“What the fuck?” Mole
commented. “No way. Sandeman couldn’t be that stupid. How the hell are we
supposed to get information out of that kid?
“He is that stupid.” Alec
replied, his voice sounding forced, like he was trying harder than usual to
form words. “Or that desperate. All his planning, for nothing. What choice did
he have?”
“Inject the DNA into
something that doesn’t want us dead? A cat for example? A little puppy dog?”
“I guess he thought he could
influence Ray while he was growing up. Give him… Oh Fuck, Neil, can you stop
doing that?” Alec griped, clenching his teeth in pain.
“Huh?”
“That hurts like hell. Could
you stop for just five minutes so I can breathe?”
“Alec.” Neil spoke softly.
“I wasn’t touching you.”
“Neil?” Max asked, sounding
very scared all of a sudden. She tightened her grip on Alec’s hand. Alec looked
at Neil. Then he moved to look down at his leg. Nobody was touching it. He
closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He could feel someone touching his
leg. He could feel it.
“Neil?” he asked
uncertainly.
“I’m not touching your leg,
Alec. But I’m going to now, okay? I just want to check it.”
Alec bit his lip. He felt
Neil’s hand touch his leg. It felt cold, like ice. He jerked away from it.
“Take it easy, okay?” Neil
tapped his other leg, warning him to stay still.
“What’s going on?” Max asked.
“It may be infected. He
shouldn’t have put any weight on it, let alone go for an over night joy ride.
That would explain the fact that his leg feels so hot to me, and maybe why he
can feel stuff that isn’t there.”
“Well, do something. Give
him antibiotics or something.” Mole cut in.
Neil looked at him, waiting
for the sarcasm. “Mole, he metabolises the stuff way too fast.”
“So give him more when it
wears off.”
“I don’t know what good
it’ll do, but I’ll try.”
“Don’t try. Do.” Mole turned
and stormed out. He slammed the door behind him, sending it crashing off its
hinges and onto the floor.
Neil looked up in annoyance.
“Well, at least I still have a ceiling.”
>>>>>
Mole kicked the door open
and stormed into the room. Tim, sitting at the table, took one look at Mole’s
face and jumped to his feet, sending his chair crashing to the floor. He looked
around the room, frantically hoping that another exit would miraculously
appear.
Dix looked up casually. “Hey
Mole, what’s going on?”
“I want answers, now. What
does the star chart mean?”
“I don’t know.” Dix told
him.
“Figure it out.”
“Oh, okay, fine. No problem.
We have two constellations, what am I supposed to do with them?”
“Give me an answer.”
>>>>>
“The grass was red.” Alec
muttered, his eyes closed.
“What?” Max asked him,
leaning closer to make sure she heard him properly.
“I thought it was blood, my
blood, but it was the wrong colour”
“Alec, look at me.” Max
touched the side of his face, and glanced up at Neil. He looked worried.
“The stars…” Alec moved his
head to the side, and opened his eyes. He looked up at Max, but his eyes were
unfocussed. “They were so fast. They… I wanted to remember them, but they
wouldn’t stop moving.”
“Take it easy.” Alec heard
the words, but he couldn’t tell who said them.
“The grass” he whispered,
opening his clenched fist, letting the few blades of grass fall to the floor.
Neil looked at them in surprise.
“It is red. Weird.” He
picked up one blade in his hand, not removing the gloves that he had put on
when examining Alec. “I’ve never seen anything like this” he commented,
standing up. “Let me just check this out.” He headed over to his work bench.
“It feels really hot. Even through the
gloves. Alec must be really burning up.” He turned to look at Max, noting their
joined hands.
“No” Max shook her head,
touching her free hand to Alec’s cheek. “He feels cool. I thought the
antibiotics you gave him had just kicked in.”
“Well, that’s just…” Neil’s
voice trailed off, and Max looked up at him. Neil had gone white, and as Max
watched him, he collapsed to the ground.
“Neil!” Max screamed,
getting the attention of the two other nurses. She didn’t want to leave Alec,
but she was scared for Neil. What the hell was going on?
>>>>>
“I feel like I’m in an
episode of the X-files” Mole commented. Dix laughed shortly and glanced up,
almost embarrassed, before returning to his work. Mole gestured for Max to
follow him outside.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Max told him.
“Alec will know. He’ll wake
up, grin at us, and tell us the answers” Mole shrugged, lighting a cigar.
“You’re that sure?” she
asked him.
“He hasn’t let me down yet.”
Max nodded, amazed as always
at the impression most of the transgenics had of Alec. They trusted him, almost
instinctively, and seemed to overlook the bad qualities that people, human
people, okay, fine, Logan, had chosen to define him by.
“He yelled at you the other
day, threatened you a couple of days ago, if you hurt
“So what? I grew up in Manticore
too. Alec’s just blowing off steam. No big deal.” Mole told her. “Come on, you
must see it in him too. That’s why you’re with him, right? You can sense
something. No matter what he felt for
Max nodded. There had always
been something in Alec, something that had drawn her to him from the start.
“But if you ever tell him I
said that” Mole grinned quickly “I’ll claim I was drunk.”
>>>>>
The temporary hospital now
had two occupants. Alec and Neil both lay in adjacent beds. Max entered
quietly, and Karen, the nurse that had treated Alec the first time he was hurt,
looked up. She smiled at Max, tiredly.
“What’s wrong with Neil?”
Max whispered, crossing the room to look over Karen’s shoulder at a microscope.
“It seems to be some kind of
poison, but I’m not sure that’s even the right word for it. The grass, the
redness in it, it’s like a chemical. My best guess is that it is poisonous, and
Neil touching it infected him.”
“But Neil had gloves on, and
he collapsed soon after he touched it. Alec held it in his hands, for a long
time and it didn’t affect him.”
“What didn’t affect me?”
They both spun around. Alec
sat up slowly on the bed, swinging his legs over the side.
“How are you feeling, Alec?”
Karen asked, crossing over to him, and looking at his leg.
“Fine, just tired. What
didn’t affect me? And what’s wrong with Neil?”
Karen looked over to Max.
“Tell me about the red
grass.” She asked him.
Alec stared at her. “It was
a dream.” He told her. “A stupid dream.”
“Neil picked up some of the
grass you had in your hand.” Karen told him, running her hand down his leg to
check for signs of the infection. There was none. “It was poisoned. Neil
collapsed.”
“What?” Alec pushed her away
and jumped off the bed. “No way. It couldn’t be poisoned. If it was, it would
have…” he stopped dead. “Affected me. So that was what you were talking about.”
“I think that you have some
kind of immunity to it.” Karen told him.
“So give him a blood
transfusion. Take some of my blood. If I have a natural, or unnatural immunity
to this shit, it should transfer to him.”
“You’re too weak right now.”
Karen told him, still checking out his leg. “Rest for a while, then we’ll think
about it.”
“No” Alec told her. “He
needs it now. He’s my friend. Take some blood, then I’m leaving. I have stuff
to do.”
Karen looked up at him,
searched his eyes. He was serious.
“I guess there’s no point
arguing with you”
“Hasn’t worked so far.” He
reminded her.
>>>>>
“You should have stayed in
the hospital, let Karen keep an eye on you.” Max told Alec, as they entered his
apartment.
“No. I’m fine” he told her.
“Alec, you’re not fine. Not
by a long shot.”
“Don’t.” he told her softly,
and she turned to look at him. “I don’t want to stay there, okay? I hate
hospitals. I’m okay. I just need to rest, and I can do that here.” He rubbed
his face with one hand.
“Fine. Lie down then” she
told him.
“God, are you going to be on
my case all the time now?” he asked her as he collapsed gratefully on the bed.
It felt nice and cool, and he fell back, his eyes closing.
Max smiled, and moved over
to him, lifting his legs carefully onto the bed. Alec winced. “Sorry” she told
him.
“
“Huh?” she asked, not sure
she heard him correctly.
He opened his eyes and
looked at her. “He’s such an idiot. He got to have you in his life for so long,
and he screwed it up. I’m doing the same thing, aren’t I?”
>>>>>
Alec rolled over in his
sleep, reaching for Max. He pulled her closer, feeling her body press closer to
his. Even though both of them were still full dressed, he could feel every inch
of her pressed up against him. He smiled, running his hand down her back,
grinning wider as she muttered his name and moved closer to him, moving her
head to rest against his neck.
He closed his eyes and
leaned back against the pillow, pulling Max down with him. He couldn’t keep
doing this. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“Max” he whispered, shaking
her softly. She muttered something and opened her eyes. “Hey, I have to go out
for a while, okay?”
“Huh? Where?” Max slowly
woke up.
“Doesn’t matter. Go back to
sleep, okay?” he leant down and kissed her softly, drawing the kiss out,
putting all his emotion into it, letting her feel what he felt. He finally drew
back, and Max moaned, reaching for him. “I have to go” he told her, pulling
away.
Alec grabbed his jacket and
headed out the door. He had no real direction in mind, just wanted, needed to
get away. He started to run, not looking where he was going, turning corners at
random. When he hit one of the perimeter fences, he stopped, turned around and
went back the other way.
“Hey, look out!” Alec jerked
to one side, away from the voice, and came to a halt. “Sorry, man.” He
commented, looking around. He was standing outside HQ. Fine. He headed inside,
smiling vaguely at people that looked up and spoke to him. He walked into the back
room and shut the door, flicking on Dix’s computer. The star pattern flashed
onto the wall.
Allright. The knowledge was
inside of him, somewhere. Sandeman thought he could figure it out. He had to be
able to do something right, surely.
They were almost hypnotic,
the stars, so bright. There was Storm’s pattern, and that other kid’s.
Somewhere amongst the rest had to be a pattern he recognised. He closed his
eyes and breathed deeply, then opened them again. His gaze rested on three
stars. Two of them were the two that had just appeared. They were in almost a
straight line, slightly angled down. He stood and moved closer to the screen.
If only he could remember. Okay, three stars, a line.
The room started to spin.
Alec found it harder to breathe. He reached for the table behind him and leaned
against it. He closed his eyes, and could see the mountain in front of him, the
red grass, the stars shooting overhead. All of them moving, except for four
that were perfectly still. Three in a line, and one off to the side.
“Alec?” he heard a voice,
slightly pissed off, as if it had been talking to him for a while. “Alec!”
“…yeah” he commented,
looking around.
Dix stood in the doorway,
looking around as if uncertain as to whether to come in or not. “Can I come
in?” he asked.
“Dix, it’s your room, man.”
“I just thought, maybe you
wanted to be alone.”
“Nah, come here, I got
something to show you.” Alec turned back to the computer, and highlighted the
three stars, turning them red. He added a blue one where the fourth star he had
seen should have been.
“My contribution” he
commented.
“Sounds like we need another
meeting”
“Yeah, probably” Alec
replied. “ I want to check on Neil first, make sure he’s okay.”
“No problem. I heard about
that, pretty weird.”
“Welcome to my life.”
>>>>>
“Neil” Alec greeted as he
entered the hospital. The transgenic doctor, who was sitting at his desk,
turned around.
“Alec, how’s the leg?”
“It’s fine. You okay?” he
asked quietly.
Neil stared at him. “No
problem, except I have these weird urges to punch out walls. Think it’s the
blood you gave me?”
“Yes, Neil. That’s what
Sandeman put in my DNA. The ability to do quick home improvement.”
Neil grinned. “It’s as good
a guess as any”
“I am sorry, man.” Alec’s
voice turned serious.
“Hey, I’m fine. No harm, no
foul. But, you know, if you had listened to me and stayed put, the whole thing
wouldn’t have happened.”
“If I listened to you, I’d
still be in bed from the first injury.”
“My point exactly. Now, go
save the world, or whatever you guys are planning.”
Alec laughed, and gave him a
mock salute before leaving.
>>>>>
“You made it up, right?”
Mole asked as Alec entered the room. “Seriously, dude, you were feeling left
out, so you drew a straight line, and claimed that was what you saw?”
“Bite me” Alec commented,
grabbing a seat. “So, have we figured anything out yet? Like the purpose of the
damn thing?”
“I have an idea.” Shay
commented, quietly. They all turned to look at him. “Okay, we have three, or
four star patterns, right? We know that at least two of them match up with
constellations. What if it is a map?”
Mole turned to look at Alec.
He shrugged. “I was a soldier, not an astronomer. I have no clue.”
“I do. And I think he’s
right” Dix nodded.
“About what?” Mole asked,
turning to glare at Shay. “Explain, boy. And if you can use words of two
syllables or less, I’ll give you a cigar.”
Shay grinned and thought for
a second. “Can I say constellation? That’s four syllables.”
“Fine, but just that one.”
“Okay, stars move,
constellations move. Towards each other and away from each other. Ancient
scholars, they could tell the date from where the stars were in the sky, which
constellations were near each other. Stars also look different” he grimaced and
looked at Mole “based on where you are when you look at them.”
“So, based on the pattern we
have in front of us, some science geek could tell us on what date the stars
will look like that, and where we would have to be to see it?” Mole asked. Shay
nodded.
“Finally.” He commented.
“Sandeman gives us something useful. Something’s going to happen. We may not
know what, but at least we can tell when and where it will happen?”
“Maybe.” Dix commented. “I
don’t know yet.”
“Shay” Mole called.
He turned around in time to
catch the cigar being thrown at him.
>>>>>
“Alec, wait.” Max called as
he went to leave the room. The others looked at him, grinned, and left. Mole
laughed, and shut the door securely beside him.
He turned to look at her.
“Something’s going on. Tell me.”
“You came after me.” Alec
told her, leaning against the wall and looking at her. “The thing with the
girl. I went down and you came after me.”
“Of course” she told him.
“You can’t do that” Alec
screamed at her. Max took a step back. Then another one, before she realised
what she was doing. “You can’t risk your life for me. You’re too important for
that. I’m not worth it.”
“Alec… what’s going on,
really?”
“Listen to me. I need to
know that you won’t do that again. That you won’t risk your life for me.”
“Take it easy, okay. Look,
you’d risk your life for me, I’d do it for you, it’s what people do.”
“No they don’t” Alec shook
his head. “What world do you live in?”
“Obviously not the one
you’re in” Max was starting to get mad. If he wanted to say something, why the
hell couldn’t he just say it? “We’re together, Alec, okay? What that means to
you, I don’t know. But what it means to me, is that I don’t let you die if I
can help it.”
Alec looked at her for a
long time. “Then I don’t want this.” He whispered.
>>>>>
“What the hell is that
supposed to mean?” Max demanded, stepping closer to him.
Alec took a step back,
feeling the door behind him. He said nothing, just looked at the ground.
“Answer me!”
He met her gaze, his
familiar sarcastic grin on his face. “It means what I said. I don’t need your
help, and I don’t want it. I keep telling you, I’m not
“You’re right,
Alec glared at her. “Then
maybe you should be with him.” He spun around, opened the door and left,
slamming it behind him. The whole room shook, but somehow the door stayed on
its hinges.
“Alec, what the hell?” Mole
asked, “trouble in paradise?” he moved to block Alec’s path.
“Get out of my way. Right
now.” Alec fixed his gaze on Mole. The transgenic took a step to the side.
“Whoa, take it easy.”
Alec pushed past several
others and escaped outside. He knew they were all looking at him, trying to
figure out what was going on. He just didn’t care. The parking lot was close
by, where he had sparred with Neil and Shay, and he headed there, looking for
something to hit.
There was an old abandoned
car in one corner, and Alec kicked it, putting his foot through the door. He
pulled his leg out carefully, and aimed for another part of it.
“Don’t break the window, we
could use the glass.”
Alec spun around. Shay stood
there, holding a six pack of beer. He sat on some piled up bricks and popped
the tab on one.
“What do you want?” Alec
spoke harshly
“I just wanted to watch,
learn something about technique” Shay laughed, offering him a can.
Alec shook his head, his
expression fierce. “Leave.” He told him.
“Make me.” Shay offered,
pretty sure that Alec wouldn’t. Not after the last time that Alec had
accidentally attacked him.
Alec laughed. “When did you
get so sarcastic?”
“I learnt from the best.”
“Yeah” Alec smiled slightly,
he couldn’t help it. “Give me one of those” he caught the can and opened it,
drinking the contents in one go. Shay passed him another one. “Thanks.” He
threw the empty can at the car. It smashed through the front window. “Shit.
Sorry” he told Shay.
“Huh?”
“You wanted the glass for
something?”
Shay laughed. “Whatever,
man. Keep drinking.”
>>>>>
Max sat in the room for a
long time, then got up and left, wandering aimlessly through the streets. What
the hell was the problem with Alec? Didn’t he understand that she had taken a
huge step in being with him? She had thought that she was going to be with
Then Alec entered the
picture. She still didn’t know when it had happened, when she had started to
fall for him. Possibly when he had decided to give up his life, rather than
kill her. With a bomb at the base of his neck that would explode if he didn’t
kill her, he chose to die rather than hurt her. And recently, seeing him open
up to her, show her who he really was, no secrets, no bluffing… it had been so
simple to forget Logan, to realise that what she felt for him wasn’t love.
Damnit. What the hell was
going on?
>>>>>
Neil used a ruler to flick a
piece of grass onto a slide, then carefully he moved the slide under the
microscope. He knew little of what was going on, something about stars. And it
was something so important that Alec kept getting hurt, and risking himself.
The grass was something
important, that much was obvious. Alec kept mentioning it, even when he
couldn’t talk without slurring his words, and add to that the fact that he
himself had collapsed when he had picked it up…
Well, there had to be
something about this.
He peered through the
microscope, looking at the breakdown of the cells.
>>
This was just strange. The
red colour wasn’t natural, nor was it deliberate. It wasn’t caused by anything
naturally in the soil it grew in, as some forms of red grass were. Nor had
someone deliberately inserted chemicals in the soil to turn it red. The colour
wasn’t uniform enough. It was almost as if somehow there had been some random
contamination that turned the grass this colour. Strange.
He shook his head. Well, it
was something, right? Maybe it would mean something to Alec.
>>>>>
Dix had waited a few minutes
after Max had left, and then gone back into the room. For a Manticore trained
soldier, he hated violence. He was sick of it, had seen enough of it to fill
several life-times. Hearing Alec scream at Max, he had been really close to
going in and punching Alec. It was only the words that Alec had spoken that had
stopped him. ‘you can’t risk your life for me’? What the hell had Alec meant by
that? That’s what Alec did all the time, why would he be so angry that they
were willing to return the favour?
Relationships were way too
complicated. He’d stick to science. He had this idea for a computer programme.
He could feed in the exact positions of the constellations that they had
identified from Max’s tattoos, and tell the computer to run scenarios until he
got a match. It should work, even though they didn’t know the fourth
constellation, or the meaning of the random tattoos left over, three
constellations should still be enough to identify the place. Hell, in training
missions they used triangulation, using three points to identify a position on
a map, and he had even seen it done using stars. He was kind of asking the
computer to do this in reverse.
>>>>>
So he had seen the place.
Ray had followed Alec for a time, had known from the direction Alec had gone
where he was going. It was hard to follow him when Alec was on the bike, but he
was pretty sure he knew where he was going anyway. He just kept following the
road. Then he came to the field and saw Alec lying there. He watched for a long
time, saw Alec rise unsteadily to his feet, and walk across the field, away from
the bike. He watched him stumble a few times, like he wasn’t really aware of
what he was doing. Ray had followed him for a few hours, stopping only once
when Alec tripped and fell to the ground. Like a zombie Alec regained his feet
and kept walking. Even in the dark, Ray could see that he was bleeding.
He had worried about him as
he had followed him back to Manticore. Ray had always been a good runner,
surprisingly quick, able to run long distances
in a short amount of time. Anyone from Manticore would be able to tell
him that they called it blurring, but he had never spoken to them. Whatever
they called it, he was able to keep pace with Alec as he drove the bike very
slowly back to
The red place was somewhere
that his fathers’ father had taken him once, when he was very young. It was
weird, he hadn’t liked it at all. Everything was red, the grass, the flowers,
and when he had seen it, even the sky, with the beginnings of dusk. It was a
horrible place, not only looking wrong, but feeling wrong. His grandfather had
spoken to him, telling him various things, but he hadn’t listened. He had just
wanted to leave.
>>>>>
Alec finished the fifth can
and shook his head. “It’s starting. Can you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“It’s about to begin. Whatever’s
going to happen, it’s going to happen soon. I can feel it. We don’t have much
time.”
“Is that why? You and Max,
is that what you were fighting about?”
Alec threw the can at the
car. He said nothing for a long time. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to
do it. Sandeman said that three of us could probably succeed in whatever we
have to do. I don’t think we can. There are four for a reason. If we can’t get
White’s kid on our side, I think it’s going to go very badly for us.”
“So we convince him to come
over to our side.”
“How? He’s had a whole
lifetime of White and the breeding cult. Would you betray Manticore? Not
Manticore, the scientists, but US. The transgenics.”
“I don’t think I could.”
Shay whispered. “So we just give up?” he asked
“No. Just because the
chances of survival are low, doesn’t mean we don’t try to complete the mission.
I just don’t think it’s going to succeed. I think some of us are going to…” he
swallowed, then looked at Shay. “I don’t think all of us are going to come
back.”
Shay stared at him. “Max can
take care of herself. We all can.”
“Yeah. But not if she’s
looking out for me too. She took a huge risk the other day, because I was
stupid enough to get involved in that scene without thinking. The guy pulled a
gun on her. She put herself at risk for me. I can’t have that happen again.”
“Isn’t it her choice? Her
right to decide?”
“No. It’s my choice. Rachel
doesn’t get to die for me…”
>>>>>
The computer beeped, and Dix
looked up. On the screen, the constellations he had programmed in were
perfectly overlaid with a portion of a star chart.
“Yes” he whispered, hitting
a few keys to get the exact location. “Mole!” he yelled, knowing his friend was
in the other room.
Mole came through the door
at a run. “Now what? Who’s killed who?”
Dix grinned at him “Do I get
a cigar too?”
“What’d you do that was so
great? Wait, do I need to get Shay in here to translate for me?”
“I found the location” he
said simply.
“Yeah? Let me see.” Mole
spun the computer screen around so he could see it. “This is like 50 kilometres
from here” he commented in surprise.
“63 actually. But yeah, it’s
real close.”
“Shit.” Mole commented.
“What?”
“Well, now we have to go
tell the others. We have to tell Alec, and Max, and get them in the same room
to discuss this.” Mole and Dix looked at
each other for a long time.
“Maybe I’m wrong” Dix said
quickly, turning the computer towards him again. “I should probably check
again.”
Mole nodded. “Yep. Several
times, maybe. Take your time. Next week is fine.”
>>>>>
“Who’s Rachel?” Shay asked.
“Hmm?”
“You said ‘Rachel doesn’t
get to die for me.’ Who’s Rachel?”
“I said Max.” Alec replied slowly
“No, you didn’t. You said
Rachel. Who’s that?”
“I have no idea. I don’t
know anyone with that name.” Alec lied, looking away. Had he? No, why would he?
It was Max he was worried about, Max who was the one who was in danger here,
not Rachel. Rachel had already died.
Because of him.
“Shit” he commented,
standing up quickly. Damn it.
“Alec?” Shay asked quietly.
“Go away”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“Leave me alone.” Alec
walked away from him, shoving his fist through the door of the car as he went
past.
>>>>>
“Okay, let’s do this” Mole
stood up. “You feeling suitably brave?”
“I’ll find Max” Dix
volunteered.
“Fine.” Mole agreed.
“Coward.”
“A pissed off Alec? Hell,
yeah I am.”
“If you see him first, you
get to tell him” Mole commented, grinning at Dix as he left.
Dix needn’t worry. Mole had
a pretty good idea where Alec would be. The apartment, the pub or the parking
lot. There weren’t that many places he went in TC. He reached the parking lot,
saw Shay and jogged over to join him.
“We got something. Meeting
in about 5.”
“Alec’s in a bad mood.” Shay
offered.
“Yeah, no kidding.” Mole
grinned. “Look, kid, don’t worry about it. He’ll come around.”
Mole looked around, and
caught sight of Alec at the corner of the lot.
“Hey, meeting. Now.”
“What’s going on?” Alec
asked, jogging over to join them. Shay noticed that his face looked lighter,
happier. He also got the distinct impression he was faking it.
“I don’t know. Dix has got
something to show us. You seriously want me to try and explain it?”
Alec laughed. “I’d probably
be better off guessing. I’ll be there in a minute, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, but if we eat
all the popcorn, you don’t get to complain.”
He laughed for real this
time, punching Mole on the shoulder before turning away. “Be right there.”
>>>>>
Alec walked into HQ, forcing
a fake grin on his face. Whatever was going on with him, he couldn’t let it
affect the mission. He had been taught better than that. He nodded to a female
he recognised slightly and banged on the door as he entered it.
“So, Dix, hear you came up
with something amazing? Mole was speechless” he forced himself to look over at
Max, and smiled at her slightly, before taking a seat on the ground.
“Yeah, I think I found the
location. Where the starchart is directing us to. It’s somewhere around here.”
Dix flashed a map up on the screen. “Somewhere around here.” He pointed to a
position.
“Okay, so what’s there?” Max
asked.
“A field.” Alec commented,
no expression in his voice.
Max turned to stare at him.
He swallowed, forcing
himself to remain calm. “That’s not far from where we went on the bike that
time.” He looked at Dix. “There’s nothing there, it’s just a bunch of fields, a
few hills. What could be going on there?”
Dix shrugged. “Not my job,
man. I found the place. Why don’t you soldier types go on a recon, find out?”
Alec shrugged. “We’d have to
take the bike, can’t risk stealing a car. But I’m not sure we have enough
petrol left. Max?”
“We should have enough.” She
looked at him. He was acting like nothing was wrong, like everything was as it
had been this morning. No, not this morning, more like last month, when they
were just friends, mates who worked together. She didn’t know which was worse,
him screaming at her, or treating her like this.
“Okay, then. We go tonight.”
Alec told her.
>>>>>
Alec pulled on a long black
sweater over dark trousers. He ran his hands under the tap and smoothed his
hair down, making sure stayed down over his forehead. He needed a haircut, it
was falling almost into his eyes.
He tried to focus, needing
all of his attention on this mission. They needed to know what was going on,
what was so special about this place. Why had Sandeman led them to it? And why
had he gone there with Max? He hadn’t meant to go there, not on purpose.
When had he stopped giving
Max directions that night? He had told her where to go at first, directing her
out of the city, towards the country where he had hoped they could be alone. At
some stage she had sped up, and he had stopped talking, spending all his time
trying not to fall off. Had she turned down any roads after that? Or just gone
straight ahead? He couldn’t remember.
>>>>>
“Ready to go?” Alec leant
around the open door.
Max turned to look at him.
“You sure you want to do this?” she asked him, trying to ignore how incredible
he looked in black.
“Sandeman wants us to go
there, we go.” He shrugged.
“I meant with me. You could
take Shay, or Storm?”
“No” Alec told her. “I trust
you. Let’s do this.”
>>>
He held her loosely, too
loosely, as she drove the bike through the darkened streets, as if he really
didn’t want to touch her. Max retaliated by turning corners a bit sharper than
was necessary, forcing him to tighten his grip further, or fall into the road.
Alec sighed, and moved his head closer to hers.
“I know you’re pissed off at
me” he yelled in her ear, “But if I fall off, I think you come too. Kill me
later, when we get off this thing?”
“I thought you didn’t want
to care about me?” she yelled back, but eased off the accelerator. They reached
their destination, and Max skidded the bike to a halt.
Alec jumped off, and moved
quickly towards the field, trying not to remember the first time he had come
here. He heard Max move behind him.
“I don’t want you to care
about me.” He muttered quietly.
Max said nothing, wanting to
move closer to him, put her arms around him, but she knew somehow that that
would be the wrong thing to do.
“Come on” he told her
finally, heading off across the field. “It’s this way, right?”
“Yeah” she sighed. They’d
figure this out later.
>>>
Alec moved quickly through
the darkness. He had forgotten how good this felt, running, knowing
instinctively where to move. He turned to look at Max, wanting to share his joy
with her, and he saw a similar expression on her face. She understood. He nodded
at her, and continued moving.
Suddenly, he stopped. Max
jerked to a halt beside him.
“What?” she asked. He was
staring at something on the ground.
“Alec?” she reached forward,
touching his arm lightly.
He looked up at her, a
confused expression on his face. He picked up a rock from the ground, and
handed it to her. She looked at him, then focussed her attention on the rock.
The top of it was darker than the rest, it looked wet, like it had been dipped
in water.
But she was a soldier, and
she knew. It wasn’t water, it was blood.
Alec placed his hand on the
ground, palm down. “I’ve been here before.” He told her. “I know this place.”
>>>>>
“Do you think they’re killing each other?” Storm asked, nervously scratching at the desk with his knife.
“Or something.” Mole
commented sarcastically.
Dix looked up, grinned, and
turned his attention back to the computer. “Look, kid, they’re fine. Don’t
worry. They’re both just blowing off steam. It’s no big deal.”
“Max looked like she wanted
to kill him, though” Storm commented.
Mole sighed, and looked up.
“They’re X5s. That’s what they do. They yell at each other, make up, then fight
some more. It’s all foreplay to them.”
“Hey” Storm protested. “I’m
an X6.”
“Then just imagine what you
have to look forward to” Mole looked at him, trying not to laugh, and failing
miserably. “You do like pain, right?”
>>>>>
“What do you mean, you’ve
been here before?” Max asked him, kneeling down beside him and touching him on
the knee, trying to get his attention.
“I knew that rock was here.
I didn’t trip on it, I knew it was there. Just like I know it is my blood on
that stone. I just don’t know why”
Max stared at him. Okay,
that was completely weird. She wanted to touch him, pull him into her arms. He
looked so uncertain, so unsure of himself. But she also knew that if she tried
it, he would pull back.
“Okay” Alec took a deep
breath. “Fine, this is weird. Whatever. Let’s get moving. I’ll finish having a
breakdown afterwards.”
“I’ll be there” she told
him, smiling lightly.
He looked up at her and
grinned, his whole face softening. “I’ll hold you to that.”
He stood, and reached for
her hand. Taking the rock from her, he shoved it in his pocket. Yet another
thing to deal with later. Good.
>>>
Alec kept moving, feeling
with every step that he knew where he was going. Not from the map Dix had given
him, but from something else. Like he had been there before.
He thrust that thought
aside, and focussed on his surroundings. Something felt off, not quite right.
He shrugged his shoulders mentally. You’re losing it, boy, he told himself. He
continued to follow the route he had plotted on the map.
This place was abandoned. If
there was anything here it was being hidden damn well. He stopped, turning
slightly. There was that sound again.
“What?” Max moved close to
him, so that she could whisper without being overheard.
“Heard something.”
Max froze, not moving,
concentrating on listening. Alec’s hand slid against hers, so they could signal
to each other without making a sound.
She couldn’t hear anything,
and she told him that, by squeezing his hand lightly twice. He returned the
signal after another minute.
“I’m going insane” he
whispered, not releasing her hand.
“You’re just on edge.” Max
whispered back. “Want me to double back and check?”
“Nah. It’s just…” Alec
sighed. “This feels wrong.” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
“Oh hell, forget it. I’m having a bad day, that’s all. Lets keep going.”
Max nodded, following him,
but keeping most of her attention focussed on listening for strange noises. If
Alec said he heard something, then she believed him. Even if he didn’t believe
himself.
>>>>>
He heard it again. This
time, Max heard it too. They both turned instantly. Alec had a gun in his hand
before he had turned fully. Max, the more cautious, had only her hand on her
weapon.
He looked at her and nodded
to the left, then raised his fist and looked right.
The message was clear. Max
was to go left, he would go right. Sweep the area, meet up somewhere in the
middle.
Max nodded, and touched his
arm lightly. No hidden messages, just wanting to touch him.
Alec grinned at her then
moved away into the dark.
>>
There was something directly
in front of him. Alec paused, then moved further to the side, wanting to come
in behind whatever was up ahead of him. He squeezed the handgrip on his weapon
tighter, the only outward sign he showed of nervousness. The sound came again,
it was almost behind him now, he had moved forward far enough.
Max was in front of him. He
saw the slight rustle of grass, a faint shadow, and knew it was Max. There was
no wind, and nothing else moved that quietly. Keeping his eye on the target, he
reached for his knife, and slipped his gun back into his waistband. He wanted
answers, not a body.
He blurred forward, grabbing
the shape and placing the knife at its throat. It was a kid, or a very short
person. Not that Alec cared, at that point.
“Do more than breathe, and
the knife slips” he spoke harshly.
From the darkness, Max
appeared, her gun pointed at the captive.
“Why are you following us?”
Alec demanded. There was no reply. Alec pressed the knife a bit more firmly,
and got a gasp in response.
“Alec” Max spoke quietly.
“Let him go.”
“What?” he stared at her,
incredulous.
“You don’t know. You’ve
never seen him. I have. This is White’s son. This is Ray.”
>>
Alec felt like he couldn’t
breathe. He stared at Max, and when she nodded at him he slowly removed the
knife, and shoved the kid to the ground. Max moved in front of him.
“Ray? Do you remember me?”
she asked quietly. The boy glared at her. “I’m Max, remember me?”
still nothing.
“Max, this is touching, but
we need to go. If he’s here, then others probably are too. Let’s do this back
at HQ.”
She nodded, reaching her
hand towards Ray to give him a hand to stand up. Ray slapped it away.
Alec spun, and threw his
knife. It thudded into the ground two inches from Ray’s head. He turned to
stare at it.
“Touch her again, I aim
slightly more to the left.” He told him. “Now, get up”
Ray stood quickly, his arms
by his sides.
“Let’s go” Alec nodded to
Max.
“How’re we going to get
back? We can’t get three on a bike”
“He can run behind.”
>>>>>
“Hey, Mole, Wake up. I
brought you a new toy to play with” Alec entered the room, shoving Ray in front
of him.
“Who’s that?” Mole asked,
raising his head off the table.
“Oh, this is Ray White. Ray,
this is Mole. Say hi.”
Ray stared at Mole, taken
aback by his appearance, not sure who to be more scared of, Alec, who seemed to
be psychotic, or Mole who looked like a genetic experiment gone wrong. Which
was what he was.
Then he got his answer. Alec
grabbed his arm, and Ray cried out in pain.
“Come on, boy, I know that
your father’s a brutal killer, but you could at least try to pretend you have
manners. Say hello”
He muttered something
inaudible.
Mole stood up, taking his
cue off Alec. He wandered across the Ray, and touched his face. The boy jerked
back, touching Alec, who shoved him away in disgust.
“Babysit him” he told Mole,
who grinned back at him.
“Come on, kid, want to play
a game?”
>>
Alec laughed, and left the
room. Max was in the main room, talking to some mean looking transgenics,
arranging guard duty rosters.
“Talk to you outside?” he
asked her as he walked past, pulling her with him slightly. She nodded and
followed him out into the parking lot.
“Alec?” He grabbed her, pulling her into his arms
tightly. “Are you okay?” she asked him, pulling back slightly.
He laughed. “Just needed a
hug” he told her
“You’re really high
maintenance, you know” she told him, pulling him towards her.
“Sorry” he told her.
>>>>>
It was actually kind of
annoying, when he thought about it. Every time he got close to Max, his brain
started going in directions he really didn’t want it to go in. He sighed,
resting his cheek against her hair. There was so much to do, they hadn’t
completed the mission, didn’t know what was on the hill.
Well, he kind of did. He had
been there, in a dream, but the dreams had been really accurate so far. He knew
what was there, nothing. So why did Sandeman direct him to it? What the hell
was the point?
He felt Max move her hand
lightly up his back, and his breath caught in his throat. He pulled away.
“Uhh, we have a lot of stuff
to do.” He told her.
Max stared at him, running
his words through her mind again as if to check that he had spoken in English.
Yeah, he had. It still made no sense. She thought that she had got through to
him, or that whatever was going on with him had passed. The look on his face
when she had touched his knee in the field, the way he had pulled her outside
and just taken her in his arms…
Then he drew away from her
again.
Logan was easy to
understand. She could always figure out his reasoning for doing something,
always knew why he said something. She never had that with Alec. It would be
nice.
“Uh, guys?” Dix poked his
head out the door. “Mole says, if you’ve finished, can you come back inside
before he… um, teaches the kid some lessons in respect.”
“Throws him through the
wall?” Alec offered, grinning.
“Something like that. So,
are you coming?”
“It never ends.” Alec
shrugged, heading inside.
“Hey Alec, Max, Raymond here
was just learning a few lessons in manners. Weren’t you, boy?” Mole turned to
glare at Ray, who stared back at him defiantly. Mole moved his hand to his
knife.
“Weren’t you?” he repeated,
his voice hardening.
“Yes” Ray whispered. “Sir”
he added, as Mole continued to stare at him.
“Good boy.”
Alec gestured towards the
door. “Let’s talk next door.”
“Stay” Mole told Ray, before
leaving the room.
Alec looked at Max
enquiringly, asking her if she wanted to say anything. She shrugged, knowing
that Alec was better at dealing with Mole than she was.
The others came over to join
them.
“Right, let’s get this over
with. In case you haven’t figured it out, we didn’t complete the mission. We
ran into Him, and aborted, deciding that getting him back here, where we could
keep an eye on him was higher priority.”
“Ran into him?” Mole asked.
“Shoved him to the ground.”
Alec elaborated.
“And threw a knife at him”
Max put in, almost accusingly.
“You missed?” Storm asked.
“I wouldn’t have, that kid is such a brat.”
“All he did was touch Max.
Which, you’re kind of doing right now” Storm was sitting on a desk, his leg
casually touching Max’s shoulder as she leant back against it.
“Shit” Storm moved quickly,
before he realised that they were making fun of him. “Fine” he commented,
trying not to laugh himself.
“So, anyway.” Alec
continued. “We have some stuff to do here. We have to talk to Ray, get all the
info we can from him.”
Mole’s hand shot in the air.
“Me. I volunteer. Me.”
“Max.” Alec replied, turning
to her. “You’re the only one with a chance to get through to him. He hates the
rest of us, which will work for us, but he seems to kind of like you. You get
to play good cop here.”
She nodded. “I’ll go bond
with him.”
“Dix.”
The transgenic looked up.
“Name it.”
“I need two men, X series,
to go out and retrieve Max’s bike. It’s about 5 miles away from a farm house,
to the east of the hill.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“I left it there when I
stole a truck from the farm house. How do you think we got Ray back here? Tied
a rope around his neck and made him run behind the bike?”
Mole started grinning, the
idea giving him a nice mental picture.
“Okay, done.”
“And get rid of the truck.
It’s parked in the city, on 5th. Dump it somewhere near the farm. We
don’t want any attention drawn to that area.”
“Yep.”
“Mole, guard duty”
“Hell, yeah!”
“Outside the room.”
Mole mock-glared at him.
“But if I hear noises, I can go in and check what’s going on?”
Alec nodded.
“Good enough.”
“Me?” Shay asked.
“You and Storm, I want you
to liase with Neil. Find out everything you can about that grass, why it’s red,
and why it affected Neil the way it did. DO NOT touch it without gloves.”
They both nodded.
“Your discretion, tell him
anything you think he needs to know.”
They both smiled at that.
Alec was giving them some real authority here.
>>>>>
Alec staggered into his
apartment, and collapsed onto his bed. He was so tired, hadn’t really slept in
several days, add to that the fact that his leg was still hurting him, and he
just wanted to die. Or sleep for a few days. It didn’t really matter which. His
leg throbbed, and he moved it slightly, trying to make himself more
comfortable.
He fell asleep almost
instantly.
>>>>>
Ray was in over his head. He
looked around the room, searching for a means of escape. There was none. He
heard the door open, and jerked to his feet, staggering back a few paces. That
green transgenic was insane. They all were, here. He had expected more from
Alec, he was supposed to be some kind of leader, something really special. All
he was, was a jerk.
“Hey Ray, mind if I sit
down?”
He looked up. It was a
woman, really pretty, with long dark hair and incredible eyes. He looked at her
for a second.
“I’m Max.” she introduced
herself. “Do you remember me?”
Huh? Did he know her? Surely
he would have remembered seeing someone like her. She had the kind of face that
guys would tend to remember for a long time. And as for that body…
“Do you remember the
school?” Max asked, gently trying to remind him.
The school? Not really. He
remembered getting sick, then… wait, hang on. He had seen her one time. Out a
window. She was with some guy, blonde hair.
“I guess” he told her,
sounding uncertain.
“What about the initiation?”
What? How did she know about
that? His father had told him that the transgenics were really stupid. Of
course, when he told his grandfather that, he had told him that that wasn’t
true. The transgenics were actually intelligent.
“What do you know about
that?” he finally asked her.
“I know that you got really
sick, and me and a friend, we took you away from there, sent you somewhere else
to live, somewhere better.”
“I failed the initiation,
that’s why my father sent me away. So I wouldn’t have to die.”
Max looked at him closely.
Did he really believe what he was saying? Where did he get that idea from.
“Why did you follow us?” she
changed the subject.
“I wasn’t following you. I
was following Him.”
“Alec?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you want to
follow him?”
Ray looked at the floor. He
still didn’t know what to do. He said nothing.
>>>>>
“Keep an eye on him” Max
told Mole as she left.
“Yeah” Mole nodded. “No
problem.”
“Don’t scare him.” she
asked.
“I won’t. I know how to
follow orders. Alec said hands off, so I’ll keep my distance.”
“I appreciate it.”
>>>
She knocked on Alec’s door
lightly, pushing it open. All the lights were off, not that it mattered with
her night vision, and she crossed the room to his bedroom.
“Alec?” she whispered. There
was no response. She moved closer, sitting down on the side of the bed.
He groaned, shifting
slightly on the bed. “What?” he muttered, still asleep.
“It’s Max” she whispered.
He muttered something
inaudible.
“What?” she asked him.
“What happened?” he tried
again, speaking a bit more clearly this time.
“I spoke to Ray”
“Is he dead?”
“Real funny” briefly she
told him what Ray had said.
“Great.” Alec muttered,
closing his eyes again, and burrowing his head in his pillow.
“I think you should talk to
him, see if you can get anything out of him. He seems to think a lot of you.”
“Yeah. Uh, can I sleep
first?”
“Sorry” she told him. She
stayed quiet for a long time, hearing Alec’s breathing slow down, grow steady.
“Alec?”
“Oh, come on.” He groaned,
opening his eyes. “Five minutes? That’s all the sleep I get?”
“Forget it. We can talk
tomorrow.”
“Now that I’m awake?” he
rolled over onto his side, propping his head up on his hand. “What?”
She looked at him. It seemed
to her like she had two choices here, play it safe, or not.
She chose not. If she had
wanted safety, she would have stayed with Logan. But she hadn’t.
“I miss you” she told him.
“Huh?” he commented. “I’m
right here. About a centimetre away from you. If I slightly move, I can touch
you.”
“And yet, you haven’t.”
“What do you want me to do?
Take you in my arms right now?” Alec felt his leg start to move towards her,
and he stiffened it, forcing it down against the bed. “Make love to you?” his
mouth ran dry. He looked down, away from her, trying to stop himself from doing
just that.
The bed moved as Max stood
up.
“Forget it” she told him,
turning away.
Alec punched the bed in
frustration. “Max, wait.” She didn’t stop walking, and he moved off the bed,
going after her. “Stop” he told her, touching her arm and turning her to face
him, then quickly moving his hand. He had seen Logan grab her once, and the
reaction wasn’t pretty.
“I get it, Alec. What else
could you have to say?”
“I’m scared” he whispered,
dropping all his defences and letting all his emotion show on his face.
“You were right, every thing
you said about me. You should have left me back in Manticore, let me burn
there. All I do is hurt people, let them down.”
Max stared at him. Something
was going on here, but she had no idea what. She had never seen Alec like this.
Well, actually, she had once, for a minute. When he was with…
Shit. The thought hit her.
When he was with Rachel.
“You’ve never let me down.”
She told him. “Never.”
Alec laughed bitterly. “Of
course I have, on like a daily basis. I helped you get out of Manticore, so you
could infect Logan with the virus. I prevented you from getting the cure. I get
arrested so Logan almost died. Do I need to go on?”
“Apparently. I still don’t
know how you let me down. You did help me escape, you helped those kids rescue
me, you chose to die yourself rather than kill me. If anything, I let you down.
I pushed you away, was an absolute bitch to you half the time.”
“Because I remind you of
Ben. I understand.”
“But you don’t. I mean, you
look alike, but that’s all. Everything you do is different. The way you smile,
your eyes, the way you act, everything. Ben to me is the 10 year old I knew in
Manticore. Not the man that looks like you.”
“Rachel died because of what
I did.” He told her, turning away from her. He couldn’t look at her while he
said this. “I didn’t do enough to protect her. I loved her, I guess. She was
the first time I realised that there was something out there that wasn’t
Manticore, discipline and duty. There was… I don’t know, music, laughter, joy.
But I didn’t do enough to stop her from going to that car.”
He stopped talking. He
couldn’t say anything else.
It was enough. Max
understood. “And so when you were trying to rescue that girl, and got shot, and
I came to help…”
“I thought he was going to
kill you. I thought you were going to die too. That I was going to lose the
only other person I loved because I couldn’t prevent it. I can’t, Max. I don’t
think I could survive that.”
Max stopped breathing. Had she
heard him correctly? She decided to think about that later. He was in so much
pain right now, she had to do something.
She closed the distance
between them, slipping her arms lightly around his waist and pulling him back
against her. “I’m so sorry.” She whispered. “About Rachel, I never told you.
I’m so sorry you had to live through that.”
Alec turned to her, pulling
her close to him, resting his head against her neck. “If you’d have died, if
he’d have shot you.” He started to shake, and Max pulled him closer.
“I’d have moved, Alec.
Dodged it. I knew where he was, what he was doing. I was trained by Manticore
too, remember.”
He said nothing, just
continued to hold her.
Max moved her hand up his
back to stroke his hair.
“I’m sorry” he whispered. “Tell
me to shut up, anytime.”
“Never” she told him
fiercely. “Alec, promise me you’ll never stop talking to me. I do understand,
you know. How do you think I felt when I saw you get shot? All I saw was blood,
and you going down.”
He looked up then, meeting
her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He told her. “I’ll try not to get shot again.” He meant
it seriously, that if him getting hurt bothered her that much, he would be a
hell of a lot more careful in the future, at least when she was around.
But then he saw her grin,
and try not to laugh, and he realised the weirdness of what he had just said.
“You know what I mean.” He
told her, smiling lightly.
Max laughed out loud.
Slowly, she touched his face, drawing him down to kiss her. Giving him plenty
of time to pull back. She saw him close his eyes as her lips met his. She
kissed him softly, not forcing anything, just letting him know that she was
there. Alec returned the kiss cautiously.
>>>>>
“Where is everyone?” Storm
walked into HQ and saw Mole standing outside the room.
“Dunno. Brat’s in there,
alone. Alec went to get some sleep, Max is… somewhere.”
“Probably helping Alec get
some sleep.” Storm suggested, grabbing a can of beer from a pile on the desk.
“God, I hope so. They’re so
much nicer to be around when they’re pretending to hate each other.”
“Yeah. So what’s Ray doing?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.
He’s not dead, I checked on that a few minutes ago. Besides that, he was
staring at the ceiling.”
“Mind if I go talk to him?”
Storm asked. Maybe it would be easier talking to someone his own age.
Mole gestured towards the
door. “Be my guest”
Storm grabbed the rest of
the 6pack and entered the room. Mole was right, Ray was still staring at the
ceiling. “Hey” he greeted him. Ray said nothing.
“Drink?” Storm offered,
holding out a can of beer. Ray looked up at that. He may have been nervous, and
angry, but he was a young boy, and very interested in drinking beer.
Storm tossed him a can.
“Mole’s kind of strange,
huh?” Ray ignored him, opening the can and taking a sip. He grimaced, not
really liking the taste. “When I first met him” Storm continued, “I was scared
of him. He looks really mean, has that kind of bad guy attitude about him, you
know?”
“I think he wants to kill
me.” Ray spoke at last.
“Nah. Well, maybe. Mole
pretty much wants to kill everyone. But he won’t. Alec said not to.” For now,
Storm added the final two words silently. For god only knows how long until
that particular order was rescinded.
“Why, so he can kill me
himself?” Ray asked bitterly.
“Alec? Nah, not his style.”
“He threw a knife at me.”
“Yeah, but he missed. And
apparently, you deserved it.”
Ray shrugged and took
another sip.
“He’s not like what I
thought he would be.”
“And what’s that?”
“My grandfather said that he
would be special, that he was destined to do this one thing, that would change
the world, make it better. Then, I saw him on the news, rescuing that little
girl. Even when he got shot, and was
falling to the ground, he managed to protect the girl, make sure she didn’t get
hurt. But last night? He was scary.”
Storm nodded. “When I first
came here, I was terrified of Alec. Everyone had told me so much stuff about
him, all the younger Xs, they idolise him. I wanted to impress him so much. The
first time I met him, he threw me up against a wall. Threatened to hurt me,
severely, if I went against him again.”
“Exactly. He’s a
psychopath.”
“Nah, after he did that, he
talked to me. He really is what your grandfather said. Or he will be, or
something like that.”
“Maybe. But why am I a
captive here? If I even open the door, that Mole glares at me, and shows me his
gun.”
“I don’t know. Alec doesn’t
tell me everything. But think, Ray. Your father is Ames White, the transgenic’s
bogeyman. He’s killed a lot of us, and when I say killed, I mean that he hurt
us, tortured us. Most of the transgenics here would probably love to get a
little payback by killing his only son.”
>>>>>
“So, you want me to talk to
Ray? Now?” Alec asked.
Max looked up at him, barely
moving her head off his chest.
“Later. Tomorrow. You need
to get some sleep. I did wake you up again, remember?”
“Hmm. You joining me?” he
offered, moving his hand to the small of her back, and pulling her closer to
him.
“Tempting. But no. I don’t
want to rush this, okay? We have time.” She told him, pulling back from him. “I
have some stuff to take care of. Get some rest”
“Yeah.” He let her go
reluctantly.
“Get some sleep, Alec” she
told him as she left. He threw himself down on the bed. Yeah, like that was
likely to happen. He groaned. Max probably thought he was schizophrenic. First
he yelled at her, then he told her he loved her.
Shit. Had he really said
that? He was amazed that she hadn’t run screaming from the apartment. Or fallen
on the floor laughing. Maybe she just hadn’t heard him. She hadn’t said
anything.
God, he was such an idiot
sometimes.
>>>>>
“Neil”
“Alec. You look like you got
some sleep last night.”
“An hour, maybe. But it
looks like I got more than you did”
Neil looked exhausted, his
face was grey, but his eyes still sparkled with alertness. Alec looked around
for any signs of an energy drink, or ten.
Neil laughed. “Yeah, no
doubt. But this is fascinating. I think I have something for you on the grass.”
“Excellent.” Alec grinned,
surprised. He really hadn’t expected Neil to be able to figure anything out
from that sample of grass.
“Yeah, it’s really
interesting, once you break it down to the cell levels”
“I bet” Alec agreed, his
tone showing his disbelief. He wasn’t a science guy, could never understand the
excitement that lab guys got from staring at a microscope for hours on end.
“So, why are you really
here?” Neil asked him, looking over at him quickly. He noted that Alec’s weight
was distributed slightly unevenly, much of his weight on his left foot and off
his right.
“The leg?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of sore. It
should have healed by now, right?”
“Yeah, and if you ever
stayed off it, it would have. Let me see it.”
Alec jumped up onto a bed.
“So tell me about this grass” he asked,
as Neil pulled his trouser leg up and looked at his knee.
“Well, the colouring is
random, not consistent. It’s not a deliberate colouring. This hurt?” he asked,
pressing down on Alec’s knee.
“Yeah, a bit. Deliberate?
Was it seriously a possibility that someone injected red dye into the grass?”
“I meant more along the
lines of deliberate in nature. The colouring, it’s unnatural.”
“Oh. That really cleared it
up for me.”
“I think the red colour
comes from a contaminant in the ground. An artificial one. I think I’ve
isolated the compound, I’m just running tests on it, to see what properties it
has.”
“Well, it hurts people.”
Alec commented.
“Yeah, but the question is,
what else does it do? And why does it turn the grass red?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I’m still working on it. A
larger sample would be nice. Feel like going on another away mission?”
“Why not. So the knee is
okay?”
“Seems to be. How much sleep
are you getting? Seriously.”
Alec looked at him. “Not
much. There’s kind of a lot to do, and we’re under a deadline, so…” he
shrugged. He could sleep later.
“Get some rest. Best thing
you can do for that leg is stay off it for a while.”
>>>>>
Max walked into HQ. Mole
wasn’t there, but Dix was working on the computer in the back room.
“Where’s the kid?”
“Uh, well Mole, in a fit of
humanity, found somewhere for him to get some sleep. Even organised 5 of us to
read him a bed time story.”
“5 guards? Dix, he’s a kid.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I
told him. But, he thinks Ray’s the antichrist.”
>>>>>
“There’s not much chance of
that.” Alec told Neil. “Getting some sleep, I mean. You want me to go on
another away mission, I still need to talk to Ray, get him to trust me enough
to tell me whatever the hell he knows, apologise to Max for whatever stupid
thing I did this week…”
“Alec, I’m telling you, if
you do not get off that leg, and I’m talking for about 24 hours here, it will
get worse. Send someone else on the mission. Get someone else to talk to the
kid. Learn to delegate, Alec. Stop trying to do everything yourself.”
“They’re counting on me.”
Alec said simply, jumping down off the bed, and trying not to wince as his leg
hit the ground.
Neil saw it anyway, but said
nothing. It was true, what he had said. They were looking to Alec a lot,
particularly those of his group. Talking to Shay and Storm yesterday, had
reinforced that impression for him. They believed so sincerely that he was
going to provide them with all the answers.
“At least keep putting ice
on it as often as you can.”
“Yeah. Listen, we’ll be in
HQ, if you find anything else out.”
>>>>>
Alec walked into HQ, and
looked around. There were a lot more transgenics in there than usual,
particularly outside the door to the back room.
“Mole?” he asked.
“Word got out. Some of us
aren’t too happy about having White’s son here.”
“Some of us?” Alec asked
him. “Including yourself in that category, are you?”
“No” he answered quickly.
“The kid seems okay, once you get used to him. He can’t help who his father
is.”
Alec continued to stare at
him. That was rather an enlightened position coming from Mole.
Oh well, no point knocking
it. “Who’s inside?” he asked, gesturing to the door.
“Just the brat. Storm was
there before, talking to him.”
Alec nodded and entered the
room. Ray sat at the desk, staring at Dix’s map. “Look familiar?” he asked him.
Ray glared over at him. “It did to me. When I first saw it, I knew that I had
seen it somewhere before.” Alec sat down, rubbing his knee with one hand. He
watched Ray closely, the boy seemed to be listening to him, although trying
very hard to pretend he wasn’t. He shrugged. “Your grandfather gave that to us,
did you know that?”
“It’s wrong” Ray spoke
finally.
Alec stood quickly. “What do
you mean, wrong? What’s wrong about it?”
No reply. Alec bit his lip
in frustration. He was not good with kids. He stood up and walked to the door.
“Did you do it on purpose?”
Ray asked suddenly, and Alec turned around.
“What?”
“Did you miss me on purpose?
When you threw the knife?”
“Do you really think I would
kill you, just for touching Max?” Alec asked in return.
“My dad said that you’re all
evil. That you kill because you like it, that you learnt how to do it, in
school.”
Alec smiled slightly at
that. School, huh? “Why did you follow us then?”
“My grandfather said that
you’re good. I saw the tv, you rescued that girl”
“So who did you believe?” he
had to know. Ray looked up at him, confusion clear on his face. Alec had his
answer.
>>>>>
“We need another away
mission” Alec told Max. They were sitting outside, staring at the stars as if
there was some answer there.
“I know.” There was
something in Max’s voice that made him turn and look at her.
“What?” he asked her,
touching her leg lightly. “You don’t want to go play?” she smiled back at him.
“I don’t feel good about
this. I think things are going to go badly”
Alec stared at her. That was
exactly what he had said to Shay a few days ago. He forced a laugh.
“Nah, everything’s going to
be fine” he told her. “Look, Sandeman’s been right so far, yeah? We’ve
identified the location, got the four of us together. And he was right about
using Ray, wasn’t he? Ray found us, came to us, more or less. If he thinks we
can do this, then the law of averages goes to him.”
“The law of averages says
that if everything is going right, something has to go wrong.” Max told him.
He laughed for real. “When
did you become such a pessimist?” he asked her, slipping an arm around her and
hugging her briefly.
Max leant against him,
asking him to keep his hand where it was. “Do you think this is going to work?”
she asked him. “Seriously. No crap, no jokes.”
He tightened his arm around
her. “Don’t know.” He told her. “We still don’t know what ‘this’ is. But I know
one thing. Whatever it is, there’s no team I’d rather go into battle with than
you, Storm and Shay.”
“And Tim?” she asked him,
curious as to his impression of the X7
“I don’t know. I haven’t
spent enough time with him to know yet. Add that to the list of things I have
to do tomorrow.” He sighed.
>>>>>
Neil banged on Alec’s door
as he walked in. The rest of the group were already there, and he nodded a
greeting as he took a seat next to Shay on the floor.
“Right” Alec commented.
“Here’s where we’re at. Good stuff first. We understand Sandeman’s message, as
much of it as we have. We know the four he chose. We know the location of
whatever is going to happen. We’re left with several questions, and that’s what
we’re here to talk about. Firstly, when is this going to happen?” He looked
over at Dix.
The transgenic smiled, and
looked around. “Best I can tell, sometime this month. I can’t narrow it down
further than that from the patterns we have. If Ray could be convinced to tell
us what he knows about the star pattern…”
“I could try talking to him
again” Storm volunteered. “And maybe Tim, too. He seems more comfortable
talking to kids. But I think the best chance we have is for Alec to try.” He
looked over at Alec. “He has this respect for you. You might be able to get it
out of him.”
Alec nodded. “He did tell me
the chart was wrong, but he wouldn’t say how. Okay, this month. We need to be
ready to move at any stage then.”
Neil watched him closely. He
saw Alec’s eyes shut briefly at Storm’s suggestion. He also noticed the way he
had one leg straight out in front of him, bent slightly at the knee, as if it
hurt. He looked over at Max, and saw that she was watching him too.
“Next. What is going to
happen. Neil?”
“Hmm?” Neil jerked his head
up. “Sorry, yeah. Okay, I ran a chemical analysis of the grass sample that Alec
had. I need a larger sample to be sure, but from what I can tell, my best guess
is this. Somewhere nearby, there is an artificial chemical being created. The chemical,
or the waste products, are seeping into a water supply, like an underground
stream or something. This is running under the hill, and the grass roots are
absorbing it. One side effect of this contamination is the colour. Another side
effect is that it is harmful to transgenics.” Neil paused, and looked around.
“Some of us, anyway. I
collapsed when I touched it. But it had no effect on Alec.”
“So, they’re planning to
kill transgenics?” Tim asked, struggling to keep up with the conversation.
“No” Max shook her head.
“they’d planned this before Sandeman and the others developed the Manticore
project. I think they’re planning to kill humans, all humans. Have the world
for themselves.”
“And it affected Neil
because he has human DNA. Yet, not Alec. But Alec’s human too. Well kind of.”
Shay paused and looked up, grinning at Alec. “Because of the extra DNA?”
Neil nodded. “Yeah, I tested
it on some of Alec’s blood. It didn’t react.”
“The testing” Max nodded.
“It makes sense. The snake bite ritual the familiars go through. It must test
whether they have the genetic immunity to this poison.”
“So they’re trying to kill
humans, and transgenics. Think all those idiots outside our perimeter fence
know that we’re the ones that are going to save them?” Storm asked, laughing.
Alec shifted his leg,
prompting looks of concern from both Max and Neil. “We could just tell White
and his buddies not to waste their time trying to poison us all. They can just
sit back and wait, we’ll kill each other off.” He closed his eyes briefly.
Max glanced at Neil, and
then looked around. “It’s late. We need to get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll start
training properly. Tim especially” she looked over at the youngest person
there. “You haven’t had as much training as the rest of us. But we all need to
be ready. Tomorrow night, we’ll take an away mission, Me, Alec, and Storm.” The
group nodded, and stood up. Neil stayed where he was.
After they left, Neil glared
at Alec. “I said, stay off it.”
“I have been” Alec
commented, defensively. “Mostly.”
Neil knelt in front of him,
pushing his trouser leg up and running his hand over Alec’s leg.
“It’s pretty swollen” he
commented, feeling his other leg for comparison. “This hurt?” he pressed down
on the side of Alec’s knee.
“Nah, not really” Alec
replied. Max punched him.
“I’ll take that as a yes”
Neil commented. “Alec, you need to stay off it. Do I have to stay here all
night and make sure you don’t go running off to save the world or whatever else
you do, thinking I won’t notice?”
Alec glared at him. “Will
killing you lead to me being left alone?”
Neil shrugged. “No. Karen
will just replace me. And she’s not that impressed with you at the moment.”
“What? What’d I do to her?”
“She got stuck cleaning the
blood off the floor after the last time you didn’t stay off that leg.”
“Fine.” Alec gave up. “I
will stay off it. I will sleep for 8 hours. Anything else?” His tone turned
slightly sarcastic.
“That about covers it. I’ll
check on you tomorrow morning.” Neil stood up to leave, and looked over at Max.
“You’re in for a fun night.”
>>>>>
“Alec…”
“Don’t start, Max. Okay?” he
looked purposely away from her, bending his leg slowly and standing up, using
the wall behind him as a support.
Max moved over to help him,
offering him her hand. Alec bit his lip, and let her help him stand up.
He walked slowly to his bed
and sat down.
“Why do you always assume
I’m going to yell at you?” Max asked him, sitting beside him.
“It’s safer” Alec shrugged.
“Saves time”
Max laughed, pushing him
backwards onto the bed. “Neil said rest.”
“Yeah.” Alec moved into a
more comfortable position. “When do you think it’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know.” Max curled
up beside him, leaning on her elbow and looking down at him.
“We need to get Tim ready,
make sure he can take care of himself.”
“He will be. He’s a soldier,
remember? Relax, Alec. It’ll be fine.”
She touched his shoulder
lightly. It worried her, he had taken on so much responsibility, was trying so
hard to do the right thing. It made her understand why the scientists at
Manticore thought so highly of him. If he had been half as committed to their
missions as he was to this one…
“What are you thinking
about?” Alec asked softly.
She laughed. “You’d just
think it weird.” She leant down and kissed him lightly, feeling him smile
before returning the kiss. “Get some rest” she whispered, pulling back
slightly.
Alec nodded, and closed his
eyes. “You staying?”
“Yeah” she whispered. “Sleep”
>>>>>
“Nice, Tim. But watch your
defence” Shay told the younger boy, avoiding a punch and coming in low with a
roundhouse kick. Tim jumped, spinning in mid air and taking Shay out with a
shot to the head.
On the side line, Storm
laughed.
“Shut up” Shay glared at
him, picking himself up off the ground. “You ace combat training or something?”
“First in my class” Tim
grinned. “I won’t let you down, any of you.”
“Your turn?” Shay offered to
Storm, gesturing him towards them.
“Yeah, why not?” Storm
jumped up, ready for something physical.
He faced off against Tim,
both of them grinning. Shay bowed out.
Storm moved in quickly, taking advantage of the first few seconds of a fight
when the opponent is usually slightly off guard. Tim took a hit, but retaliated
quickly, tripping Storm and laughing.
“Keep your concentration”
Alec called out, and Tim spun around in his direction. He hadn’t seen Alec
approach. Storm took him to the ground.
“You have to be better than
that.” Alec told him, walking over to join them. “No distractions, alright,
buddy? Always focus.”
“Yeah” Tim nodded, looking
down at the ground. He had wanted so much to impress Alec, gain his respect,
and then he screwed up just as he turned up.
“Hey” Alec put his hand on
Tim’s shoulder. Tim looked up. “You’ve got some good techniques, kid. Just keep
the focus there, you’ll be fine. Storm.”
“Yeah”
“Go again. This time, no
holding back. On either side”
The two boys began to spar,
using hard, fast techniques. Alec grinned as he took a seat next to Shay.
“Can I talk to you?” Shay
asked. Alec turned to him.
“Of course. What’s going
on?”
Shay took a deep breath. “I
want to be in on it. The mission.”
“No” Alec told him. “You
don’t have immunity to the poison. It’s too risky.”
“I don’t care. I’ve earned
the right to be part of this. I’ve been involved from the start.”
“Shay…”
“He’s right.” Max commented,
coming up behind them. Alec stood and turned to face her.
“It’s too dangerous” he told
her
“That’s his choice to make.
It’s his life to risk” Max told him.
“Alec, please. I won’t let
you down.” Shay pleaded, dropping his plan of acting like a soldier, and
reverting back to the teenager he was.
Alec looked at Max, then
back at Shay. “Fine” he sighed. “You do have the right to decide for yourself.
You better be careful, though.”
“Yeah, I will.” Shay told
him, trying to hide the grin on his face.
>>>>>
Ray watched the fight out
the window. They were good. He had seen two phalanx members fight once, and
from what he could remember, those two kids out there could beat them. And they
seemed to be having a lot more fun doing it. He looked over at Dix, who was
working on his computer, trying to narrow down the date. He was a reject,
wasn’t he? One of the Manticore experiments gone wrong? His dad had told him
all about them, how their scientists were trying their hardest to recreate the
familiars, but were failing at it. And the results were freaks. Like this one
in front of him.
Yet Dix wasn’t treated like
a freak. He had seen how his uncle was treated, locked away, treated like he
was insane because he couldn’t pass the trial. Dix was treated like one of the
crowd. In fact, when he thought about it, he hadn’t seen any transgenic treated
badly by the others, and he had seen some real strange creatures around.
He was a freak too. He would
have failed the test had his father not taken him out of the school and got him
away.
Maybe this place, Freak
Nation, they called it, maybe this was the place for him to be. He looked over
at Dix and nodded to himself. Okay. He walked over to the screen and pointed to
a spot equidistant from three stars.
“Here” he commented.
Dix looked up. “What?” he
asked
“The moon. It’s here.”
Dix stared at him, then
shrugged, and entered in the coordinates, just to see what would happen. The
computer beeped, and flashed a date on the screen. It was two days from today.
“Stay here.” He told Ray.
“Do not move. I mean it. Mole is right outside.”
Ray shrugged. Dix left the
room quickly, looking for Max and Alec.
>>>>>
“Are you sure?” Max
questioned him.
“I think so, yeah.”
“You need to BE sure, Dix”
Alec told him calmly.
“Then I‘m sure. Look, Ray
knew, okay. You all knew stuff, this is what he knew. He identified a spot
right in the middle of the area I had identified. I knew the moon was somewhere
there, that’s how I gave you the approximate time. Ray didn’t know any of
that.”
“Okay. So we have two days.”
Max accepted his words. She looked at Alec. “An away tonight, one day to
examine the material and plan an attack.”
Alec nodded.
“Then we’re wasting time.
Dix, man, you outdid yourself here. Good job.”
Dix grinned. “No problem.
I’ll see if I can find any info out about that area, anything that may help.”
“Much appreciated.” Alec
told him.
>>>>>
It was getting dark. Max
pulled on a dark sweater and sat down on the edge of her bed. She still had the
same bad feeling about this whole thing. She didn’t trust Sandeman, never had,
and now, three of them were putting their lives on the line following the message
he had sent them. She didn’t like this at all. And then there was Alec. There
was something wrong with his leg. She wanted him to stand down tonight, stay
behind. But she knew there was no way he would do that.
“Hey, you ready?” she
turned. Alec leaned in the doorway, grinning slightly, his eyes shining with
anticipation.
“Almost.” She told him. He
shook his head slightly, asking her what she meant. She shrugged.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know” she told him,
standing up. She crossed the room, and moved close to Alec. He slipped his arms
around her, and kissed the top of her head.
“It’ll be fine” he told her,
not really believing it. He tightened his arms around her.
“Alec?” Max asked, pulling
back slightly to look at him.
“It will be.” He told her
firmly. “I don’t like it either. I don’t know why, but something feels
wrong.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t
care. Whatever. We haven’t had the time to do the recon and intel I would have
liked, but so what? I trust our team, more than I trusted anyone at Manticore.
We will be fine.”
>>>>>
Max kissed him, pushing him
back against the wall. Alec tightened his arms around her, pulling her closer
to him. His hand moved to her head, deepening the kiss.
“You okay?” he asked her,
finally pulling back. She nodded.
“Yeah.” She smiled at him.
“Let’s do this.”
Alec grinned as he followed
her down the stairs and out into the street. Storm stepped forward.
“Got three bikes ready
outside the fence.” He looked at Max. “Got you a new one, figured it would be
better than risking your ninja if something goes wrong.”
“Thanks” she told him,
smiling. Fine, so she loved her bike. It was a part of her.
“Here” Storm passed Alec a
handgun. He took it, sliding open the chamber to check it. He nodded in
satisfaction. The weapon looked good. He flicked on the safety and tucked it
into the waistband of his jeans.
Storm offered another one to
Max. “I know you hate guns, but you could always throw it, pretend it’s a
rock?”
“Idiot” Max took the gun,
checked it, and put it in her pocket. “Let’s do this”
>>>>>
They stowed the bikes in a
ditch, and threw some branches over them to hide them.
“Alright, let’s do this.
Standard flanking positions. There has to be something here, let’s find it and
get the hell out. Don’t be seen, don’t do anything but gather intel.” Alec
spoke quietly. They nodded and moved out.
Alec scaled the hill,
keeping low. He couldn’t hear any familiars around, but then, he couldn’t hear
Storm or Max either, so that didn’t mean much. He kept moving forward.
A sound came from his right,
and he forced his head down into the ground, staying low. He heard the sound
again, like a stone moving. It was close to him, really close. His gun was in
his hand instantly, pointing in the direction of the sound.
“Hey” came a whisper. He
lowered the gun and sighed.
“Max?” he whispered.
She crawled towards him.
“Found something.” She
whispered.
“Yeah, what?” Alec moved
closer to her, so that they were almost touching, to make it safer for them to
talk without making too much noise.
“You have to feel it for
yourself.” She told him.
“What? Feel it?” Alec
reached out to touch her hand, and jerked back. Her skin was burning.
“Max?”
“Come on” she moved away,
and he followed her. After a few minutes, she stopped and looked over to him.
“Feel it?” she whispered.
“Huh?” he moved a bit
closer, then gasped. It was like he had to force himself to breathe. He felt
hot, really hot, like he was burning. “What is it?” he whispered. Max shrugged.
“Not sure. The ground isn’t
hot.”
A twig snapped, and they
both spun around.
“It’s me.” Storm whispered,
and crawled towards them. “Whoa.” He commented. “What is that?”
“You feel it too?” Max
whispered
“Heat” he commented.
“Where’s it coming from?”
“No idea.” Alec whispered. They looked around.
“There” Max whispered,
pointing to the right of her. She moved towards it, and the guys followed her.
A square of metal broke the line of grass. Alec reached down and pushed it. It
slid to the side, revealing a black hole.
He glanced at Max. “Ladies
first?”
She punched him lightly.
“Fine” she told him, moving over to the hole.
“Ah, no.” he told her. “I’m
going first. And you can call me a chauvinist later.” He grinned at her,
leaning back slightly to avoid any other punch she planned on throwing at him.
Storm laughed quietly. “Shut
up” both of them mock glared at him at the same time. He bit his lip to stop
from laughing again.
Alec slid into the hole.
“Ladder” he commented, smiling as he vanished into the darkness. Max and then
Storm quickly followed him. They reached the ground and looked around.
Darkness, complete and utter darkness. Alec blinked hard, trying to adjust his
eyes, get some semblance of night vision.
“Anyone see anything?” he
asked.
They replied in the
negative.
“Well,” Max commented.
“You’re the one with the experience of being blind, why don’t you lead the
way?”
“I’m glaring at you” Alec
told her. “I just want you to know, I’m glaring very harshly at you.”
“And I’m shaking in fear.”
Max told him. “You want to be in charge, go for it.”
“I’m happy for you to be in
charge, you know that” He told her suggestively before moving down the tunnel,
his hand on a wall to guide himself.
Storm bit back a laugh.
Again. These two were funny. It was like a pornographic version of daytime tv.
Or something.
Alec picked up the pace as
his eyesight finally did what it was meant to do. Show him what was ahead of
him. The tunnel began to widen, and he slowed down again, coming to a halt. Max
moved up to see what was going on. The tunnel widened into a room. Several
people, who had to be familiars, wearing white lab coats were gathered around a
table. Alec leaned forward slightly, trying to see what they were doing. He
couldn’t see.
Max tapped his shoulder, and
pulled him back into the tunnel. She pointed to the other side of the room.
There was another tunnel.
And there was a team of
phalanx soldiers coming out of it.
Max reached behind her,
pushing Storm back, telling him to get out, retreat.
Storm pulled his gun from
his waistband and headed back down the tunnel, his senses on high alert. He
could feel Alec and Max behind him, and knew that Alec had his gun drawn too,
covering their retreat. He felt slightly nervous. No way did he want to engage
the familiar phalanx. Not here, not on their turf. They were outnumbered. He
reached the ladder, looked up. Shit. He would have to put up his gun to climb
out, and he really didn’t want to do that.
“Go” Max whispered. “We have
you covered. Go” he nodded, putting his gun away, and climbing quickly up the
ladder. When he reached the top, he brought his gun out again, holding onto the
ladder with one hand. He turned 360, checking for any other random phalanx-ers.
It seemed safe. He scrambled out, and took up a guard position. Max and Alec
climbed out behind him.
“Let’s Blaze” Max whispered.
The three of them blended into the shadows, taking different routes, but headed
in the same general direction.
>>>>>>
“So there’s a lab? Under the
hill?” Neil asked, fascinated.
“Yeah. Couldn’t see what
they were doing though” Alec told him, leaning against the wall, drawing on a
piece of paper.
“When the shroud of death
covers the face of the earth” Mole commented. They turned to look at him. “What?”
he asked them, lighting a cigar. “I can have an intelligent thought once in a
while, you know. I’m not just a pretty face.”
“The shroud of death.” Neil
repeated. “A poison. They’re developing a poison, something to sweep across the
world, like a plague.”
“Yeah, and if that stuff
that turned the grass red was the by product” Shay commented, “imagine what the
actual stuff can do.”
The room fell silent. Then,
Alec laughed. “I need a drink.”
He stood up. Mole and Max
looked at each other. Max sighed. “Alec…”
“I’m going to talk to Ray.”
He told her, grinning. “I’m not an alcoholic, I just think that the brat might
know something about this.”
“That’s probably a good
idea.” Dix commented. “If you can, ask him what’s so special about two days
from now. See if he knows anything about a familiar holiday or something. They
seem to be into rituals.”
>>>>>
Alec nodded at the guy
standing guard and opened the door. Ray stood by the window, staring out at the
sky. He moved over to join him.
“What do you see when you
look up there?” Alec asked him, taking a seat on the table behind him.
“The future, the past” Ray
spoke, his voice emotionless, almost like he was repeating something he had
been taught.
“What does that mean?” he
asked him.
Ray said nothing. Alec
shrugged his shoulders in frustration. Okay, obviously, Ray was willing to talk
to him. He had given him one answer. Maybe the fact that he hadn’t answered the
second meant that he just wasn’t asking the right questions.
“What’s tomorrow?” he tried.
Ray turned and looked at
him. “It’s the solstice.” He said calmly.
“The solstice” Alec
repeated. The phrase sounded familiar to him. “What exactly is that, Ray? What
happens on the solstice?”
“It’s the last day of the
year.”
Yeah, okay. “Ray, it’s
September.”
Ray looked at him like he
was stupid, or insane. “It’s not our fault humans got the calendar wrong.
Tomorrow is the real new year’s eve.”
Alec nodded. “Do you know
what’s going to happen in two days?”
Ray shrugged. “Nobody ever told
me. I don’t know.”
“Okay. Look, I have some
stuff to do. It’s late. You should be asleep.”
“Nobody told me to go to
bed.” Ray said with little boy logic.
“Go to bed” Alec smiled. Ray
smiled back at him. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Alec?”
“Yeah?” he turned, curious.
The boy had never initiated a conversation before.
“The familiars, they’re planning to kill everyone, aren’t they? All those that aren’t strong, like them?”
“They’re going to try.” Alec
replied slowly. “But we’ll stop them.”
“Why do you care?” Alec
looked at him. “I mean, the humans are trying to kill transgenics, why do you
want to save them? And it’s not even really your problem. You won’t die,
Grandfather gave you immunity. You’re good enough, strong enough to live.”
“Most of my friends, in
fact, all of them, are better than me. And no-one should have the power to
decide who lives and who dies. It’s not right.”
“What about the humans?”
“They’re just scared. People
are scared of what they don’t understand. You don’t let people die because
they’re scared.”
Ray ran a hand through his
hair, thinking hard. Then he looked up at Alec. “I’ll fight with you. My
grandfather said that the four of us had to stand together. I’ll fight with
you.”
Alec nodded, and put his
hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Thanks, Ray” he told him.
Alec left HQ, his mind
spinning, trying to formulate a plan for the strike. They had about 24 hours
before everything began, for better or for worse, and he had to be ready.
“Hey” Max leaned against a
wall, watching him.
“Hey, Max” he greeted her,
walking over to join her. “What’s going on?”
“You owe me” she told him.
Alec shook his head slightly
“What?” he smiled.
“The time we went out on the
bike, to the field. I went with you when you asked me to. Now it’s your turn to
come with me.”
“Where are we going?” he
asked, intrigued.
“You’ll see” she moved
closer to him, pressing up against him and pushing him back against the wall.
“Trust me.” She told him, sliding her hand down his chest and his side, until
she reached his hand. She took it lightly, kissing him on the lips.
Alec grinned and pulled her harder against him, kissing her deeply.
Max gave in to him, moving
her other hand around behind his neck, pulling his head down towards hers.
Finally, she pulled back.
“Come on” she told him,
laughing as he groaned.
He caught up to her and slid
his arm around her shoulder. “Where are we going?” he asked her again.
Max laughed. “Impatient,
aren’t we?” she asked him, her arm moving around his waist.
“Yep” he stopped walking, and pulled her close to him, kissing her again.
She smiled. “We’re never
going to get anywhere if we keep stopping.” She told him, pulling away.
“My apartment’s not that
far” he whispered.
“Alec…” she sighed, very
tempted.
“Okay, okay” he told her,
grinning. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
She shook her head, and
pulled him down the street.
“We’re going out of TC?” he
asked, as they reached the fence.
“Scared?” she challenged
him. He glared at her. “So let’s go” Max scaled the fence. He laughed and
jumped it, landing on his feet. “Show-off.”
>>>>>
“The Space Needle.” Alec
commented, as Max stopped the bike and turned off the engine.
Max shrugged, climbing off
the bike and looking up at it. “I just wanted to see the city.”
Alec moved behind her and
wrapped his arms around her. He understood. They were both worried about the
mission, there was so much on the line. All he had wanted to do before was take
her into his arms, make love to her, and forget what was coming in the
following days. But if she wanted this, then his plans could wait.
Max didn’t talk until they
had reached the top. She sat down. “I used to come up here all the time.” She
told him.
“Yeah.” Alec sat down beside
her, his leg brushing up against hers.
“I don’t want to talk about
tomorrow, or the next day. Can we just have tonight, free of this mess?”
“We will win, Max. I swear
to you, whatever it takes.”
She nodded. “Alec, all the
times I told you that you were an idiot…” she looked over at him, putting her
hand on his arm.
“You meant it” he grinned.
She laughed. “Yeah, but
you’re more than that.” She leant in and kissed him, her hand moving down to
his leg.
Alec moved his hands to her
hips, pulling her so that she moved to sit on his lap, straddling him. Max
leant down and kissed him again, forcing him back down and moving on top of
him.
His hands moved down her
back, against her ass, pulling her hard down against him. Max groaned, moving
her hips harder against his, feeling his hips move up to meet hers. He gasped,
kissing her harder, frantically, feeling himself lose control, and not caring.
Max cried out into his
mouth, moving her hips harder against his, her hand moving down between them,
pressing against him. She slowly unbuttoned his jeans, slipping her hand
inside, running it down the silk of his boxers.
“Max, for god’s sake” he
gasped. “Slow down”
“Later” she told him,
drawing him into her hand. He pushed up against her as she stroked him, her
fingers too light against him. His head fell back and he bit his lip.
“Max” he groaned. His hands
moved around to her front, frantically undoing her trousers, slipping his hands
down her ass, pushing her jeans down.
She lifted off him slightly
to help him push her jeans off, then moved back against him, her centre
pressing against his hard shaft.
Alec’s hips moved harder
against hers as his hands moved to her hips, holding her in place. She bent to
kiss him again, lightly, before lifting her hips, and lowering herself down
onto him.
She gasped as he filled her,
and Alec sat up quickly, needing to kiss her again, pushing himself further
inside her as he claimed her mouth with his.
She started to move against
him, rising up and lowering herself back onto him, moving her hips forward and
back, Alec meeting her thrusts, both of them frantically moving against each
other.
Alec’s mouth moved to her
neck, biting her lightly, his arms tightening around her as he heard her moan.
He pulled her harder down against him as he felt her tighten around him. Max
cried out as she climaxed, pushing down harder against him, making him lose
control too.
>>>>>
Max walked up to the top of
the hill, and pulled the hood of her cloak further forward on her head. She
joined the rest of the familiars, bowing slightly in greeting. They looked
overhead as a comet flashed across the sky.
One familiar, wearing a red
cloak, not a white one like the rest, moved to the centre of the circle. She
raised her hands to the sky and called out some words.
Max responded with the rest,
knowing instinctively which words to use, but not knowing what they meant. This
was strange.
In the centre of the circle
was a large wicker basket. Inside it, something moved. Max fought an urge to
jerk away. Then the head of a snake poked out. She jerked back, breaking the
circle.
She woke, sitting up. Beside
her, Alec’s eyes snapped open.
“What?” he asked her
quickly, scanning the room around him. “What?”
“Bad dream” she told him,
trying to remember. “There was a bunch of familiars, on the hill. And a snake.”
“I hate snakes” Alec
commented, pulling her back down into his arms.
“What time is it?” Max
asked, sleepily.
“Still night” he told her,
closing his eyes, and moving closer to her.
>>>>>
Tim sat on the table,
nervously kicking one of the legs. “Where are they?” he asked.
Storm shrugged. “It’s only
8am. They’ll be here. Come on, let’s go train, burn off some nervous energy.”
“Nah, I want to wait for Max
and Alec.”
“They’ll be here, don’t worry.”
“Storm?” Tim looked over at
him, running a hand through his hair.
“Hmm?”
“This is my first mission.”
He dropped his gaze, staring intently at the floor.
Storm nodded. “It’s only my
third, man. Don’t worry. Look, we’re going in with Max and Alec, yeah? We’ll be
fine.”
“Okay.” Tim smiled slightly.
“Let’s go train then, I want to get that spin kick right.”
Shay joined them as they
headed outside. He nodded briefly at Storm, unsure whether he was welcome. He
had always felt some kind of rivalry between him and Storm, both of them X6s,
both trying to win Alec’s respect. But he liked Storm.
“Hey, man. How’s your hook
kick?” Storm asked him, grinning.
Shay smiled back. “Better
than yours.” He told him
“Let’s see it then” Storm
challenged him.
Shay laughed, and the two
squared off against each other. Storm attacked with a roundhouse, and Shay
avoided it, demonstrating a perfect spinning hook kick and grinning.
“Just like that” he told
Storm.
“Not bad.” He responded,
sweeping his foot out from under him, sending Shay to the ground. “That was
better though, huh?”
>>>>>
“Alright” Alec spoke calmly,
and they all turned to look at him. “It’s time to do this. Anyone want to back
out, just say so now.” He looked around the room, his gaze slowing as he looked
at Tim and Ray. Everyone met his gaze. No-one was going anywhere.
“Here’s the plan. We
approach the hill in teams of two. Max and Tim, from the west side, where we
went in last night. Me and Ray, from the east. We’ll find that tunnel the
Phalanx came from, move into the centre. Shay, Storm, stay up top. Guard our
retreat, and keep watch. Max?” He turned to look at her, all business.
“I had a dream last night. A
ceremony, on the hill, a bunch of familiars in white robes, one in red. They
were chanting towards the sky.”
“Yeah” Ray broke in. “That’s
a standard ceremony. The one in red is the high priestess. Was there a snake?”
“Yes.” Max told him. “Huge
bastard, in a basket in the centre of the circle.”
“It’s there to test them.
They hand it around the circle, and if it bites one of them, that one is
considered unpure.”
“What happens then?” Alec
asked.
“The ceremony can’t go on.
You have to get someone pure to replace him.”
The group began to smile.
Max nodded. “Looks like we have a plan then. If we can assume that whatever
they’re going to do, it’ll be part of a ceremony, then all we have to do is
destroy the ceremony.”
“Can’t they just do the
ceremony again then?” Shay asked. “I mean, are we really doing anything but
delay it?”
“But the signs won’t be
right” Ray said. “I learnt about this at school. If a ceremony isn’t completed,
then we, uh, they, have to wait for all the signs to be right before they can
try again.”
“And they’ve been planning
this for a long time.” Alec commented. “Why tomorrow? Ray said it’s the
solstice, what else?”
“The comet?” Max suggested.
“I saw a comet. The red familiar was chanting to it.”
“Comets are sacred. They
bring purity” Ray commented.
“Right” Alec spoke up, his
voice serious. They all turned to look at him. “Me, Ray, Max and Tim will go
for the lab. Objective is to get the poison, prevent it from being used. Any
force necessary.” The three nodded.
“Ray, I want you to stay
close to me. Anything you think may help us, tell me, no matter what I’m doing.
Okay?” The boy nodded. “Shay, Storm, you’re our eyes up there. I want to know
what’s going on and where. Storm, you’re the best shot. I want your gun trained
on the high priestess the whole time. Anything goes wrong, take her out. Shay,
you get the snake.”
“Get as in capture it, or
kill it?”
Alec looked over at him
“What, you want a pet? Kill the thing.”
“Got it.”
“Questions?” They all shook
their heads.
Alec nodded at Dix, who
stepped forward. “Okay, I got these, tweaked them up a little.” He passed out
headsets with attached mikes. “They have a range like you wouldn’t believe.
We’ll be able to hear you from here. They have two channels, keep them on
‘one’. ‘Two’ is a direct link to base. It’s also our backup channel. We’ll have
around 15 of our guys in the vicinity, keeping an eye out. They’ll let me know,
here, if there’s any traffic around. We should be able to warn you if they bus
in a whole bunch of phalanxers.”
“Nice” Storm commented,
trying his on. It moulded perfectly to his head. He shook his head several
times quickly, to see if the thing would loosen or fall off, but it stayed.
Excellent.
“Mole?”
“Okay, I got some toys too,
only I stole them.” He looked at Dix. “Seemed quicker, somehow” Dix laughed,
lighting one of Mole’s cigars. “Okay, these are courtesy of the familiars,
their transgenic tracking system.” He threw three hand held displays to Alec,
Max and Shay. “Just so you know where everyone else is. Remember, Transgenics
glow white, due to the body heat.”
Shay looked at it quickly,
having never seen one before.
“Neil?”
“Two things from me.” He
pulled out two syringes, one filled with a red substance, the other clear.
“First, Ray.” The kid looked
up. He did not like needles. And that one was big. “This is a tracker. Because
you’re human, you don’t have the higher temperature we have. This will make you
flash red on the trackers. Just in case you get separated from Alec.” He took
Ray’s arm, and injected the liquid.
“So, let me check this.
White for Transgenics, Red for Ray, and familiars are clear looking?” Shay
asked.
“Yep. Now, your turn.” Neil
turned to him.
“What do I get?”
“You don’t have the natural
immunity that the others have. So, I figure, we inject you with the blood of
someone who is immune it may help.” he paused “Thank Alec for bleeding all over
my hospital.”
Alec shook his head,
concealing a grin.
“Great” Shay offered his
hand.
“Anyone else?” Alec asked.
No-one said anything. “Okay. We leave in one hour. Go get ready, kitted out,
whatever you need to do.”
They all nodded and turned
to leave
“One more thing.” His voice
was deeper than normal, and the group stopped, waiting to hear what he would
say. “I heard rumours, about a young kid telling Logan where he could shove his
delusions of playing General.” He looked over at Tim, and grinned. Tim blushed.
“And of saying that he had a family here. I also heard that Max rallied a squad
to come save my ass by saying that if we were to build a society, then if one
of us went down, the rest of us would come after him.” He reached out and took
Max’s hand. “Well, I think we’ve done that. We’ve built a society, created
family-type relationships. In this room, we represent three generations of Xs,
and various other transgenic types. I’m willing to bet that some of our backups
tonight won’t be Xs either.” Dix and Mole both nodded. “Before Jam Pony, before
we raised the flag, we were all Manticore, but we were separate. Just a bunch
of rejects sticking together because we had no-where else to go. That started
to change when we raised the flag, and declared ourselves Freak Nation.
Tonight, we finish what that started. We come together, representatives of Xs
and Freaks, and we fight together.
We stand together, and say
that we have formed a society. I’m proud to be part of this, proud to stand
with you. Proud to be a transgenic.”
>>>>>
It was time. Alec took a
deep breath, and moved over to Max and Tim. “Ready?” he whispered, putting his
hand on Tim’s shoulder. The boy looked up at him and nodded, his face serious,
focussed. “Good man.” He told him.
He turned to Max, having no
idea what to say to her. She nodded and reached her hand out to him. He took
it. “I swear” he whispered, and she nodded. Alec slowly brought her hand up to
his mouth and kissed it lightly, before drawing away.
“Stay in touch” he tapped
his headset, before blending into the darkness.
Max watched him go.
Finally, she turned and
looked at Tim. “Let’s do this.”
He nodded eagerly. Max took
the lead, moving slowly towards the manhole cover they had gone down
previously.
>>>>>
Storm sighted down his
rifle. He had the priestess firmly in his cross-hairs. Beside him, Shay lay
with his head down, scanning the surrounding area for any sign of intruders
with his tracker. He could see only 9 transgenics in front of them, standing in
a circle, talking. To his right, three white shapes, and a red one. One of the
white shapes was moving towards them.
“Alec’s coming” Shay
muttered. Storm nodded, concentrating on the priestess, able to ignore any
sounds coming from the side. There was none. The only hint Shay had that Alec
was approaching was his tracker.
“Easy” Alec whispered as he
approached. “You guys ready?” he asked, directing his comment to Shay.
“Target acquired” Storm
spoke formally.
“We’re ready” Shay
confirmed.
“Good. Communicate through
headsets from now on. Good luck.” Alec tapped both of them on the leg. “Beer’s
on me tomorrow night.”
>>>>>
Max reached the manhole and
pushed it to the side. “I’ll go first” She muttered to Tim, and moved quickly
down the ladder. At the bottom, she pulled out her gun, and checked it again,
removing the safety and chambering a round. “Clear” she whispered to Tim,
knowing the headset would pick it up.
She moved a few paces down
the tunnel, giving him room to join her. When she heard him beside her, she
moved slowly down the tunnel, all of her senses focussed on detecting any
sound.
>>>>>
Aboveground, the ceremony
began. The high priestess moved into the centre of the circle, and bowed, going
down on her knees and pressing her head to the ground.
“Move” Storm hissed in
frustration, moving his legs slightly to the side, trying to recapture his aim
picture.
“Relax” Shay muttered.
“Easy for you to say. Your
target isn’t moving.” Storm commented.
“Yeah but when mine does
move, it’ll be faster than yours. And uglier.”
<Children> Alec
admonished over the headset. They looked at each other, and frowned. Both
turned their attention back to the mission at hand.
>>>>>
“Wait” Ray whispered as he
and Alec moved towards the second manhole.
“What?”
“There’s something wrong
with the circle. It’s incomplete. There should be more people there. Eleven.
They’re two short.”
Alec glanced at him, then
pulled out his tracker. “No-one else on the surface. Mole?”
<No. Just them.> came
the response from HQ.
<Max, you get that?>
Alec whispered. <Be careful. Some of those scientists may be heading up to
the surface to join in.>
<Got it> she replied,
<the tracker doesn’t work too well down here. I’m getting interference>
<Try hitting it.> Mole
suggested.
<Why don’t you come down
here and fix it> she suggested.
<Maybe later>
<children> whispered
Shay, mimicking Alec.
<oh, for…> Alec
groaned. <right, we’re going down>
He slid into the darkness,
his feet finding the ladder rungs, and quickly climbing down. His gun was in
his hand as soon as he hit the bottom. Max was right about the trackers, they
did go slightly funny underground. Oh well, he couldn’t worry about that now.
He moved through the tunnel, making sure Ray was following him.
>>>>>
Max reached the end of her
tunnel, and put her hand out to stop Tim from coming any closer. She wanted to
make sure that they remained in the shadows while she got her first glance at
the lab area.
She counted about seven
scientists, roughly what they had expected. However, in one corner of the room
stood several other people, dressed completely in black. Shit.
She signalled Tim to move
back, and followed him into the tunnel, far enough back so that she could speak
without being overheard.
<Alec, we have a problem
here>
<What?> Alec stopped
walking, to concentrate on what she was saying.
<Phalanx. One squad as
far as I could tell. Couldn’t see any weapons, but they have to be armed.>
That was not good. He had
expected it, but still, it was not what he wanted to hear. <Okay, we’ll be
there soon, take them together.>
He picked up his pace,
following the tunnel as it turned a corner.
The tunnel seemed long, a
lot longer than the one they had gone down before. It worried him briefly, but
he could tell he was heading in the right direction, towards Max and Tim, so he
ignored the problem. As long as they didn’t end up in Antarctica, it didn’t
really matter that the tunnel took a detour.
<Hey, anytime you want to
join us> Max commented. Even whispering, the sarcasm came through loud and
clear.
<Just taking the scenic
route.> Alec replied. <Radio silence> he whispered, putting a hand
over Ray’s mouth to keep him silent. He listened intently.
There had been a sound, just
up ahead. It could simply have been that they had finally reached the entrance
to the scientists room. It just didn’t feel like it. Something felt wrong.
There was another sound, one
that Alec knew intimately. The sound of a magazine being slipped into a gun.
He stopped breathing,
tightening his grip on Ray’s mouth. His heart began to pound, adrenaline
coursing through him. Slowly, he backed off, pulling Ray with him, back into
the tunnel.
“Stay here” he whispered to
him. “No sound” the words could be picked up by the others, but none of them
commented, listening intently to what Alec had said, and trying to figure out
what was going on.
Ray nodded.
<Heard something. Max,
pull back, do not engage. Acknowledge>
<yes> her tone was
crisp, accepting his order without hesitation.
Alec moved back into the
tunnel, making no sound. The tunnel began to widen, and he pressed himself hard
up against one of the walls as he followed it. A few feet later, the tunnel
widened into a room.
Six people, six familiars,
stood in the room. Two of them were stripping weapons, making the noises that
had alerted Alec to their presence in the first place. The others were
communicating soundlessly, using some form of sign language that Alec had never
been taught. He watched them for a few seconds, trying to see what they were
doing.
>>>>>
Shay tapped Storm on the
shoulder, flipping his headset off so that he could talk without being
overheard by Alec. Storm nodded, removing his hand from the trigger guard long
enough to move the mouthpiece of his headset.
“What do you think is going
on?” Shay whispered.
“Dunno”
“Think everything is okay?”
“Yeah. Good guys always win,
right?” Storm looked over at him and smiled, not really believing what he was
saying.
“True.” Shay put his headset
back on, and adjusting Storm’s. He grabbed his gun and reacquired his target.
The basket hadn’t moved.
>>>>>
Alec couldn’t see what they
were doing. He moved slightly closer, trying to see.
A noise came from behind
him, and he pressed himself hard into the wall. What the hell was that? Ray, or
other familiars? Shit. If he had left Ray back there, to be captured…
Ray stepped forward, keeping
to the middle of the tunnel, instead of to the side. Alec hissed at him. Ray
ignored him, and took another step closer to the room.
There was a clicking sound
as one of the familiars saw Ray and snapped his weapon up into his shoulder,
chambering a round.
<Abort> Alec whispered
frantically into his headset. <Retreat>
<Alec, what?> Max
questioned, even as she moved back. She was starting to get worried, really
worried. That feeling, that something was going to go really wrong, was back.
There was no reply, which
scared her more. She wanted to ask him again, but he had called for radio
silence. She couldn’t risk it.
>>>>>
“Dad?” Ray asked quietly,
and Alec groaned internally. He pressed himself harder against the wall.
One of the familiars turned
towards them, and Alec recognised him instantly. Shit. White took a step
forward.
“Ray? Son?”
Ray stepped forward and
looked up at his father. Three of the familiars stepped forward, their guns
raised. The tunnel simply didn’t have enough shadows to hide Alec.
>>>>>
Max and Tim moved quietly
over the hill. Whatever was happening down below, word hadn’t spread to the
robed familiars, who continued chanting. Neither Shay nor Storm looked up as
they approached, other than to verify that it was them approaching and not more
familiars. Max covered her mouthpiece to make sure that what she was about to
say wouldn’t be heard by Alec.
“Any change?” Max asked.
“No” Shay replied, mimicking
her. “Know anything?”
“Just what I heard”
>>>>>
Alec raised his hands,
moving his finger off the trigger of his gun. He couldn’t take them, not all of
them. He needed to buy some time. Hopefully, Max and the others would be
getting the hell out of there.
“494.” White commented,
looking over at him. “I wondered how long it would be before I had the pleasure
of seeing you again.” He turned to look at his son. “Ray. Come here”
“Don’t go with him.” Alec
told Ray.
“Shut up.” White told him,
reaching his hand out towards his son. Ray took a step forward, then stopped,
and looked back at Alec.
“Come back over here” Alec
said quietly, asking him, not ordering, like White was doing. Ray didn’t move,
unsure of what to do. Alec kept talking, expecting to feel a bullet at any
time, but knowing, somehow, that the worst possible thing that could happen
right now, worse than him dying, would be for Ray to go to his father. “Ray,
think about what you’re doing here. Make sure the choice you make is the right
one.”
Ray turned to look at him,
then back to his father.
“I’m your father, Ray” White
told him, still holding his hand out towards him.
“Yeah, but you were going to
let him die” Alec stepped forward. “Ray, your father let you take the trial,
knowing that you probably wouldn’t make it.”
“That’s not true” Ray told
him, his voice high. “Dad took me away from the school, sent me to live in
another city.”
“No, he didn’t. Max rescued
you. Don’t you remember? You woke up in Logan’s apartment, and Max was there.
They got you out of the city, not him.”
Ray looked down, random
scenes suddenly flicking into his mind. Maybe. He did remember Max… he just
wasn’t sure.
“You think I’d risk my son?”
White asked.
“You did.” Alec told him.
“You knew there was a genetic defect in your family. Your brother wouldn’t have
passed, your grandfather knew that. You must have known there was a good chance
that Ray wouldn’t make it. Yet you let him take it anyway.”
“My son” White spat out. “Is
more important to me than anything. I would not risk him getting hurt.” He
turned to Ray “Come here, son. You belong with us”
Ray looked back at Alec,
then at his father. He took a step towards his father, then another one.
Alec groaned.
>>>>>
“Oh Shit!” Tim commented,
covering his mouthpiece. “We have to do something, Max. We have to go in and
help.”
He looked at her, pleading
for her to agree with him, to tell them to go in.
“He knows we’re listening.”
She told him. “He knows. If he wants us to come in, he’ll say so”
Max purposely uncovered her
headset. “We complete the mission.” She touched Tim on the shoulder, and looked
across at the others. “We finish what we started.”
They nodded. Max and Tim
moved off back towards the tunnel.
>>>>>
Alec heard her, but didn’t
respond. He needed her to stay focussed. She had to complete the mission, not
come in after him.
His heart sank as Ray moved
towards his father, taking his hand. White looked triumphantly over at Alec,
and led his son away.
“Put the gun down, do it
now” One of the phalanx told him. Alec slowly lowered the weapon. Max was going
in, she was going to complete the mission. He just needed to buy her some time.
“Transgenic scum” one of the
familiars commented, taking a step forward.
>>>>>
Max and Tim moved through
the tunnel quickly. They didn’t have much time, and if that poison was
released, then God only knew what would happen. They reached the entrance to
the chamber, Tim moving to the far wall, so that between them, they covered all
angles.
<Alec> she whispered,
really softly. Not knowing what was going on was driving her crazy. She had no
idea what to do. The scientists seemed to have finished whatever it was they
were doing, and were loading vials into a metal container. She looked at Tim,
and stared pointedly in the direction of the container. He glanced over, and
nodded to show that he understood what she was saying.
<I’m going to skin your
pet snake and barbeque it for some of my friends> Alec commented.
Max nodded at Tim. Alec had
given them the answer they had been waiting for. By mentioning the snake,
Shay’s designated target, he had told them to go ahead with the mission.
Tim raised his gun in the
direction of the scientists. Max targeted the phalanx members. People were
going to die tonight. It could be these familiars, or a whole bunch of humans
and transgenics. It was a really easy choice.
“Don’t move” she stepped out
into the room and pointed her weapon at the phalanx members.
They spun around. “What the
hell do you think you’re doing?” asked one of them.
“Re-writing the future” Max
replied. “Now, drop the weapons.”
Tim moved out to join her,
his gun trained at the scientists.
“Move over there” he ordered
them, gesturing to the phalanx with the barrel of his weapon.
The scientists moved slowly
across the room.
“Stupid kid” commented the
same familiar, obviously the leader. “Think you can kill all of us?”
“Maybe, maybe not” Tim
replied. “But, I’ll start with you.” He aimed directly at the man.
Over the headset, Max heard
three shots. Alec cried out, then went silent.
“Max?” Tim whispered,
scared. His hand shook. No. it couldn’t be. He couldn’t be…
“Max?” Shay, this time, but
sounding just as frightened.
“That was a mistake.” Max
spoke quietly, reverting back to her training. Figure out what it meant later.
It could be anything. Worry about it later. Right now, complete the mission,
get the others out okay.
<Shay> she spoke
quietly. <Action>
She had hesitated in giving
the command, she didn’t want to do it. But there was no hesitation at the other
end. Two shots, almost simultaneously could be heard over the headsets.
<Target one confirmed>
Storm commented
<Target two confirmed>
Shay added.
<Contain the rest>
Shay and Storm quickly stood
up, moving towards the familiars, making their presence known.
The familiars stared back at
them, angry, wanting desperately to fight back, but unarmed.
“Anyone runs, shows any sign
of aggression, you all die” Storm advised them. “Move over there. Now” The
familiars didn’t move. They just looked at each other, and down at their
priestess. They looked lost.
Storm fired a shot, hitting
a familiar female in the shoulder. “Did you think I was joking?” he asked, the
anger in his voice disguising the fear he felt. Alec still hadn’t said
anything. All Storm wanted to do was go find him, and then help out Max and
Tim.
The familiars started to
move slowly, down the hill and in the direction of a squad of Mole’s transgenic
backups.
>>>
“Alec?” Max asked again her
weapon still aimed at the phalanx. No response. “Tim, get that container”
He moved to follow her
orders, backing over to it, his gun still trained on the leader. The second he
lowered his weapon to pick up the container, a phalanx-er raised a hidden gun
and fired. Max dived out of the way, rolling and coming up into a kneeling
stance.
Tim, in the middle of the
room, froze for a second, then dived behind a table. He had the clearest shot,
the scientists formed a human shield between the phalanx and Max, and he came
up firing, taking out the leader and one other.
He watched them go down, and
thought vaguely that that was the first time he had taken a life. He thought it
might disturb him more than that.
Two other familiars dove for
their weapons and fired, not caring that the scientists were in the middle.
Five of the seven scientists fell in seconds, killed by their own kind. Max
pressed herself against the wall of the tunnel, her mind racing for a plan.
>>>>>
The delivery of the
familiars complete, Shay and Storm were heading back to the hill when they
heard the shots ring out. Instantly, both started running, heading for the
manhole that Alec and Ray had taken. Shay was the faster runner, and got there
first. He glanced at Storm, who nodded at him.
Shay moved down the ladder,
his weapon still in one hand. When he reached the bottom, Storm moved down and
the two quickly set off down the tunnel, slowing only when they noticed the
sharp change in direction.
<Max, we’re in the other
tunnel> Shay whispered, frantically, desperate to let her know they were
coming.
<Three phalanx two
scientists left> she told him, returning fire, and trying to see where Tim
was all at the same time.
Tim crouched behind a desk,
using it as cover. He fired twice more, missing both times, and also alerting
the remaining phalanx to his position. He was scared, more scared than he had ever
been. This was too real for him. He wasn’t ready for this, but he was also
determined not to fail the others.
Two rounds hit the desk in
front of him, tearing holes in the wood. He had to move. The other tunnel was
much closer to him than Max, and Shay and Storm were coming that way. He dove
for the tunnel, firing a shot as distraction, and disappeared into the
darkness, carrying the container of poison.
Max saw him move, and
stepped out into the room again, trying to draw fire, make a distraction for
him. She took out one of the phalanx before retreating back into her tunnel.
They were going to be coming after her at any moment, and she was getting
really low on ammo.
>>>
Pain ripped through his body
as Alec tried to move. He knew he was hurt badly, largely due to the fact that
he was lying in a pool of blood. His head felt like someone had taken a
sledgehammer to it, repeatedly. It was so hard to move, so much easier to lie
there and do nothing but enjoy the blackness that was starting to fill the
edges of his vision. Yet he had to move. He heard footsteps coming towards him,
and struggled to kneel, then to stand, using the tunnel wall as leverage. The
footsteps got louder, and Alec reached for his gun. It wasn’t there. The
phalanx had taken it. He had nothing.
Even breathing hurt. It
would be so easy to just lie back down, slide to the ground along the wall.
Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much. They would understand, all of them. He had
tried, he just couldn’t do it.
No, screw that. He took a step,
then another. The dizziness, so intense at first, seemed to go away slightly.
>>>>>
Tim moved quickly down the
corridor, turning back constantly to make sure he wasn’t followed. He had shot
two men. The others would be coming.
But Shay and Storm were also
coming, and they would help him. He would complete his part of the mission,
getting the poison away. He wouldn’t let them down.
Then he heard a noise, ahead
of him. He put the container down, and slid it against the wall.
<Shay?> he asked, praying
that it was them.
“No. unfortunately for you”
came the answer. A Phalanx soldier appeared in front of Tim, his weapon raised.
“Gun down, boy.”
Terrified, Tim lowered his
weapon.
“Game over” said the
familiar, aiming the weapon.
“Hey” Alec yelled, appearing
out of the shadows, and moving forward towards them. The soldier turned
slightly, and Alec forced his body to run, to attack the soldier.
He was about two paces from
the soldier when he felt something in his knee snap, and his whole leg give
way. Alec cried out, collapsing to the ground, his whole leg burning with pain.
He tried to move it, regain his feet, but it wouldn’t respond to him. He
couldn’t get it to move. The soldier raised his gun and Tim, seeing the
soldier’s attention slip, leapt for the man, his side kick sending him flying.
>>>>>
Max was in serious trouble. She couldn’t do anything without making herself a target. She could retreat, but she needed to go forward, to follow Tim, and to find out what had happened to Alec. She had about three rounds of ammo left. Then things started slowing down. Literally. She felt her heart begin to race, and she got the feeling she was moving a lot faster than her opponents. She leant out, and fired her three shots, at the same time, blazing across the room. She took out one soldier with a jumping side kick, sending him flying back against the wall.
>>>>>
Shay and Storm heard the
noises up ahead.
“Alec” Storm whispered,
recognising the voice, and they both sprinted towards it. They got there in
time to see Alec go down, and Tim hit the soldier.
As Tim backed off, Shay
pulled his trigger, hitting the soldier square in the chest.
“Stay” Storm told him,
jumping the body, and running for the end of the tunnel.
Shay looked at the body, to
check it was dead, then turned to Alec and Tim. He fell to his knees beside
Alec, and touched his shoulder.
Storm made it to the lab in
time to see Max move, faster than he had ever seen anyone. She send the one
soldier flying into a wall, knocking him out instantly, and turned to the
other, who was raising his gun.
Storm fired first. The
soldier collapsed, blood pouring from a shoulder wound.
“Don’t kill him” Max
ordered, grabbing some rope and tying him and the remaining scientist up, while
Storm covered her.
“I want answers from these
guys.” Storm nodded. “Did you get Tim?” she asked
“Yeah. He’s fine. But Alec’s
hurt bad.”
Max’s heart stopped. She was
afraid to ask the next question. “He’s alive?”
“Think so. We heard him cry
out, few seconds ago. Looks bad though” Storm looked quickly around the room,
to check for any other familiars, then headed back to the tunnel. Max followed
quickly.
“Shay?” Storm called, trying
to warn his friend they were coming. There was no response. “Tim?”
“No” Max gasped. She caught
sight of Alec lying on the ground, and ran to him, falling to the ground beside
him. He was alone. “Alec?” she whispered, touching his face lightly. Blood ran
down his face, covering one side of it completely. She moved her fingers to his
neck, searching for a pulse. It was there, but very weak. “Oh God” she
muttered.
“Max” She looked up. Storm
stood there, holding his tracker in one hand. His face was ashen. “I left them
here, Shay and Tim. They’re gone.” He showed her the screen. It showed the two
familiars in the lab, the two of them, and a very weak reading from Alec. That
was it.
Max leant over Alec, the
tears running down her face mixing with the blood on his. They had succeeded,
but they had failed also. They had lost Shay, Tim, Ray, and possibly Alec too.
Too many casualties.
Alec’s words returned to
her. “We will win, Max, I swear to you, whatever it takes.” The price was just
too high.