, all lights and brightness from high up-so you couldn’t see the scum on the streets below.
Not scum, enemies, Lexa corrected herself.
It was a ritual that made her feel safer when she moved into unfamiliar territory.
Remember your training, remember that if given the chance they will dissect you like a squirming bug.
The anger, just under the surface of the calmness she ordinarily effected, bubbled up for an instant, only an instant, and her hand clenched. Something resisted in her palm for a split second, and when she opened her hand a broken and bent piece of metal fell onto the roof.
She watched it fall, then kicked it into a shadow. It was from her harness, a small but important clamp that worked as a ‘brake’ to slow her descent.
She didn’t bother unclamping her harness, she just tore it off, relieving her frustration, and let it fall to the rooftop, cables still attached.
It’s okay, I’ll just have to use the front door more often, hanging from a cable always made me feel too vulnerable anyway.
With a shrug, she walked to the edge, automatically calculated distance, and jumped.
Red hair billowing in the downdraft, she landed on the much-lower rooftop, and headed for the door to the stairs.
In a few floors, she found herself in a hallway littered with refuse.
The door she sought wouldn’t be locked with more than a chain or perhaps a shaky deadbolt -no squatter ever recieved a key to a place they lived in, but she knew better than to actually go in.
She walked past, her feet not making a sound, nodding at the closed door.
According to Sebastian, Max’s door.
She wasn’t interested in seeing her, at least not yet.
The elevator didn’t work obviously, but the doors were open revealing to her darksight a few thick cables and some wires, it was a small shaft, tight squeeze. Just five or ten floors. Could be fun, besides getting a little dirty it would be fast, just in case. Preparation, for the minuscule chance she was seen.
What’s a lil dirt, half this city looks like they forgot what plumbing is anyway. For once, I’ll fit right in.
She jumped, reaching with complete confidence. Her hands closed around the largest cable, she slid faster than she’d wanted on the greased cable and her darksight informed her a little too late that this particular cable ended rather abruptly a few floors too soon. She made a grab, missed, fell hard, knocking the wind from her lungs but still ending up in a defensive crouch.
Old wargames die hard, she thought, then bit her lip.
The shakes again, damnit.
She stood, leaned on the wall long enough to pry open the elevator doors and crawl out, then summoned her remaining strength and began to make her way home.

Weeks passed, and many things changed.
Lexa had developed a friendship with Sebastian, wise or not. She found him to be intelligent, witty, and in many ways her superior. It wouldn’t have surprised her to find that he knew when she cancelled the contract that had been her purpose for finding him in the first place. She returned the payment she’d taken in advance with a smile, and let the client know the target was now under her protection-it was no idle threat on her part. The client could try to target her, or let it slide. She decided to watch her ass.

"Logan. Me, hittin’ you back." Max said into the phone with a sultry smile. She ignored the people, the typical noise from the marketplace, and the fact that returning this page would slow her down from the six deliveries Normal had piled on her.
"Max, I found something..." Logan’s voice informed her, and she read the sounds like a map, isolating emotions, stress. "It’s about your family."
Max felt her face go pale. "I’ll be there in a few. Gotta bounce a few packages."
"Okay. Don’t be long."
"Right." She replied, hanging up.

Forty-five minutes and ten packages lighter, she rang Logan’s doorbell. As she waited she replayed their phone conversation repeatedly. Could Logan really have found one of her brothers or sisters?
She turned the knob, saw it wasn’t locked and walked in.
"Logan?"
"In here."
There was a photo on the monitors, pretty face, red curly hair, eyes closed.
Logan turned in his chair. "This is a ID scan, request for info on a patient with an unknown ‘neurological disease’. It doesn’t mention a tattoo or a barcode, but... there is a scar on the back of her neck. Does she look familiar?"
"Where is she?"
"She was, at Metro Medical." Logan said, pulling up medical records. "She was brought in unconscious. I couldn’t give you details over the phone-"
"I can get there in-"
"No point. She’s gone, Max. She regained consciousness, and when they tried to hold her for observation she jumped out the window." Logan smiled. "Of the thirty-first floor. Got up, and ran into the woods."
Max was studying the picture again.
"Does she look familiar?"
"It’s not Jondie, or Syl..." Max answered distantly, "but there’s something familiar about her. I’ve seen her."
"At Manticore?"
"I don’t know." Max said, after a long moment, remembering. "I remember seeing her face, she’s chained up, I think the guards were taking her to another section. Only saw her face for a minute. I have to go see if I can find her."

Lexa brushed broken glass shards from her hair, stripped off the hospital gown and pulled the black sweat suit on from the leather pack she’d stashed in a bush, pulling her hair back and jamming a leather cap over her head.
Not exactly a fashion statement, but then it hadn’t been what she’d intended.
She’d planned the visit to the emergency room, hoping to attract Lydecker, for a while he’d been getting too close to Max, and that just wasn’t something she was willing to watch.
Lydecker would know her face, would know about the scar, and would want her back. The plan had been to get him and his band of merry men to chase her into the woods, where she’d arranged an interesting array of traps, maybe it would cut the numbers down a little and make Lydecker’s post a little less attractive to future recruits.
By the time Lydecker got out of the woods, he’d be much more determined to get her, and she would lead him elsewhere, she wanted him so pissed that he would be hunting her.
Lexa had wanted Lydecker, but what she got was a little more complicated.
She recognized Logan when he pulled up in front of Metro Medical, even before Max got out.
She chewed on her lower lip while the two of them went into the hospital.
Logan was on his feet now, but they were walking into her carefully engineered trap. She couldn’t spring it, she couldn’t warn them.
The I.D. scan would draw Manticore here, that was what she’d intended. She had not anticipated Logan and Max showing up.
Just when you begin to understand that life is a bitch, it has puppies. She thought to herself, and sprinted across the street.

The hospital was crowded, which was just as well.
It took her five minutes to locate Logan and Max, standing with two emergency care doctors. A glance out the window told her it was already borrowed time past too late.
A small troop marched into the lobby, fully armed.
Time to make a statement. She thought, and walked casually away from Max and Logan’s view.
She put her head down, and running full out, not trying to keep the noise down she ran right into the midst of armed testosterone plastered soldier-boys. They looked up, as she headed off to the east skidding on the linoleum on purpose.
Geeze, what’s a girl gotta do to get some attention? She thought, at a loss.
"That’s her!" Someone yelled.
She grinned, dove for the doors and picked up some of the speed her body was really capable of. Bullets zinged off the steel utility pole near her head as she led the fools into the woods.
The mud helped, slowing the armor plated fools down.
She’d had to re-think her plans since she’d had to come into the woods from another direction. She skidded down the embankment using the slickness of the ground to speed her progress.
From somewhere behind her came several voices, shouts, and cries of pain.
Lexa grinned.
"Let the games begin." She whispered.

"Fifteen were taken in for treatment and released, two for gunshot wounds-friendly fire apparently, and one had to be cut out of a.... hand-made trap." Logan said with an incredulous expression, handing Max the print-out a friend had emailed him on the massacre of Lydecker’s troops at the hospital. "Whoever she is, she ate Lydecker’s shock troops for lunch and I’ll wager she’s really pissed him off."
"I remember her, but only vaguely." Max told him. "She was kept in the lock-down area, and whenever they brought her out she was so chained up she had to walk slow. We only saw her, maybe twice. She’s older than me."
"She doesn’t look that much older," Logan said, glancing at the photo. "Why would they keep her separated from you?"
"I don’t know."
"Maybe she’s one of Lydecker’s failures?"
"Lydecker is much more likely to kill someone who disappoints him, than to lock them up in isolation." Max said, scanning the printout. "I don’t even know who she is, why is she trying to protect me?"
"Apparently, she knows you." Logan pointed out. "Lydecker would’ve had you today. She stepped up to the plate, even if it was her fault that we were there."

The rain had begun again, but that was okay. The mud had pretty much covered her, blending her into a part of the hillside, as she lay in the hole near the riverbank watching the troops swarm, and eventually leave.
Her body temperature dropped, as it was supposed to when exposure was necessary. In time, she heard no more movement, no more screams or shouts and she dozed off.
Lexa dreamed.
Predictably, she was at Manticore, in line and at attention.
Vasily and Marcus were at her side, although she didn’t turn her head she felt them there, a comforting presence.
On monitors in front of her were children wearing sack gowns in identical postures of attention. A one-way link, the children wouldn’t even be aware they were being observed.
Lydecker was in her face, as usual, spewing spit, his voice causing her sensitive hearing to automatically reduce the volume.
The difference was, she wasn’t a child.
She hadn’t been created here, this was not her home, and it took more than money to own someone’s soul.
"I own you. I copyrighted you, you’re mine." He screamed at her.
"I could tattoo the word reject across your ass and that wouldn’t raise your I.Q. any more than trying to barcode me made me yours, asshole." She growled. "I wasn’t made, and you don’t own me, and you oughta know by now how futile tattooing me was."
Lydecker kept yelling, apparently he couldn’t hear her.
"You’re meat, we will lay you out and use you for spare parts. You’re useless, you’re nothing."
"I’m more human than you are. I was bought, and I hope you got your money’s worth. It ends now." She said calmly, then reached and with infinite ease, tore Lydecker’s throat out with her claws. His blood was hot as it ran down her arm, pooling on the spotless floor.
She woke, gasping, spitting mud. The hole was crumbling slightly and a gush of frigid water had awakened her as she was washed out of her rabbit hole and dumped on her ass in the creek.
Biting back the automatic reflex to scream, she let the mud slide her a few yards until she came naturally to a stop in the shallow water on her belly, then she stood and listened.
Nothing but the falling rain, rushing water.
Her watch told her it was about four in the morning.
Time to go back to town then.
Ringing the mud from her hair, she started west.

"It’s addictive, yes. But that’s not the worst part of it. This is a designer drug, Max it was made in someone’s basement." Logan said. "There have been twenty deaths, so far this week, mostly young kids who took it too long... this stuff fries your brain, literally."
"But now it’s gone from making spacers to sociopaths." Max said nodding. "I’ve seen the news. What can we do about something people can buy for fifteen cents a hit on any corner?"
"The ingredients are pretty easy to find, all except one... an ingredient in drain cleaner, which isn’t easy to find these days."
"Drain cleaner?" She said, shaking her head.
"Yeah." Logan said, he walked to the window, watched the rain for awhile, then said thoughtfully. "Things get bad and people start to self-destruct all over."

Lexa was seated on the fire escape, enjoying the view.
The sunrise had been amazing, she was really looking forward to the sunset.
The only distraction was the chill of the iron under her butt that even the thick fabric of her jeans couldn’t pad against.
Below, a group of local gang-members was milling about, discussing the merits of car-jacking as opposed to breaking and entering. They were aware she was up there, and she’d earned their respectful distance, with the price of a few busted heads and her ability to disappear in full view of ten of them.
She shrugged her jacket up to her neck as a chill went down her back.
She watched the sunset, then stared for awhile at the flames dancing in the garbage can that was being used by some people below against the chill of night. The flames dancing in the darkness had an almost calming effect, and she allowed herself to go blank, aware that if anyone tried to approach her, the vibrations on the fire escape would alert her.
Looking up, she could clearly see the entrance to Jam Pony messenger service. That door was the reason she was perched up here damp, cold and tired. After the sun rose again she would get a chance to run, and the warmth would soon follow.
Soon enough.

Original Cindy didn’t need a newsflash to tell her she was in trouble, the fresh dead bodies strewn through the alley were clear enough. Men, women, children, you name it.
The package in her hand felt a hundred pounds heavier, and she hugged it to herself, her mind almost numbing out.
She ran, hearing the sound of people running somewhere behind her, cutting off the only way out she was sure of.

A few city blocks away, Max popped her bubblegum, idly tapping the handlebars of her bike, waiting.
Jam Pony had been losing riders, so Normal had loaded everyone down with deliveries. The job was becoming a brick, just another sign that life wasn’t gonna get much better.
Now she was waiting in line to get into sector six, dump some deliveries, blaze back to spend lunch at JamPony.
Her pager beeped, and she took a moment to check the display.
Not a number she knew.
Frowning, she led her bike out of the line, walked to a payphone and dropped change, dialing the number.
"Max?"
"Depends whose this?"
"Your friend is in trouble. 119 N. Hess. Don’t spare speed." A voice, female, deep.
Max’s eyes widened. "How do you-"
Click.
"Damnit." Max growled, heading away from the line and back into the sector she’d come out of. "Bitch better not be playing me." She muttered darkly.

Lexa watched the chase, then decided it was time to even the odds, just a little.
Original Cindy had found herself in an alley, no outlet except the way she’d come, which was now blocked by a large group of people who were in the kind of party mood she liked to avoid.
Looking around frantically she found a piece of splintered wood, and raised it like a club. backing up. The wall behind her was part of a building, no way to climb out.
"We got Flash," one of the spacers told her, holding out a folded paper packet, "party with us, sister."
"No thanks."
"Leave her alone, okay?" Someone said from one of the windows behind Original Cindy.
Before she could look up something hit the ground next to her and she jumped into the pile of junk on her left to avoid it.
Lexa straightened from the squat she’d landed in, facing the fifteen kids and motley crew of semi-adults. "I asked you to back the fuck off."
Lexa had improvised, jamming her hair under a knitted face mask to disguise herself. She didn’t intend to be here long enough to be recognized, but she didn’t want to worry about it while she got busy either.
One of the spacers rushed her, swinging a chain. "It’s fuckin Zorro man, he hadda sex change." He yelled, and swung the chain at her head.
Taking that as a sign to attack, a few more rushed in, and Lexa disabled where she could, but they weren’t feeling much pain. A few were drooling openly.
She worked through the ever-growing pile of bodies to find Max had arrived.
Lexa panted slightly. "You’re friend’s over there."
Max walked to the refuse pile, and pulled Original Cindy out. "You okay girl?"
Original Cindy nodded, pulled a piece of paper from her hair and shook her head. "Who is that intense, chillin super-boo?"
Max regarded the girl whose face was still hidden "Who are you?"
"I’m Lexa." Lexa answered.
"Well I’m Original Cindy." She said, shaking Lexa’s hand. "That mask is kinda hot, shugga. Who taught you how to kick it like that?"

"’I was raised by crackhouse ninjas?’" Logan repeated, laughing so hard it took a moment to catch his breath. "She actually said that?"
"Yeah." Max said, sounding disgusted. "It wasn’t that funny."
"Max I realize you don’t have much of a sense of humor but-"
"I do so."
"Okay," Logan said, lifting his glasses to wipe his eyes. "Then what happened?"
"She... took two steps and lept over the wall. I couldn’t follow and leave Original Cindy."
"Her name ring any bells?" Logan asked.
"Some. Still workin’ it out in my head."
Logan’s phone rang. "Logan here. Are you sure? What’s your source?"
Max stared moodily out the window, replaying the last few days. Whoever Lexa was, she wasn’t going away.
"Max?" Logan repeated.
"Hmm?"
He walked into the tech room, typed in a request for a city location then allowed it to narrow down to a city block. "One of my informants tell me there’s a shipment of chemicals coming in, stored in this warehouse, used to manufacture ‘Flash’."
Max looked closely at the map. "What do you have in mind?"
"The chemicals are stored all over the city. We need to put a crimp in the processing of the drug, the labs. The distribution of this drug is too organized, it’s not just the usual crap and old prescriptions people have been buying since the pulse." He picked up the paper packet Max had given him, looking at it thoughtfully. "If we want to stop Flash, we have to find out who is the brains behind it."

While Logan and Max grew closer, Sebastian kept Lexa informed.
Then the Reds came to town.
Lexa had spent the evening cramming the info Sebastian had provided on the Red Series. It was difficult to read his expressions sometimes, but she was sure her request to autopsy the body of the Red Series soldier Max has killed, had surprised Sebastian.
She had done the extraction of the implant, steps away from Max, who hadn’t looked at her at all. Lexa had been privately amused that Sebastian had felt the need to distract Max because in surgical greens Lexa was about as interesting as a piece of furniture.
Lexa had been occupied when Max had broken into the lab to steal, and insert the extracted implant into her own head, but her notes had allowed Sebastian to help Logan when the implant had almost overloaded her nervous system.
Small comfort.
In surgical greens, gloves and mask she surveyed the corpse.
"What are you looking for?" Sebastian asked.
"I’m not necessarily looking for anything. But I may find something I missed the first time around." She replied, distracted. The hole in his neck at the base of his skull was the spot the implant had been removed. She made the incisions larger, exposing larger sections of spine and skull.
"Max put one of these things in her head?" Lex asked. "If that’s the case, we have more of a problem than you’d guessed... there’s an extensive network of-" She gasped as the wire she’d exposed extending from a hole in the skull moved.
"One moment." Sebastian replied, booting up a view of the clean room on his screens.
"This thing may’ve been removed, but something was left behind." She said, tossing the scalpel into the alcohol bath and reaching for an electric bone saw, switching it on. A few moments later she’d freed the back of his skull, but instead of revealing gray matter and brain tissue, what met the lights of the clean room nearly made her drop the bone saw.
Wires. In and out, sometimes more wire than brain.
Her skin crawled, they were moving, shifting like fine steel worms.
Tiny wire whips pulled out of the light and deeper into the tissues. Automatically her sight shifted into magnification, and everything except the corpse blurred out.
"What the-," Lex murmured. "Are you seeing what I’m seeing? It’s moving!"
"I’m sealing you in there until we see what we are dealing with." Sebastian replied.
Lex ignored the sound of the doors snicking into locked position, and the security doors closing. She picked up a probe from her tray of instruments, gingerly moving aside tissue.
"I’m going to remove the brain, what’s left of it, and seal it in a specimen case so you can run a scan-" She had been severing the spinal cord in preparation to removing the brain when the realization occured to her that no spinal cord should be this tough to sever. Without really thinking on it, her eyes shifted again to a more detailed view and she backed up a step. "-it’s all through the spinal column, infiltrating the cord. I really hope this happened after he died."
"Changed my mind get out of there. I’m releasing the seal, get out so I can burn the room." Sebastian informed her.
She shook her head. "What did you use to kill Max’s implant?"
"Three hundred jueles, in direct contact with the implant."
Thoughtfully, she pulled off her gloves, dropping them on the floor. "Remember back when I gave you the story of my life... I mentioned I had rather unusual genomes?" She went on without waiting for his answer. "Alot of the tinkering they did was far from useful. For example... with a little effort I can blend in almost perfectly with my surroundings, but under certain conditions I also glow in the dark. Gotta love modern science... anyway, I can also release an electrical charge."
"How strong of an electrical charge?"
"That kinda depends on how long I want to stay conscious. This thing isn’t dead, Sebastian. I’m going to move the scanner to the table, gimmie a display when you get it."
She moved, pulling down the scanner, positioning it over the body. The machine hummed a few moments. A screen lit up revealing a display.
The skull now held alot less brain, and alot more of what appeared to be metal filaments coming from a darker object in the brain that didn’t look organic. The filaments went down the spine and out of scan range.
Lexa studied the image carefully, then was distracted by movement out of the corner of her eye, she looked back at the body and cold shock froze her to the spot.
The corpse had twitched.
"Sebastian-"
"Come out, I’m burning the room."
"I can’t do that." She said with grim determination. "Max still has a piece of this fucker in her head. I’d like to offer her another option to removal other than bar-b-que. I’ll start with the 300 jueles-" She grabbed a paddle, set the portable defibrillator to 300, grabbed the other paddle and approached the body, trying hard to ignore the whine of the defibulator. "I’m gonna repeat what you told Logan, and if this doesn’t work I’ll try something more, but we have to solve this problem here."
It jerked when she laid the paddle on the neck and she had to settle for the top of the head because of the position, and the lack of skull bone. Careful to avoid contact with the metal autopsy table she pressed the buttons.
It thrashed. The tray of instruments flew, as well as the table holding the alcohol bath.
Lex was flung to the floor, and when she looked up the gorge rose in her throat. The body was getting up. The brain was too solid to fall out, but she had a clear view of it as it stood up. Eyes that were orbs of blood stared at her, saw her.
"Uhm Sebastian, I think that just pissed it off." She said, and got out of it’s way. "Seal the lab, I’m on my own now."
The doors snicked, and a steel shutter snapped into place.
The corpse didn’t react to the sound, or maybe it just didn’t care-after all her options of escape were pretty slim. Thoughts of whether it could hear, whether it could care flitted through her head as she considered her options.
Lex inventoried the lab, converting her surroundings into possibilities. "Anything we do has to be used on Max." She said aloud, knowing Sebastian would hear her clearly. It was what you did when defusing a bomb, you kept talking so that whoever had to do it afterwards wouldn’t make the mistakes that got you killed.
Comforting, I’m just so full of shit. She thought, discarding several plans that had occured to her. Nothing in my training prepared me for this. What you kill is supposed to stay dead. C’mon Miss. Hunt- It-Down-And-Kill-It, think fast or it’ll be you that get’s cancelled this week.
The corpse wasn’t very coordinated, it looked as if it was scanning the area, it’s head and blind eyes sweeping the area.
She tried to ignore the obvious-that he’d probly died from that six inch hole and penetrating wound in his sternum. It wasn’t bothering him much now, but his naked body was almost gray, his back was darker-it was the way the blood had settled into the tissues after death.
Enough of this shit. She thought, and stood in view, going around to the back of the autopsy table.
She put both hands on the table.
"C’mon over here big boy." She said loudly, wondering if it could hear or if was just a blind, dumb, cyborg wannabe.
It turned to her, and took a slow step. Another step. It reached.
Summoning electricity was always a rush. It came from deep inside, lighting nerve endings, raising her hair in a static-filled fro, and if she pulled enough together, let it build, when she let it go it was like being blasted with a cannon-or struck by lightning.
Blue arcs charged through the table, blackened the walls where it contacted, and cemented the corpse’s feet to the floor as he became a conduit.
She became one with it for an eternity, feeling the filaments snaking through tissue, feeling the tissue blister, the metal filaments melt, run, blend together.
The corpse’s hair burst into flame.
The scanner sparked and fried.
The metal instrument tray melted to the floor, and the spilled alcohol residue ignited.
The lab lights went out plunging everything into darkness.
Sprinklers came on, drenching her, and making the charge turn on her, and she lost contact with the table and fell to the floor her body shuddering and spasming. She got a last look at the tiny blue sparks dying on her fingertips, then her eyes closed.
Always wondered what would happen if I did that when I was soaked. I’m goin’ out like a wet lightbulb. Lydecker would find this infinitely amusing.

Consciousness was up there, somewhere. She had only to swim up through the layers of blackness, and eventually she’d be able to open her eyes- if she could move the fifty-pound weights off her eyelids.
"Ow." She whispered.
For a moment she wondered if she’d actually spoken aloud, or just thought the word.
"How do you feel?" Sebastian’s voice synth prompted.
She opened her eyes slowly, tried to focus and was grateful for the darkness. The smell of fried plastic wafted through the air. Her hair was damp.
"I feel... like someone strapped me to a spoon and shoved me into a live electrical socket." She whispered. "Is he uhm, it dead?"
"Oh yeah, it’s dead. It’ll take awhile to wash it off the walls, but it’s dead."
She sat up fast, knowing who the second voice belonged to-Max’s benefactor, Logan Cale. She groaned as her stomach protested. "My purse? It’s on the desk, assuming I didn’t trash the whole lab."
The room swam around and she closed her eyes, which weren’t focusing anyway. Must be the fumes, or smoke.
Someone touched her arm, she flinched, opened her eyes and took her purse, rummaged through it, found a case, flipped it open and put on her glasses. Things came into sharper focus. Logan Cale indeed, now that was a surprise... and Sebastian.
"You didn’t trash the whole lab." Sebastian informed her, "Just the clean room. But you are lucky the doors did not short out."
"I hear you claim to be related to Max." Logan said with amusement. "You’re not what I expected."
She narrowed her eyes. "Filthy, exhausted, and just knocked on my ass?"
"No. Short, and near-sighted." He said. "You don’t look the part of a genetic killing machine."
"I am many things. I’ve been called a walking organ bank, a bio-techie, and I’ve been a lab rat most of my life. But I’m not Manticore produce, I was bought for spare parts so you could say they own me..." She stopped talking, smiled grimly and got to her feet by force of will because she was so drained she could have fallen asleep standing up. "Now you know just as much as Sebastion, do the math." She said to Logan, feeling angry for his impressions of her. She turned to Sebastian. "Our agreement was to not involve Max or-"
Uncharacteristically Sebastion interupted. "Max will not survive unless you help us, Lexa."
"Get someone else." She said, and started for the door.
Logan stood, grabbing her by the arm. She stopped and looked back at him.
"If you don’t help us-"
"You don’t get it do you? I blasted a corpse with alot more juice than you used on Max. I lost control. Next to Max I’m a genetic dinosaur, as you so clearly pointed out-I’m not perfect. I’m one of the ones that came before Max, you could say I’m more of an X2. I was the source of spare parts, genetic tinkering involving animal genomes, I was one of the failures before they started to create the failures, got it? I can do her autopsy, quite possibly I could patch her up, but I can’t fry the metallic squid in her head, and believe me it isn’t surgically possible to just pull the sucker out either."
"So you’re going to let her die?" He asked.
He released her. She expelled breath in a long sigh, and sank onto the couch.
"I don’t think killing her is part of the program." She told them, after a long silent moment. The adrenaline was dissipating, her emotions were falling back into place as the shock wore off. "I memorized the files, and I would say in my opinion that whoever designed the implants had something else in mind."
Sebastion prompted: "Go on."
"The Red Series files state that after the 6-9 month period that the body could tolerate the implant, then started to suffer loss of motor control, ending up vegetative eventually. The handlers incinerated them when they began to wear out, retrieved the implant and implanted a new host."
"Correct."
"What if the loss of motor control was a precursor to the eventual metamorphosis into a cybernetic being? The implant could be retrieved after the body was burned-but it left parts behind if the body lived past the loss of motor control... parts that developed over time to take over as the brain. After that autopsy I don’t think it matters if the body is living or dead, or perhaps death is the event that allows it to take over, loss of motor control is just a process of switching over to new management."
"And that is what will happen to Max?" Logan asked softly.
"I don’t know. I’m really hoping the charge killed it off... but I saw something in the scan, a dark-" She trailed off. "I need to take a look at the remains, but I doubt what I’m looking for survived."
"There are no remains, just ashes with some bone." Logan told her.
"I saw it too, a dark shape in the head. It will take some time to get everything working again. You fried everything." Sebastian informed her.
"Sorry. I think I panicked." She said sheepishly.
"Don’t worry about it," Sebastion told her, "it’s coming out of your next five paychecks."
"What about Max, shouldn’t you examine her or something?" Logan asked. "maybe a catscan?"
"I want to wait, see what we’re dealing with." She told him. "If this thing is being controlled by someone, interfering with it may get it’s agenda pushed up. I want to know how to deactivate it before it can destroy her mind. Not to mention the fact that the corpse was inactive, mostly, until I activated the scanning equipment, then all hell broke loose."
"You should talk to Max. Tell her who you are. She will need to learn to trust you." Sebastian told her.
She nodded thoughtfully, regarding Logan. "In my opinion I don’t think we should tell Max what is going down, just yet. I need to observe her, try to get some answers."
"Will she ‘wear out’ like the reds?" Logan asked.
"This implant has too many factors for me to guess. It could be fulfilling programming built into it, it could be controlled by some other source-or even dormant until something brings it into play. I’m not even certain that death is a necessary factor." She glanced at Sebastian. "The bodies of the other Reds, are you certain they were burned?"
"They were destroyed." Sebastian told her. "I am certain."
"Works for me." She grinned at Logan. "I hear the penthouse next to yours is empty."
He snorted. "You couldn’t afford a-"
"You might be surprised what I could afford. Let’s just say I’ve been saving my pennies. It would allow me to remain closer to Max, and allow you to find me if you have to. If you prefer I’ll just hunker down near Jam Pony there are plenty of-"
"How are you going to explain moving in next to me?" Logan countered. "Just move in and flash your barcode?"
She leaned forward. "I don’t have a barcode. My bio-synth was done by people who knew what they were doing, eventually, but lets just say I am not top of the line. I was sold to the Genetech facility that Manticore developed from and I was studied, sliced and diced to create the X3s-who didn’t live long, the X4s who were okay on the inside but... let’s just say they weren’t at all pretty... the X5s were what developed when they began to get it right."
"So there’s no way to prove you are who you say you are?" He asked. "No records, no barcode, no proof?"
"Don’t worry, I’ll grow on you." She said, standing. She nodded to Sebastian. "I’m gonna have to run to get set up. I’ll call in a few." She started out, but Logan stood up calling out-
"Hey! I’m going to need some kind of proof before I-"
She turned, her face serious. "I don’t have fingerprints, even if there were records to check. There are no photos of me." She glanced at the blackened lab, thoughtfully. "Tell you what, I’ll send you something you can... peruse. Later." She walked out.

Logan walked into his front door to find Bling waiting with a package.
The various stickers on the soft pack warned that the contents were fragile.
He took it to the dining room, slit the end and pulled out a metal box, locked with a combination lock. He swore.
The phone rang.
"Logan." He answered.
"It’s Lexa. The number you are looking for is your birth month and day."
"How would you know-" He asked, then trailed off as the phone produced a dial tone. He hung up, sat down at the table, and moved the combination to 1,1,1,1. There was a snick as the tiny lock released, and he heard air escape. He opened the box and found two vials nestled in foam, artificially cooled.
He pulled out a vial as white wisps of coolant swirled out of the box.
Red fluid was in the vial.
It was labeled with: to whom it may concern: type OO.

Logan looked up from the microscope. "Her blood is... weird. I don’t have a degree in bio-chemistry but I know enough to tell you the closest thing to parents she had was a test tube and a petrie dish. She’s got red and white blood cells, and something else in there that I don’t remember in high school biology."
Max took a look into the microscope, then nodded thoughtfully. "Then that parts true, she’s not your average human. Is it possible to remove someone’s organs without killing them?"
Logan shrugged. "I haven’t got a clue, Sebastian believes her. Before I met you I didn’t know alot of things were possible. She asked, that if her ‘proof’ passed inspection, she could move into the building. She wants to meet you."
Max laughed. "Move into this building? You are not footing the bill?" She asked suspiciously.
Logan shook his head. "No, she’s using her own cash. Maybe she’s just had more time to work as a thief? That could pay very well, depending on the target."
"I want to meet her." Max said thoughtfully. "How do you contact her?"
Logan shrugged. "I met her at Sebastian’s. I’ll call him and see if he can hook us up."

Logan asked Sebastian to contact Lexa for a meeting.
He and Max had waited, and the tension filled atmosphere between them remained, hanging in the air like a curtain.
Both of them had decided to eat dinner just so that they didn’t have to fill time with conversation, drinking more wine in the silences.
It seemed that they could finish each other’s sentences but there was little else there.
Frustration didn’t begin to cover it.
Max downed her last glass of wine, smiled, and announced she had to go.
The tension seemed to fade a little, he walked her to the door, watched her board the elevator, and went to clear the table.
It was nearly dawn.
Logan couldn’t sleep. He watched the rain paint the windows, blurring the view in waves, thinking over what Sebastian had told him, and the memory of his first sight of Lexa.

He’d just come out of the out of the shower, and Bling had knocked.
"It’s Sebastian, he says it’s urgent." Bling had told him, passing him the cordless phone through the door.
"Yeah, it’s Logan." He answered, drying his hair with a towel.
"Logan. I need your help." Sebastian’s synthesized voice had intoned. "Here."
"I’ll be right over, I just have to change."
He’d dressed fast, broke a few speed records, and burst into Sebastian’s lab to find the smell of fried plastic and smoke wafting out through the door as he went in, not expecting what he found.
"Are you-" He began, seeing the sprinklers still on inside the glass of the small surgical lab, and passing it by to see Sebastian near his bank of computers.
"Logan," Sebastian’s voice synth interupted immediately. "There is someone inside the lab. Please help her."
Logan left his cane propped up outside against the desk, and went into the lab as the sprinklers cut off. Inside almost everything was soaked. Scorch marks seemed to be randomly around the room.
Electrical equipment, an arcing current leaves a scorch pattern like that. He thought, then he caught sight of something darker, blackened. A body obviously, so cooked the skull was exposed. If that’s her, I doubt I can do anything for her.
He had opened his mouth to clue in Sebastian when something moved from beneath a fallen panel on the floor.
A leg caught his eye, very shapely, soot-stained, definitely female in appearence. The panel wasn’t heavy and he pushed it out of the way. Beneath it was a small women who looked fairly young, her red hair was curly and crackled with static as he pulled her up.
Very pretty. But there is no way I’d trust my legs to carry her physically out of here.
"Sebastian, maybe you should call an ambulance." He said, his eyes running over her body. No blood, no visible wounds. She almost completely dry thanks to the panel that had covered her. "I’m not sure I should move her."
"Logan she’ll be better off out here." Sebastian intoned. "You will not harm her if you drag her out, just be careful."
It took awhile but he drug her out, trying to avoid glancing at the blackened corpse.
He managed to lift her onto the cot Sebastian had set up in the back of the lab, most likely for the technicians that occasionally came in. She wasn’t heavy, her breathing seemed okay, and seeing her in the full light of the lab he revised his opinion of her age to be more than a teen, but vague. Very pretty, exotic features, it was the face of the girl that had been in the hospital emergency room, the one who’d decimated Lydecker’s troops while he and Max had gotten away.
Another mystery at least partially solved, I guess I know how did she escaped whatever fried the other guy.
"Who is she?" Logan asked, regarding Sebastian.
"Sit down, I will tell you what I know."
Sebastian had told him very sketchy details.
He’d known her longer than Logan had know Max. Her name was Lexa. She was fairly well versed in bio-technology, was a wizard on the computer, and spoke several languages.
The best he saved for last-this small girl was a genetic miracle, engineered, like Max. A cousin to her genetically. Sebastian trusted her completely.
Then he told Logan about the blackened corpse, who it had been, what had happened after Lexa had pulled it from cold storage to look again for clues. Lexa had done the original autopsy that he and Max had watched, they hadn’t noticed the anonymous surgeon in the surgical greens with all the tension. Sebastian had assisted in drawing attention away by distracting Max by revealing what he knew about Manticore, and the X5s.
Logan had more questions, but before he could ask a moan came from the cot and he looked back at her from the chair he’d pulled fairly close to the cot.
Her eyes had opened, revealing that they were an unusual shade of green, light jade.
Eyes like pale emeralds, like cat’s eyes. He remembered, smiling slightly.
A slight noise from behind made him turn automatically.
Lexa stood in the half-light cast by the few candles he had scattered around, just two steps away.
Her glasses were gone, and she was wearing black jeans and a shirt that revealed her stomach, hair a reddish gold curly halo around her head. She tilted her head at his shocked expression, and as her eyes reflected back the candlelight his heart stopped for a moment.
Just like a cat’s eyes reflect back the light. He thought.
His mouth had opened and just stayed that way, the shock had taken away the question on his lips. He knew suddenly that the slight noise had been on purpose on her part, she could have stepped up and blown in his ear before he’d known she was there.
"You wanted to see me?" Her voice was deep, amused.
"How long have you been standing there?" He asked.
"A few moments. I also took a look around, just to be sure you were alone." She smiled. "Mind if I sit?"
He shook himself, mentally, feeling foolish. "Would you like a glass of wine?"
"Sure." She said, and walked past him, seating herself on the arm of the couch looking out the window at the view.
There was a brown-out in progress.
It had been fun traveling in the darkness, her senses tingling as she avoided hover drones and people, her eyes had been designed for darkness.
When at last Fogle Towers loomed before her, she considered her options. Climbing up to pop in a window? Yeah, but the rain had made the building pretty slick, and she’d get even wetter on the long climb.
Screw it, it would make a much better impression to walk into the front door.
The elevator had a swipe card slot for Logan’s floor, she knew that from her previous trip a few days ago when she’d dropped by to look around, never knowing she’d be forced to drop cover and help Max.
Never guessing circumstances would turn out this way.
She’d come to respect Logan, in a few days, weeks maybe, she knew things could change.
If the situation weren’t so damned desperate, I’d never have opted to meet Max. I would never have allowed myself to be exposed. I could be the Pandora’s Box that will destroy them both.
The brown-out had made the elevator useless of course, and the stairs didn’t reach the penthouse. That left the fire escape which she dismissed-too noisy.
She shrugged, and pried the elevator doors open, her nails easily fitting into the crack of the doors to get a purchase, inside the pitch black elevator she ignored the open doors-they would close when the power came on, she pulled her backpack off, her eyes had long since shifted to dark-sight showing everything in ghostly green light. She located and slipped on her gloves, and stripped off her clothing, leaving on her battered worn sneakers, shoving the clothing into the pack.
Shouldering the backpack she located the trapdoor, and leaped up, opening it by plowing upwards with both fists up. It banged back, it’s echoing report the last loud noise she would allow.
Her next leap sent up upwards out of the elevator, she twisted to the side deftly avoiding the heavy cables and landing lightly on top of the car.
She surveyed the cable, it was filthy as she’d expected, but that hadn’t been her plan anyway.
Naked catburglar found squished after power is restored and elevator is called to the thirteenth floor, news at eleven, with film footage.
She chuckled silently, and lept, her hand easily snagging the maintenance ladder. It was steel, imbedded into the concrete of the shaft, and if she had to she could flatten herself enough to allow the elevator car to pass by.
She planned to be at the doors of the twenty-eighth floor long before then, although in her line of work the unpredictable was always possible. It was just as likely that she would step through the doors as the power was restored to greet Logan Cale in her underwear.
Fate had sometimes added such spice to being an assassin.

Lexa touched the windowpane.
The rain outside was pelting the glass, and the window felt cold.
"The furniture works, honest. It’s alot more comfortable when you sit on it." Logan told her, handing her a glass of red wine.
She regarded him for a moment, then swung her legs over and slid down, seating herself with her legs curled under her, she accepted the wine glass with a nod.
"I really would like to know more about you, would you mind a few more questions?" He asked.
"I’ll give you one answer for an answer. I also have a few questions." She countered.
He smiled. "Okay with me. Who goes first?"
"Go ahead."
"You said that you’re different from Max, do you... sleep?"
"Yepp. Although I try to keep it at about six hours a night. My brain produces enough serotonin that I don’t need tryptophan." She said, and drew a smiley face in the condensation of the window. "However, I am dependent on another chemical, not surprising, I guess."
"What happens if you don’t get... what you don’t have?" He asked.
She looked at him again, watching his eyes. "I start to howl at the moon, and run around naked."
The ghost of a smile crossed his features.
"Your next question is, what chemical did my tormentors use to keep me caged. Just in case?"
He kept a neutral expression. "In case... what?"
"I don’t know you well enough to judge that, yet." She sipped the wine.
"Hmm. I’m not sure if that answers my question."
"I’m not able to give you that answer just yet. But if you’d like we can play truth or dare, that could get interesting."
Logan smiled and laughed.
"Okay another question. Why don’t you trust me?" She asked.
"I just met you. I don’t form alliances that fast."
"Do you trust Max?" She asked, watching his eyes.
"Completely. She’s saved my ass a few times." He told her. "What line of work have you been in, that would enable you to buy a penthouse?"
"I... did alot of things I’m not proud of, in the beginning. I used what I was taught, for awhile I was an assassin. I didn’t kill just anyone, I settled on the criminals that had too much money for the law, what there is of it, to take down. I didn’t accept money in payment."
"An assassin with morals. What did you take?" He asked. "For services rendered."
"A favor. Something the client would do for me, sometime in the future. It wouldn’t involve murder, or anything against the client’s better judgment."
"And the money came from?" He prompted.
"I stole the cash from the target. The bank accounts, electronically. From their home as well, if I found any, and they had no dependents." The past loomed up for a moment, and she squelched it again. She studied him a moment. "Tell me about the last time Max saved your life." She asked softly.
"I got shot, trying to be a hero. The bullet fragments lodged in my back that paralyzed me, were also inoperable. One night, they moved, shifted in my spine. I almost bled to death." He walked to the window, glancing at the rain on the glass. "After that, I started noticing that I could feel sensations in my legs. I could move a toe sometimes. My doctor thought I was crazy."
"Phantom pain." She said quietly.
"Yeah. Max transfused me again. Not long after that, I could walk, not well, but good enough."
Lexa leaned forward slightly, eyes wide. "She did what?"
He chuckled. "It really wasn’t that dramatic."
Lexa frowned slightly, her expression thoughtful. "I’m more of a healer than a fighter. The fighter part came after Manticore decided to fuck with my mind. When I was made, they played around with various genomes and well, I guess you’d call it tinkering. I can do things, that take alot of energy, as a result of various genes that were... grafted onto my RNA. One of those things is extreme speed."
"Max can do that too."
She nodded. "I can fool the eye-not quite invisibility but close. I can also glow in the dark, sometimes, and deliver electrical surges, and... well I can see the problems in your back, it’s a kind of vision I can switch into- "
"You have xray vision?’ He laughed sarcastically.
"No. Vision isn’t a precise word. Actually it’s closer to echo location."
"You have dolphin genomes?" He said, his tone sarcastic. "that’s a nice skill for an assassin, death by echo location."
She ignored the tone. "You don’t have to trust me Logan, but I think you ought to know, your spine is still damaged. The ability to walk may be very temporary."
"No, I don’t trust you. I think you showed up a little too conveniently, and I get the feeling you’re not telling us everything." He said, suddenly angrily. "I think our session of ‘truth or dare’ is over. I’d like you to go."
She stood, smoothly putting the wine glass on the table. "I’m moving in next door in a few days, I’m sure we’ll meet again. Or not, if you wish." She said, never breaking stride to the front door.

The newscaster was attractive, female and blond. That wasn’t what had attracted Bling’s attention, well not all that had attracted his attention.
He stopped chopping vegetables long enough to turn up the volume.
The photo of two girls replaced the newscaster. It was the kind of photo two teenagers would take, just having fun, arms around each other. Not sisters but best friends maybe.
Logan watched silently from the table where he was preparing a roast before cooking it.
"Trina Alvarez and Carrie Cottlin, both aged thirteen were taken by force from this corner this morning. No word as yet on who the people were who took them, most of the people who actually saw hat happened are too frightened to talk. I’ll tell you more as I get more information. Back to you Ross."
Bling turned down the volume, turned back to Logan. "Gonna get involved?"
Logan nodded, lifting the roast into the pan. "A source already told me about this early this morning. I’ve been paging Max all day, no answer. I don’t know, maybe I said something or didn’t say something or maybe Max is just pissed for no reason in particular but lately she’s ignoring me."
At least, I hope she’s just ignoring me, and nothing is physically wrong. I’ve done everything but go over her place and break in, and if she doesn’t call by tonight I think I’ll try it.
He scooped up vegetables, distributed them around the pan, dumped the seasoned water over it and popped on the lid. "Put this in the oven, I’m going to call Max one more time." He went into the computer room, sat and dialed up Max.
"Hello?" It was Original Cindy’s voice.
"Is Max around?"
"Shugga, I told you, I ain’t seen her."
"Any idea where she could be, it’s very important."
"No clue, shugga. I will tell her that you called."
"Is she okay?"
"Yeah she’s fine. She’s just chillin’."
"Okay thanks."
He looked at the phone a moment.
Max wasn’t available, for whatever her reasons.
He dialed.
"Yes?"
"Sebastian. It’s Logan. Do you think Lexa would be willing to do something for me?"
"You can ask her, yourself." Sebastion’s voice-synth replied.
A few moments went by, he’d been put on hold.
"Yes, Logan?" Lexa answered.
"Have you been watching the news?"
"The two kids? Yeah. Rumor has it that they were snatched by spacers on Flash."
Logan frowned. "Where did you hear that?"
"I have my resources. I think I know where you’re going with this. I’ll be there in about ten minutes."

Lexa had to grin as she sped through traffic on her bike. It was battered, dented, rusted but it ran, and it belonged to her. Not to mention the fact that no self-respecting thief would try stealing it.
Interesting how much she’d learned from the Manticore kids, since the breakout. A motorcycle was a fast form of transportation, but it had it’s disadvantages, like noise. She much preferred running, but tonight, speed meant everything.
No moon.
A brown-out was in progress, and the ‘normals’ around her were acting in the typical bang-it-over-the-head-and drag-it-home manner brought on with the darkness. Logan had warned her to be careful, that brown-outs were not a safe time to be out on the streets, but she’d shrugged it off.
She’d have to rely on darksight and Logan’s info to pull this off without getting the hostages killed. She’d memorized the street map he’d shown her, and the possible weaknesses of the buildings where they were likely to be, but the problem remained - she would have to find their location on her own.
Time was crucial-the cops wouldn’t hold back after sunrise, but they weren’t suicidal enough to deal with spacers in the dark.
Well she wasn’t exactly alone, she had an transmitter in her ear that Logan was giving updates through as she drove.
He’d called Sebastian to ask for her help, two kids had been kidnapped by Flash junkies. Apparently Max was not returning his calls. Sebastian advised her to do it, then uncharacteristically warned her about getting involved with Logan Cale.
"Sebastian, I am not interested in him. He’s taken."
"Logan is not as taken as you think he is." Sebastian intoned.
"Well that’s cryptic. No one owns me anymore, Sebastian and I can handle myself." She snapped. "I’ll call."
She sighed, regretting the exchange. Tomorrow she would challenge him to a game of chess, it always cheered Sebastian up to know he could genuinely trounce her at chess.
"Logan, gimmie an update I’m close enough." She said quietly. She could hear breakage, from the looters trashing the block, and the engine of her bike was making her a target every stationary second. "I’m ditching my bike." She cut the engine, threw some trash over the bike and walked, listening.
"Go left, there should be an the alley, then right down the next major street." His voice told her. "When you’re there tell me what you see. This brown-out is dangerous, be careful."
"Yes, mUther." She murmurred.

"She’s really something." Bling commented.
Logan sighed, lowering the volume of dead air on the speaker. "Yeah, she’s got a little of Max’s attitude, and something else."
"It’s called a sense of humor." Bling informed him. "I like her."
"Yeah."
"She’ll get the job done."
"Right now, she’s all we’ve got."
"You don’t trust her, do you?" Bling asked. "Just what did you two talk about that night?"
"I don’t... know." Logan replied. "I don’t like her just appearing out of the blue, just after this thing with the reds, knowing all about me, and Max."
"Maybe that’s the point, Logan-she could do alot of damage. She’s helping instead." Bling told him.
The speaker crackled.
"Okay, Logan." Lexa’ voice said, sounding winded. "Almost there."
She sped off the way he’d indicated, a silent run, avoiding anything too noisy to step on.
"Logan, I see that van you described, same license plate, it’s about two miles ahead."
"Are you sure?"
"Uhm yeah. I eat alot of carrots, closing the distance now."
"Are you sure that’s a good idea?"
"Well, I have a plan."
"And that would be?"
"I’m going to hop up on the van and, then I’m gonna rip the top off. Think they’ll notice I’m different, or do you think they’ll chalk it up to PMS?"
"I think that might do it."
"Good, I’d be really pissed if I screwed up my manicure and they don’t wanna play." She whispered.
She hopped up, her feet banging the metal roof, letting them see her. The intention was noise, ripping the roof off would be over the top. She felt the vibration of someone moving inside before the van’s door opened, and a gorilla got out.
With her darksight she noted his eyes were bloody orbs, his skin gray, he was missing an arm. He reached up and pushed, and the van went over.
She lept free before it hit the ground, and she used her echo-location.
His head is full of wires. Shit, the bitch called life just had puppies again.
"Okay, I think I just got their attention, uhm on the upside I’m feeling a lil insulted that there’s only one... but on the downside it’s one of the same gorillas that Max whacked."
"That’s impossible they were dead, I was there. They could not have survived." Logan told her.
"Hey, I never said he was alive, just moving. He’s got one arm, is really torn up, eyes are just red marbles. It’s converted from dead to cyborg, so I guess maybe Sebastian was wrong, if I survive I may just kick his ass. This could take awhile, hold all my calls, will you?"
"Lexa get out of there we’ve been set up."
"Yeah I kinda got that. Look, I don’t think he’s going to let me leave."
The cyborg approached. She pulled out the transmitter and shoved it in the pocket of her jeans.
The van’s engine started and it pulled away.
She backed up into the dirt parking lot, giving herself room, scanning for weapons. She avoided looking at what was left of it’s eyes, talking as she moved. "I realize you aren’t the intelligent kind, or the conversational type... but I feel obligated to inform you that if you don’t release those two kids, they’ll be mopping you up with a spoon in thirty minutes."
He didn’t reply, he just whipped out a shock stick and clutzily attempted to jam it in her ribcage, it connected just long enough to piss her off, but for a moment she was relieved he hadn’t actually touched her.
"Fine, let’s do it your way." She muttered, and she grabbed the hand when he came at her again, snapping his wrist, or at least she tried. He just straighted and the wrist snapped into place
He whacked her with his arm, which felt like a tree and Lexa suddenly found herself on the pavement on her back, the impact knocking the air from her lungs, and he stomped on her, holding her down by a handful of her hair.
Her ribs crunched, and in that instant as pain burned through her chest, she set the rage that had been bubbling just below the surface of her mind free.
Pain faded along with intelligence, conscience, reason and mercy, as a curtain of crimson obscured her vision as all of her senses and abilities heightened. The cyborg became a target to be eliminated, and she became a mechanical thing that would stop only when the target was rendered terminated.
She was what she was, what she’d been instructed to be, reverting to the days at Manticore. There was no one to tell her to stop, no way to return to sanity this time. She was in full rage, and was a prisoner of it until it released her.
Time went on in spurts, and she used her flesh as a weapon, taking the blows. When the cyborg connected with a metallic spike, she took that too, barely aware that she’d been stabbed.
Then sanity flooded back as she saw herself, kneeling on the pavement over the inert body as his legs spasmed in death, and she realized what she was holding in her bloody hand. Numbly she pulled her red bandanna from her jacker pocket and wrapped the thing in it, then shoved it back in the pocket.
Logan’s fist hit his desk in frustration as static was the only sound.
"That’s enough, we’re going to give her a hand." Logan said, getting up and walking to the cabinet retrieving his gun and snapping in a magazine. "I can connect to Lexa through the laptop. Let’s go."

Lexa got up, the adrenaline overload was dissipating.
She yanked the spike out, crying out. The blood would flow long enough to clean the wound, then it would clot. Her blood was designed that way.
Just gotta love modern science, but it still hurts.
She pulled the transmitter from her pocket and jammed it into her ear, prodding the body with her toe. "The van’s gone, and I’m heading in the direction it went, unless you have better ideas."
Silence. She jiggled the earplug.
"Logan?" The speaker crackled.
Logan adjusted the volume, glad that Bling was driving. He jammed the headset on. "I’m here. What happened to the red that attacked you?"
"He’s not getting up again, this time I absolutely guarantee it, although I’m going to torch the thing soon as I can pull the juice. I also got something that you might find interesting."
"What is it?" Logan asked.
"Uhm, can’t talk now, the van’s back. There’s a jerk sitting inside the van just watching... he has an impressive weapon aimed this way. I’ll get back to you."
"Wait! What’s the address?"
"I’m on Wolcott behind a large brick building near the railroad tracks, didn’t get a chance to look around further. Over and out."
The speaker crackled then went silent.

The guy in the van was a normal, the expression on his face was interested anticipation, not the blank, dead stares of the ‘Reds’, his eyes were just eyes.
She took in the surroundings, possible escape routes, and the two guys, who had emerged from the van and were approaching her.
One was a normal, the other was a Red. A fresh Red.
It was still dark, she had the advantage. They could see because they had dropped flares, but the lighting would get bad in minutes, the flares would burn out eventually.
She pocketed the earpiece.
I’m tired, damnit, and I just yanked a yard of steel from my gut.
"Trina, Carrie are you in there, are you okay?" She yelled the names of the two hostages into the darkness.
From the van came several loud thumps.
The Red hesitated and turned back.
"Hey asshole, I hear you have the intelligence of a coked-up roach on a hamster wheel," She improvised. "I just ripped your friend Lurch’s head off, that could be his brain’s on my boots. Why don’t you make me sorry?"
The weasel in the van, motioned towards her with the gun, talking to the two men. "Get the bitch, we only need one."
Terrific. Lydecker used to tell me my mouth would get me killed, all the time... I’m not gonna prove him right, even if it kills me. She thought, then had to smile.
The first gorilla was close. No shock stick, they’d wised up apparently and were armed with tazers. He jabbed out, trying to get in close as she knew he would, and she grabbed it and yanked it from him pulling him closer and jamming it into his eye.
His screams told her she was right about him not carrying an implant.
Hopefully Walmart ran out of the damned things.
She leaped over him and hit the second one in the throat with her high-heeled boot, but the Red didn’t go down, instead he grabbed her leg and threw her.
Oh I really hate these things. I’m way too tired for a full rage, but I can still fight dirty, even if it is two against one. I could use a rage though, I’m startin’ to hurt.
She had enough time to realize she’d hit ground and to barely miss a flare, and she grabbed it just as Red was on her, full-out fists that felt like stone. The flare went into his face, searing flesh and ruining his eye, and he hit her hard right in the wound in her belly.
She heard herself cry out, went down.
You are going to die if you don’t pull the juice. She told herself. It’s gotta be large, fast and sweet.
On the ground, she scuttled backwards out of his reach, using his slow speed to her temporary advantage.
She stood up, he was inches from her, reaching, but she didn’t let that distract her. The electricity flowed, her hair stood on end, and she grabbed his wrist pulled him off balance, he twitched on the ground as current flowed.
Not enough, not nearly enough. .
He twitched, but he lived. Blood sprayed her as she reached down and methodically tore his throat out, and she screamed, feeding the rage.