By Jonty
Twenty to three. Only
fifteen more minutes to go and then she could leave, for a whole two days. She
sighed and looked around the classroom. For some reason she had always wanted
to be a teacher, had fought against her parents when they had suggested that
perhaps she could do something else, like be a doctor. Fought against them
because there were so many reasons why she wanted to teach. So many reasons,
none of which she could remember right now. The kids were fine, the hours were
great, but there was something about the job that she just didn’t like anymore.
She shrugged and went back to surveying the class. They were all busily
writing, completing an assignment she had given them that afternoon,
occasionally passing notes to each other, with quick nervous glances towards
her, as if to check that she was not aware of what they were doing. The two
down the back were reading comics, hiding them on their laps, as if the desk
would hide them from her view. Whatever. Twelve minutes to go. Her eyes rested
on the only kid in the room not even pretending to work. The boy was new, had
just moved to town a few weeks ago. His blond hair was worn long, longer than
she would allow her child to wear his, if she had one. It covered his eyes, so
that he couldn’t see unless he pushed it aside.
If truth be told, she didn’t
mind not being able to see his eyes that much. The eyes are the windows to the
soul. She had read that somewhere, and it was true. The boy’s eyes were hard,
like they had seen too much, knew too much, way more than a young boy his age
should know. He scared her.
Wait, what? What was that?
She was scared of a kid? That couldn’t be right. She looked over at the boy
again, and watched as he slowly looked up at her, brushing his hair out of the
way.
Yes, she was scared of him.
“Eyes on your work, Ray” she
told him, her breath catching as she waited for him to look down. He smiled
slightly, and looked down, at the page where he had written nothing for the
past two hours.
>>>>>
Heavy metal music pounded
out of 6 speakers, all hooked up to the same stereo. The speakers rattled as
the bass increased, and threatened to fall off the table they were resting on.
Alec looked up long enough to shove one of the speakers back onto safe ground,
or rather table, as it vibrated itself close to the edge. He ran a hand through
his hair as he returned his attention to the blueprints in front of him. Of the
seven other people in the room, only one moved. A young boy stood up quickly,
grabbing the chair he had been sitting on, and placed it against the table, the
back of it positioned to prevent the wandering speaker from falling off again.
He then turned back to Alec, unconsciously returning to his training and
standing at ease as he waited for his superior to speak.
The other people in the room
were silent, waiting for a reaction. Finally, Alec looked up.
“Okay, so we have three
possible entrances. Here, guarded by four sentries, on a three hour rotation.
This one, through a sewer, and the last, a window overlooking a river.
Correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“Feel like a
“Sir?” one of the younger Xs
spoke softly.
Alec turned to look at him,
raising one eyebrow in response.
“What is our objective, sir?
I mean, what’s in the building we need to get?”
“Need to know basis,
soldier. And you don’t.” He looked around the soldiers he had ‘recruited’ for
his mission. “Rendezvous in two hours, near the south entrance. If you’re late,
don’t bother showing up at all.”
He spun away from them and
out of the door, heading into the bright sunlight. As always, as he entered the
streets of TC he looked around, expecting to see a green gas or something to
indicate the contamination that kept their enemies outside the fences. As
always, there was nothing. The air was clean, and smelt fresh, almost like it
was a tropical beach resort. Yeah, a tropical resort that had been hit by a
nuclear bomb. The place was a mess. A hundred or so transgenics in one place,
and no-one could be bothered organising a work crew to make the place look less
like, well, a sewer. That word again. It wasn’t that he was obsessed with being
clean, it was just, well, with the piles of junk casting shadows everywhere,
this place reminded him of something he wanted to forget. Oh well. He reached
the end of the alley, and forced his face into a smile as he joined the
transgenics walking down what had been dubbed ‘main street.’
>>>>>
“Max, I just want to touch
you.”
>>>>>
Alec rolled his eyes as he
watched them together.
“Pathetic, completely
pathetic.” He muttered, turning away. His intention had been to inform Max that
he was leaving TC for the night. Not that he was going on a mission, no, that
was to be kept a secret for now. But he owed it to her to tell her that he was
leaving, in case she needed to know. Although she never would.
He didn’t, however, owe it
to
>>>>>
Ray saw his teacher’s
reaction and smiled to himself. He looked back down at the blank piece of
paper. The teacher had assigned them to write about their families, what they
did, where they came from, that kind of thing. He had wanted to laugh then, and
he still did. What was he supposed to write, the truth? His father, and him for
that matter, were the products of a thousand plus year old breeding cult, whose
main purpose was to … do something. He wasn’t too clear on what it was yet, but
the cult was everything, and when they told you to do something, you jumped.
That was why his father had killed his mother, why he had let the snake bite
him, even though he knew that he probably wouldn’t survive it. His father had
told him not to worry, that he was strong, but Ray knew different. Yes, he was
strong, but not in that way. Strong in a way his grandfather had told him.
Strong in a way that meant he had a purpose apart from being a breeding cult
flunkie like his dad. Strong like his uncle CJ. He grinned suddenly. Yes,
strong enough to keep a secret from even his father. He finally picked up his
pencil and traced a symbol on the paper. A vertical line, and two parallel
diagonal lines, starting from the top and the middle of the vertical line, and
angling down towards the ground.
>>>>>
“Looks like an ‘F’” Joshua
commented, looking at a new symbol on Max’s arm.
“I guess” Max replied
doubtfully, moving her arm to try to view the mark from a different angle.
“But what message could
possibly start with a F?”
“Don’t know. Maybe it can
only be read with the others”
Max sighed. “Oh well, enough
of my body art. Where is everyone?”
“
“Outside? As in out of TC?”
Max looked at him quickly. Alec going out meant only one thing. Trouble. He was
probably trying to hook up with his old buddies, see what kind of action he
could find, which could only lead to disaster. Hopefully he wouldn’t bring
anyone else down with him this time.
>>>>>
Alec signalled to two X6s as
he slid soundlessly into the darkened water. It closed around him as if he was
part of it, making him indistinguishable from it as he moved away from the
bank. The two Xs followed him, not as practiced, making a few noises, but
nothing that would be recognised as having a human origin. He fought back an
urge to smile at the words he had chosen. Human, indeed. Of course the noise
didn’t have a human origin. There were no humans in the vicinity. The two kids
reached him, and he set off, swimming silently towards his goal, the darkened
warehouse a few hundred yards away. He swam the same way he ran, soundlessly,
efficiently, as if the water was moving out of his way, rather than being
pushed away with his arms.
Alec stopped under the lone
window they had identified from the blueprint. He treaded water, moving his hands
to his waist to untie the rope he had coiled there, like a belt. At one end of
it was a small grappling hook, and he gripped the rope a few inches below this,
and began to swing the rope in the air, to gain speed. At the top of its curve,
he released it, and allowed the rope to slide through his hands as the hook
flew into the air and landed on the window ledge, digging into the woodwork. He
glanced at the X beside him, a cocky grin on his face.
“Just like that” he
whispered soundlessly.
The kid grinned back at him
and passed him a small device. Alec nodded, and placed it between his teeth. He
pulled on the rope a few times to check the support, then began to climb it,
pulling himself up out of the water with his strong arms, before wrapping his
legs around it.
When he reached the top, he
locked his thighs around the rope to keep himself in place, and used one hand
to remove the object from his mouth. It had a suction cup on one side, and he
pressed this against the glass, then twisted a handle on the other end. Pulling
the suction cup off removed the device form the window, along with a perfectly
round piece of glass. Carefully slipping his hand through the hole, he pulled
the catch on the window and opened it, slipping inside. His two companions followed
him inside quickly, more comfortable on land than they were in the water. He
pointed at the smaller one, then signalled to the left. To the other X, and to
the right. The two nodded, and moved to their respective locations, at either
end of a corridor. Almost immediately, both of them signalled the all-clear.
Alec moved quickly to the room he had picked out from the blueprint.
The room was almost exactly
as he had remembered it from three years before. Even the filing cabinet was
still there. Hoping against hope that his luck would hold out, he opened the
cabinet and rifled through the contents. Finally he saw it. He grabbed the
small packet and tucked it inside his shirt. He had what he came for.
In the movies, the bad guys
were always stupid. They screwed up constantly, they revealed their plans to
the good guys right before they gave them a chance to escape. They were
generally stupid.
But, this was reality. And
the bad guys were Manticore-trained. They were annoying, arrogant, but not
stupid.
They were also good guards.
Alec froze as he heard a
slight noise. It wasn’t one of his guys, he knew that instantly. It had to be
one of the guards from the main entrance, either doing a routine sweep of the
building, or…
No, that wasn’t worth
thinking about. The guards couldn’t have heard one of his team. He hadn’t heard any of his team move. Because,
if they had heard one, and found them…
Alec slipped over to the
door and peered through the opening. A guard, dressed in green camo gear walked
slowly down the hall, everything about the way he was moving telling Alec that
the guard was on full alert. He continued on past the door, about five paces,
before stopping and lighting a cigarette.
Full alert, huh? Punishment
for smoking must be worse than he remembered, Alec thought to himself, shaking
his head slightly. But then, it was not like he had ever smoked, he had just
seen guys get punished for smoking. Smoking cigarettes that he had provided for
them, granted, but it wasn’t really his fault, they were the idiots that
had gotten caught.
Just like he was the idiot
stuck in a room. If he left, opened the door to get out, the guard would
notice. Maybe the guard would offer him a smoke before he killed him. More
likely, he wouldn’t bother.
Just great. He reached a
hand out the door, carefully watching to see if the guard would catch glimpse
of him, his shadow, anything. Nothing. The guy kept smoking. Alec closed his
fist, opened it again, two fingers pointing at the wall opposite him, then
closed his hand again.
He knew that the X had seen
him, knew that the young boy would be watching the door as he had told him,
knew that he would obey.
He glanced over to the guard
again, watched as he took another smoke from his pocket, and lit up even as he
crushed out the butt of the other one.
Keep smoking, Alec told him
silently, at least when you die of cancer, I can get out of here. He leaned
back against the wall, tilting his head towards the ceiling and closing his
eyes. He looked relaxed, but every sense was focussed, waiting.
>>>>>
Shay had been guarding the
corridor, watching for a sign that anyone was coming. Alec had given him this
assignment, trusted him to carry it out, and he would not fail him. When the
guard came, he had leapt to the ceiling, slipping his hands and feet through
the rafters so that he stayed suspended from the ceiling. He watched as the
guard passed under him, and went past the door, and lit the cigarette.
Frustration flashed across
Shay’s face as he dropped soundlessly to the ground. Alec couldn’t get out. Not
without being seen.
Shay dropped to one knee,
watching the door, waiting for a signal from his hero.
Then it came, 0-2-0, counted
out with his fist and two fingers. Escape and retreat. He knew the drill. He
moved quickly, without hesitation. Alec wanted him and the others out of there.
So be it. He would die for Alec, but that wasn’t the order given. He would
obey.
>>>>>
three hours later
Alec rolled his eyes in
utter frustration. The damn guard was still there. He had stopped smoking and
had moved on to ringing his many girlfriends. He was up to number three now,
telling them all the same garbage. They were the only one, there could never be
anyone else, he missed them so much.
God. Were women really that
stupid? Did they really fall for that crap? At least he was original, tried to
come up with lines that no-one else had used.
‘A unique creature, unlike
any other’ for example. That worked well, real well. Maybe he should suggest it
to the guard. Nah.
The sun would be up soon.
That couldn’t be good. He had never done any reconnaissance of the factory
during the day, there hadn’t been any point. So, he had absolutely no idea what
he could expect once the shift changed. Oh well, it’s not like he hadn’t
improvised before. It was one of his few talents. If only that damn cellphone
battery would die already. If he had to listen to that idiot spout that crap
any longer, he was going to find the nearest girl and tell her honestly,
truthfully, that he loved her. Restore his faith that women were not in fact
that completely stupid. That they only believed the really good lies. And the
truth.
>>>>>
Logan had commandeered some
deskspace in what was being used as the main headquarters in TC. Various electronic
gadgets and computer parts lay on the table in front of him as he attempted to
hook his computer system up to his old network. He sighed in frustration. This
just wasn’t working. He needed equipment, real equipment. Not these reject
toaster parts. He had to get back
online, had to continue his hacks, get the word out to the people about what
was going on.
Otherwise, what good was he?
No use to Max, that was for sure. He looked over to where she was standing,
talking to a transgenic, so intense in what they were discussing that she
didn’t even notice him in the room. She was obviously not going to be of any
help in getting him the parts he needed. Maybe if he found Joshua, he could get
him to talk to some of his friends for him. Logan stood quickly, excited at the
possibility of getting the much needed parts and finally getting his system
back on line. He turned quickly and headed towards the door, colliding with a
young boy as he did so.
“Sorry” he muttered, not
looking at the boy, just waiting for him to move out of the way. It didn’t
happen. Finally, he made eye contact with him, to figure out what the problem
was. The boy was looking back at him with so much hatred in his eyes, that
Logan took an involuntary step back, colliding with the desk behind him. The
boy stepped forward.
“Uh, Max?” Logan called
softly, ‘come call your monster off’, he thought silently to himself.
The boy kept staring at him.
Had Logan seen him before? Where did he know him from? He looked so familiar.
>>>>>
Alec sat, perfecting the art
of banging his head against the wall without making a sound. 5 hours and
counting.
>>>>>
Shay stared at the man who
had walked into him. He looked familiar, he had seen him somewhere before. The
one thing he knew was that the man was a human.
He didn’t like humans. In
the time he had been out of Manticore, he had never met one that he liked, that
wasn’t trying to hurt him. Humans were evil.
The man stepped back, and
almost fell against a desk. Humans were also stupid.
Shay took a step forward to
see what he would do.
“Max?” the man called
pathetically.
Shay recognised the man
then. He had seen him at a bar one night, Crash, it was called. He had followed
Alec there one night, to see what he was doing, to learn from him, like he had
done when they were all still back at home, back at Manticore. The man had been
there too, talking to Max, and Alec had gone up to them, to tell Max something
important. The man had told Alec to leave, then had pushed him away. He had
actually touched Alec, and shoved him. Alec had stepped back, and then left.
Alec didn’t like him. He had heard him talking about the man since then, he had
some stupid name, Logan, that was it. Alec didn’t like him.
Shay stared angrily at the
man, just waiting for an opportunity.
“Hey, Logan.” Max smiled
brightly as she stepped up to join them. She turned to look at the young boy,
“Hey there.”
Shay smiled at her. Alec
liked her, she must be okay.
“Hi” he said, grinning, his
voice betraying his age. He was a soldier, for gods sake. He wasn’t supposed to
talk like a thirteen year old. It wasn’t fair.
“We haven’t met” Max said
brightly. “I’m Max”
“Shay” he glanced at Logan,
his expression hardening briefly. Now was not the time. Maybe later.
“Gotta go” he told her,
trying to look innocent. He turned away, and glared at Logan, succeeding in
getting a reaction. Good.
>>>>>
Seven hours. Dawn had come
and gone. Alec was bored stiff. He was dying to just go outside, kill the
guards and leave. It would be so easy. But he couldn’t let anyone know that he
had been there. A dead body would be a bit too much of a hint. The guard still
hadn’t changed. In fact, his idiot guard from outside the door was still there,
sitting on the floor, his head against the wall, snoring loudly.
Alec was, as always, ready
to move at any second. Any opportunity and he would be gone. He hadn’t moved in
about five hours, except to reach inside his shirt and touch the package he had
hidden there. It was worth sitting there, in the dark for this amount of time,
to have that package safely in his possession. But if he lost the damn thing…
A noise outside caught his
attention. The guard had stood up, and was moving away. Now!
Alec slipped out of the room
without making a sound and was out the building and into the river before the
guard had made it outside and lit another cigarette.
‘Thanks’ he whispered to his
twin brother’s Blue Lady.
>>>>>
It was about midday by the
time he made it back to TC, exhausted, cold and wet. He crawled through the
tunnel entrance and grinned at the transgenics that had been assigned to guard
it.
One of them, white faced and
bald, recognised him and smiled back.
“Hey, Alec. Where ya been?”
“Around” he shrugged,
flashing his trademark grin. Better they got the wrong idea about why he was
out, than started questioning the fact that he had been out at all. “Later” he
told them, crossing the street and heading for the building he had been living
in.
Someone had to set up a
cleaning crew, and fast, he thought to himself as he jumped the pile of broken
rubble that blocked the entrance to his building. His foot clipped the top, and
he spun back to look at it.
Was he just tired, or had
that pile gotten bigger while he had been gone? He looked up at the exterior of
the building, looking for, well, a huge gaping hole in the side, or something.
It looked like the same crumbling building it had always been.
He shrugged. At least he
lived on the top floor. Didn’t have to worry about 12 floors worth of junk
burying him while he slept. Of course, falling 12 stories with that junk would
probably kill him anyway. Maybe. That was one test that Manticore hadn’t put
him through. Guess they had simply run out of time for that one. It had to be
on someone’s list somewhere, right? Yeah. Gotta keep faith in the system.
Manticore would think of everything.
He grinned as he ran up the
final flight of stairs. Home, sweet home. His door was unlocked, as usual.
Transgenics were trained as killers, not thieves. It was beneath them to steal,
from each other at least. And besides, he was Alec, 494. No transgenic would be
that stupid.
He laughed to himself.
Couldn’t just be the fact that you have nothing to steal, huh? He asked
himself. Well, he had a bed, and a chair, kind of. What did you need 4 legs for
anyway?
But now he had something,
something that was so important to him that he had spent almost 12 hours on a
mission trying to get. He knelt on the floor and took out the package. It was
wrapped in plastic, which meant that the contents were still dry. He unwrapped
it very slowly, like a child unwraps a Christmas present, trying not to damage
any of the paper, savouring the moment until they get to see the gift they had
always dreamed of seeing.
Alec had never had a
Christmas, but he had dreamed of this. For the past three years, he had seen it
in his mind, but only recently had his conscious mind remembered where the
image had come from. Hopefully, his mind would continue to wake up and tell him
why the hell the thing was so important to him.
The ‘thing’ was a small
book, brown leather which was worn with age. He stared at it for a long time,
trying to decide whether to open it now, or wait. Finally he wrapped it back up
in its plastic cover and hid it under his bed. He would examine it when he
wasn’t so tired.
Alec pulled his wet clothes
off and sprawled on top of his bed, his eyes closing with exhaustion. As sleep
over took him, he began to dream. And in his dream was an old man, grey haired,
seated at a desk in a small room. A walking stick with an animal, a manticore,
for a handle lay propped up against the desk. He dipped an old-fashioned quill
into an ink well and continued writing. In a small book with a brown leather
cover.
>>>>>
There were times when he
wished he was normal. That he was just like every other young boy around,
playing football in the streets, watching cartoons on tv, sneaking candy when
his parents weren’t looking.
Now was not one of those
times. Ray sat alone in his room, his door securely jammed shut so that his
foster brothers could not get in. His shirt sleeve was rolled up, past his
elbow, to reveal the scar on his arm, the proof that he had survived the trial.
He touched it, tracing the outline in wonder. He wasn’t supposed to pass the
test, not without help. That was part of the secret that he had, the secret he
had promised never to tell, never to even think about, until it was time.
He was so sick of that
phrase. Being told to wait ‘until it was time’. What the hell did that mean,
anyway? His school teachers said it, his old teachers, that was. His dad said
it, his dad’s father said it. And the worst thing was, none of them was
referring to the same thing. The teachers were talking about the trial, his
father to some ‘event’ in the future that the trial would prove him ready for,
and his dad’s father? Who knew, but something else entirely.
And where was the old man
anyway? He was supposed to be there, before the trial, to help him get through
it. But he never showed, and Ray had gone through the test anyway, because his
dad’s father was a strange old man, who perhaps didn’t always tell the truth,
and he may have been strong enough to pass it by himself.
But as he lay there, he knew
that that wasn’t true. he wasn’t strong enough.
Yet he had woken up anyway,
and a woman had been there. She had seemed nice, but then she had forced him to
leave Seattle, and go to this stupid place.
And he wanted to know why.
He was sick of not knowing things. Sick of being told to wait until it was
time.
He was going to pick the time from now on, and he
was going to decide what happened when it was time. Because he was strong. He
knew this.
Raymond White was, in fact,
stronger than he knew. Much, much stronger.
>>>>>
“And then, me and Alec
climbed up the rope and into the room. And he sent me to guard the corridor
while he broke into the safe. There were so many guards around, but we were
better than they were. Much better. It was only dumb luck that the guard took
up position outside of the room Alec was in, so he couldn’t get back out. But
he passed on a signal to me, told me to get the others home. Put me in
charge.” Shay grinned proudly as he looked around at the other X6s and 7s in
the room. They looked up at him with admiration in their eyes.
“Alec spoke to me once” said
a little X7 girl softly.
“So let me get this straight. You and Alec went on this top secret mission,
right?” asked an X6 named Rick.
“Yeah”
“And when Alec got into
trouble, almost got caught, you left him there?” Rick sneered.
“No. Alec told me to leave,
and I left. He trusted me to get the others out of there, and I did. He trusts
me.” Shay glared back at him.
“Alec’s not so great anyway.
Simon’s a better fighter, a better commander. He’s teaching me to fight, which
means I’ll be better than you ever will. And Simon would never get caught in a
room by a human guard” Rick laughed.
Shay leapt for him, shoving
him to the ground. He would teach him to talk that way about his hero. Alec was
the best. Always would be.
>>>>>
Logan pounded his fist
against the desk in frustration. Nothing was going right. Nothing. Everything
he tried just led to more problems. Get one cable hooked up, the transmitter
blew. Fix that, he lost visuals. Fix the visuals, and…
Oh what was the point. If he
fixed that, something even worse would break. What he needed was a new system.
A completely new set up.
What he really needed was to
get out of TC, to a secure location, where he could buy the stuff he needed.
But leaving TC meant leaving
Max, and he wasn’t ready for that yet. He had to stick around. Which meant he
was stuck with the garbage on the desk in front of him. For now.
>>>>>
Max was getting more and
more frustrated. There was so much to do here, they had to build an entire civilisation,
while dealing with the threat of the familiars, and the FBI, and god only knew
who else. Didn’t leave much time for fun. She hadn’t been out of TC since she
had gotten here, and she was going crazy. More than anything, she wanted out.
To just climb on her bike and race everything away. Get the hell out of the
city, out of Seattle, away from everyone who was looking up to her, expecting
her to be their leader.
Not that she would abandon
her people. They were her family, more important to her than anything. She
wasn’t trying to get away for good, just for a break. Just long enough to stop
her head spinning, to stop the hundred thoughts that were racing through her
mind at once, making it near impossible for her to concentrate on any of the
dozen things she needed to do.
She clenched her fists to
stop herself from pounding them through the nearest wall. If she could just
concentrate enough to accomplish one thing, just one…
Damn it. It was no good. She
looked around the room for a distraction.
Logan. He was sitting across
the room, working on something.
“Hey” she grinned, coming up
behind Logan and wrapping her arms around his neck.
“What you working on?”
“Well,” Logan turned to face
her “I can’t seem to get the network working. I need to by-pass the security
protocols at the network, but I can’t do that until I get the proper parts.
Listen, there are a few things I need. Any chance you can get them for me?”
“You mean, like steal them?”
Max’s face lit up. Yeah. She could sneak out of TC, and get whatever he needed.
Hopefully she could find it at the top of a really tall building, with a few
guards and a trap or two. That could be fun. She would just have to get out of
TC. Alec may know a way. He was good at stuff like that, in fact, he was great.
“You’re right, that would be
too dangerous right now. You should stay low, keep your head down for a while.”
Max’s smile vanished. Stay
low, keep your head down. God, the amount of times that she had said that to
Joshua. She had never known how truly annoying those words could be. Did it
annoy him as much as it annoyed her? No doubt.
“Fine, whatever.” She walked
away. There must be something she could do for fun around here, just for a
while.
If only she could go to
Crash, hang out with OC and Sketchy, drink too much beer, play some pool.
She remembered this one
time, about a month ago, her and Sketch had been playing a game of pool, a
loser buys drinks kind of game. They were both kind of drunk, and for her, that
was saying something. The game had been going on for a long time, neither was
sinking anything, but when they were drinking between each shot, it really
didn’t matter. OC was watching, making critical comments about the state of
their game, in between checking out the rest of the bar, naturally.
Max had leant over to aim
for the yellow ball, concentrating, in a drunken way, when she saw a black clad
thigh rest on the edge of the table, blocking her shot. She looked up in
annoyance. Alec looked back at her, eyebrows raised.
“Having a good game, Max?”
he smiled at her.
She glared back at him,
taking her shot.
Alec leapt off the table
with a surprised “Hey!” he turned to glare at her, but the sparkle in his eye
gave away his true emotion.
The yellow ball hit the side
of the table, missing the pocket by centimetres.
Alec laughed again. “It’s
supposed to go into the hole, right? At least, that’s how I play the
game.”
“Shut up.” She glared at
him, picking up the 8 ball and throwing it at him. Not hard, just enough to prove
a point. He caught it easily and threw it into the air, whistling.
She smiled, in spite of
himself. He was a jerk, but he could be funny. Sometimes.
“So?” Alec prompted, nodding
his head at the door, and grinning.
“So?”
“Think you can keep up?” he
tossed the ball back onto the table, where it collided with the yellow ball and
sent it spinning into the corner pocket.
God he was annoying, she
thought as she followed him out the door. And stopped dead. Two motorbikes
stood right outside the entrance. Two ninja’s, both in pristine condition, jet
black, shining, keys dangling from the ignition. The one on the left was hers,
she recognised it instantly, it was like a part of her. It was also supposed to
be locked up inside her apartment. She turned to stare at Alec.
“C’mon” he encouraged.
“Let’s go for a ride. Race the wind” his grin was cocky, but infectious. She
grinned back.
“I could kick your ass for
touching my bike” she told him.
“Aw, come on, Maxie, I
polished it, filled the tank, whatd’ya say, forgive me?” his expression turned
innocent, a young boy seeking approval. She laughed.
“Keep up if you can” she
jumped on her bike and raced off down the street, knowing that he would be
right behind here.
Max grinned as she came back
to reality.
>>>>>
He was dreaming. It was one
of those dreams when you knew you were asleep, knew it wasn’t reality, but
couldn’t do anything to wake up or control the dream.
Alec was standing in a room,
no, a corridor. He moved down it slowly, his eyes scanning for movement in the
shadows. He reached for a door handle and opened it slowly, slipping into the
room and closing the door soundlessly behind him. The room was empty, he could
see, and feel that. So far so good.
There was something in the
room. His eyes were drawn to the centre of the room, down slightly. Was there
something there? He took a step forward to see…
And woke up. Alec sat up in
bed shaking his head quickly, and grinning. If only the thing in the room was a
woman, stretched out on a bed, her long dark hair falling into her face as she
sat up to greet him…
If only.
He sighed, and rolled over
on the bed, reaching his hand to the floor and searching until he found the
small book.
Alec unwrapped it slowly and
lay staring at it. Slowly he flicked open the cover.
The first page was blank.
Kind of an anticlimax. He had expected, well, something. The meaning of life
perhaps. The answer to every question he had. Yeah. Right.
He rose from the bed,
seeming to remember that he had a bottle of water somewhere in what passed for
his living room. Still holding the book in his right hand he crossed the room,
staring at the book as if words would magically appear on the page. He was
reaching for the bottle of water when he finally turned the page with his
thumb. His hand never reached the water bottle. He never even finished turning
the page. He caught sight of five words written on the page, his enhanced
vision reading them even as the book fell to the floor with a thud. In the
ensuing silence, his thoughts from before came back into his mind.
The meaning of life,
perhaps. The answer to every question he had. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
“Alec? Hey, Alec, you back
yet?” Shay called out as he approached the apartment door. He hadn’t been out
of Manticore long enough to change the way he walked. Meaning, that he walked
soundlessly, and that wasn’t always a good thing. Particularly when you were
approaching someone who had been as well trained as Alec. It could be taken the
wrong way, and Shay could be taken out. Not a good plan.
So, he purposely made noise.
He called out to Alec, banged his hand against the wall, coughed. He tried
stamping his feet, but that was way too unnatural. It didn’t feel right.
“Alec?” he pushed open the door
and froze. Alec stood in front of him, not moving. One arm was outstretched,
parallel to the ground, fingers reaching. His eyes stared, unfocussed, in front
of him.
“Alec?” Shay’s voice became
quieter, more uncertain. Maybe Rick was right, maybe he shouldn’t have left
Alec there, in that building. Maybe he had let him down.
“Alec” he pleaded, reaching
out to touch his hero’s outstretched hand. His fingers barely brushed Alec’s
arm.
And Alec moved. His
outstretched arm smashed into Shay’s chest, sending him flying through the open
door and into the wall opposite. Shay slammed against the wall, and fell,
crumpled to the floor. He lay dazed for a second, then rose to hands and knees,
shaking his head to clear it. Slowly he looked up at Alec, and felt scared for
the first time around him. Alec took a step towards him, and Shay scrambled
away, down the corridor and leapt down the flight of stairs. Something had gone
wrong, so very, very wrong. What had he done? What had happened?
>>>>>
Alec blinked, and looked
down at his hand in shock. Had he really hit that kid? Really sent him flying?
He hadn’t meant to, but hell, the kid made no sound, he had come from nowhere.
And the look on his face, Alec had only seen it once before. He had promised
Max that he would do something, couldn’t even remember what it was now, but he
hadn’t done it, something had come up. Max had looked at him with that same
expression on her face, and told him to ‘forget it.’ That look, like she had
trusted him, and he had completely let her down.
He hated that look, it made
him feel like he was everything he was made to be. It made him feel like one of
the Manticore elite.
And that kid, looking at him
the same way…
Damnit. Why did he do that? Why did he convince people that
he was worth following, and then let them down? He didn’t want to be that
person, didn’t want to be Manticore any more.
He let his gaze travel back
to the book lying on the floor. It was something, he could feel it. That stupid
little book was important. Why else would he remember it after three years? Not
that he really remembered it anyway, he just had that image of seeing it, and a
desire to get it back into his possession.
Because he had had it once.
He had held it in his hands, and possibly he had known what it was then. He
just didn’t now.
Maybe, no, not maybe,
definitely he would find out what it was, and what its purpose was. Maybe that
would start to make up for all the crap he had pulled in the past.
But now, he had other things
to make up for. Starting with that kid, Shay. He picked up the book and looked
around. There was a loose brick in one of the walls. Pathetic hiding place,
right? But, possibly so pathetic that no-one would think to look there. He
placed the book behind the brick and smiled to himself.
Professor Christopher
Sandeman. Project Manticore.
>>>>>
Ray gazed out the window,
watching the stars intently. This was something he had been taught from a young
age, the stars provided answers to everything, told them when events were to
occur. The stars provided answers.
The stars were silent
tonight. Typical, because his choice was a tough one to make. Follow his
father, or his father’s father. Do his duty, or follow his destiny.
Sometimes he missed his
mother. She never talked to him about his future, about his purpose in life.
She loved him even though she didn’t know that he was special. But, she had to
die. He understood that. He really did. Because she was just a human. And
although he didn’t know which side was the best, he knew which was the worst.
Humans.
Something flared in the sky.
That must be his answer. He was thinking about his mother, so… it was time to
go home. Back to seattle.
At least they were both
there, his father and his father’s father. Maybe when he got there and saw them
both, he would know what to do.
There really wasn’t that
much time left to decide. Not really.
>>>>>
“Shay?” Max had been walking
down the street, meaning to go find Alec, see what he was up to, maybe convince
him to go do something fun. Not that that would take much convincing, of
course, it was Alec, after all.
Then she had come across a
young boy, sitting on the pavement, leaning his head against a brick wall. It
had taken her a few seconds to recognise the cocky boy from the day before in
this boy, who looked so lost.
Shay turned his head slowly
to look at her. “Hey.”
“What’s wrong?” she took a
seat on the ground beside him, and looked over at him
“Nothing.”
Max continued to look at
him. She had learned this trick from the Manticore officers. Don’t tell someone
you think they’re lying, just keep staring at them until they tell the truth.
It worked until the kids got smart, anyway.
“You’re a friend of Alec’s
right?”
“I guess.” Max replied. What
the hell was their relationship? Who knew. Enemies, then friends, then
something else. Usually all of the above within about 5 minutes.
“Did you ever do anything to
make him mad at you?” his voice sounded small.
“Nah, it’s usually the other
way… wait what?” Max stopped. Alec mad? No, that was something she had never
seen before.
“I let him down. He wanted
me to do something, and I let him down.”
She looked at him closely
then. This wasn’t just some kid who was upset because he hadn’t been able to
complete an errand. What exactly did Alec tell Shay to do? And what was Alec
like when he was mad? That was a better question to ask.
“How do you know that Alec was mad at you? Maybe he wasn’t.”
“He is. He threw me across
the wall, into a wall.”
“He. Did. What???” Max’s
face hardened. That little… she was on her feet before she knew what she was
doing. She was so going to kick his ass for this one.
“Man, it wasn’t bad.” Shay
said quickly, looking up at her. “I mean, I got worse at Manticore, for
screwing up a lot less than that. It’s just, you know, it was Alec. I used to
follow him around at Manticore. I wanted to be like him, he was so cool,
brilliant. I just wanted a chance to prove to him that I was good. And I blew
it.”
“And so he hit you.” Max
couldn’t get this out of her head. A picture of Alec punching this little kid.
“Can you tell him I’m sorry?
And that I won’t screw up again, if he gives me another chance?”
Max struggled to control her
anger. Alec was going to pay. Messing around with this poor kid, she now had
something fun to do today. She was going to kick Alec’s ass, tear him into
strips until he told her what he had done to this kid. And she was going to
enjoy it.
“Yeah, I’ll tell him.” She
patted his head before heading off in the direction of Alec’s apartment,
praying that he would be there.
>>>>>
Alec couldn’t stop pacing
around the room. He wanted to read the journal, wanted to see exactly what was
in it. But now didn’t seem like the right time.
Max. Max should be here. She
was the one that was the most interested in Sandeman, the one who had searched
for him and the secrets he carried for the longest time. Yeah. He should go
find Max, and tell her what he had found. She would grin at him, happy for
once, not pissed off with him. Together they could figure out what it meant. He
grinned, grabbing his jacket and slipping it on.
He turned to leave, as Max
stormed in.
“Hey, Max. Listen, before
you start on some ‘save the world’ crusade, can I show you…aahh” his voice
caught on something. Max’s forearm, to be exact.
Max had strode across the
room, shoved him against the far wall and held him in place with her arm across
his throat.
“Uh, Max?” he choked out.
“Shut up. I am so sick of
your crap, Alec. So tired of having to deal with all the shit that comes from
being associated with you.”
“Wha…?”
Realising that he could
breathe, she pressed her arm harder against him, forcing him back into the
wall, before releasing him. Alec sank to the floor, rubbing his neck, before
standing up and glaring at Max
“Hey, come on, if ya wanna
play, fine, but that really.. Christ!”
Max slammed him into the
wall with a fast side kick.
Alec pushed himself slowly
off the wall and looked at Max, cautiously. Now What?
“Well, aren’t you going to say
anything?”
“Gonna let me finish a
sentence?”
She glared in response.
“Great. So, what the Fuck?”
She threw a punch, but this
time he was ready, blocking her fist with his hand.
“I thought you said I could
finish a sentence?”
“You beat up that kid, Shay.
Why?”
Alec looked down. Shit. How
had she found out about that? What to say?
He grinned to himself. If
nothing else works, try the truth. Who had told him that? Someone at Manticore.
If he was captured, and they didn’t believe his cover story, tell the truth.
They definitely wouldn’t believe that.
So, truth here? Why not.
“I, um, Max, I didn’t mean
to. He snuck up on me. I was distracted, didn’t even know he was there, then he
grabbed my arm. I just reacted.”
Max looked at him closely.
Maybe. Manticore had trained them to do that.
“He’s just a kid, Max. I
didn’t do it on purpose.” Keep talking, he thought to himself. It seemed to be
working. She wasn’t hitting him at least. What do you know. Something Manticore
had taught him had worked. “Is he okay?”
Max snapped. Alec was
playing her. There was no way that he would care enough about a kid to ask if
he was okay. She had almost believed him too, had wanted to believe that he was
good.
She slammed him back into
the wall, through the wall. As she watched him lying on the floor of what
looked like his bedroom, covered in dust, she felt angry.
She just had to keep
believing the best in him. And he kept letting her down.
“Touch him again, Alec, and
we’ll finish this.” She stormed out.
Yeah, Alec thought, she
probably would finish it. He had never hit her yet, not properly, anyway, not
actually intending to hit her, and he didn’t know if he could.
“Hey Max.” he choked out to
the empty room, dust filling his lungs. “I found ‘Father’s’ diary.”
>>>>>
Alec lay on the ground,
coughing from the dust. He rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling,
vaguely looking for any cracks that might be appearing. This building sucked.
For all he knew all of the walls were actual support walls. And Max had just
knocked one down. Well, part of one.
It looked fine. Okay, move
on to next problem. Which was what? Max was pissed at him, Shay was… well,
something. And he had a journal to read.
Shay, then. Max was mad, and
a pissed off Max was never good to be around. His bedroom wall could attest to
that. And he couldn’t concentrate long enough to study the book.
Bang
A chunk of brick from the
wall hit the ground. Alec flipped himself to his feet instantly, straight into
an attack ready stance, then laughed at his stupidity.
If the wall was coming down,
then it would have come down already, Right?
He shook his head, and
headed out the door. There was an alley not far from here where the younger Xs
tended to hang out. Maybe Shay would be there.
>>
He was. Alec could see about
8 or 9 Xs, both 6 and 7 series seated on assorted boxes and crates, talking
amongst themselves. Alec straightened his jacket, feeling suddenly nervous. He
liked this kid, and he had hurt him. So he had to put it right.
He stepped into the alley
and the conversation stopped. All of the kids watched him, as if waiting for
orders. A few stood up, at attention.
God, someone needed to
control these kids, get them organised, get them doing something. They needed
it and wanted it.
“What happened, sir? Do we
need to mobilise?” one of the older 6s asked, sounding almost eager.
“What?” Alec raised his
eyebrows questioningly, glancing to Shay.
The boy looked at him, then
ran a hand through his hair, then looked at him again.
Nervous trait? Nah, it
seemed purposeful. Alec mimicked his action, and a mass of dust fell out of his
hair. Damn. But the kid had given him an idea.
“Shay.” The boy looked up to
him, startled. “You up for it?” he grinned at him. Come on, Shay, take the
bait.
Shay looked nervous, then
grinned in a passable imitation of Alec himself.
“Always” he stood up.
Alec gestured towards the
other end of the alley. His apology could be kind of public. He knew that the
6s and 7s looked up to the 5s. He had looked up to the 4s, for about 10 minutes
until he realised that they were basically nomalies waiting to happen.
He grabbed a crate and
upended it, sitting down. Shay came over and stood to attention.
“Have a seat.”
Shay did so immediately.
Okay. Try an apology. It
cant be that hard, right? He had never really done it before.
“Listen, at my apartment…”
“I’m sorry, sir” Shay spoke
quickly, trying to keep Alec calm before he blew up again.
“Shay, I was distracted. I
didn’t see you there, and when you touched me, I reacted. I didn’t know it was
you until I saw you hit the wall. I’m sorry.”
Shay was stunned. He had
tried to convince himself that that was what had happened, but to hear it from
Alec, to know that Alec had actually taken the time to apologise to him… it was
beyond comprehension. No-one had ever apologised to him before. It was kind of
strange.
“So, anyway,” Alec
continued, noting Shay’s discomfort, “I have this new mission planned, and I
need a guy I can really count on. You want in?”
“Yeah!” Shay grinned. “I
won’t let you down, I swear”
“I know. You didn’t in the
building, did you? You did exactly what I told you to do, got the others out.
This mission, it’s big. It has to succeed. I can’t trust anyone else.”
Okay, that was laying it on
a bit thick. But, well, he had a lot to make up for. It was actually a pretty
simple mission, but it was important. And the other Xs could hear what was
being said, so why not talk a bit louder than usual?
>>>>>
“ I can’t believe him” Max
stormed into the room.
Logan looked up. Alec had
obviously done something, again. He was the only one who ever got Max worked up
like this, the only one who had the power to truly piss Max off. Yet, for some
reason, she kept him around. It was like she enjoyed it or something.
“What did he do now?”
“He hit some kid. Shay, you
know, the one that was in here the other day? I could just kill him.”
“He hit him?” Logan was
surprised. Alec was, well, Alec. He was impulsive, arrogant and completely annoying
to be around most of the time. But violent? He had never known that to be true.
But, hey, he was raised as a killer. Hitting some kid wasn’t that big of a
stretch.
>>>>>
Doctor Christopher Sandeman,
Project Manticore.
To all those who will read
this.
This is a record of the
events of the past 25 years, although it has its origins in the distant past.
Nothing I am about to write
is fiction, no matter how strange it may sound. I write this in perfect health,
both physical and mental, and am motivated only by regret at my actions, and a
desire to perhaps put things right.
To the person reading this,
I ask only two things. Read this, and think. Think about what I am about to
say, and think about what is happening in the world as you read this. If you
believe me, then I ask that you deliver this journal to one of the people that
I will talk about. If you don’t, then simply destroy it and pretend you never
read it.
If you hand this to the FBI,
or any government officials, they will deem this as classified, top secret, and
know that they will kill to prevent anything written in here from becoming
public.
I am sorry that I put you in
this position.
I wish only to die with a
clear conscience. I will not see the destruction that is coming, I wish only to
help prevent it.
I accept all
responsibilities for my actions. Mea culpa.
Christopher Jason Sandeman.
>>>>>
Alec took the twelve foot
high fence at a leap, landing soundlessly on the other side and moving off
several paces before pausing and turning to look back, to check for Shay. The
younger X scaled the fence, rather than jumped it, and sprinted to join Alec.
Alec grinned down at the younger boy.
“It’s all in the way you
position yourself before the jump. Centre yourself, picture your centre of
gravity as a ball of light in the centre of your body, then as you jump, move
the light up, into your chest. No problem.”
“Cool.” Shay looked at him
in wonder, then glanced back at the fence, wondering if he could do it too.
“Later.” Alec told him
grinning, “C’mon, business first, right?”
The two moved into the
streets of Seattle, flipping the collars of their jackets up. The damn barcodes
made them all paranoid. They were invisible, he knew that. The tattoo removal
machine
was one of their first
acquisitions after they had moved into TC. Yet, the paranoia remained.
The streets were pretty busy
for an evening, lot of people wandering around, with no apparent purpose for
their actions. Many of them seemed nervous, due possibly to the excessive
amount of sector cops around.
There seemed to be a couple
of cops on each street, observing the crowd, looking for anything different.
Alec moved closer to Shay,
slipping an arm around his shoulder, trying to give the impression of an older
brother out for the night with his kid brother.
“Act natural, look at the
cops. If you avoid their gaze they’ll know something is up.” Alec advised him
as they crossed the street.
“So, when are you going to
tell me what we are doing?”
“Well,” Alec thought for a
second. “We’re saving my life.”
“What???” Shay stopped dead
in the middle of the street. An old lady carrying a shopping bag full of cans
almost walked into him. Stepping around him, she muttered something about
children these days being all the same, and glared at Alec.
“Sorry” he muttered to the
woman, then turned back to Shay. “Keep walking.” As they headed off down the
street he took a deep breath. “Sometimes, when you screw up, you have to make
it up to the person. Saying sorry just doesn’t cut it. And when the person you
hurt is… special… to you, you have to go to a bit more trouble. Turn here.”
Alec pointed to an alley. “Show time. Okay, down the block to the right is the
police station. Behind it is the impound lot. After the crap at Jam Pony, the
police became suspicious of anyone involved, including those of us who acted as
hostages. They found our addresses and raided our places. Anything of value,
they took. I want something back.”
Of course Shay remembered
the Jam Pony incident. It was what had brought them all out of the woodwork,
the transgenics that was. He knew Dalton slightly, and had listened to him talk
about what had gone on there many times. The way that Max, Alec and Joshua had
saved the day, rescuing Dalton and Gem, and how they had fought and beaten not
only the cops, but the familiars as well. It was the stuff legends had been
made of. Dalton was so lucky to have been part of it.
Shay simply nodded at Alec,
waiting for him to continue.
“Okay, so I need you to
distract the guard, make up some story then take him out. Don’t kill him,
unless absolutely necessary. We don’t do that anymore.”
Alec waited until Shay had
nodded, confirming that he wouldn’t kill.
“Behind the desk, will be a
key to the main gate. I need you to get that, and unlock the gate. Then, signal
me.”
Alec handed Shay a
flashlight.
“Now, listen closely. There
are five guards on duty at any given time. One stays in the office, the others
rotate, walking patrols. We go in immediately after one passes the office, and
we then have 12 minutes before the next one comes. Get the gate open, then go
to ground. Go west, down that road there, rendezvous by the chinese shop. If
you’re not there fifteen minutes after you signal, lay low until full night,
then get back to TC by yourself. Got that?”
“Yes sir” Shay confirmed,
his mind assimilating the knowledge, and reverting back to his training. He was
no longer a young boy, he was a soldier and he was ready for action.
“And Shay?”
The boy looked at him.
“Be there, okay?”
He nodded.
“Right, the guard should be
coming in the next three minutes. Ready?”
Shay nodded, determined to
complete his part of the mission. They moved into position.
Approximately two and a half
minutes later, a flashlight appeared in the growing darkness, and the cop
holding it came into view. He moved past them, not noticing them. Alec squeezed
Shay’s shoulder, once, and moved off into the darkness.
Shay stood up, running his
hands through his hair, messing it up as much as he could. He pulled his
shirt out of his pants
roughly, and ripped one of the shoulder seams.
Standing up, he forced
himself to hyperventilate, then jogged the few paces to the police station.
When he entered the building, the cop on duty saw only a terrified young boy,
breathing hard as if he had been running, and looking like he had been involved
in some sort of brawl.
The cop was middle-aged,
slightly overweight and balding. He was married, with three children, one of
which was about the same age as the boy he saw in from of him.
“What is it, son?” he asked.
“There’s a fight, down the
street. My brother and me, we were going home and this old lady, she…”
“She what, son?”
“Well, she had all these
cans. Food, you know” Good, Shay thought to himself, keep it simple, true. “And
these guys, they tried to mug her. My brother, he tried to stop it, and they
started beating him. I tried to help, but…”
Shay lowered his head,
pretending to cry. He put his hands over his face, but spread his fingers, so he
could see where the cop was. The man moved around the desk and over to him,
clearly wanting to comfort the boy.
Shay struck, bending his
middle finger, and slamming the first knuckle into the man’s neck. Shay’s aim
was true, he hit the pressure point and the man crumpled to the ground. So far
so good.
He considered moving the
man, but hey, the guy was huge. No time. He leapt the desk and looked around,
trying to find the key Alec had told him would be there. He could hear his
heart pounding, sounding for all the world like a clock, counting down the
amount of time he had left. Alec would be waiting. Okay, here were some keys.
Safe, office, car… here! This was it. Great. He blurred out of the room towards
the gate. How long had he been inside? Not long, he knew that much. Did they
have enough time? He opened the lock on the gate and pushed it open. Almost
there. Just the signal to go. Shay flicked the flashlight on and gave the
signal for all clear. Two long, one short.
He looked eagerly into the
dark, hoping to see something, some evidence that everything was going
according to plan. Nothing. He watched for a few more seconds, then began to
move away. As he moved down the alley, and into the street, he automatically
straightened up his appearance, smoothing his hair down and tucking his shirt
back in. He forced himself to walk slowly, even though he wanted to run. He had
done his job. Done everything that Alec had asked him to do.
>>>>>
Alec saw the signal and
grinned to himself. That kid was good. Faster than he had hoped.
After he had left Shay, he
had blurred around to the other side of the compound, and then, after watching
a guard move past, had scaled the wall and moved onto part two of his plan. He
moved quickly, his scouting missions from the other day had told him where his
objective was, and he was relieved to see that the bike was still where it had
been then. The bike.
Alec had told Shay most of
the truth. Yes, the cops had ransacked the houses of those involved with the JP
hostage mess. Yes, the guards had taken something he wanted back. But, he had
led Shay to believe that what he had wanted back was something of his own. That
wasn’t quite accurate. What he wanted back most was what was standing right in
front of him. Max’s black Ninja.
His stuff was only
possessions. He really didn’t care that much about them. But to Max, this bike
was part of her soul. He had seen her face when she was riding it, and it was
the closest he had ever seen to her being completely at peace. She had said
nothing when they had been told of the raids, but he had known that she had
been devastated by the loss.
So, she was mad at him, he
wanted to apologise, so he was getting her bike back for her. As an apology,
that was all. She would appreciate it. It was the kind of thing that one friend
would do for another. It was a friendship kind of thing. It was a nice thing to
do.
Yep, no ulterior motive here
at all.
The bike was locked up, but,
well… Little challenge. Now all he needed was a way to get out. And Shay
provided that with the signal.
Alec saw it, and began to
count to one hundred, very slowly. He knew he had told Shay to unlock the door
and then blaze, but he also knew that Shay would no doubt hang around for a few
moments, to see if anything would happen.
Alec intended to ride the
bike out of there, and he just knew that the moment he started her up, every
guard in the place would zero in on him. And would find Shay if he was still at
the gate. He needed to give the kid time to get the hell out.
99, 100. Now. He turned the
key (okay, fine so he had stolen the key from Max. She would be pissed at him,
again. What else was new?) and revved the engine. Alec saw three flashlights
aim at him before he gunned the engine and headed for the gate.
>>>>>
Mission accomplished. Alec
stood in the basement of his building, giving the bike a quick clean. No matter
how grateful Max would be to get the bike back, she would still kick his ass if
she found any kind of damage, no matter how small, to her precious bike. When
it was perfect, he wheeled it out into the road, and pushed it to Max’s
apartment block.
He had decided to leave it
there, just let Max find it on her own in the morning. He would tell her later,
that it was him who had left it there. If he told her at all. Max was mad at
him, yes, but mad for some reason that wasn’t really his fault. If he had been
to blame, then an express apology would have been necessary. As he wasn’t, then
the bike could speak for itself. Max would understand.
He pulled his sleeve over
his hand, and rubbed at the handlebar where his hands had rested, removing any
marks there.
Alec turned away. The
mission was a success. His goal had been to test Shay, see if he would follow
orders, to see if he could be counted on. Shay had passed both with flying
colours. He had done exactly what was asked of him, right down to being at the
right spot, in front of the chinese shop, at the right time. The mission had
been a success. And at the end of every successful mission, soldiers headed to
the nearest bar, and celebrated with a few drinks. It was time Alec introduced
Shay to this tradition.
As he walked away from Max’s
apartment, that stupid voice in the back of his head began to talk. Training
mission, was it? An apology was it? Interesting choice for a training mission,
and who made you an instructor anyway? And doesn’t an apology require you to
communicate your regret to the person you wronged? Why not just admit the real
reason for the mission?
But he ignored the voice,
and went to find Shay, and a few drinks. Whatever the reason behind it, mission
accomplished.
>>>>>
Logan walked up the street
towards Max’s apartment. He had finally finished re-installing all he needed to
get his EO network up and running, and thought Max might want to celebrate with
an early breakfast. Not that there were many restaurants in TC, in fact, there
were none, just the Mess that had been set up in one of the halls. But, it was
the thought that counted.
As he turned the corner, he
noticed the bike sitting there. Wasn’t that Max’s Ninja? It looked like it. He
looked closer. Yeah. There weren’t that many ninja’s around, and the ones that
were in the city were definitely not in as good a condition as the one in front
of him. So that meant that Max had gone outside TC to get it.
He would have to talk to her
about that. All of his sources had told him that there was an increased police
presence around. Hell, he didn’t even need his sources, he just had to look
outside. The cops were everywhere, all looking for any hint of a transgenic
freak.
“Logan?” he turned to see
Max coming down the stairs. The expression on her face was incredible. It took
his breath away, and he just stared at her for a second. She was so completely
beautiful when she smiled. He had forgotten that, she hadn’t been smiling too
much recently.
“My bike, how did you get
it?” she moved towards it, running her hand along the seat, a stunned
expression on her face.
Logan realised two things
instantly. First, that Max hadn’t gotten hold of the bike herself. Which meant
that someone else had. And who else could have done something like that? He
wasn’t sure that he could have found the bike, even if he had thought to look.
Therefore, whoever did it must have gone to a lot of trouble. Alec. It had to
be Alec. He had seen the way that transgenic had looked at Max, from time to
time, and the scene outside Max’s apartment that day?
The second thing he realised
was that Max didn’t know who had got the bike for her, and the motivation
behind it.
“Uh, I have sources” he
answered her question.
Max looked at him, finally
tearing her gaze away from her precious bike. She reached out her hand to him,
stopping only inches away from his face.
“I wish I could thank you
properly” she told him, looking down at her hand, before letting it fall to her
side.
“I have sources working on
that, too” he told her. “So, feel like some breakfast?”
“Hmm?” Max’s attention was
back on her bike. “Oh, yeah, okay” with a backward glance she followed him down
the street, not hearing a thud coming from the alley on the other side of her
building.
>>>>>
Alec hadn’t been able to
resist. He had planned to simply leave the bike there, but lying in bed all
night, he knew that he just had to see her reaction to getting her bike back.
He had hidden himself in an alley, and waited.
He had cringed when he saw
Logan approaching, and had heard every word of the conversation. How dare that
moron take credit for something that he himself had done? And then to force Max
to leave, when anyone with half a brain could see that all Max wanted to do was
get on the bike, and ride as far and as fast as she could. And that idiot was
taking that away from her.
Not to mention the look on
her face when she looked at Logan. She should have been looking at him like
that. Damn Logan. Alec banged his head against the wall in frustration, and
followed it up with his fist. The thud Max didn’t hear was a result of Alec
burying his arm up to the elbow in brick.
He left his hand there, and
leant his head against the wall.
‘See, that’s what happens
when you try to act all human, play human games. It was so not worth it’
>>>>>
Finally. After waiting all
day, Max finally had some time to herself. Probably about fifteen minutes
before the next crisis that needed her attention. And she knew just how to
spend it.
The speed rose sharply as
she spun into the main street, and pushed the bike faster. She loved the feel
of the wind racing through her hair, the fact that just the slightest movement
was enough to control this incredible machine beneath her. The bike was in
perfect condition, even the problem with the timing that she had been meaning
to fix for a while was gone. Logan had been thorough. She grinned as she
thought of him riding the bike. Nah, never happen.
She turned another corner,
and bent lower over the handlebars, pushing it even further
>>>>>
From his seat in the alley,
Shay heard the bike gunning and moved to follow the sound, expecting to see
Alec riding the bike they had retrieved the night before. Maybe he would teach
him to ride it, or at least take him for a ride. He had seemed happy with him
last night.
Shay grinned to think of the
night before, going into the bar with Alec, seeing everyones gaze turn to them
as Alec grabbed a couple of jugs of beer from the bartender. Grabbed, as
opposed to bought, as no money changed hands.
That was the thing about
Alec, people seemed to really respect him. If they needed something, then he
tended to get it for them. And they appreciated it.
Shay wasn’t sure he liked
the taste of beer, but when Alec looked over to him and laughed, telling him
that it was an acquired taste, Shay had taken another sip, and it had tasted
better.
But Alec was not riding the
bike. Max was. That was strange. Or maybe not. The rumour was that there was
something going on between the two of them, that that was why Max had gone into
JP after hearing the news reports that transgenics had barricaded themselves in
there. Because she had known that Alec was inside.
He grinned, and raised his
hand in greeting as Max drove by.
>>>>>
Max saw him out of the
corner of her eye. That was Shay. She turned the bike around, and drove back
slowly to talk to him.
“Hey, buddy, how’s it
going?” she asked him, and he grinned up at her, reaching out to touch the
bike.
“Nice wheels” he commented
with a smile. Max looked at him for a moment. Was there something behind that
smile? It looked like, well, he knew something she didn’t. Nah.
“Yeah, a friend rescued it
for me” she told him. Shay smiled knowingly at her
“Friend, huh?” he asked her,
his smile growing wider.
“Yeah, friend. Do you know
Logan?” as soon as she asked him, she saw his face drop.
“Yeah, I know Logan, so
what?”
“Well, Logan got this for
me.”
“No he didn’t” Shay blurted
out in surprise.
“What do you mean?” Max
watched him closely.
Shay looked around
nervously. What should he say? Did Alec go to all that trouble last night just
so Logan could take the credit for it? Surely not.
“Shay?” Max asked him again,
tapping him on the shoulder.
“Alec.”
“What? What about Alec?”
“Alec got the bike for you,
not Logan. Logan couldn’t have done that. Logan’s a human.”
Max was stunned. Alec? He
had gotten her bike? Could it be possible? Maybe. She had been wondering how
Logan had managed to get the bike back, and fix it up. She had never seen him
even look at a bike engine. But she had just assumed that he had paid someone
to do it.
Alec? Well, he definitely
could have found the bike, fixed it up. But why would he? It made no sense.
“What do you mean, Alec got
it?”
“I was with him” Shay told
her proudly. “Alec and me, last night, we snuck out and went to the police
impound lot. I distracted the guard, got the gate open, while Alec snuck inside
and got the bike. It was easy.” he bragged, grinning.
“But why? Why would Alec…”
“He said, that he had done
something wrong, and that he needed to make it up to you”
“So why steal a bike, why
not just apologise?”
“He said,” Shay paused,
trying to think of the exact words Alec had said. “Something about, when
someone is special, words aren’t enough. You actually have to do
something. What did Alec do to make you
so mad?”
Special? What? “Shay, are
you sure?” she asked him, putting her fingers under his chin, and lifting it up
so that he looked straight at her.
“Yeah, I was there, wasn’t
I? It was so cool. And after, Alec took me for a beer. Oh, and he said that it
was okay, about before, that I had just surprised him. He hadn’t known it was
me, or he wouldn’t have done anything. I think Alec likes me, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Listen, Shay, I’ll
see you later, okay. I’ve gotta blaze.” Yeah, gotta blaze and talk to two guys,
find out who was really responsible for the bike.
>>>>>
Doctor Christopher Sandeman,
Project Manticore
My story starts about 25
years ago, yet in truth it started earlier.
I am a familiar. My father
was a familiar. My mother was human. What are familiars? Well, let’s just say
we are the future. The result of a thousand generations of selective breeding.
We have in us powers and abilities that all humans used to have, but long since
forgot. We never forgot. We knew they would be necessary in the future.
We are the future, but at a
price. We could not let our bloodlines run thin. Over time, it became necessary
to breed with humans. It was for this reason that we developed the tests. Those
with weak bloodlines would fail. By killing some of us, we remained strong.
When I was young, my best
friend faced the trials. He was not strong. He died, and as per our customs,
his name was never spoken again. I never forgot him though. There was nothing
about him that was weak. He was bright, gifted with powers, dedicated to the
cause. But he failed, and he died.
I studied genetics at
university. I wanted to know why it happened, what it was in us that allowed
most of us to pass the test, when no pure human ever could. And I found the
gene. Once I found it, I developed a way to test for it. My oldest son had the
gene, my youngest did not.
It seemed so random, one
gene making the difference between life and death.
Soon after, I was admitted
to the council, the inner core of the familiars. I became privy to their
knowledge, their decisions. And it terrified me. Their plans, what was to
happen in the future, it made me sick.
I watched my younger son for
days. There was nothing wrong with him.
Then I started to look at
the humans, really look. Some of them, they could have been my friends. If they
were familiars, they would have been.
When did I start to change?
I don’t know. Suddenly, I didn’t hate the humans after all. They had done well,
they were strong in their own way. I could no longer condone what the council
demanded of me.
I walked away. I found
myself mixing with a group of scientists who were beginning crude genetic
experiments of their own. We called ourselves “Manticore” after the
mythological beast. It seemed appropriate to have as our symbol what we were
planning to accomplish. A human, lion, scorpion cross.
We began to experiment with
gene splicing, taking certain attributes from animals and inserting them into
human embryos, to see if they would take. Once that worked, we began to look
further, try harder experiments, incorporate more than one animal gene into a
human embryo.
>>>>>
Alec stopped reading, his
mind lost in thought. It sounded so easy, the way Sandeman described it. Of
course, descriptions often were. And, naturally, Sandeman was writing for
humans, he had to simplify it.
It sounded reasonable, what
he was saying.
He was about to keep reading
when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Quickly, he hid the book and
threw himself on the bed. He wasn’t ready to share what he had found with
anyone else, not until he had read the whole thing himself. He had earned that
right. He felt, rather than saw someone enter the room, and shut his eyes,
feigning sleep.
“Alec?” shit, it was Max.
Now what?
He opened his eyes slowly.
“Hey Max” he drawled, rubbing his eyes.
“Sleeping during the day,
Alec? Must have had a busy night?” Max stared right at him, waiting for his
eyes to give away something, surprise perhaps. Nothing. Alec’s shields were
firmly in place. He grinned up at her.
“Yeah, doing a bit of
decorating. I was thinking, maybe I should make the place into a studio. One
big open room. Care to help me break down a few walls?”
Max looked at the ground.
Okay, fine, so she had thrown Alec through a wall. It’s not like he was hurt,
or anything. And it’s not like she hadn’t done worse to him in the past. He was
still her friend.
“Maybe later. So what did
you get up to last night?”
Oh, come on! Alec laughed to
himself. Subtlety, Max. Try it some time. At least use your Manticore training
for something.
“Oh, you know. Things to do,
people to see” bikes to steal, he thought to himself.
“Yeah, listen, what I wanted
to talk to you about, Logan rescued my bike, but it had no petrol in it, do you
have any contacts?”
What the Hell? Of course it
had petrol in it. He had filled the bloody thing up himself. He had even left
two spare cans beside the thing. Damn Logan, he had probably stolen the petrol,
fenced it and used it to pay one of his damned informants.
Yeah, he could get more
petrol. It was a hassle, but he could get it. And one of the things he was
going to do when he got some, was tie Logan to a chair, douse the bastard in it
and…
Oh shit. Max was smiling.
Why was she smiling? She shouldn’t be, unless she knew… damnit.
He rolled off the bed to his
feet. You never knew with Max, anything could happen, and being caught lying on
the bed when… okay. Stop. Focus.
“Guess I could get hold of
some. How much do you need?” he feigned innocence, putting on his best little
boy face.
“Oh, about three cans.
That’s a lot to carry, though. Maybe you could get Shay to help you.”
Yep. She knew alright. The
question was, how much trouble was he in? and more to the point, what, in her
warped little mind, had he done wrong anyway?
“Maybe you could ask Logan.
If he got the bike, he must be able to get petrol for it” yeah, like hell he
could. Especially since he was going to tell his guys not to sell to Logan.
Good luck, WASP boy.
She kept looking at him
steadily. Alec looked down. What was coming?
Max moved towards him, and
he shifted his weight, evenly distributing it, getting ready for a fight. Home
court advantage and all that, had to help.
She moved slowly, slipping
her arms around his waist, and pulling him close to her. Her hair brushed
against his neck as she rested her head against his chest.
Alec felt his heart stop,
then speed up. His arms moved slowly around her, waiting for the eruption of
violence at any moment. None came, and he relaxed, lowering his head to rest
against the top of hers.
It felt right. It felt, well,
like nothing he had ever felt before in his life. He felt impatient, but
relaxed. He wanted to throw her down onto the bed, but he wanted to never move
from this position, with her leaning against him, fitting perfectly against his
body. In the end, he did nothing, just moved his hand down to the small of her
back.
Max moved first, pulling
back slightly, running her left arm up his chest, lightly along his throat, and
around his neck. She pulled his head forward, down to hers, with a slight
amount of pressure, and he moved to give her what she wanted. Hell, at this
moment, he would have given her anything, if she had just asked him for it. She
moved her lips to his ear, and he struggled for composure at the feel of her
breath, hot against his neck. He swallowed, forcing himself to remain still.
Her hand was playing with his hair, her mouth was so close to him, her cheek
pressed against his.
“You got the bike for me,
didn’t you?” she whispered, still caressing his neck lightly.
Alec swallowed again. “Yeah”
he gasped, trying to retain some of his sanity.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged, and she must
have thought that he was avoiding the question, because her fingers dug into
his neck slightly.
“How did you know?” she
whispered, pulling back so she could stare into his eyes as he answered the
question.
The tension was so strong,
it would be so easy right now to answer honestly, put his heart out there.
Because, I know you. Four words.
Instead he forced a laugh.
“Well, you needed some way to burn off that nervous energy. And with Logan
being of absolutely no use in that department…” he raised an eyebrow at her,
grinning.
“Hmmph” Max shoved him, and
he fell backwards onto the bed, staring up at her. His legs were still on
either side of hers, it would take little effort to bring her down on top of
him.
He who hesitates is lost.
Max stepped back.
“You didn’t change gears
fast enough, as usual. The timing’s shot.” She looked at him. “On the bike,
that is” she turned and headed for the door, then turned back to look at him.
Alec still remained in the same position on the bed, only his eyes moved as he
watched her leave. She leant her head against the door frame.
“Alec?” she whispered
“Hmm?”
“Thanks… for the bike, and
for knowing. Thank you.” She turned and walked away, forcing herself not to
look back.
On the bed, Alec closed his
eyes, smiling slightly. One point to him.
>>>>>
Alec was looking for a
distraction. Every time he stopped moving, stopped doing something, the scene flashed
back into his mind. Max, in his bedroom, pulling him close, her hand on the
back of his neck…
Stop it!
Max is with Idiot Boy. Not
that you’d have a chance anyway. Max had just been through the same training he
had, how to influence people, using any means necessary. That was all it was.
He crossed the alley that he
thought of as Shay’s hangout, and glanced down it. The Xs were there, as usual,
sitting around doing nothing. Someone had to do something, get these guys doing
something, anything, before they started to come up with ideas of their own.
Because there was no way that could be good.
There was so much that was
needed around here.
He looked down the alley,
searching for Shay, but he wasn’t there. A young 7 saw him, and came running over,
snapping to attention.
“Did you need something,
sir?” he asked, his discipline cracking as a hopeful expression filled his
face.
Alec looked at him closely.
The kid was eager, obviously disciplined. He shrugged. “Yeah, you seen Shay?”
“No sir. I think he’s up by
the bar. Do you want me to find him for you?”
“Yes, do that. Tell him I
want to see him at my apartment, ASAP.”
The X7 saluted, did a
perfect about turn, and sprinted towards the bar.
Alec headed home, lost in
thought. No matter what was going to happen, they were going to have to fight
at some stage. That was a given. Sitting around doing nothing was just
atrophying their talents. And his. He was an X, trained to be a leader. Maybe
it was time that Manticore understood that perhaps training him so well wasn’t
the best idea they had ever had. And, it would be entertaining.
So, training exercise. Time
to see what resources he had available to him. No. He didn’t mean that, he
meant to say, what people he had available to him.
Okay, what he needed was
something simple, unpredictable but with a useful outcome.
He laughed suddenly, drawing
glances from other transgenics on the street. It was so simple, so easy, so
definitely something he would do.
And something that Idiot Boy
would never do. It fulfilled all of the criteria.
He reached his apartment and
climber the stairs, working out the final details in his head. When he reached
the top, he realised he was not alone. Shay leaned against the doorframe,
staring at him with a grin on his face. Alec smiled back. He had gotten there
fast. Not bad. Not bad at all.
“So, d’you want to live
forever?” he asked the boy. “Come on” he opened the door and gestured for Shay
to enter.
“Matt said you wanted to see
me?”
Alec nodded, threw himself
down onto the floor. There was a training mission, steal a fucking couch.
“Matt? The x7?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He’s young, but quick. A
good soldier. And a good friend.”
“He’ll do.”
Shay looked at him in
surprise. “For what?”
“I’m putting together a
mission. Need some new talent.”
Shay’s face fell. He had
hoped that he would get picked to go on all future missions. He’d succeeded in
the other two, right? Why did Alec want to replace him? Especially with someone
younger, more inexperienced.
“So, who else do you want?”
Alec asked.
“What?”
“For the mission, Shay” Alec
told him slowly, like he was talking to a very young child. “We need four
others. You’re in charge of recruitment. We’re going tonight, at eight.”
“What’s the mission?” Shay
paused, thinking how arrogant that sounded, like he had the right to know. He
finished hurriedly “so I know who to pick, who would be most appropriate.”
“It’s a simple recon. A
training mission. I’ll do the proper mission myself, but I need decent recon.”
“I’ll help on the mission”
Shay volunteered. “I did okay with the bike, right?”
Alec looked over at him, his
expression hardening into a frown. “Yeah, and then you told Max about it.”
“Yeah. But that was because
of Logan. That creep told Max that he had gotten the bike, not you. I don’t
know why you don’t just kick his ass. He’s such a…”
“Quit.” Alec’s face was pure
Manticore, disapproving, blank. “Listen to me, Shay. You’re my lieutenant, but
I need to know I can trust you. I need to know that you won’t tell everyone
everything that I do. Can I trust you, Shay?”
“Of course” Shay blurted
out. “Yes, yes you can trust me. I’m sorry, I misunderstood. I’ll never tell
anyone anything. I swear.”
“Okay. You have work to do.”
Alec dismissed him. Shay nodded and left quickly. He started to think about who
to choose. Who would be the best?
>>>>>
Max read through a list of
transgenics that had recently arrived in TC. Their numbers were growing,
Manticore refugees of all kinds were sneaking in over the fences, past the
human guards who thought they were blocking all of the entrances. It was great
that so many of her kind had such a feeling of being a part of a ‘family’ that
they were making their way to TC, to be a part of the new nation that was being
formed here. But the problem remained that the few supplies that they had were
diminishing rapidly. And since Manticore never bred the ultimate farmer, at
least to her knowledge, they would have to steal supplies. Maybe she could talk
to Alec about that, he clearly knew a safe way out, an exit large enough to
bring a bike through. If she could just convince him to help, convince him that
it would be in his best interests to do it…
Although, she really wasn’t
giving him enough credit. He didn’t always do things with an ulterior motive in
mind. He did things for other reasons too. She just didn’t always know what
those reasons were. And speaking of ulterior motives, she had someone else to
talk to.
>>>>>
Alec looked around. The four
kids that Shay had selected looked ready, excited, but calm. They stood at
ease, watching him, ready for orders.
“Okay, relax. Gather round.”
He lay a map on the ground, and crouched down next to it. “Target is here.” He
pointed to it with a stick. “It is heavily guarded, but all of my intell is
old. I need up to date recon. Details on the guards, shift rotations, numbers,
firepower. You two” he pointed to the two x7s. “I want info on the codes for
the gates. They’ll be in the guardhouse. Get inside, find them.”
“How, sir?” one of them
asked. Alec grimaced. He had to keep remembering that they were young. They
wouldn’t think for themselves just yet.
“Take a leaf from Shay’s
book. Act hurt. Adults are suckers for crying kids. They’ll try to help you.
Use that to get into the guardhouse.” They both nodded, looking over at Shay
with respect. Shay grinned and looked back over at Alec, ready for his
assignment.
“Shay, you’re with me. We’ll
recon around the back, try to find a way in. Questions?” he looked around the
small group. They all looked eager, ready. Good.
“D’you want to live
forever?” He asked them, grinning. “Let’s move out.” He rolled the map up and
shoved it into his pocket, leading them to the east side of TC, the area not
guarded by the policemen.
“Let’s go.” They glanced
around, checking for anyone watching, whether human or transgenic. All clear.
Alec looked over at them, and drew a finger across his face. No more talking.
Mission on. They nodded back, watching for further instructions.
Alec pointed to himself,
then to the left, over the fence. To Shay, to the right. To the two X6s, and to
the right. To the X7s, and then left.
Him first, then Shay, then
the others, two by two. Rendezvous on the other side of the fence in two
groups. He pointed to Shay, then signalled okay? Shay returned the signal. They
had planned a rendezvous site earlier. All was ready.
Alec nodded once, then ran
for the fence, leaping it and disappearing to his left. It was Shay’s turn.
Could he do it? Could he jump the fence like Alec? He recalled Alec’s words.
‘picture your centre of gravity. As you jump, picture it moving up into your
chest. Easy.’
Okay. He could do it. He
blurred towards the fence and when he reached the point where Alec had jumped,
he leapt. He cleared the fence with centimetres to spare, and hit the ground
running. Oh Yeah! He turned back and saw the others looking at him impressed.
He shrugged, trying to react like Alec, and signalled the next two to come.
>>>>>
“Hey Logan” Max greeted him
as she entered his workshop.
“Max” Logan replied, his
attention still focussed on the electronic circuit in front of him. She stood
there and waited. Finally, he turned to her. “What’s up?” he asked
“There was a problem with
the bike. One of the connectors was loose, it must have fallen off when you got
it back for me. I wanted to know where they were holding it, so I could see if
it was there.”
“Well,” Logan paused. “How
about I just get you a new one. No need to risk capture for something like
that.”
“It’s custom made, Logan.
You can’t just buy them off the shelf. Even if you could get one, it would cost
a fortune. And it’s not like I have my minimum wage bike messenger job anymore
to pay for it. I’ll just go do a recon, see if I can see it first. So where am
I going?”
“I’m not sure. A guy I know
owed me a favour. He tracked it down for me. Never said where he found it. I’ll
contact him if I can.” Logan turned back to his table.
“Do that.” Max turned and
walked off.
>>>>>
Ray grabbed his schoolbag
and crept down the stairs. It was midnight, almost, and everyone should have
been asleep. He moved soundlessly into the living room, until he reached the
coffee table. The night before, his foster father had left his wallet lying
there, and Ray hadn’t seen him grab it when he went to bed. It was payday, so
there should be some money in there, enough to get him a train ticket out of
there, anyway. He ran his hand along the surface until it touched something
soft. Excellent.
“Raymond?” He spun around.
One of the foster brothers, the younger one, stood in the doorway, his blonde
hair sticking up as he rubbed his eyes with one fist. The other hand was
protectively around a small teddy bear. “What ya doin?”
“Go to bed.” Ray crossed the
room, and shoved the younger boy towards the back end of the house. The boy
staggered, dropping his bear. “You’re mean” he told Ray, trying to reach his
bear, which was lying face down on the ground.
“Shut up” Ray slapped him.
The young boy opened his mouth and began to cry. Loudly. Ray reacted. He swung
his bag at the kid, catching him in the head. The bag was heavy, Ray had stolen
several cans of food, in case he wasn’t able to find food on the trip back to
Seattle. One corner of the cans clipped the boy in the head. He fell to the
ground, no longer crying. No longer making any sound at all. Ray took off. He
ran out the door, and was half way down the street when the foster-mother came
downstairs, looking for the source of the crying. Her young son lay on the floor,
his head resting against his teddybear. He must have just come down for a
midnight snack, then curled up on the ground. She picked him up to take him
back to bed, then reached down to grab his bear by it’s paw. The bear was a
different colour than she remembered. What had little Billy spilled on it? It
looked like chocolate.
As the blood dripped off the
bear’s other paw and onto the floor, she began to scream.
>>>>>
Alec let himself back into
the apartment, exhausted.
The mission had been a success.
The kids Shay had chosen had performed up to his expectations. Their intel was
first rate, and more importantly, they had taken his orders, and acted like the
pure professionals Manticore had trained them to be. Until they had gotten
safely back into TC. Then they had acted like the kids they were, thrilled with
the success, bragging about what they had done, exaggerating the simple mission
into something much greater. Alec had smiled while listening to them, and had
let them talk for a while. Manticore had never rewarded their successes, never
let them celebrate. It had just punished them when they had failed. So he let
them talk, laughing with them as they relived the night.
Finally, he had told them to
get some sleep, and to keep the mission secret. They had nodded at that, but
looked disappointed. Half of the fun of that night would have been in telling
their friends the following day. As Alec walked away, he heard Shay whisper
quietly “Idiots, he hasn’t completed the mission yet.”
He pulled his shirt off and
threw himself onto the bed. It was late, but he was still too wired to sleep.
The adrenaline didn’t end just because you got older. Alec rolled over on the
bed, reaching under it and feeling for the book hidden under there. If he was
going to be up all night, he might as well read.
>>>>>
Ray heard the scream as he
reached the end of the street. He looked back briefly, then kept running.
>>>>>
Doctor Christopher Sandeman,
Project Manticore
Our first results were
extremely promising. We added minimal canine DNA to a human egg, and brought it
to term. The result was mostly human, but with obvious canine traits. It seemed
placid. Sane. We were encouraged, and began to experiment with mixing more than
one DNA sequence into the egg. More than one animal. We injected several dozen
eggs, and named the results the X series. X because of the transgenic nature of
the beings.
This first group of
transgenics was unsuccessful. The animal DNA fused with the human egg, but the
result was not what we hoped. Too much of the animals personality was present
in the transgenic. It was wild, uncontrollable. An anomaly. But, it provided us
with data. We learned from them, enough to make a second series, then a third,
reducing the problems with each one.
The first experiment, a boy
mixed with canine DNA, grew in a similar fashion to a human boy. He could
speak, despite the face that his mouth was the most dog-like feature of him. He
was a sweet boy, and I began to call him Joshua, after my childhood friend.
Their eyes were so similar.
>>>>>
Alec stopped reading,
staring into space. He remembered Joshua, frantic as he went from house to
house, trying to find ‘Father’. Josh would be thrilled to read this, to see his
father’s reactions to him as a young boy. He would definitely have to show this
to him.
>>>>>
It was with the fourth
series, though, that things started to change. The fourth series were
intelligent, aware, and able to access all of the talents that the extra DNA
had given them. It was then that my idea began to take shape. I spent more and
more time in the lab, developing gene sequences in secret. I knew enough to
insert an extra, hidden, DNA sequence in the next series, the X5. The purpose
of this sequence?
I knew what was coming, see.
What would happen when the familiars took control. I therefore knew how to stop
it. And I encoded this knowledge in the DNA strand.
>>>>>
Alec slammed the book shut.
Max. That’s what the deal was with her DNA. She was coded for something. He had
to tell her. He got to his feet.
But then, as soon as he told
her, she would tell Logan, who would take all the credit. And then fuck it up.
If Sandeman was right, this wasn’t something that could be fucked up.
Damn
it. He needed to talk to someone. His strong point was action, making a plan,
executing the plan. Understanding the philosophical basis for anything was not
something he had a lot of experience with.
>>>>>
The driver looked down in
surprise as a young boy climbed on the bus. It was after midnight, yet the kid
had no-one with him. Someone had sold him a ticket, though, so that was good
enough for him. He waved the blond haired kid down to the back of the bus, and
started his engine. His wife and kid were waiting for him at home, in Seattle.
If there were no major problems on the way, he would be home in time to have
breakfast with his little girl before taking her to school.
>>>>>
Alec hit the ground hard,
rolling to absorb the impact. He came up onto one knee, his semi-automatic
rifle pointed in front of him, his eyes searching the darkness. He felt the
others move into position beside him, in a semi-circular formation.
Alec scanned his
surroundings again, his eyes moving from right to left, then down, searching a
small square of darkness before moving his gaze slightly to the left and
starting the pattern again.
When people look around,
they usually look from left to right. Their brain gets used to filtering out
irrelevant stuff. So, he was trained to look right to left. You saw more that
way.
The darkness was clear. He
raised his hand in a fist, raised two fingers straight up in the air, then
lowered them to the ground. Move out.
He knew his men were behind
him, but he couldn’t hear them. This was as it should be. They reached the building,
and moved around to the side, away from the sewer and the river, their two
alternative exits for if things really went sideways. Four Xs formed a
perimeter, protecting their escape route. Alec signalled to the remaining four,
and they moved over to the building. Slinging their weapons over their
shoulders, the four soldiers scaled the wall, using the slight gaps in the
brick work to pull themselves up. There was an open window on the first floor,
and two of the Xs slipped inside.
Lucky Bastards, Alec thought
as he looked over at the remaining soldier and shrugged. The two continued to
climb, having to travel sideways slightly to get to a window on the next floor.
This one was shut. Alec punched it out, the black gloves he was wearing
providing some form of protection from the broken glass.
He cleared away the glass,
and pulled himself inside. The other X followed him.
“Make some more noise next
time” he suggested, grinning at Alec.
“Whatever” they moved
quickly out of the room.
Despite the joking, the
window breaking had made some noise. The window was supposed to be open, but it
wasn’t, and Alec had to get inside. His other two squad-mates were already in,
coming up the stairs to circle behind their target. He couldn’t let them down.
>>>>>
Alec jerked awake.
He remembered the dream so
clearly, it was like he was there. He could taste the adrenaline, even feel the
pain in his hand where he had punched the glass out. Yet he couldn’t remember
any mission he had been on that was anything like that. Weird. He reached up to
rub his face and stopped dead. His hand was bleeding. His knuckles. What the
hell was going on?
Okay, think. It must have
happened last night. Somehow on the mission he had damaged his knuckles. Yeah,
okay. And then, when he was asleep, he had hit his hand, re-opened the cuts,
and his subconscious had turned it into a dream. That sounded realistic, right?
Yeah, except he was a
transgenic, and they healed cuts that small within minutes.
>>>>>
Alec sprinted down the road,
pushing himself harder and harder. Everything was so strange, the journal, his
hand, whatever the hell was going on with the rest of his life. Nothing made
sense. He slammed into a fence, rebounded off it and ran back in the opposite
direction. Maybe if he ran fast enough, he could forget about everything.
As he ran towards Shay’s
alley, Max stepped out, and he stopped dead. Well, not exactly. His body
stopped. His feet kept going. He did stop though, as he tripped and hit the
ground, slamming his arms down first to break the fall. Still dazed, he stared
up at the sky for a second. Max’s face moved into view.
“Good skills, Alec” she
commented, holding out her hand to help him up. He reached up lazily and she
pulled him to his feet, jerking his hand slightly so he fell against her. Alec
wrapped his arms around her, lowering his head to her shoulder. He closed his
eyes.
Max went to pull back, then
stopped and relaxed. It wasn’t like Alec was coming on to her or anything. It
felt like something was wrong with him. But what? She slowly reached her hand
up and ran her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, tracing his
barcode.
Alec jerked back, taking two
or three steps back, his arms raised as if to ward something off. He looked as
close to scared as Max had ever seen him. He backed up until his back hit the
alley wall, and he slid down it to sit on the floor, his arms resting on his
knees. He dropped his head down.
Max walked slowly over to
him, taking a seat against the opposite wall. “Alec?” she asked softly.
“Just leave me.”
“No.” she moved over,
touching his leg. His head jerked up and his face was blank. If it wasn’t for
his hand shaking, she never would have known that anything was wrong. “Talk to
me” she asked him.
“We don’t do that, Max” he
laughed shortly, looking back to her. “We argue, beat each other up, but we
don’t talk.”
“Maybe that’s because we
never really had anything to say to each other. Neither of us wants to talk
about Manticore, it really doesn’t leave that much to discuss. Besides,” she
grinned at him. “I like arguing with you.”
Alec shrugged back at her.
Their relationship was important to him too, but if he started talking to her,
he wouldn’t be able to stop. And things would come up that he really wasn’t ready
to say yet. Would maybe never be ready to say.
He took a deep breath.
“I’m alright, Max. Don’t
worry.” He got to his feet, tapping her on the top of the head, and walking
slowly away. Sorry, Max. He thought. Maybe one day.
>>>>>
It was almost midnight. Alec
slipped along the fence-line, heading for the spot they had scouted out the
night before. When he reached it, he concealed himself in the shadows, and
pressed the light button on his watch, cupping his other hand over the face to
hide the light. 2352hrs. the guard was due to come past in three minutes. He
began counting in his head, and had reached 150 before he saw the guard coming.
These guards were punctual. That could be a good thing, or a bad thing,
depending on which way you looked at it. It meant he could rely one hundred
percent on his intel, but it also meant that the guards were really well
trained.
He scaled the fence,
crawling over the top of it, then moved towards the building entrance. So far
so good.
There were no guards inside,
except one stationary guard in the main reception area. He seemed to drink a
lot of coffee, and not do much else.
It was almost too easy. He
positioned himself under a window and jumped, grabbing the window sill and
pulling himself inside. Now, all he had to do was find the storage room,
liberate three cans of petrol and get out. Easy.
>>>>>
Max lay in her bed, staring
up at the ceiling. She had been trying to figure out the scene with Alec for
the past three hours, and she was still no closer to figuring him out. The guy
was an absolute mystery. And annoying, impossible mystery. But also a friend,
and she wanted to help him out. She owed him big-time for the bike. It was the
perfect gift, the one thing that she wanted. And Alec had known her well enough
to know that. She wanted to return the favour.
>>>>>
Okay, so maybe the intell
wasn’t so perfect. There was another guard on the inside, roaming around,
intent on destroying his plan. Alec pressed himself flat against the wall of
one corridor as the guard passed down another one, moving within 5 paces of
him. The guard didn’t even notice him. Alec grinned, stepping behind the guard,
and reaching his left arm around his neck. He brought his right hand up to grip
the back of the guards head, and grabbed his right bicep with his left hand.
The guard struggled for about a second, then collapsed. Alec let him fall to
the ground, and pulled him into what looked like an abandoned office.
He was grinning as he left
the office, grabbing the duffel bag he had stuffed the petrol cans into.
Nothing like a bit of action to brighten up the day. If only there were a few
more guards to play with.
>>>>>
He let himself into Max’s
apartment without any problems. Picking locks was one of the things they had taught
really well at Manticore. That was the reason that noone really bothered to
lock their doors in TC. What was the point? Everyone knew how to pick basic
locks, and anything more advanced would just be a sign to the others that the
person did not trust his fellow transgenics.
Not good.
Max was one of the few that
locked her door. Alec had always kind of wondered if she did it to keep Logan
out. He was probably the only one here that couldn’t pick that lock.
Alec arranged the cans in a
pyramid on Max’s table and looked over to her bedroom door, tempted to just
open the door.
He shook his head fast, and
left, shutting the door behind him. He took out his lockpick kit and relocked
the door. Yes, you actually could lock a door the same way you could unlock it.
It was just that not that many burglars bothered.
>>>>>
Doctor Christopher Sandeman,
Project Manticore
Before I implanted the DNA
sequence in my chosen embryo, I realised something. It was just too risky to
entrust all of that information into one transgenic, particularly one who would
be trained by Manticore for years before the time came to use the knowledge.
The transgenic might be completely loyal to Manticore. I didn’t think so, but I
couldn’t guarantee that I would be there throughout the childhood phase to
guide it.
My solution was simple. The
Manticore execs had guaranteed funding for another three X series. Up to x8.
What I planned to do, was to inject a portion of the information into each of
the four. Each would get a part of the puzzle, and they would need all four to
figure it out. I would leave enough clues for them to find each other. If one
of them died, or refused to betray Manticore, they might still be able to work
out my message, but if there were only two, they could not.
I justified my betrayal of
my people this way. Technically, I wasn’t betraying them. I was only giving an
opportunity to them to learn about the future before it happened.
The first child was
beautiful. I saw it born, and I don’t know if this was an old mans fancy or
not, but I swear I saw it look straight at me, as if it knew what was intended
for it. Maybe I just hoped that it would be strong enough.
>>>>>
Max staggered out of her
bedroom, pulling on a shirt. Whoever had suggested an early morning meeting
should be shot. Although, it was probably her. She usually didn’t need that
much sleep, but she had been up most of the night.
As her eyes focussed, she
caught sight of something on the table. Three containers of something. What?
She unscrewed the lid of the top one, and laughed out loud. Petrol. She
remembered the conversation clearly.
“Logan rescued my bike, but
it had no petrol in it, do you have any contacts?”
“Guess I could get hold of
some. How much do you need?”
“Oh, about three cans.”
Unbelievable. What was with
that guy?
>>>>>
She entered the headquarters
and looked around. Several transgenics were wandering around, talking. No doubt
the perimeter guards that had just got off shift. The one thing they had
managed to organise here
(falta)
alise it?
He shrugged at her. She kept
watching him.
Alec turned back to his
equipment, messing about with one of his tools.
“I don’t talk about
manticore because I can’t remember a lot of it.” He spoke softly, knowing
without turning that she was still there. “And the stuff I can remember, I
don’t really want to. I can’t remember, Max. I need to remember something, but
I can’t.”
He still didn’t face her.
“I can’t remember.”
Max took a step closer to
him and rested her hand on his shoulder.
>>>>>
Ray saw the first checkpoint
when they were just outside of Seattle. There were just two guards, looking
rather bored as they wandered out into the middle of the road to stop the bus.
He moved slowly to the back door, and as soon as the guards moved around to the
side of the bus to board it he slipped out of the door and sprinted into the
darkness. Some of the other passengers on the bus saw him leave, but didn’t
care. They disliked the guards, so they kept silent. By the time the guards realised
that the door was open, Ray was far away.
>>>>>
Doctor Christopher Sandeman,
Project Manticore.
The insertion of the DNA
into the X6 went just as smoothly. Meanwhile, Joshua was growing up. I spent a
lot of time with him, teaching him to read and write, the basic skills of the
people he would never be a part of. He was an amazing child, compassionate,
polite, eager to please. It was like he was the best of both species.
The 5, however, I worried
about. It was everything its DNA said it would be, but it also had a few other
traits, a quick sense of humour, a rebellious streak, an almost irreverent
attitude, although it did hide it well. It acted like the perfect soldier. But
I knew that look it got in its eye sometimes. It was the same look my young son
got when he was about to do something he knew he would get in trouble for.
I watched both of them grow,
the 5 and the 6, keeping my distance. And that was my mistake. If I had been
closer to them, found some way to be more involved in their lives, maybe I
could have prevented what came next.
In May of ’09 twelve of the
x5s escaped. It was never completely clear what the reason for the escape was,
in fact it was never even remotely clear. We had our theories, but we never
knew for sure. It was devastating to the project.
Those in charge got real
angry, real fast.
The remaining squadmates of
the 12 were put through re-indoctrination. They were taught that the others
were traitors, were everything evil in this world. And they believed.
Those who got it worse,
though, were the genetic twins of the 12. Psy Ops tore them to pieces, put them
through so many tests, so many manipulations. The official story was that they
were trying to discover if the 12 that had escaped had done so due to some
shared genetic trait. The real reason was that they punished them because they
could. Because those twelve were the closest things they had to the 12
escapees.
I saw those twelve when they
came back. They were different. It was like their personalities had been wiped
out. That disturbed me more than I could ever describe. One minute they were
little people, the next, clones.
>>>>>
Alec lowered the book and
leaned his head back against the wall behind his bed. He bit his lip, squeezing
his eyes shut. He didn’t want to remember. Not this. But he couldn’t stop the
memories from flooding over him. The people in psy ops, doing strange things,
looking at him until his head spun, then doing things he couldn’t remember
clearly. But they had hurt. They had hurt so badly that he had hated the 12
traitors so much. Even before they told him he should, he hated them.
Alec started banging his
head back against the wall, softly. He didn’t want to remember, he had to stop
the memories. He leapt up from his bed and headed for the wall that Max had
partially destroyed. Clenching his fist, Alec started punching the bricks
closest to the hole. Bits of broken brick fell to the floor. He punched harder,
removing whole bricks with each punch.
They had injected him in the
neck, with some pale liquid. It had made him very tired, and when they asked
him questions, he had answered them. He had heard his own voice, talking
slowly, slurring some words, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying, and he
couldn’t stop talking.
He took out another brick,
and another. Every punch produced a loud noise, a cracking sound, like the
sound they had made when they had broken his bones.
Finally his bones broke
again. The first and second knuckles on his right hand snapped with a flash of
pain. He ignored it. He ignored everything until the roof caved in, burying him
in a pile of rubble.
>>>>>
The two of them advanced
down the hall, all instincts on full alert. Alec was counting in his head,
counting up to 240, at which time he should rendezvous with the other two Xs,
approaching from the floor below, so they could take care of any guards on that
floor. He was slightly behind schedule himself, and he quickened his pace
slightly. It wouldn’t be good if he was late.
They reached the rendezvous
point by 248. Within acceptable parameters. The other two were already there,
and Alec signalled for them all to move out. Two of them took positions at the
either end of the corridor. Alec and the other X moved to the door. He nodded
at his partner, and slipped inside the room, shutting it behind him. A man sat
in the room, writing in a small book by candlelight. Alec raised his weapon.
“We both know you aren’t
going to shoot me.” The man said, still writing. He never looked up.
“Get up” Alec spoke quietly.
“What are you thinking,
494?” the man closed the book and stood up.
Alec narrowed his eyes. What
was going on here?
“Think, boy. We taught you
better than that.”
“You’re Manticore?” he
asked, straining to keep his voice and expression as neutral as possible.
“Think” the man took a step towards him. Alec raised his gun. The man stopped.
“I’m an old man. Why does Manticore need to send a squad of Xs to take me out?”
Alec’s gaze dropped, then
with resolve, he brought his eyes back up to stare directly at the man.
“You are to come with us.
You are to come now.” He stood to one side, revealing the door.
“Yes, I know. It’s okay,
494. I understand. You’re not ready yet.”
“I don’t…”
“Understand? No, but that’s
okay.” The man reached slowly for the book on the table. He picked it up, shut
it and showed the cover to Alec.
“Look at what I have in my
hand, 494.”
His other hand, the one not
holding the book, held a walking stick, with a manticore symbol for the handle.
He raised it towards Alec.
“Focus on the stick, boy.
You came into the room, I was looking out the window, I turned, I had the stick
in my hand.”
Alec looked at him, shaking
his head. What the hell???
“Trust yourself.”
Why hadn’t he shot the guy?
Why was he actually listening to this crap?
“When you get back,
Manticore will interrogate you as to what you saw. You saw me, staring out the
window, holding my walking stick.”
Alec focussed on the stick,
not completely sure why he was doing what this guy had told him to do. Except,
it felt like he maybe knew him. It felt… oh, hell, he didn’t know.
“I’m ready.” The man put the
book into a filing cabinet and turned back to Alec. “It’s okay, boy. Do what
you need to do.” Alec raised the gun and gestured for the man to follow him out
the door.
>>>>>
He was back in Seattle, but
he still didn’t know what to do. Ray walked down the street, trying not to draw
attention to himself as he tried to make a decision. His dad was around
somewhere. He still didn’t know whether to find him or try to find his dad’s
father’s place. But the stars told him that the time was close and he needed to
be ready for it. Either way.
>>>>>
“Max, we need to talk” Logan
leant against the desk Max was sitting at. She looked up from the papers she
had been reading. “We need to do something. We need to start planning. Sitting
here is achieving nothing, just giving them time to get reinforcement in here
to flush us out.”
“We’re not just sitting
here, Logan. There are a lot of things to do before we can strike back.” Max
tried to explain to him. “We’re not building a terrorist group, we’re creating
a society. That’s just as important as planning an attack.”
“Max, the only way they’ll
listen to us is if we use force. I know how this works.”
“Gonna lead us, are you?” a
young voice came from behind them both. They turned. A young x7 stood there,
hands thrust into his pockets, his head tilted to one side. Doing anything he
could to avoid the impression that he was standing to attention. “Well? You
said ‘we need to plan’? Gonna lead from the front, General?” he sneered. “Gonna
tell me what to do?”
“Do you have a problem?”
Logan asked him, leaning back against the desk and folding his arms.
“Yeah, I do.” The kid
stepped forward. “You.”
“How’s that?”
The kid grinned. “You’re not
one of us. You’re doing… whatever… with Max. That cuts you some slack, but not
a lot. You aren’t one of us. That means you don’t have the right to tell us to
do anything. You don’t get to tell us to go on missions, you don’t get to tell
us that we’re wasting our time with what we’re doing. You know what I’m wasting
my time with at the moment? I’m making friends. For the first time in my life,
I have friends. People who will care if I go on a mission and don’t come back.
People I can laugh with. Friends. You’re not one of us.”
He spoke with such passion
that by the time he started his second sentence, the whole room stopped what
they were doing, and listened. As he finished, he looked down at the ground,
waiting for the trouble that was bound to follow. Alec had told them that Logan
was not to be touched. He never said anything about not telling Logan where to
go.
“I’m just trying to help
you” Logan told him.
“But we didn’t ask you to!
All my life, people have been trying to help me. Help me be a better soldier,
help me be a better killer. I didn’t ask for your help. And how can you help us
when you don’t even know what we want?”
“You tell him” called an
albino transgenic. Several others laughed.
Logan looked over at Max,
silently asking for help. Her loyalties divided, Max didn’t move.
“Look, kid, I…”
“Save it. You want to play
General, want to pretend to be one of us? Whatever. I don’t care. But you’re
not our leader. You never could be.” He looked around the room, at all of the
people standing there watching him. “I have a leader, in fact I have two. And I
have a family. I’m set. Stop thinking of us as these poor freaks that need
help.”
He stopped talking and
walked away. The room was completely silent.
>>>>>
Alec groaned, and moved
slowly. He had been right, the wall that Max and then he had knocked down was
in fact a support wall. He crawled out of the pile of rubble, then lay on his
back, staring at the new hole in his ceiling. Well, he had a sky-light now, at
least.
“Alec? You home?” a voice
came from his front door.
“Yeah, Max. In here.”
She headed towards the
bedroom and stopped dead.
“Alec, what the hell?”
He kept staring at the
ceiling.
“Well, you know how you
shoved me through the wall? Did you stop to think that the wall was holding my
ceiling up?” he asked calmly, acting fascinated by the sky. Max said nothing,
and he turned to stare at her. “Hey, d’you think it will rain tonight?”
“I did this? God, Alec, I’m
so sorry”
“Nah, it wasn’t all you. I
helped. So what’s going on?” he stood up and brushed the dust off the corner of
his bed. “Have a seat.”
She sat down gingerly and
Alec returned to his position on the floor.
“You sure you don’t want to
clean up first?”
“I’m not trying to impress
you, Max.”
They both looked at each
other.
>>>>>
“Tell me what you think of
Logan.”
Alec looked over at Max. He
raised his eyebrows at her. Did she really want him to answer that? She
continued looking back at him steadily. Obviously, she did.
He rolled onto his back, and
stared through his new skylight and thought about how best to answer the
question.
“Well, it’s not that I don’t
like him, he’s fine. And he really seems to care about you. But, he sees
everything as a crusade. Getting his message out there is more important to him
than anything. And I don’t want to be around when he decides his current cause
is more important than me. Besides, I can’t stand that haircut.”
Max stared at him in
disbelief. When she first met him, she had characterised him as a smart alec,
nothing more. Then he had helped her, and her opinion of him began to change.
But every time she thought that they were enough alike to be friends, he did
something stupid, and her opinion of him reverted back to her first impression.
Since the Jam Pony situation, her impression of him had grown more favourable.
He had proven himself to be someone who could be counted on, and then there was
the bike…
She didn’t know why she had
asked him that question, probably the thing with the boy before. What he had
said had struck a cord with her. It had started her thinking. She had expected
something stupid from Alec, and he had come back with something deep, something
that almost perfectly reflected her concerns about Logan and his priorities.
“Not going to beat me up for
talking about your boyfriend like that? You could probably take me, since a
ceiling just fell on my head”
Yep that was pure Alec,
keeping it light. She shrugged, and looked down.
“I asked you, that gives you
a get out of jail free card, this time.”
“I’ll be sure to be on my
best behaviour around him, then.” He told her, grinning.
That struck a cord with her.
The young kid, angry as hell, manticore trained, but using words, not action.
Had he been told not to? I have a leader, in fact, I have two. The kid’s
words came back to her. Was that what he had meant? Was Alec involved in this
somehow?
“When have you ever been on
your best behaviour?” she asked him, kicking his foot lightly.
“Max, that hurts.”
And it probably did too.
That was the one thing that she was starting to learn about Alec. He may joke
around a lot, may not be quick to take on a cause, but once he had, he would
complete it or die trying. She stood up and walked past him, ruffling his hair.
“Thanks, Alec.” She told
him, then turned to look at the ceiling. “It’s not that bad, you know, almost
classical roman style.”
He laughed. “It’s growing on
me.”
>>>>>
“You really told him that?”
Shay laughed. The others grinned, leaning against the walls in the alley.
“Yeah, and you know what?
Max said nothing. He looked to her for support, and she just sat there. And
then, when she left, you’ll never guess what direction she headed in. Towards
Alec’s place.” The kid smiled, thrilled to be taken seriously by 6 series kids.
Shay looked thoughtful. “It
makes sense, I mean, humans are fine and all, I guess. But…” he shrugged,
grimacing. “Logan?”
“So, what do you think is
going to happen?” a 6 asked.
“Sounds like it’s gonna be a
bit of a power struggle.” One of the others spoke up. “You can’t have two alpha
males in a situation like this. We’re gonna have to fight for our freedom,
that’s clear. And to do that, someone has to be in charge. Max, of course, but
she’ll need a second i/c and that’s Logan, or Alec.”
“Then it’s Alec.” Shay told
him firmly. The others nodded.
“That’s if we’re given a
choice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to follow Alec. But I don’t
think it’ll be a democratic vote, that’s all.”
>>>>>
Logan pounded his fist on
the table in his apartment. Damn that kid. Why couldn’t they see that all he
was trying to do was help? He wasn’t one of them, but he had joined their
cause, helped them out during the hostage situation. And he was still helping
them, spreading the word about what was really going on through his cable
hacks. He had been on their side since the beginning. And in return, they
treated him like he was the enemy. Like he was trying to destroy them, instead
of help them. He understood that they wanted to form a community, and he
thought it was admirable. But he also understood the police force, and the
government system. They didn’t, they had lived in a completely different world
for all of their lives, bar the few months since Max had burnt the facility
down. With his help.
He knew the way things
worked.
And then there was Alec.
What Max saw in that sociopath was beyond him. The guy was reckless, impulsive,
and a general pain in the ass to be around. He took nothing seriously. Logan
remembered the comment that Alec had made to him one time- that neither of them
would be doing what they were doing if Max wasn’t hot. As far as he was
concerned, that wasn’t accurate. He did what he did because he believed that he
could make a difference. It was, however, an accurate statement concerning
Alec. Alec cared about nothing but himself, would only help out when there was
a benefit to himself. Alec was not to be trusted.
The worst thing was, that
Alec had somehow gained the respect of the younger transgenics. This was kind
of understandable. He did have a certain charisma.
But he never followed
through. It would be a disaster to allow him to gain too much more influence
over them. They had to see what he really was. They had to see that Alec could
not help them in what was to come. He himself could.
The first way to do this
would be to talk to Max. Max had always had a soft spot for Alec, due to the
resemblance to his twin, Ben, but Max could always be counted on to see things
clearly. Max would listen to him if he went to her with some real proof that
Alec was dangerous. So all he needed to do was get that proof, and hope that
Alec didn’t do anything too stupid before then.
>>>>>
Even after she left, Alec
didn’t move. He needed to think. Okay, so Sandeman knew that something bad was
going to happen. He wanted to stop it. He had created a DNA sequence which had
certain information coded in it. This had been separated into 4 parts and
injected into one of each of the X series. Okay, so Max was the X5
representative, that was a given. Now all that was required was to find the
other 3 Xs.
Alec’s heart stopped. He was
on his feet before he knew it, his eyes darting around the room, unseeing, but
frantic. He gripped his head and shut his eyes, forcing himself to concentrate.
How had he missed it? How had he never realised until now the one problem with
Sandeman’s journal?
There was not, nor had there
ever been, an X8 series.
>>>>>
He had to act. Now. He had
to know. Alec grabbed his black jacket and leapt through the hole as he ran for
the door. As he moved down the stairs, his mind was already working on a plan.
There had to be more stuff in that filing cabinet. There wasn’t an X8 series,
yet Sandeman had seemed so sure that there was. Why else would he have
mentioned them? So, if there was an 8 series, they had to have been made
somewhere else. He needed to know. He left his apartment building and headed
towards Shay’s place. He would need backup, and Shay had been in the building
before. He didn’t feel right taking the kid on yet another mission that was
purely for his benefit, to satisfy his curiosity, but he needed help.
Logan watched as Alec left
the building. As quietly as he could, he began to follow him, keeping way back
so Alec would not sense him. He knew that Alec was up to something stupid, and
if he got proof of that, then Max would
have to listen to him. He followed Alec as he went into a building, and came
out with a younger X that he didn’t know. The two of them spoke quietly as they
walked down the street and turned right, heading towards the perimeter fence.
He groaned as the two of them simply jumped the fence and blended into the
darkness. Damnit. He might lose them here. Quickly, he started to climb the fence,
trying to move smoothly like Alec, but getting his feet caught in the chain
links. When he finally dropped to the other side, Alec and Shay were long gone.
Shaking his head, he started in the direction that he had seen them go in.
Hopefully they had kept moving in a straight line.
Alec was walking slowly,
using the time to brief Shay about what they were going to do. He had decided
to basically give Shay the choice of helping him, or going back. As he had told
him the truth about why they had gone to the building in the first place, and
why the book was so important, Shay had stopped dead in his tracks. Alec
stopped too, turning to wait for Shay, looking at him to gauge his reaction.
Shay was thrilled, there was
no other way to describe it. He had thought that the first mission was
important, particularly due to Alec’s strong instructions regarding not getting
caught, not leaving any indication that they had been there. He now understood
why Alec had made them leave, when the two of them could have so easily taken
that dumb guard out. And he was so proud that Alec was asking him to be a part
of this, whatever it was.
They must have stopped. It
was the only reason that Logan could have caught up with them so quickly. He
followed them for about two hours, until they finally stopped in sight of a
building. He watched as Alec pointed to a river that ran alongside it, then
upwards, possibly at the window that Logan could just make out. The younger boy
nodded, and they both moved into the water.
They were clearly planning
on robbing the place. Typical Alec, using a kid to get some money. He moved
closer to the building, hiding himself behind a tree and watching. He saw them
throw something at the window, and then climb up a rope and through the window.
What were they doing? He stepped out from behind the tree to try to see better.
>>>>>
Alec moved down the
corridor, followed by Shay, who was half turned, making sure that no-one was
following them. They reached the same place as previous, and Shay stopped,
taking up the same position he had the other time. Their intel was not as
recent as Alec would have liked, they needed to make sure that they had a
retreat if anything went wrong.
Alec continued to the door,
and with a last glance at Shay, slipped inside and went straight to the filing
cabinet.
>>>>>
Michael was bored.
Completely and utterly bored. He had taken a job as a security guard to earn a
bit of extra money, and with a family of seven, that extra money was always
welcome. He hadn’t thought it would be quite so dull though. He never got to do
anything. His instructions were clear- if he heard anything, saw anything, he
was to dial a particular number and report it, and someone would be there
within 5 minutes to deal with it. He let his gaze travel around the exterior of
the building. 5 minutes, huh? not that there was anything worth stealing in
here. It was just a crapped-out old building that no-one ever came to, with
nothing inside. And yet, there were 7 guards assigned to patrol it. It made no
sense, whatsoever.
He remembered this one time,
about 6 months ago, these kids had broken into the place, for a dare or
something. One of the other guards, Scott, had seen them and had called it in.
He had received ten grand for his troubles. That could really come in handy.
He kept looking around, and
then caught sight of something. There was a guy, standing half behind a tree.
Was he the lookout for something?
Couldn’t hurt to report it,
right? Michael took out his phone and dialled the number he had been forced to
memorise.
“White” came the immediate
response.
>>>>>
Logan saw the van pull up,
and several men get out, holding weapons. He moved back into the trees. Alec
must have tripped an alarm or something, the idiot. Now he would get caught.
Well, this could solve his problems.
>>>>>
For some reason, Alec
stopped looking through the filing cabinet and moved towards the window. He saw
the guards, and groaned.
“Shit, this is not good. Not
good.”
Then his eyes caught another
movement. He looked closer, and saw Logan slipping back into the bushes. That
fucking little traitor. Shit.
He kicked the filing cabinet
shut with his foot as he moved towards the door.
“Shay” he hissed, and his
back-up turned around.
“Catch” he threw a plastic
wrapped manila folder at him. “Get out. We’ve been spotted. Logan’s out there,
dozen or so guards. Tell Max.”
“Come on then” Shay
whispered back “we can both get out”
“Nah, there’s more stuff
here, I have to know. I’ll be fine. Go north, through the sewer, it’s not on
any plan. Tell Max”
Shay nodded once. He knew
how to follow orders. He slipped down the corridor and was outside the
building, climbing down the side of it when he heard the soldiers enter the
building. Alec would get out, he always did. He would know how long he had
before his position was compromised.
Shay slid down the rope into
the water, leaving it attached so that Alec could use it if he needed it. There
was nothing about it that could trace it to Manticore, so it didn’t matter if
the thing was discovered.
He watched the guards
closely, waiting for a chance to escape. There were three outside, looking
around carefully.
Damnit, maybe he should get
the rope. He swam over to it, and pulled. It fell into the water with a splash,
and he grimaced, slipping under the water to hide, and swimming quickly away.
He was a strong swimmer and moved quickly down the river.
Alec would be fine. He had
to get back to Max, and fast.
>>>>>
Alec was not fine. He had
given himself 2 minutes to search the rest of the filing cabinet, but the
guards were good. They had come straight for the room he was in. How had they
known? It didn’t matter anyway. Four of them came into the room, firing. He
dived to one side, taking cover behind the desk, waiting for an opportunity to
strike back.
When it came, when the
firing stopped for a second, he shoved the desk at them, catching 3 of them and
forcing them off balance. He leapt for the other one, catching him with a
sidekick to the ribs, and hearing a satisfactory snapping sound as he broke
three ribs.
Alec spun to face the other
three, and took one out with a roundhouse kick to the head, grinning despite
himself. Another came at him from the side, and he used another side kick to
floor that one.
He turned to look at the
final guard, his senses still alert enough that he would know if any of the
other three moved. The guard raised his rifle, and Alec dived again, rolling as
he hit the ground, and spinning back around.
Shit, now he was further away
from the door. Two more guards entered the room.
Alec took a deep breath. Six
on one, not too good. He turned and threw himself through the window, even
though it was two storeys up and nothing but hard ground below.
He hit hard, with a gasp,
even though he had tried his hardest to break his fall. A pain shot through his
leg as he rolled to his feet and started to run. He could see the three guards
from the outside move around to hunt him down, and with surprise, he realised
that three of the guards from the room had followed him out through the window,
and were heading in his direction.
This was not good.
>>>>>
Shay ran up the stairs,
gasping for breath. Max’s place was on the third floor, and he tripped on the
stairs, slamming into them in his haste to get up them. He scrambled up the
rest of the stairs, only regaining his feet when he reached the landing.
He pounded on Max’s door
with his fist. Where the hell was she? He was just about to kick the door in
when Max opened it.
She looked in amazement at
Shay, drenched in water and mud, his clothes ripped, a frantic expression on
his face. He pushed past her into the apartment, and collapsed onto the floor,
gasping for breath.
“Shay, what is it? What’s
wrong?” Max asked, kneeling down beside him, placing her hand on his shoulder.
He continued to breathe hard, reaching inside his shirt to grab the folder, and
handing it to her.
“What’s this? Shay, where’s Alec?” maybe he would know what was going on.
Shay looked up quickly,
grabbing Max’s arm, but still unable to breathe.
“Hey, Max, You home?” Logan
called from the open doorway. He wanted to tell Max what he had seen, how Alec
had gotten caught doing something stupid, and had involved the other kid as
well.
Shay jerked up as Logan
entered the room.
Traitor! he thought, shoving
Max aside, and leaping for Logan, shoving him backwards onto the ground and
leaping on top of him.
>>>>>
Alec ran for the trees,
knowing that he had a good chance of losing his pursuers in the shadows. The
pain in his leg was getting worse, bad enough to make him stumble as he ran.
The trees were only about a hundred metres away, and he forced himself to go
faster.
Two guards stepped out from
the treeline right in front of him. Shit. He skidded to a halt, slipping on the
ground, his legs going straight out in front of him, and the instant he hit the
ground he scrambled to his right, fighting to regain his footing. Something in
his leg snapped, but he kept going, ignoring it. He knew that there were at
least three chasing him, judging from the various footprints, but that left way
too many others somewhere else.
A sharp pain in his shoulder
staggered him, almost sending him to the ground. At least Shay had gotten away,
right?
The next shot brought him to
his knees.
>>>>>
“Shay, what the hell?” Max
moved quickly, grabbing Shay around the neck and pulling him off Logan. She
shoved him against the wall.
“Stay.”
“Logan” she knelt beside
him, careful not to touch him. Shay had managed to get in several shots before
Max had reacted, and Logan was sporting a split lip and a swollen eye. He sat
up slowly and Max backed away, returning to where Shay stood motionless.
“What the hell was that?”
she demanded glaring at him.
“He’s a traitor! He betrayed
Alec.” Shay glared at Logan, who had managed to stand up. Logan took a step
back.
“What are you talking
about?” she looked at Shay, then over to Logan, and back to Shay again.
“He called White. We were on
a mission, me and Alec, and he betrayed us to White.” Shay’s eyes flashed in
anger and he moved to attack Logan again. Max put a hand out to stop him.
She turned to Logan.
“So what happened?” she
asked him
“You’re gonna listen to
him?” Shay screamed in anger. “He betrayed Alec. Why can’t you understand that?
White has Alec and it’s his damned fault”
“Quiet, Shay.” She told him.
Shay turned and punched the wall in anger. She was supposed to be cool. Alec
trusted her. Why wouldn’t she listen to him? God!
“I saw Alec leave Terminal
City and I followed him. I saw them break into a building, they must have
tripped some alarm or something cause then these soldiers turned up, and I
bailed.”
“Liar!” Shay yelled. “You
betrayed us”
“SHAY!” Max screamed, and he
stopped in surprise.
“Listen, we’ll deal with
this when Alec gets back, okay?”
“He’s not coming back.”
Shays voice was quieter, almost a whisper now. “They got him, he’s not coming
back. I saw him fall. They shot, and he went down.”
No. it couldn’t be. There
was no way, Alec, caught by White? No way. She turned to look at Logan again.
“Why aren’t you doing
anything?” Shay demanded. “Why aren’t you out there right now figuring a way to
get Alec back? God, you’re more concerned about that traitor than about Alec!
Why does he love you anyway?” Shay stormed out, shoving past Logan, feeling
some small measure of satisfaction as he knocked Logan down again.
>>>>>
Alec groaned, and tried to
open his eyes. Big mistake. He closed them again, and tried to figure out where
he was. He remembered hitting the ground, a sharp pain in his shoulder, and his
leg. Seven guards standing over him, all with rifles pointed down at his chest.
Two guards hauling him to his feet, throwing him in the back of a van, and
holding him down, while they injected some weird stuff into his neck. Then
nothing.
He decided to try his eyes
again. The pain wasn’t as bad, so he kept them open, and tried to get them to
focus.
“Hey, 494”
A dark blur moved in front
of him and kicked him hard in the stomach. Alec gasped and curled up, fighting
for breath. He heard laughter.
Max! he cried out silently
as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
>>>>>
Max ran after Shay. She had
to know what was going on, what had happened. In particular, she was dying to
know what it was that Alec thought he was doing this time. She caught up with
Shay in four blocks, and tackled him to the ground.
“Talk to me. Tell me what
happened.” She asked him. “Shay, what happened to Alec?”
He looked at her, then
nodded. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
He led her up to Alec’s
apartment and into his room. “What are we doing here?” Max asked him. Shay kept
looking around.
“Alec told me it was here.”
He bent to look under the bed. “Yes!” he pulled out the book and tossed it to
her. Max looked at it. It was a small brown leather book, nothing interesting,
nothing she had ever seen before. She looked back up at Shay. “What is it?”
Shay threw himself down on
the bed.
“A couple of weeks ago, we
went on this mission, Me, Alec, a few others. He didn’t tell us what it was
about at the time. See, the thing is, he kept having these dreams, memories or
something, about this book. He knew exactly where to find it. When we got it,
he started reading it, but apparently something didn’t make sense. He wanted to
go back, look for more evidence. He told me, that if anything happened to him,
I had to tell you. I had to give you the book, make sure you read it and
understood it. He said that you were the only other one he trusted, that you
would understand what the book was saying, more than he ever could. He said to
believe in you.” Shay looked up at Max. “He said that you were special.”
Max looked at him. Alec
thought she was special? She didn’t know what to believe. She didn’t want to
believe that
Well, she could worry about
that later. No matter what had happened, Alec was in serious trouble. She
needed to figure out what to do. They had to find him, figure out a plan to get
him back. And she had to read this book, figure out what the hell had made Alec
react so strongly.
“Okay, Shay. Here’s the
plan. We will get Alec back, but we need to find out where he is first. Go
home, get some sleep, and in the morning, we’ll get together, all of us, and
try to figure out what to do next. Okay?”
Shay nodded, standing up. He
still looked devastated as he moved towards the door.
“Shay” he turned around “I
will do whatever it takes to get him back. I swear. We will get Alec back.”
He smiled weakly and left.
Max curled up on Alec’s bed, leaning against his pillow as she opened the book.
What had gotten Alec so worked up?
>>>>>
Max curled around the
pillow, breathing in Alec’s scent as she slowly woke up. She had spent most of
the night reading the journal, getting up to, and beyond the stage Alec had
read to.
She knew instantly the
problem that Alec had discovered, the lack of an X8 series, and she knew why he
had gone back to where he had gotten the journal, to seek for more clues. The
only things she didn’t know, was what had made Alec know where to find the book
in the first place, and where he was now.
She had some kind of idea as
to the first, and none at all to the second.
It was almost dawn. She
could see the first signs of daylight filtering in through Alec’s ‘skylight’.
It was time to get moving. She had to talk to the transgenics that Alec had
involved in the first mission, and she had to plan one of her own. She had to
get him back.
>>>>>
“Wake UP!” the voice was
harsh, and Alec jumped, forgetting for a moment all that had happened. He was
young again, in the manticore barracks, and the drill sergeant was screaming.
It was only when he tried to move, and couldn’t, that he remembered where he
was. He opened his eyes slowly and looked around.
“Over here” Alec felt a
stinging blow to the back of his head. His eyesight went blank. When it cleared
up again, he looked around. White stood there, leaning against a wall, his arms
folded.
“Nice scar” Alec choked out.
One of the cuts that Joshua had inflicted at Jam Pony had been too deep to heal
properly, and White now wore a thin scar down the side of his face.
“You talk only when I tell
you to, you answer exactly what I ask you.” White spat out.
Alec looked back at him,
waiting for his next move. It wasn’t like he had never been tortured before,
Manticore had done that pretty well. He could handle it. It may hurt, but he
could handle it.
“Where’s my son?”
What? That was one question
Alec was not expecting. He fought the pain in his head trying to think. White’s
kid. Oh who cared. He couldn’t remember. He looked back at White.
“Answer me” White took a
step forward. “Answer me, 494, now” White pulled out a gun and levelled it at
Alec. “I’m waiting.”
“How would I know? I didn’t
even know you had a son.” Alec bluffed. White shrugged, as if believing Alec,
then pulled the trigger.
Alec groaned, clenching his
teeth together to stop himself from screaming. God that hurt, right into his
leg. It felt like it was on fire.
“Where’s my son?”
“Don’t blame me if your kid
ran away. I would too if I was him.” Alec spat out.
White moved closer and
kicked his leg, hard. Alec gasped, but he was more prepared this time, and made
no sound.
“Fine. Maybe later you’ll be
more receptive.” White kicked him again, and left, slamming the door behind
him.
Alec looked around, trying
to figure out where he was, how he could escape, but he couldn’t seem to get
his eyes to focus. And if he couldn’t see properly, then he couldn’t escape. He
closed his eyes to rest them.
Shay had gotten away, he
knew that. He had heard the guards talking, saying that he was the only one
they had found. And that meant the kid would be getting help. It was just a
matter of time. Either he escaped, or Max came to rescue him. Whichever way, he
would escape soon.
>>>>>
Max walked slowly into the
meeting hall and looked around. The room was packed, a few hundred transgenics
easily. They all talked amongst themselves. She walked slowly to the front of
the room and stood there for a second until the room went dead.
She took a deep breath, not
really knowing what to say.
“The reason we called this
meeting, is that we have a lot to talk about. There’s the situation with Alec,
but there are also other things we need to talk about, and we should probably
discuss both at once, as they’re kind of related.” She looked over at the young
boy who had spoken up at headquarters. “Some of us have spoken about finding a
family here, building a society. We may not all look alike, but we are family,
and I think we need to stick together.”
A loud murmur arose
throughout the room, and many of the transgenics nodded. They all looked at
her, waiting for her to continue. She paused, not knowing how to continue. She
had to keep Alec’s mission a secret, but they did need to put together a rescue
party.
Mole noticed her not saying
anything and moved to the front of the room. “I have something I want to say.”
He looked at Max, as if for approval, and Max gestured for him to continue.
“We don’t look alike. Some
of you look like me, some, the lucky ones, can pass for human. Those that look
like me are targets. I was captured once, about three days out of Manticore.
Whatever we decide here, we have to stop that happening again, to anyone.”
Max stepped forward, putting
her hand on his shoulder. She looked out over the crowd.
“The humans, they’re scared
of anything that is different. They can’t understand us. They’re scared of us.
I’m not saying they’re all violent, but they are scared and want to protect
themselves. Then there are the familiars. They just want us dead. We are a
threat to them, and they want to destroy that threat. What I’m trying to say is
this. There are many more of us out there. Most if not all of them will have
seen the broadcasts, and will know about the situation here. Some of those will
be trying to get here, to join us. If we’re talking about building a society
here, then that society includes them too. We owe it to them to help them get here
safely.”
Transgenics of all kinds
nodded.
“You all know that Alec went
on a mission last night, and was captured by White. I can’t tell you the
details of the mission, apart from the fact that what he was trying to do was
not selfish, but an attempt to get information to help us against the
familiars.”
She looked over to Shay,
unclear as to whether he had read the journal, and if so, whether he would
accept her explanation of it. He nodded at her, his eyes shining with pride at
what he was hearing.
“We’re soldiers, that’s what
we were trained to do. We’re more than that, but we are what they trained us to
be. It’s time to fight back. Not with guerrilla tactics, not by attacking the
human police, but by standing up and saying ‘we will look after our own.’ If
they hurt one of us, we will help them. If they capture one of us, we will get
them back. That includes Alec, but it also includes any of us, if anything
happens in the future. Manticore taught us to stick together. It taught us that
if one member of our squad went down, we wouldn’t leave without them. I think
it’s time to show them that we learnt that lesson.”
>>>>>
The problem was what she was
doing. She was convincing them all to put themselves in danger to help Alec. No
matter what she said, he knew that the truth was that Alec had been selfish,
and had got caught.
>>>>>
His leg hurt. That was the
first thing he noticed. Alec forced his eyes open, and realised that his leg
wasn’t the worst of his problems. His eyes still weren’t focussing. He blinked
several times. Nothing changed. He could see vague shapes, but that was it.
He wasn’t tied up. That was
something. He tried to stand up, but his leg wouldn’t co-operate. Lying back
down, he ran his hand over his leg. It felt really hot. That was bad. Okay, he
needed to bend it, otherwise it would get worse.
He had to figure out a way
to escape. He had to get out of here.
The door opened, and the
blurry dark became slightly brighter. Alec tensed, rolling onto his side so
that his injured leg was on the bottom. His arms moved into a ready position
also, one hand near his thigh, the other beside his neck. He bent his top leg,
ready to strike if the shape came nearer.
“Fine 494, we can do this
the hard way”
Alec heard a pinging sound,
and felt something hit him in the leg. What the hell was that? A dart or
something? Then he felt it. Tranquilizer. Shit.
“Ready to talk yet?” it was
a woman this time, not White. At least he had that to be thankful for.
“I only talk to women like
you when I’m drunk.”
“And I only talk to
transgenic scum before I kill them. At least we understand each other. Now,
what I want to know is the location of 452. Start talking.”
Not a chance. “Don’t know.
Now what? You gonna break my arm?” he
held it out to her.
“Maybe I’ll ruin your pretty
face, run a razor down it, give you a scar that looks like the one your pet dog
gave Ames”
“He looks better with it.
Tougher. Joshua always did have great taste.”
“How do you think you’ll
look with one? You’re too pretty to look tough, you’ll probably just look
pathetic.” She walked over to him and ran a finger down the side of his face.
Alec jerked his head away. Nothing else would move.
“You think I care what I
look like? You really think I’ll betray Max to save my face?”
“I think you will.
Eventually you will. You transgenics have no honour. You’re worse than humans.
Yes, you’ll talk to save yourself.”
No. He wouldn’t. Not like
last time, when he had offered White the lives of three of his own to save
himself. Not this time. He shut his eyes, the only form of physical resistance
he had left.
>>>>>
Max, Shay and five others
sat around the table in HQ, staring down at the wooden surface. No-one spoke,
no-one moved. Finally, Max slammed her fist on the table.
“This is pointless. We don’t
know where he is, we don’t even know if he’s alive!” she stood up.
“Of course he is.” Another
X5 told her. “Look, right now White’s after info, yeah? There would be no point
in killing Alec. He needs the info too badly.”
“And when Alec doesn’t tell
him what he wants? He won’t, you know” a female spoke up.
Max glared at her. “We need
to find him first. Okay. We might not be able to find Alec, but we can find
White. So let’s focus on that. See what you can find.”
>>>>>
“Logan, I need your help.”
Max chewed her lip and
waited for him to respond. It was starting to piss her off the way he never
looked up from what he was doing when they spoke. Fine, whatever.
“White’s got Alec. We need
to find him. Do you have any idea where we can start?”
“Look, Max. Did it ever
occur to you that Alec meant to get caught? He never let you in on the plan,
did he? You may be screwing it up for him. Wait.”
Wait? “Logan, he’s in
trouble. He’s my friend. I’m going to help him, I’m asking you to help me.”
“I’ll see if I can find
anything. Listen, Max. You know he’s a problem, right? He’s running rogue,
doing whatever he wants. He’s a danger to what we’re trying to build here.”
“I need that info, Logan,
ASAP.”
>>>>>
Alec felt, rather than
heard, someone enter the room. He forced his body to relax. He was ready. He
still couldn’t see, but that was only one of his senses. He could rely on the
others. At least he could move.
The guard dropped something
on the floor, probably food, definitely drugged, and threw a cup of liquid at
him. Alec jumped as the cold water hit his face, trying to act surprised. The
guard laughed and turned to the door.
Alec started to count. It
should be safe to move once he reached 25.
Okay, now. He got to his
feet slowly, and felt his way over to the door. He pulled it, and it opened.
Stupid breeding cult losers. If you take several pieces of paper, or material,
say from a shirt, and slip them up against the hinge of a door, an interesting
thing happens. When someone opens that door the material moves into the hinge
mechanism. The door shuts, but is slightly out of whack. The door will, in
fact, pull open.
And it did. Alec grinned as
he slipped out of the door. Okay, so he had no idea where he was, or how to get
out, but he didn’t really care. He had to get out. He had to make sure Shay was
okay, and that Max had the journal. The information in the package he had
thrown to Shay had been important. He hadn’t had time to read it, but he had
caught sight of the words “X8 series”. It had to contain the information he
needed. It had to.
He came to a corridor,
running his hand along the wall to help guide him. Shit, he needed his eyesight
back. Right now, it sucked. The corridor split into two. Okay, pick one. It
didn’t matter which direction he was going in. He just had to keep moving. He
mentally flipped a coin in his head. Tails. He moved left. The law of averages
said that at some point he had to find an exit. He just had to stay alive long
enough for the odds to mount up.
>>>>>
Max was completely
frustrated. White’s men used to be everywhere. Whenever a transgenic popped his
head up, there was one of White’s guys to capture them. But when they actually
wanted to capture one, there was none in sight. Shay walked in and took a seat
beside her.
“Any news?” she asked him.
“Nah, nothing. They’ve all
gone to ground. Listen, Max. I was thinking. If enough of us suddenly appeared
on the streets, particularly the less human of us, White would have to show,
right? He couldn’t take the publicity.”
“I can’t ask them to risk
themselves like that” she shrugged her shoulders.
“You’re not. Asking them, I
mean. We’d be volunteering. I’d volunteer in a second. Remember what you said?
If one of us gets caught, we all mobilise to rescue him.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Max, this is Alec. Do you
think that people wouldn’t volunteer to help him?”
Max looked over at him. He
looked tired, like he hadn’t slept for days. Not surprising, he probably
hadn’t.
“You think a lot of Alec,
don’t you?” she asked carefully.
“Yeah.” Shay looked at her,
amazed she needed to ask such a thing. “He’s like, I don’t know, kind of what I
imagined a big brother would be like. He teases me, but he helps me out,
teaches me things. He showed me how to jump the boundary fence, he taught me
things on missions. He makes us all feel like we belong some place. That we’re
okay.”
Max stood up and pulled Shay
into a hug. “We’ll get him back” she told him softly. “We will find a way.”
“Why did Logan betray him?”
Shay asked, pulling back. “Is it because he’s jealous?”
“I don’t know, Shay. I’m
still not sure Logan betrayed him. I don’t want to believe it.”
“But he was there!” Shay
jerked away from her. “He watched from the trees!”
Max sank back down onto her
seat, resting her face in her hands.
“Shay, I can’t deal with
that. I can’t deal with Alec being gone, AND the possibility that Logan was
involved. If he betrayed Alec, then he betrayed me too.” She shook her head.
“Let’s just get Alec back. Then the three of us will figure out what Logan had
to do with it.”
>>>>>
“I want you to understand,
this is purely a volunteer mission. I won’t force anyone to do this.” Max told
the group of gathered transgenics. “There are risks involved. Not just White
and his men, but also from the humans. They may be scared.”
“Where do we sign up?” Mole
asked. “This is Alec. One of us gets captured, we all mobilise. When do we go?”
Several others stepped
forward. Then more. Within seconds, all of the twenty trasngenics she had asked
to attend stood there, waiting.
“Let’s go have some fun” one
of them commented.
A vampire-like transgenic
grinned. “Yeah. I never got to walk down the street in daylight. Let’s do it
now.”
Max nodded. “Okay, let’s do
this. Now remember, make a scene, but don’t cause trouble. We need the humans
on our side, or if not supporting us, then not against us. Don’t give them any
ammo to use against us afterwards. Don’t do anything stupid, don’t get caught.”
>>>>>
Logan was getting nervous.
Everywhere he went in terminal city, he was getting hostile looks from the
transgenics. Shay had blamed him for Alec’s capture, and he must have told them
all that. He hadn’t realised that Alec had so many friends around. He certainly
hadn’t had that many on the outside. He had inherited Max’s friends, due to the
fact that he hung around her all the time, but none of them really liked him.
Why did these transgenics? Why were they so quick to believe that Logan was in
the wrong? God, Alec was a reckless, impulsive sociopath. He had got caught
because he was an idiot. Nothing more.
The worst thing was that Max
hadn’t supported him, hadn’t believed him when he had told her what had
actually happened. He had to find a way to convince her of what had happened.
He needed a plan. And it was
so simple. Help Max, help her rescue Alec, as distasteful as that was, and
wait. Alec would shoot himself in the leg again. He would screw up. That was
guaranteed. All he had to do was help out, and sit back and wait.
He nodded to himself, and
went to find Max to offer his help.
>>>>>
Alec hit another corridor.
He turned right this time. The last thing he wanted was to keep going left and
end up back where he started. His theory on gambling sucked. The law of
averages hated him. Where the hell was the way out? He had to find it soon. His
eyesight wasn’t clearing up, and he was getting a headache from struggling to
see. And his leg hurt. Every time he stepped on it now a stab of pain shot
through him. It hurt so badly to move, but he had to. He had to get back to
Max. And the others.
He conjured up an image of
Max in his mind. His friend. His closest friend, the one person who understood
him, even when he didn’t understand himself.
Keep going.
He heard the click of a bolt
being drawn back.
“Going somewhere 494?” White
asked casually.
>>>>>
“Max, I might have
something.” Logan dropped a bunch of photos on the desk in front of her.
“I hacked into the hovercam
computer system, searching for the van I saw at the building that night. I
think I found it. Here.” He pointed to a large building on a hovercam photo.
“The photos show a van pulling into an underground parking lot by this
building. It is registered to an investment firm, but the firm doesn’t seem to
be doing much trading. I think this may be it.”
“It could be. It’s worth
checking out, anyway. I’ll send some scouts to do a recon.” She stood quickly,
moving to the door, anxious to be doing something. “Hey
He nodded, smiling to
himself. Round one to him. He was coming across as the good guy.
>>>>>
“No way. No.” Mole threw the
photo’s across the room. “We do not rely on him. No. I don’t trust him. Alec
sure as hell doesn’t trust him. There’s no way this is good intelligence.”
“Mole, what else do we
have?” Max asked him. “if there’s any chance Alec’s there, I have to know.”
Mole looked at her closely.
Max looked almost beaten. That was understandable. Whatever her relationship
with Alec, or with
“I’ll go” Shay stepped
forward. “It’s a risk, but if we know they’re expecting us, it’s less of a
risk. We’ll be expecting them to attack. I hate Logan. He betrayed me too that
night. But I’ll follow Max.”
“No, I won’t go. But I’ll
stay here and ‘guard’
“I’ll take it.” Max told
him, holding her hand out to him. He shook it. “Look, I know what it looks
like, but I can’t believe that
“We’ll check it out tonight.
If it looks good, we’ll plan a mission. Properly.”
>>>>>
Alec groaned and tried to
move off the floor. He felt something shove him back down. A hand slammed his
head into the ground, and he felt a needle prick his neck.
“What are you doing?” he
groaned, trying to brush the needle away from him. A foot connected with his
ribs, and he gasped, curling up.
“We’re going to have a talk,
494.” White told him. “And, I really want you to listen. There’s so much to
talk about.”
“Nothing you say could
interest me.”
“How about this? Cale
betrayed you. He told us where you were going so we could capture you. And you
know what his reward was? The antidote for that little virus thing. So while
you’re here, can you imagine what he’s doing to 452?”
Alec swallowed hard. Fine,
whatever. He didn’t care. He forced his face into a blank.
“Tell me where 452 is.”
“Nah.”
“Hows the eyesight? Getting
any better?”
“Don’t have to look at you,
at least.” He heard White move, and tensed, ready to take anything. White’s
foot slammed into his side. He was going to have no ribs left at this rate. He
forced his mind onto other things, to try to ignore the pain. Max and him on
the bikes, racing each other, enjoying the feel of the wind battering against
them. Just… free.
Something connected with his
leg, and he could finally see. A flash of bright light. Then darkness.
>>>>>
Max lay on Alec’s bed,
leafing through the journal, not really concentrating on the pages. She
couldn’t stop thinking about Alec. He annoyed her more than anyone she had ever
met before. She hated his arrogant smirk, the way she could never get him to
admit what he was truly feeling.
God, she wanted him back. He
always made her smile, even when he was being a total prick. She knew White,
knew what he was capable of. And she was scared for Alec.
More than anything, she
wanted to talk to him, ask him what had happened, whether he thought
Things had gotten so weird.
Nothing made sense anymore. It was her new motto. Ever since Jam Pony,
everything had become so strange. They had raised the flag, declared themselves
to be a people, a family. Freak Nation. And then everything had spun out of the
realms of her understanding. Alec had gotten her the bike. That was the first
thing that went strange. Then there was Logan. He was angry all the time, and
he was acting like a stranger. Everyone was looking at her to lead, and she
didn’t really want that. Zack was the leader. She was just a soldier, someone
who got stuff done, did what was necessary.
She rolled over on the bed.
It was time to go. They would succeed. They had to. For many reasons, but the
most important being that she had something to tell him, something that would
change everything.
>>>>>
“Sir, you’ll want to see
this.” A voice from the doorway. Alec turned his head in the direction of the
sound, but he couldn’t see anything, not even a blur now. There was definitely
something in that weird shit they kept injecting into him. He just hoped that
it wasn’t permanent.
“What is it?”
“Outside camera footage.
Something tripped a sensor.” A thud, as if something was being put down.
“I can’t see anything.”
White commented. Then he laughed. “So they’re coming.”
“Sir?”
“Otto, think. If it was a
cat, or a dog, we’d see it. It would be running around, chasing its tail or
doing something stupid. Since we can’t see it, it’s something else. Something
that knows better than to get caught. But, something that is stupid enough to
trip a wire. One of your friends, 494?”
“I don’t have any friends”
“Not surprising. But
something is coming. And what would they be doing? A bit of reconnaissance huh?
Otto” he turned to the other man. “they won’t try anything tonight. Tomorrow,
they’ll attack. We’ll have to be ready.”
“Sir” Otto acknowledged, and
Alec heard footsteps.
“So, 494, that means that
we’ve only got one day to talk. What shall we talk about next?”
There was silence. Alec
forced himself to remain calm.
“Where’s my son?”
>>>>>
“Okay, listen up. We go in
just like we planned. Multiple entry points, A, B and C. One squad through
each. Stick together. Assume that we have been made, and will be targeted at
any time. Let’s do this.”
The group nodded. Max glanced
at her watch, and raised five fingers. When the time reached 5 minutes to the
hour she started lowering one finger at a time. When she was left with just a
fist raised, she lowered her fist and tapped her leg. The three squads vanished
into the dark.
Max, Shay and two others
reached the side of the building. She glanced around the corner, and raised a
fist in warning. Something was wrong. She could sense it, but she couldn’t see
anything. Her instincts were good, she had always known that, so she waited.
Shay, who had a headset on, passed on the order to wait.
“Movement” came a voice over
the headset. Shay signalled to Max.
“Detail?” Shay whispered.
“Three, four guys. Not
clear. Hold…right. Two guys, carrying a third. One following.”
“Alec?”
“Maybe. Can’t see. Head
down, they’re dragging him. Doesn’t seem to be moving. You’re in range.” Shay
looked up. Max shrugged, then looked again. She signalled ‘Yes’.
>>>>>
When they first grabbed him
he had resisted. But the fact was, that he really couldn’t move enough to do
much. He definitely couldn’t take out two guards. So he let them take him. He
sagged, forcing them to take all his weight in an attempt to tire them out. His
feet dragged along the ground.
Alec could tell when they
got outside. The blur that was his vision went from dark to slightly less dark.
This was a good thing, he told himself. At least it meant that the blindness
wasn’t permanent.
At the centre of the
courtyard, the two guards dropped Alec to the ground. He stayed there for a
second, getting ready for what was going to happen.
“Get up 494”
He struggled to his feet,
turning to face the direction White’s voice came from. If he was going to die,
then he would die on his feet.
“Any last words?”
He needed something great.
At least he could die resisting. That would mean something, right? He reverted
to his old line. “Go on then, do it. Do you want to live forever?”
Then he felt it. Something
was happening. It was like he could see, but not really. He just somehow knew,
inside him, that something was about to happen, and that he needed to be ready
for it.
>>>>>
She couldn’t think of a way
to signal Alec. Anything she could do would alert White’s men to the fact that
they were there. She would just have to leave it to luck that he would react
fast enough. C team had moved in behind the guards, and had tried to signal
Alec, but he hadn’t acknowledged that he had seen them. He would know. He had
to know that no matter what happened, she would always have his back.
Max watched as White raised
his gun.
>>>>>
Alec felt it. He actually
felt the air move as White raised the gun. It would have been interesting at
any other time. Now, it was just weird and distracting.
He moved his right foot back
slightly, and shifted his weight to his front leg. This gave him the stability
to be able to move quickly in any given direction.
He heard a shot and
collapsed his front leg, falling to the side and rolling quickly. Where had
that come from? Not from White.
He heard another two shots,
and he rolled again, not knowing where the shots were coming from, or why, but
trying to keep moving.
“Alec” he heard a footstep,
female, and Max bent down beside him. “We have to go. You hurt?”
Alec paused to think, and
felt Max’s hand rest on his shoulder. “Alec?”
“My leg.” He told her. The
other thing, the blindness thing, that could wait for a while.
“Lean against me.” He felt
an arm move around him, under his arm, and pull him to his feet. Pain flashed
through his leg, and he gasped. “Sorry” she told him. He felt another arm go
around him.
“Come on Alec, we got better
things to do than save your ass.” Neil. Another X5 that Alec knew pretty well.
He let them both take his weight. They started to move, slowly. Alec tried to help, but he couldn’t seem to
get his legs to work.
>>>>>
Max felt the extra weight as
Alec passed out. She glanced at Neil and they moved their grips, lifting him
off the ground so that they could run. Shay and the others were guarding their
retreat, and they were okay for now, but someone had to have heard the shots.
The teams moved quickly, the
only one making a noise was Shay, who was calling for a pick-up. They couldn’t
carry Alec through the streets, it would raise way too much suspicion.
They reached the rendezvous
point, and lowered Alec to the ground, leaning him against a wall. Max knelt
beside him, turning his head away from her so that she could check his pulse.
“Neil” the X5 moved over to
her side. “What the hell is that?” he ran his finger along the bruising on
Alec’s neck.
“It looks like needle marks,
but really extreme, either a whole bunch of injections, or they’ve used some
weird shit that has had a bad reaction.” He told her.
Damn. Max ran her hand down
the side of his face. Alec groaned and moved his head against her.
“Hey, you with us?” she
asked softly, resting her hand on his shoulder.
He opened his eyes and
looked in her direction.
“Max?” he choked.
“Yeah, Alec. We’re here. We
saved your ass again. Just relax, okay, we’ll be back home in no time” she told
him smiling.
He forced a smile.
“Do I still have a house? No
more redecorating while I was gone?” he asked, then groaned, closing his eyes.
Talking hurt. He felt Max take his hand.
>>>>>
“Alec?” Max whispered,
cupping his face in her hand. “Hey, you still with us?” he felt kind of hot to
her. Hotter than normal anyway, not that 101 degrees was that normal. “Alec?”
“Mm?” he muttered, half
opening his eyes and looking in her direction. “What’d I do now?”
“The van’s here. Do you
think you can stand if I help you?”
No. Not a chance. “Yeah” he
whispered. He felt her arm slip behind him and he braced himself. Max helped to
lift him and he struggled to stand, biting his lip with the pain. He couldn’t
show weakness. All he had to do was stay on his feet. The van would be there
soon, he could hold on till then.
He stumbled, almost falling.
The lack of vision was making him dizzy and he lowered his head, tightening his
grip slightly around Max’s shoulder.
“You alright?” she asked
him, concern evident in her voice.
“I’m always alright” he
tried to laugh, but then started coughing. He sank to his knees, slipping out
of Max’s grip as he fought for breath.
“Alec!” she knelt beside
him, putting her arm around his shoulder, but he pushed her away as he tried
frantically to stop coughing.
>>>>>
Max’s heart dropped as she
saw him fall to his knees. She wanted to help him, or just let him know that
she was there, but he pushed her away. He always did. He would never admit to
her that he needed help.
“Van” Neil spoke, and a grey
van pulled up at the curb. Four Xs jumped out the back and took up guard
positions on the street.
“Alec?” Max asked, trying to
ask him if he needed help.
He couldn’t do it. He
couldn’t ask for help. But he couldn’t stand up. He didn’t think he had the
strength, and even if he did, he was feeling so dizzy that he would probably
just fall down again. He stayed on his knees on the ground.
“We gotta go, now” called
one of the new arrivals. Max gestured to two of them to help Alec. He needed
help, but he couldn’t ask for it from her. She wished that he would, but she
could understand that.
The two guys helped Alec
stand and get into the van. Even that small movement hurt him. He leaned back
against the side of the van as it started up.
“Alec, I need to check you
out, okay?” a female voice. He opened his eyes, even though it was useless, and
the female took it as a sign of consent. She tapped his left leg, then ran both
her hands up his leg, feeling for anything strange while watching his face for
any reaction of pain. She moved to his other leg, and he cried out in pain.
“Sorry” she told him, patting his other leg. “Bad huh?”
“Yeah” he gasped, in too
much pain to hide it.
“Okay, where else? Ribs?”
she ran her hands up his chest inside his shirt. That hurt too.
“Max” he whispered.
“I’m here” he heard her
voice to his right. “His neck.” Max told the female.
“Okay, Alec, let me see.”
She moved to the other side of him and slowly angled his head away from her.
Half of his neck was covered in bruising, and it looked swollen. “Lean your
head against Max. I need to check this out.”
He didn’t even complain,
just leant back. Max put her arm around his shoulder and rested her hand in his
hair. He relaxed.
“This looks bad. Alec, what
did they inject you with? Do you know?” the female ran her finger around the
outside of the bruising.
“Alec?” he didn’t answer.
She looked at Max and shook her head. “This isn’t good”
>>>>>
“Well, the mission was a
success, lucky for you.” Mole sat on a pile of crates, casually rubbing the
barrel of his gun. He looked over at Logan, who was loosely tied to a chair.
“Then let me go”
“Nah, not yet. See, Alec is
a friend of mine. If he’s hurt, it’s your fault so here’s the plan. We wait to
see exactly how hurt my friend is, and for every cut he has, you get one in the
same place. That’s fair, I think. Don’t you?”
“I didn’t do anything
wrong.”
“Neither. Did. Alec.”
>>>>>
“What the hell happened
here?” Neil asked as they entered Alec’s apartment and stared in shock at the
hole in the wall.
“Alec has a bad temper” Max
shrugged.
“Hey!” Alec protested
weakly, and they all turned to look at him.
“You could have woken from
your nap sooner, then we wouldn’t have had to carry you up all those damn
stairs” Neil commented.
“What can I say, I’m lazy”
he replied.
“Okay, lets get him on the
bed” the female ordered, and they moved forward into the bedroom.
“So tell me, what did you do
to piss him off so much that he broke the ceiling?” Neil asked Max.
“Why blame me?” she shot
back, as they lowered Alec onto the bed. He gasped, but enjoyed the fact that
he was no longer moving.
“Simple.” Neil smiled.
“You’re the only one that could ever annoy Alec that much.”
On the bed, Alec laughed.
Max glared at him. Not that he saw it.
“Right. Everyone out. Let
him get some rest. I need to set that leg, anyway.” The female ordered.
“Wait.” Alec whispered and
they turned to look at him. “Max, Shay.” He gasped.
“Fine. But quickly. You need
to rest.”
The others left, and Max and
Shay moved over to the bed. “Shay” Alec paused to try to get his breath back.
“Yeah?” Shay asked, bending
forward.
“Good job, man.” He reached
out for Shay’s hand, and Shay grasped it briefly. Then backed away.
Max moved closer to him.
Alec struggled to focus his eyes. He could see something, not much, but he
could make out light and dark, and a blur.
“You’ll be fine” she told
him, her voice slightly hoarse. She stroked his hair back off his forehead.
“We’ll go riding soon, use up some of that petrol you stole, huh?”
“I dreamed about that.” Alec
whispered. “When White was… Max, can you stay?”
She looked down at him. He
looked young, tired, without any of the cynicism and sarcasm that usually
dominated his features.
“Max?” he asked. Where was
she? He was so tired that he couldn’t even see the blurry images properly.
“I’m here” she told him. She
ran her hand down his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.” As he closed his eyes
she lowered her mouth to his, and kissed him gently.
>>>>>
Alec felt Max’s lips on his
and his body reacted even as his mind raced, trying to figure out what was
going on. Then he decided that he just didn’t care. He returned the kiss
softly, struggling against a desire to deepen it, to do anything that might
stop what was happening.
Max pulled back softly, and
looked down at Alec. His eyes were closed, but he was smiling slightly, and she
had to force herself not to kiss him again. She settled for running her hand
down the side of his face.
“Get some rest” she
whispered, and unable to resist she kissed his cheek.
Alec reached up and touched
her hand
“Max…” he whispered.
“Shh, rest, we’ll talk
tomorrow.” She moved her hand off his face and took his hand in hers.
She stayed there, kneeling
beside the bed, holding his hand until he fell asleep. Then, very slowly, she
lowered his hand to the bed, and stepped away, moving to the other room to talk
to the female medic.
“Max” she introduced
herself.
“Karen”
“So, how bad is he?” Max
asked.
“I don’t know.” She
shrugged. “His leg looks bad, but he needs to rest before I can examine it. I
don’t want to hurt him more than I have to, and he’s in a lot of pain right
now. His neck, I’m more worried about. They’ve injected him with something, and
until we know what it is, and exactly what it does, we can’t risk giving him
any medication, painkillers, antibiotics, anything.” Max nodded. “Right now
though, he’s resting and that’s good. His recuperative powers are strong, it
may just be a matter of giving him time, letting his body do the work, and just
keeping him comfortable. He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes” Max said simply, not
knowing what else to say.
Karen nodded. That was
pretty obvious. “I need to go check on him.”
>>>>>
“Well, it seems like Alec
got a little hurt.” Mole told Logan shrugging his shoulders and standing up. Shay,
Neil and some of the others stood behind him.
“How many times do I have to
tell you that it was not my fault?” Logan bit back angrily, trying to hide the
nervousness he was feeling.
“I don’t know, how many
times do you think it would take until we decide we don’t care? Oh, wait. Zero
for me. You guys?”
“Zero.” A couple of them
nodded. Shay stood there doing nothing.
“So, Alec got shot in the
leg, right?” Mole looked over at Neil, who nodded once, sharply. Mole raised
the rifle, aiming carefully.
Logan tried frantically to
move the chair he was strapped to the side.
“Stop moving” Mole told him
calmly, re-aiming. “Wouldn’t want me to miss, hit something a little higher,
now, would you?”
Logan looked at him. Was he
serious? He heard the rifle fire and cried out. Shit!
Mole laughed as he and the
others left the room. The shot had gone wide, purposely. He hadn’t meant to
hurt
>>>>>
Something touched Alec’s
face, and even in his sleep he reacted, throwing his arm in the direction.
“Alec, take it easy.” Karen
told him, easily blocking his punch and lowering his hand slowly to the bed.
“You’re home. I just need to check you out, okay?”
“Yeah” he whispered.
“How bad is the pain when I
do this?” she touched his neck cautiously. Pain flared through Alec’s system,
and his whole body tensed.
“It’s okay.” He whispered,
fighting for control.
“I didn’t ask if it was
okay, Alec. I know it’s not. I want to know how bad it is.”
“I don’t know.” He said
finally. “It hurts. I need to talk to Max.”
“I’ll get her when I’ve
finished examining you. Now, I’ll make it easy for you. When I do this, do you
want to: yell, hit me, or throw me through your skylight.” She pressed down on
the edge of the bruising.
He gasped. “uhh, yell.”
“Thank you. And if I do
this?”
He jerked back. “Cry?”
Karen laughed, hitting him
in the shoulder lightly. “I think I understand now why people try to hurt you a
lot.”
“So, how is he?” Max leaned
against the doorframe watching the scene in front of her. Alec’s head moved in
her direction, but he still couldn’t see properly.
“Why don’t I leave you two
alone?” Karen tapped Alec on the shoulder and walked away. Passing Max she
commented, “Try not to hit him, no matter what stupid stuff he says, okay?”
Alec laughed slightly and
moved his head as he felt Max cross the room.
“Feeling better?” she asked
him, sitting by his bed but not touching him.
Alec needed to feel her,
needed the touch of her hand on his. Well, actually he would have preferred
some other kind of touch, but anything would do. When she didn’t take his hand,
he moved to sit up. It didn’t hurt as much as it had before.
“I see what she meant about
not hitting you.” Max told him, putting her hand on his shoulder to stop him
from moving.
“Huh?” he replied, enjoying
the feel of her hand on his bare skin and having to force himself to
concentrate.
“You’re hurt. Will you just
lie down and rest?”
He relaxed under her grip,
and she should have moved her hand. But she didn’t. She needed to be close to
him.
“I just… Max, I can’t do
this. What do you want me to do? Lie here like some injured human, have you
wait on me hand and foot…” oh, shut up, he told himself. That was sounding way
too tempting.
He couldn’t see Max’s quick
grin, nor the way she tried to hide it. “You’re easier to talk to when you’re
like this. You don’t run away when the subject gets serious.” Her voice was
light, but Alec could sense something serious behind it.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He
told her, making his tone completely serious. “If you want to talk about
something…” he turned towards her.
Actually, there was a lot
Max wanted to say.
He hadn’t liked her
classification of him as ‘upset’. He had seemed angry that she hadn’t taken it
more seriously. But what could she do? She could keep intervening for him, but
she didn’t know if she believed him, or Alec. And besides, if she kept standing
up for him, then Mole and the others would lose respect for him. Not that they
had a lot, but a soldier stands up for himself. He doesn’t go running to others
for help. Manticore training died hard.
“Max?” Alec asked, reaching
his hand out and finding hers. “What is it?”
“Nothing” she reassured him,
squeezing his hand lightly. “Just some stuff going on, that’s all.”
“Want me to kill anyone?” he
offered, grinning. His heart soared when she laughed.
“You can’t even stand up”
she told him.
Was that a hint of challenge
in her voice? Fine, then. “Neither can Logan, without help” he threw back at
her. “Seems to me like you like that in a guy”
Her fist hit him lightly in
the shoulder. “Get up then, if you can” Max was joking, but serious at the same
time. She needed Alec on his feet, needed him able to move. There was a lot of
weird stuff going on, the diary, the new package, the stuff with Logan. She
didn’t even know where to start to deal with it.
“Fine.” Alec moved his
injured leg to the side of the bed. It hurt, but not too badly. It was much
better than the night before. He felt Max move away from the bed to give him
room and he moved to a sitting position. He wasn’t sure he could do this, but
he needed to try. All Logan did was moan that he couldn’t use his legs. Alec
had never even seen him try to stand without that brace thing he had stolen
somewhere.
Right, time to stand. Or at
least, not fall over.
“Need some help?” she
offered, her tone teasing.
“I can take that bike back,
you know.” He mock-glared at her. “I don’t know, Max. I risk life and limb for
you, get you a really great present and all you do is give me grief. Where’s
Supportive Max when I need her?”
“Ask for my help then.”
Now, that, right there, that
was a challenge. So be it. He stood slowly, his muscles complaining, but still
working. Once the dizziness passed he put more weight on his injured leg, and
as it held, muttered a quick prayer of thanks to the Manticore scientists.
“Now what?” he asked her,
grinning cockily.
“Try walking. Maybe to the
living room, get me a drink?”
Now she was giving him shit.
Definitely. He was so going to get her back at some point.
“Christ, you hold a girl’s hand
and she expects the world. Women are so high maintenance.” He would not mention
the kiss. Not in a joking context. They would talk about that later.
“Yeah, but we’re so worth
it” she told him.
Oh yeah.
Alec took a step, then
another. So far so good. He couldn’t see, but he was in his apartment. It’s not
like he didn’t know where everything was. It would be fine. He moved out of his
room and heard Max following him. Fine, so she was watching him. His small
steps could be due to the fact that his leg hurt, as opposed to the fact that
he couldn’t see, and was slightly worried about walking into something.
>>>>>
Max wasn’t looking at his
leg. Alec was only wearing boxers, which gave her a much more interesting view.
She shook her head to clear it. If he saw her, he would never let her forget
it. She was surprised that he hadn’t given her shit already about kissing him
the night before.
Alec made it a few steps
into the living area before turning around to her. “Sorry, just remembered. No
running water. Have to get someone onto that.”
“Alec, your leg” he heard
Max move towards him, and slip an arm around his waist.
“What?” he looked down, but
one slightly gray patch looked a lot like the next.
“You’re bleeding.” She told
him, moving a hand to his leg to check it.
“Oh well.” He didn’t care,
not really.
“Come on, sit down.”
“Nah, I’m fine. I’ve been
lying down for days” at White’s place and then his. And besides, this way he
had her arm around him. This way was much better.
“You ready to talk to me
yet?” he asked her.
“It’s nothing. Things are
just a mess right now.” She told him, tightening her grip on his waist to help
support him.
“What can I do?” he asked
her, slowly moving his arm around her and turning her to face him, giving her a
lot of time to pull away. She didn’t, and actually moved closer to him, putting
her other arm around him.
He pulled her close, resting
his head on hers, loving the feeling of her so close to him.
She pulled back, and he let
her, reluctantly, starting to release her from his embrace until he realised
that she only wanted to look at him.
“Get better fast, so I can
take out my frustrations on you” she told him.
He smiled. “I’m good. Feel
free.” He waited for her to hit him again.
Max kissed him, moving her
hand to the back of his neck to pull his head down to meet hers. Alec gasped in
surprise as her hand came in contact with the bruising on his neck, and Max
pulled back, thinking that he didn’t want her to kiss him.
“No” he told her, pulling
her harder against him, and touching her face. “Always finish what you start”
he kissed her, lightly at first, then harder as she started to respond to him.
Her hand tightened around his neck, and he pulled her closer, feeling her mouth
open and her tongue move against his. Alec fought for control, fought to not
follow his instincts, which involved taking her to the ground right there and
showing her that walking was not the only thing he could do better than
Max didn’t want to take
things slow. She pulled at his neck, trying to draw him closer, to deepen the
kiss that was so soft and sweet that it was driving her insane. Her other hand
moved to his lower back, moving lightly over his skin, loving the fact that he
didn’t have a shirt on, and she could feel the heat from his body against her.
She groaned as he finally deepened the kiss, moving his lips harder against
hers, pulling her hard up against him, his arms locking around her waist. So
this was Alec. The real Alec, not the act he had on most of the time.
“Max” he groaned, his body
on fire, his mind almost shutting down. All he could feel was her, and it
didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her, because he could feel every inch of her
pressed up against him.
“Alec” she replied, kissing
him harder. It was that, the way she said his name, that almost sent him over
the edge. He pulled back reluctantly. He had to take this slow, and right now,
he couldn’t concentrate at all.
Max felt him start to pull
back, and broke the kiss reluctantly.
“You okay?” he asked her
softly as he bent his head to kiss her neck, and then just stayed there, his
lips against her skin. Max ran her fingers through his hair, tracing his
barcode with her thumb. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, not wanting
to screw this up.
Shay and Mole stood in the
doorway for a second, then turned and walked away. Maybe they didn’t have to
physically hurt