A/N: This just sort of came to me, so I don't know how good it is. Lemme
know!
A/N: This is set sometime after The Kids Are Aiight
A/N: I really don't like using bad language, but I've been told that in my other DA fic I don't really characterize Max right, so I'm willing to make an exception to try to make her actually sound like Max in this one.
Max staggered to the counter, cursing herself, her life, Manticore, and whatever deities actually existed---including but not limited to the Blue Lady---as she felt her body continuing its uncontrolled spasms. You'd think that after spending millions of dollars making us they'd have been smart enough make us without any physical defects, she grumbled to herself as another seizure racked her body.
"Are you all right?" the young Asian woman asked her, concerned, as Max grabbed the proffered bottle of Tryptophan from her outstretched hand, quickly dry-swallowing seven of them, waiting for the seizures to lessen or stop. When they only slowed slightly, she took another five before turning to her supplier.
"Thanks," she gasped, knowing that, as always, the woman was wondering how she seemed to have formed an addiction to a food supplement. Max pulled a wad of bills from her pocket, thrusting it at her before she turned to stagger away, leaning heavily on her bike. It was already past dusk, and Max knew there was no way she would make it home safely in her condition. She considered and rejected the idea of trying to get to Logan's place; she probably couldn't make it anyway, and she'd most likely get pulled over by a cop for loitering in one of the wealthiest sectors.
She weaved her way down several streets, looking for someplace out of the way that she could settle down and wait for the seizures to stop. A dingy bar caught her eye. The Drunken Dog, she thought wryly, fits my frame of mind. She headed toward it purposefully.
* * * * * * *
Donald Lydecker sat in the dingy bar---The Drunken Dog, he thought, fits my frame of mind perfectly---nursing his first beer. He wasn't supposed to be here; his superiors would probably throw a fit if they knew that he was violating his AA program and drinking, but at the moment he didn't care. Their disapproval of his drinking would be much less than their disapproval of his failure to capture the escaped X5s---his kids---anyways. He still didn't know where things had gone wrong. He had been doing so well; he had found out what Max and Zack looked like, he had caught Brin, he had then caught Zack, he had found a way to get Zack to reveal the location of the others...and then everything had gone drastically wrong. Max had rescued Zack, as he'd hoped. He had obviously underestimated both of them, though, not to realize that they'd find the tracker he had had inserted into Zack's head.
Then, of course, there was Eyes Only's involvement. What did he have to do with any of this? Saving ese have to do with any of this?into Zack' them, though, not to realize that they'a way to get Zack to reveal the locatiocaped genetically engineered killing machines wasn't his usual type of job at all. No, he mused, he must know one of them. He took another swig of his drink. The higher ups weren't very happy with him right now, and he wasn't too happy with himself. He had no more leads on Max, now. There was no way she was still in Seattle after everything that had happened there; she had been trained to keep moving. Zack could be anywhere in the world, now, and all the other X5s had left their locations as soon as Eyes Only's broadcast had gone out.
He would have been nearly back to square one, except at least this time he had Brin, and she had been successfully reprogrammed.
He was lost in his musings when he vaguely noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a young woman lurch to the counter, barely grabbing it in time to keep from falling. Lydecker sighed. There had been a time, once, before the pulse, when a woman her age couldn't just go into a bar and get a drink. She would have at least had to show a little creativity to find a way to buy alcohol when she was underage. Now, though, nobody cared. In fact, the way she was moving, it looked like she had already had too much to drink. He stared dissolutely into his cup.
"M-milk," he heard the girl stammer, and his head instantly shot up. He had an incredible memory for faces and voices, and he had already recognized that voice once before. He eyed her discretely. He was disappointed that she hadn't scanned the room and seen him inside before she had entered. But then, he thought, Max has obviously done her best to forget everything Manticore taught her, since she's still in Seattle. He noted the way that her body was spasming, and he realized that she was having a seizure. That explained the milk.
What should he do now? Seizures or not, there was no way he could make a movement as big as taking out his cell phone to call for his tac team without her noticing. He had two options: he could take her out at gunpoint, which would be problematic if anyone noticed since he didn't have his badge with him to show that he worked for the government, or he could bluff to try to get her outside, then take her at gunpoint. He decided to try the second tactic.
"Hello, Max," he said pleasantly. Her head whipped up, and she stared at him in shock, her bloodshot eyes wide open.
She downed her milk quickly, obviously trying to ensure that she was as fit as possible for the confrontation that she knew was coming. "Why, Don," she exclaimed in a falsely welcoming voice, putting an emphasis on the insolent "Don." "Fancy meeting you here." She looked at the glass in his hand. "Although I'm disappointed that you're giving in to weakness," she spat the word. "All that crap you always taught about not giving in, and here you are, drowning your sorrows in a bottle?"
"Give it up, Max," he said in a hard voice. "My TAC team has the bar surrounded. And, while I'm sure that usually you could find a way to escape---"
"I've done it before," she interrupted roughly.
He ignored her, "You're obviously suffering from seizures. You're weak right now; there's no way you could escape in this state. A good soldier knows when to accept defeat, 452."
She stared hard at him, and he could tell by the tense alertness in her posture that she believed him. He could also tell the exact moment when she called his bluff, when she let herself relax and sink back onto her stool, her eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. "You really had me going there for a minute, Donald," she spat. "But, you see, there's no way you could have gotten a team here so quickly without me noticing. I've never been to this bar before, so you can't have been waiting for me, and, frankly, none of your men are good enough to have followed me here without me noticing." This rather sarcastic speech was marred by numerous pauses as she seized and temporarily lost the ability to speak.
Lydecker felt his annoyance grow. There was no way she was walking free from this meeting. "But you should believe me," he said with a hint of menace, "when I tell you that I can get a team here fast enough to catch you before you could walk half a mile. In fact, in your current state, I could probably take you myself."
She scoffed in that infuriating bad-ass way of hers. "As if. Obviously your scientists weren't completely incompetent; even at my worst I could take you. And I'd rather die than go back to Manticore." So saying, she brought her milk glass down, hard, on the table top, baring her teeth in a grin as it shattered. Then, she swung at him, using a large shard of the glass as a weapon. Because of the seizure-induced sluggishness of her movements, he was able to move out of the way of her swing, although the glass nicked him on the cheek. In one smooth motion, he yanked out his gun, pointing it at her.
"You're coming with me, Max," he said, his voice full of quiet intensity, lifting his free hand to wipe away the drops of blood which had congealed on his cheek.
Suddenly, there was a loud sound of a rifle cocking, and both combatants turned in shock to face the bartender, who now had an intimidating rifle pointed in their general direction. "Nobody's going anywhere," he said. "Nobody brawls in my bar and gets away with it. The cops'll take care of you two." His eyes narrowed as he looked straight at Lydecker. "Drop your little toy, or I'll shoot."
Lydecker sighed. He didn't have his badge with him to prove that he was a government agent. Could this day get any worse? He let the gun drop to the ground. He and Max stood there, side by side, as they listened to the approaching sirens.
* * * * * *
"What I don't understand," Max snarled as she paced the small cell, her still-trembling body moving gracefully like a cat on the prowl, "Is why they would stick two people arrested for just trying to KILL each other in the same cell!" She slammed her hand against the wall, and smiled as bits of plaster rained down from the ceiling on Lydecker's head. That smile quickly changed to a grimace of pain as she sank down to the ground, curling into a ball as she felt her seizures take over her body again. The police had confiscated their possessions when they were arrested, including both Lydecker's cell phone, and Max's pills.
"I wasn't trying to kill you, Max," Lydecker replied, somewhat miffed, as he sat uncomfortably on the bottom bunk bed in the cell. "Do you think I could do that to you? To any of you? I just want you kids back where you belong."
She snorted from her position on the ground. "Yeah, well, Dad, the pay sucked and the management was about as awful as it could get." She glared pointedly in his direction.rred by numerous pauses as she seized and temporarily lost the ability to speak.tared hard at him, and he could tell by the tense alertness in her posture that she believed him. was spasming, and he realized that she was having a seizure. , out of the corner of his eye, a young woman stagger up Any further comments were cut off by another bout of violent seizing, and, for the first time, Lydecker looked at her in concern.
"Are you all right?" he surprised himself by asking. He knew all about the seizures some of the X5s experienced; autopsies of the first five or so who had developed them had led to the eventual discovery of the cure. Max had almost been the fourth victim; he could be honest with himself about that. When the trainers had noticed her seizures, they were supposed to take her away so experiments could be done on her to see what sort of treatments should be administered for the serotonin deficiency. Instead, her overly protective "siblings" had instigated a revolt, running away. She looked just as surprised by the question.
"Why? Afraid your science experiment is going to blow up before you can get it back to the lab?" she groaned out between gritted teeth, barely able to keep herself from moaning from the pain.
He rolled his eyes, knowing that she couldn't see him. There was that X5 wit that Manticore had accidentally created. The twelve X5s that had escaped back in '09 were the ones who had always had the most skill and independence; after the other X5s who hadn't escaped were...simplified...the escapees were the only ones left with that tendency to make biting, sarcastic comments, or to respond to an order with anything other than a "Yes, sir!" Even Brin, who had been successfully brainwashed, but who had previously spent ten years on the outside, had more life to her than the automatons he usually had to deal with. The escapees were his real kids.
With surprising gentleness, Lydecker took Max by the arm, trying to get her to stand and walk the few steps required to lie down on the cot. They got one step before Max's legs gave up and she fell heavily on him, and he staggered under her weight. Nevertheless, he kept his feet well enough to propel her into the bed. She collapsed onto the bed, letting out a sigh of relief as her pained body relaxed on the thin mattress, but then her eyes snapped back open, her eyes darting around wildly.
Lydecker knew what she was thinking. "Look," he said patronizingly, "You can have the top bunk if you think you can make it up there. Otherwise, I'm not carrying you up there. And I promise I'm not going drop down on you while you're asleep in the middle of the night to attack you; it would be tactically premature, anyways."
"I don't sleep," she snapped defiantly, even as her body belied her words, her eyes sinking closed again.
He didn't bother gracing that comment with a response, instead climbing the rickety ladder to the top bunk, relaxing on it as he tried not to imagine who the previous occupants of this bed had been. And trying not to think how he was going to get out of this predicament with Max still in his custody.
* * * * * *
He was woken several hours later when he heard Max crying out from the bed below him. He listened to what she was staying in her hallucinating state.
"Why the hell did I save his life?" she cried. Then, in response to a voice only she could hear, she continued, "Not because it was the right thing! I don't have a heart, Logan! God! Logan, it hurts! Stay with me, please!" He heard her turn over in her sleep, and realized that whatever nightmare she was having was over for now.
Even as he settled down to go back to sleep, he found himself wondering. Wondering about the chivalrous, wheelchair-bound hero Logan Cale who had rescued the women at the genetics conference. Wondering just why Darius' men who had taken the genetics conference hostage hadn't killed him. Wondering if Max had had something to do with that.
* * * * * *
Max must have gotten up before him, he thought, since by the time he woke in the morning she had reclaimed her spot curled in a ball on the floor, her body shaking even more violently than it had been last night.
He felt that annoying stirring of concern again as he noted her slightly grey pallor. It's just because she's no good to me dead, he told himself. He was content to sit on the bed and observe her as he waited for a guard to come.
She looked remarkably like his dead wife, although he was sure he would never tell her that. Of all the X5s, she was the one whom he truly thought of as a daughter. She had been special to him when she was back at Manticore; he had always been impressed by the way that she had somehow discovered the concept of names, and had then given one to each of the soldiers in her unit. Her time in the real world had given her an edge, though, which certainly couldn't be found in Manticore, and which caused him to take even more of an interest in her.
He thought back to all the times she had barely escaped capture by him; from the time when he had actually looked her in the eye, then dismissed her, thinking she was one of her men, to the time when she went to jail when she was caught trying to steal tryptophan, to the occasion when he had both her and Zack locked in a cell and she had managed to fool the guards into letting her out.
None of the other escapees had ever eluded him so many times; but then, that was because none of the others gave him so many opportunities. The others all kept moving; after a single encounter with Lydecker and his men they could be relied upon to hightail it out of wherever they were. Not Max, though. She appeared to have glued herself to Seattle, and she refused to leave even though she knew it would get her killed one day. Eyes Only. The thought suddenly struck him. Eyes Only had saved the X5s after Max had realized that Lydecker had listened to her conversation with Zack. Eyes Only was based in Seattle. Of course.
His thoughts were interrupted when a guard came to the bars, sliding two platters of disgusting-looking slop through a small door. He turned to go, but Lydecker called after him, "Wait! When am I getting out of here?"
The guard grinned repulsively at him. "No time soon. You made a mistake picking a fight at the Drunken Dog; the bartender there's a friend of mine and the rest of the police force. He wants us to make an example of ya, so that's what we're going to do." He turned to go again, but Lydecker's menacing command voice compelled him to stop.
"At least give me the girl's medication," he said, gesturing to Max, who was now lying utterly still. Lydecker was afraid she was about to go into a coma. "She'll die without them."
The guard looked at him, considering, before turning and leaving. A few minutes later, he returned with the bottle of Tryptophan, and handed it to Lydecker, saying, "Probably just crack anyways. Although why you should care about what state she's in, after she tried to kill you, I don't know."
Lydecker poured a number of the pills into his hand, then gently opened Max's mouth, placing them inside, then closing her mouth. "Come on, Max," he urged. "You need to swallow." He watched as her throat swallowed convulsively.
Five minutes later, her eyes opened blearily, and she sat up, rubbing her forehead with her hand. "What the..." her voice trailed away as her forehead scrunched up. She looked around at her surroundings, obviously trying to remember where she was and how she had gotten there.
"You're welcome for the Tryptophan," Lydecker said, watching as she jerked her head around to look at him.
She groaned. "Meeting you couldn't have just been a nightmare, could it? Just my luck."
He clucked disapprovingly at her. "Didn't I teach you kids there's no such thing as luck? Success depends on a well-thought-out plan that's carried through with precision. You got careless; you got caught."
She glared at him. "Riiight," she drew the word out. "And you're not stuck in this cell with me, Don?"
"Unfortunately," he retorted, then winced as he heard how childish he sounded.
"Hey, there's worse people you could be stuck with," Max snapped. "At least you don't have to put up with your own company."
"Now, Max," Lydecker smiled, "Is that any way to talk to the person who has your tryptophan and who can decide whether or not to give it to you?" He waved the bottle of Tryptophan enticingly.
She pretended to look lost for a minute, dropping her gaze to the floor, and he narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. Then, suddenly, in a move so fast he couldn't follow it with his eyes, she sprung up from the floor, grabbing the bottle with one hand and his wrist with the other, forcing him to let go. She retreated to her side of the cell, gulping down a few more pills. "Nice try, Donald," she sassed. "I'm sure last night that trick might have actually worked. But now, the bitch is back."
* * * * * *
They spent half an hour in complete silence, Max sitting on the floor and Lydecker ruminating on the cot. Max spent the next half hour prowling the small cage, her muscles coiled, ready to spring should any opportunity present itself. Finally, she ground out, "What the hell is taking so long? It was just a little brawl, there's no way we should be stuck in here for a full day!"
Lydecker smirked, enjoying knowing something she didn't. "Turns out we both picked the wrong bar to pick a fight in. The barkeep's bribed the police to make an example of us so that no one else decides to brawl in his bar."
Her eyes widened in outrage. "You mean I'm stuck here?" she demanded. He nodded. "With YOU? No way, I'm getting out of here." Even as she said the words, she started trembling again, and she collapsed on the floor. "This isn't happening," she moaned.
The rest of that day, the seizures subsided slightly but continually came back, each time not quite as strongly as the previous ones, but strong enough to keep her from attempting to escape. The most effective prison was her own body.
After the first hour of silence, Max demanded, "Won't your men come looking for you? I mean, you work for the government, for Christ's sake! How could they not get you out?"
He had the grace to look embarrassed. "I didn't tell anyone where I was going, I took the cell phone with me that almost no one knows about, and I went to a bar, the last place anyone would look for me. I'll get out of here because the police will let me go long before my men---whom you know from experience are often incompetent---find me. What about you? Won't your rich journalist boyfriend, Mr. Cale, isn't it, come rescue you?"
She looked shocked when he mentioned Logan's name, but she said, defensively, "Logan is not my boyfriend! And there's no way he'll find me here; I left my beeper at home, and, even though I sometimes go to a rather seedy bar, I never go to one as bad as the one I got caught in last night."
They were both scrupulously avoiding the word "we."
They spent another hour in silence.
Max exercised, frantically doing push-ups and situps in between bouts of seizures, as Lydecker tried to look on surreptiously, intrigued by the fact that she still adhered to some of what Manticore had taught, at least.
Max tried to nap, but failed. Lydecker meditated.
Finally, bored out of their minds and incredibly uncomfortable in each other's presence, they reluctantly played a game of verbal chess, each forced to remember in their heads what the board looked like as they said aloud where they moved their pieces. They were both pleasantly surprised to find that they were fairly evenly matched. Max was a genius, of course, and was born an exceptional strategist, but Lydecker's experience leveled out the playing field, so to speak. He won, but barely. Max won the next round. They called it a draw, and three hours had passed.
The guard brought in lunch, and both prisoners ignored the slop.
Finally, they talked.
"Brin is doing well," Lydecker began.
Max cut him off with a quick gesture. "You took advantage of her weakness to brainwash her," she said, "But I'll get her back some day. Once you get a taste of freedom, there's no going back, is there, Don?"
"I'll admit she was very recalcitrant---at the beginning," he conceded. "But she's really very happy where she is now. Brin is content back at Manticore."
Max smiled mirthlessly. "But you still think of her as Brin, don't you, Don? Doesn't that kinda go against everything you've been trying to convince me of? She's not just a number to you---you and I both know she's a person."
Lydecker's features hardened as he tried to remedy his mistake. "She's not just a number, no. But she's not human, either. Brin is a soldier, bred and trained to kill. As is Zack. As are you. Do you really think you can be happy, living some pointless existence like the humans in this world, never using your abilities to their full capacity?"
"Actually," she said with a mischievous grin, a thoughtful look on her face, "I've found that cat-burgling uses many of the skills taught at Manticore, with many more benefits." She could hear his teeth grind at the thought of Manticore technology wasted on petty theft.
"Do you really feel satisfied doing that?" he demanded. "Knowing that, instead, you could be out serving your country, fighting for the greater good?"
She laughed outright at that. "Is that what you tell the soldiers who stayed behind, Don? First, this country is corrupt, ugly, and decrepit as an aged politician, and I don't owe it any loyalty. Second, did you honestly tell the soldier that you had assassinate the Pope that it was for the greater good? There are good causes to fight for here in Seattle; I don't need to go to Manticore to have it tell me which causes are 'good' ones based on its own wack sense of morals."
"So you have gotten yourself involved in Eyes Only's 'good causes'," Lydecker mused aloud. "You know that the fact that you've done so just shows that you're looking for a substitute for Manticore; you're trying to find a similar outlet for your energies."
"Don't start psychoanalyzing me," Max snarled. "If I were looking for a Manticore substitute, I would go work for the most sadistic bastard I could find, and I'd follow his orders to commit atrocities without blinking. Working for Eyes Only---and I'm not admitting that I do---would be the exact opposite of that."
He arched an eyebrow. "If you insist."
Max decided that this would be a good point for her to take the upper hand in the conversation. "You know, Donald," she said conversationally, "I'm surprised that you haven't found your wife's killers. I mean, I know you have a twisted sense of what a good cause is, but certainly even you would think that the death of your wife was a bad thing?"
His eyes glared daggers at her. "There were no more leads to follow," he said, his voice at once angry and dejected. "And I won't abuse Manticore technology to try a fruitless search to avenge her."
Seeing how lost he looked, Max almost felt a stab of sympathy. Don't let up on him, she told herself. You've got him off-balance. "There weren't any leads, Don, or you didn't bother looking very hard? I mean, you found leads on where I was, and I covered my tracks good, at least in the beginning. Naw, I think you just never really loved her. She was just...convenient."
She was startled when he threw a punch at her, so surprised, in fact, that she didn't move out of the way. She felt his fist impact hard on her teeth, and felt her head snap back. "Never doubt my love for her," he hissed. "Never."
Max lifted her head, giving him a slow smile. "You don't even know what love is, you manipulative, careless, unfeeling, sadistic, cruel jerk." Her mind kept flashing unwanted memories at her: images of Eva being shot by him, of Jack being cut up and Lydecker calmly sipping a coffee and watching. In a quick movement, she had his throat in her hands, and she squeezed tightly enough for him to know that she could deprive him of oxygen long enough for him to die, or, if she got bored, she could also snap his neck with one hand. "And you should keep in mind, Don, that if I were the mindless killing machine you seem to think I should be, you'd be dead by now." She released him, pushing him away from her.
They ignored each other for the rest of the evening, each lost in their own thoughts.
At 2200, Lydecker said quietly, "I'm going to bed. I suggest that you do the same."
"You're not my father, Don," she said. "And, like I said, I don't sleep."
"Come on, Max," he said tiredly. "The act may work with the boys, but I know everything there is to know about your DNA. Shark DNA only gets you so far; with seizures like yours, sleep isn't just helpful, it's necessary."
She stared at him for a long moment. Why was he telling her this? What benefit was there to him if she slept? He wouldn't kill her while she slept, so what else did he have planned? "Fine," she said shortly. "But I take the top bunk."
So saying, she climbed onto the top bunk and quickly lost herself to sleep.
Lydecker did the same.
* * * * * *
Some hours later, Lydecker was again woken by Max's nightly noises. No wonder she doesn't sleep, he thought, annoyed. She can't get any rest, with the nightmares she has.
"Jondy, get out! Go! Don't wait for me," she sobbed above him. "It's so cold, so cold, I'm freezing to death...Blue Lady, what did we do wrong? Why is this happening? No! Zack, save yourself! Ben, Tinga, Seth, where are you? I can't see you!" Lydecker heard her tossing and turning above him. Then there was a very brief silence, during which he thought she had gone back to peaceful sleep, before he suddenly saw a dark shadow fall past his bed, landing on the ground next to him with a loud THUMP.
"Ugh," she groaned, as she slowly sat up. "I thought you said you weren't going to try to kill me during the night," she said groggily.
He surprised himself with a chuckle. "I didn't; anything that happened to you was your own doing," he informed her.
She just shook her head, her brain still muddled. "Whatever happened to cats landing on their feet?" she slurred. She looked up at the top bunk bed, decided it was too much effort to climb back up---especially since she would probably just end up back at the bottom, and she settled down on the floor to sleep.
Lydecker watched her for a while before going back to sleep. She looked so peaceful, he thought. None of her sarcasm or eternal fear were apparent on her relaxed face. When he had seen and talked to her for the first time in ten years, when he had met her at the genetics conference, he had mistaken her for a middle-class magazine writer who had grown up just like all middle-class children. After, he had wondered how he had ever mistaken her for a content, blissfully ignorant woman. Now, looking at her innocent, slumbering face, he knew that the mistake he had made was a valid one. She could fool anyone into thinking she was innocent, with that face.
* * * * * *
This time, Max woke up after Lydecker. She was surprised to find herself covered by a thin blanket from one of the cots. She sat up to find Lydecker pensively watching her.
Before she could speak, he said, "You're wrong about me not knowing how to love," he told her. "I loved my wife very much. In my eyes, she approached perfection. When she died, her death broke me, drove me to do all the things I had always despised. I started to drink, to become irresponsible, to be unreliable at work. I told myself that it was foolish to love, that it only destroyed people, but I couldn't keep myself from doing it. Why do you think I was so hard on all of you at Manticore? Why do you think I've always taught so vehemently not to love?"
There was a long pause as she took in his words. "You were wrong, Lydecker," she said quietly at last. "Love is not a bad thing, it's not a poison. Love is what makes us strong, and it's only when the things we love are gone that we become weak. Why do you think my brothers and sisters and I ran away? Because we had the strongest bonds of love between us of all the units of X5s. That's why we've spent so long looking for each other, too: because we care about each other, and that can never be a bad thing."
They gazed directly into each other's eyes, and both was forced to admit to themselves that they had an understanding about something. Both had lost much to love, but they remained strong in the struggle. Their brief moment of connection was lost when the cell doors were abruptly pulled open. They both glanced up to see the guard ushering them out.
"Out you go," he said gruffly. He looked at them both with something like respect. "Looks like both of you have friends in high places." He led them back into the prison waiting room, where they were both given their affects, and then they were greeted by their respective rescuers.
Lydecker was looking at one of his many minions, a man who had always seemed unexceptional. Still, if he had managed to find him in only a day or so, perhaps there was something more to him.
"Hey," Max said quietly, a small, welcoming, just-for-Logan smile on her face.
"Hey," he said back. He broke his eye contact with her to find Lydecker staring straight at him. "Are we going to be able to get out of here?" he asked Max, not taking his eyes off of the man he had come to hate on Max's behalf.
Lydecker smiled. "Well, Max, you're in much better condition now. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to get a team here before you and your...friend can get away." The look Lydecker was giving Logan was something frightening. It said, Don't break her heart, or I'll make sure you die a slow, lingering death.
Max was staring at her nemesis in something like respect, even as Lydecker's lackey gaped at the exchange. She arched an eyebrow. "I gotta blaze," she said happily. "I'm late for work today, and I missed yesterday, it'll take a few minutes extra whining for me to keep my job. You ready to go, my knight in shining armor?" She mock-batted her eyelashes at him.
He chuckled, rolling himself behind her as she sauntered from the building.
Lydecker turned to his appalled lackey. "What?"
The man gaped. "Sir? Wasn't that X5-452? Don't you want to go after her?"
He smiled. "Seattle is her home. It's where the man she loves lives. She's not going anywhere."
A/N: This is set sometime after The Kids Are Aiight
A/N: I really don't like using bad language, but I've been told that in my other DA fic I don't really characterize Max right, so I'm willing to make an exception to try to make her actually sound like Max in this one.
Max staggered to the counter, cursing herself, her life, Manticore, and whatever deities actually existed---including but not limited to the Blue Lady---as she felt her body continuing its uncontrolled spasms. You'd think that after spending millions of dollars making us they'd have been smart enough make us without any physical defects, she grumbled to herself as another seizure racked her body.
"Are you all right?" the young Asian woman asked her, concerned, as Max grabbed the proffered bottle of Tryptophan from her outstretched hand, quickly dry-swallowing seven of them, waiting for the seizures to lessen or stop. When they only slowed slightly, she took another five before turning to her supplier.
"Thanks," she gasped, knowing that, as always, the woman was wondering how she seemed to have formed an addiction to a food supplement. Max pulled a wad of bills from her pocket, thrusting it at her before she turned to stagger away, leaning heavily on her bike. It was already past dusk, and Max knew there was no way she would make it home safely in her condition. She considered and rejected the idea of trying to get to Logan's place; she probably couldn't make it anyway, and she'd most likely get pulled over by a cop for loitering in one of the wealthiest sectors.
She weaved her way down several streets, looking for someplace out of the way that she could settle down and wait for the seizures to stop. A dingy bar caught her eye. The Drunken Dog, she thought wryly, fits my frame of mind. She headed toward it purposefully.
* * * * * * *
Donald Lydecker sat in the dingy bar---The Drunken Dog, he thought, fits my frame of mind perfectly---nursing his first beer. He wasn't supposed to be here; his superiors would probably throw a fit if they knew that he was violating his AA program and drinking, but at the moment he didn't care. Their disapproval of his drinking would be much less than their disapproval of his failure to capture the escaped X5s---his kids---anyways. He still didn't know where things had gone wrong. He had been doing so well; he had found out what Max and Zack looked like, he had caught Brin, he had then caught Zack, he had found a way to get Zack to reveal the location of the others...and then everything had gone drastically wrong. Max had rescued Zack, as he'd hoped. He had obviously underestimated both of them, though, not to realize that they'd find the tracker he had had inserted into Zack's head.
Then, of course, there was Eyes Only's involvement. What did he have to do with any of this? Saving ese have to do with any of this?into Zack' them, though, not to realize that they'a way to get Zack to reveal the locatiocaped genetically engineered killing machines wasn't his usual type of job at all. No, he mused, he must know one of them. He took another swig of his drink. The higher ups weren't very happy with him right now, and he wasn't too happy with himself. He had no more leads on Max, now. There was no way she was still in Seattle after everything that had happened there; she had been trained to keep moving. Zack could be anywhere in the world, now, and all the other X5s had left their locations as soon as Eyes Only's broadcast had gone out.
He would have been nearly back to square one, except at least this time he had Brin, and she had been successfully reprogrammed.
He was lost in his musings when he vaguely noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a young woman lurch to the counter, barely grabbing it in time to keep from falling. Lydecker sighed. There had been a time, once, before the pulse, when a woman her age couldn't just go into a bar and get a drink. She would have at least had to show a little creativity to find a way to buy alcohol when she was underage. Now, though, nobody cared. In fact, the way she was moving, it looked like she had already had too much to drink. He stared dissolutely into his cup.
"M-milk," he heard the girl stammer, and his head instantly shot up. He had an incredible memory for faces and voices, and he had already recognized that voice once before. He eyed her discretely. He was disappointed that she hadn't scanned the room and seen him inside before she had entered. But then, he thought, Max has obviously done her best to forget everything Manticore taught her, since she's still in Seattle. He noted the way that her body was spasming, and he realized that she was having a seizure. That explained the milk.
What should he do now? Seizures or not, there was no way he could make a movement as big as taking out his cell phone to call for his tac team without her noticing. He had two options: he could take her out at gunpoint, which would be problematic if anyone noticed since he didn't have his badge with him to show that he worked for the government, or he could bluff to try to get her outside, then take her at gunpoint. He decided to try the second tactic.
"Hello, Max," he said pleasantly. Her head whipped up, and she stared at him in shock, her bloodshot eyes wide open.
She downed her milk quickly, obviously trying to ensure that she was as fit as possible for the confrontation that she knew was coming. "Why, Don," she exclaimed in a falsely welcoming voice, putting an emphasis on the insolent "Don." "Fancy meeting you here." She looked at the glass in his hand. "Although I'm disappointed that you're giving in to weakness," she spat the word. "All that crap you always taught about not giving in, and here you are, drowning your sorrows in a bottle?"
"Give it up, Max," he said in a hard voice. "My TAC team has the bar surrounded. And, while I'm sure that usually you could find a way to escape---"
"I've done it before," she interrupted roughly.
He ignored her, "You're obviously suffering from seizures. You're weak right now; there's no way you could escape in this state. A good soldier knows when to accept defeat, 452."
She stared hard at him, and he could tell by the tense alertness in her posture that she believed him. He could also tell the exact moment when she called his bluff, when she let herself relax and sink back onto her stool, her eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. "You really had me going there for a minute, Donald," she spat. "But, you see, there's no way you could have gotten a team here so quickly without me noticing. I've never been to this bar before, so you can't have been waiting for me, and, frankly, none of your men are good enough to have followed me here without me noticing." This rather sarcastic speech was marred by numerous pauses as she seized and temporarily lost the ability to speak.
Lydecker felt his annoyance grow. There was no way she was walking free from this meeting. "But you should believe me," he said with a hint of menace, "when I tell you that I can get a team here fast enough to catch you before you could walk half a mile. In fact, in your current state, I could probably take you myself."
She scoffed in that infuriating bad-ass way of hers. "As if. Obviously your scientists weren't completely incompetent; even at my worst I could take you. And I'd rather die than go back to Manticore." So saying, she brought her milk glass down, hard, on the table top, baring her teeth in a grin as it shattered. Then, she swung at him, using a large shard of the glass as a weapon. Because of the seizure-induced sluggishness of her movements, he was able to move out of the way of her swing, although the glass nicked him on the cheek. In one smooth motion, he yanked out his gun, pointing it at her.
"You're coming with me, Max," he said, his voice full of quiet intensity, lifting his free hand to wipe away the drops of blood which had congealed on his cheek.
Suddenly, there was a loud sound of a rifle cocking, and both combatants turned in shock to face the bartender, who now had an intimidating rifle pointed in their general direction. "Nobody's going anywhere," he said. "Nobody brawls in my bar and gets away with it. The cops'll take care of you two." His eyes narrowed as he looked straight at Lydecker. "Drop your little toy, or I'll shoot."
Lydecker sighed. He didn't have his badge with him to prove that he was a government agent. Could this day get any worse? He let the gun drop to the ground. He and Max stood there, side by side, as they listened to the approaching sirens.
* * * * * *
"What I don't understand," Max snarled as she paced the small cell, her still-trembling body moving gracefully like a cat on the prowl, "Is why they would stick two people arrested for just trying to KILL each other in the same cell!" She slammed her hand against the wall, and smiled as bits of plaster rained down from the ceiling on Lydecker's head. That smile quickly changed to a grimace of pain as she sank down to the ground, curling into a ball as she felt her seizures take over her body again. The police had confiscated their possessions when they were arrested, including both Lydecker's cell phone, and Max's pills.
"I wasn't trying to kill you, Max," Lydecker replied, somewhat miffed, as he sat uncomfortably on the bottom bunk bed in the cell. "Do you think I could do that to you? To any of you? I just want you kids back where you belong."
She snorted from her position on the ground. "Yeah, well, Dad, the pay sucked and the management was about as awful as it could get." She glared pointedly in his direction.rred by numerous pauses as she seized and temporarily lost the ability to speak.tared hard at him, and he could tell by the tense alertness in her posture that she believed him. was spasming, and he realized that she was having a seizure. , out of the corner of his eye, a young woman stagger up Any further comments were cut off by another bout of violent seizing, and, for the first time, Lydecker looked at her in concern.
"Are you all right?" he surprised himself by asking. He knew all about the seizures some of the X5s experienced; autopsies of the first five or so who had developed them had led to the eventual discovery of the cure. Max had almost been the fourth victim; he could be honest with himself about that. When the trainers had noticed her seizures, they were supposed to take her away so experiments could be done on her to see what sort of treatments should be administered for the serotonin deficiency. Instead, her overly protective "siblings" had instigated a revolt, running away. She looked just as surprised by the question.
"Why? Afraid your science experiment is going to blow up before you can get it back to the lab?" she groaned out between gritted teeth, barely able to keep herself from moaning from the pain.
He rolled his eyes, knowing that she couldn't see him. There was that X5 wit that Manticore had accidentally created. The twelve X5s that had escaped back in '09 were the ones who had always had the most skill and independence; after the other X5s who hadn't escaped were...simplified...the escapees were the only ones left with that tendency to make biting, sarcastic comments, or to respond to an order with anything other than a "Yes, sir!" Even Brin, who had been successfully brainwashed, but who had previously spent ten years on the outside, had more life to her than the automatons he usually had to deal with. The escapees were his real kids.
With surprising gentleness, Lydecker took Max by the arm, trying to get her to stand and walk the few steps required to lie down on the cot. They got one step before Max's legs gave up and she fell heavily on him, and he staggered under her weight. Nevertheless, he kept his feet well enough to propel her into the bed. She collapsed onto the bed, letting out a sigh of relief as her pained body relaxed on the thin mattress, but then her eyes snapped back open, her eyes darting around wildly.
Lydecker knew what she was thinking. "Look," he said patronizingly, "You can have the top bunk if you think you can make it up there. Otherwise, I'm not carrying you up there. And I promise I'm not going drop down on you while you're asleep in the middle of the night to attack you; it would be tactically premature, anyways."
"I don't sleep," she snapped defiantly, even as her body belied her words, her eyes sinking closed again.
He didn't bother gracing that comment with a response, instead climbing the rickety ladder to the top bunk, relaxing on it as he tried not to imagine who the previous occupants of this bed had been. And trying not to think how he was going to get out of this predicament with Max still in his custody.
* * * * * *
He was woken several hours later when he heard Max crying out from the bed below him. He listened to what she was staying in her hallucinating state.
"Why the hell did I save his life?" she cried. Then, in response to a voice only she could hear, she continued, "Not because it was the right thing! I don't have a heart, Logan! God! Logan, it hurts! Stay with me, please!" He heard her turn over in her sleep, and realized that whatever nightmare she was having was over for now.
Even as he settled down to go back to sleep, he found himself wondering. Wondering about the chivalrous, wheelchair-bound hero Logan Cale who had rescued the women at the genetics conference. Wondering just why Darius' men who had taken the genetics conference hostage hadn't killed him. Wondering if Max had had something to do with that.
* * * * * *
Max must have gotten up before him, he thought, since by the time he woke in the morning she had reclaimed her spot curled in a ball on the floor, her body shaking even more violently than it had been last night.
He felt that annoying stirring of concern again as he noted her slightly grey pallor. It's just because she's no good to me dead, he told himself. He was content to sit on the bed and observe her as he waited for a guard to come.
She looked remarkably like his dead wife, although he was sure he would never tell her that. Of all the X5s, she was the one whom he truly thought of as a daughter. She had been special to him when she was back at Manticore; he had always been impressed by the way that she had somehow discovered the concept of names, and had then given one to each of the soldiers in her unit. Her time in the real world had given her an edge, though, which certainly couldn't be found in Manticore, and which caused him to take even more of an interest in her.
He thought back to all the times she had barely escaped capture by him; from the time when he had actually looked her in the eye, then dismissed her, thinking she was one of her men, to the time when she went to jail when she was caught trying to steal tryptophan, to the occasion when he had both her and Zack locked in a cell and she had managed to fool the guards into letting her out.
None of the other escapees had ever eluded him so many times; but then, that was because none of the others gave him so many opportunities. The others all kept moving; after a single encounter with Lydecker and his men they could be relied upon to hightail it out of wherever they were. Not Max, though. She appeared to have glued herself to Seattle, and she refused to leave even though she knew it would get her killed one day. Eyes Only. The thought suddenly struck him. Eyes Only had saved the X5s after Max had realized that Lydecker had listened to her conversation with Zack. Eyes Only was based in Seattle. Of course.
His thoughts were interrupted when a guard came to the bars, sliding two platters of disgusting-looking slop through a small door. He turned to go, but Lydecker called after him, "Wait! When am I getting out of here?"
The guard grinned repulsively at him. "No time soon. You made a mistake picking a fight at the Drunken Dog; the bartender there's a friend of mine and the rest of the police force. He wants us to make an example of ya, so that's what we're going to do." He turned to go again, but Lydecker's menacing command voice compelled him to stop.
"At least give me the girl's medication," he said, gesturing to Max, who was now lying utterly still. Lydecker was afraid she was about to go into a coma. "She'll die without them."
The guard looked at him, considering, before turning and leaving. A few minutes later, he returned with the bottle of Tryptophan, and handed it to Lydecker, saying, "Probably just crack anyways. Although why you should care about what state she's in, after she tried to kill you, I don't know."
Lydecker poured a number of the pills into his hand, then gently opened Max's mouth, placing them inside, then closing her mouth. "Come on, Max," he urged. "You need to swallow." He watched as her throat swallowed convulsively.
Five minutes later, her eyes opened blearily, and she sat up, rubbing her forehead with her hand. "What the..." her voice trailed away as her forehead scrunched up. She looked around at her surroundings, obviously trying to remember where she was and how she had gotten there.
"You're welcome for the Tryptophan," Lydecker said, watching as she jerked her head around to look at him.
She groaned. "Meeting you couldn't have just been a nightmare, could it? Just my luck."
He clucked disapprovingly at her. "Didn't I teach you kids there's no such thing as luck? Success depends on a well-thought-out plan that's carried through with precision. You got careless; you got caught."
She glared at him. "Riiight," she drew the word out. "And you're not stuck in this cell with me, Don?"
"Unfortunately," he retorted, then winced as he heard how childish he sounded.
"Hey, there's worse people you could be stuck with," Max snapped. "At least you don't have to put up with your own company."
"Now, Max," Lydecker smiled, "Is that any way to talk to the person who has your tryptophan and who can decide whether or not to give it to you?" He waved the bottle of Tryptophan enticingly.
She pretended to look lost for a minute, dropping her gaze to the floor, and he narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. Then, suddenly, in a move so fast he couldn't follow it with his eyes, she sprung up from the floor, grabbing the bottle with one hand and his wrist with the other, forcing him to let go. She retreated to her side of the cell, gulping down a few more pills. "Nice try, Donald," she sassed. "I'm sure last night that trick might have actually worked. But now, the bitch is back."
* * * * * *
They spent half an hour in complete silence, Max sitting on the floor and Lydecker ruminating on the cot. Max spent the next half hour prowling the small cage, her muscles coiled, ready to spring should any opportunity present itself. Finally, she ground out, "What the hell is taking so long? It was just a little brawl, there's no way we should be stuck in here for a full day!"
Lydecker smirked, enjoying knowing something she didn't. "Turns out we both picked the wrong bar to pick a fight in. The barkeep's bribed the police to make an example of us so that no one else decides to brawl in his bar."
Her eyes widened in outrage. "You mean I'm stuck here?" she demanded. He nodded. "With YOU? No way, I'm getting out of here." Even as she said the words, she started trembling again, and she collapsed on the floor. "This isn't happening," she moaned.
The rest of that day, the seizures subsided slightly but continually came back, each time not quite as strongly as the previous ones, but strong enough to keep her from attempting to escape. The most effective prison was her own body.
After the first hour of silence, Max demanded, "Won't your men come looking for you? I mean, you work for the government, for Christ's sake! How could they not get you out?"
He had the grace to look embarrassed. "I didn't tell anyone where I was going, I took the cell phone with me that almost no one knows about, and I went to a bar, the last place anyone would look for me. I'll get out of here because the police will let me go long before my men---whom you know from experience are often incompetent---find me. What about you? Won't your rich journalist boyfriend, Mr. Cale, isn't it, come rescue you?"
She looked shocked when he mentioned Logan's name, but she said, defensively, "Logan is not my boyfriend! And there's no way he'll find me here; I left my beeper at home, and, even though I sometimes go to a rather seedy bar, I never go to one as bad as the one I got caught in last night."
They were both scrupulously avoiding the word "we."
They spent another hour in silence.
Max exercised, frantically doing push-ups and situps in between bouts of seizures, as Lydecker tried to look on surreptiously, intrigued by the fact that she still adhered to some of what Manticore had taught, at least.
Max tried to nap, but failed. Lydecker meditated.
Finally, bored out of their minds and incredibly uncomfortable in each other's presence, they reluctantly played a game of verbal chess, each forced to remember in their heads what the board looked like as they said aloud where they moved their pieces. They were both pleasantly surprised to find that they were fairly evenly matched. Max was a genius, of course, and was born an exceptional strategist, but Lydecker's experience leveled out the playing field, so to speak. He won, but barely. Max won the next round. They called it a draw, and three hours had passed.
The guard brought in lunch, and both prisoners ignored the slop.
Finally, they talked.
"Brin is doing well," Lydecker began.
Max cut him off with a quick gesture. "You took advantage of her weakness to brainwash her," she said, "But I'll get her back some day. Once you get a taste of freedom, there's no going back, is there, Don?"
"I'll admit she was very recalcitrant---at the beginning," he conceded. "But she's really very happy where she is now. Brin is content back at Manticore."
Max smiled mirthlessly. "But you still think of her as Brin, don't you, Don? Doesn't that kinda go against everything you've been trying to convince me of? She's not just a number to you---you and I both know she's a person."
Lydecker's features hardened as he tried to remedy his mistake. "She's not just a number, no. But she's not human, either. Brin is a soldier, bred and trained to kill. As is Zack. As are you. Do you really think you can be happy, living some pointless existence like the humans in this world, never using your abilities to their full capacity?"
"Actually," she said with a mischievous grin, a thoughtful look on her face, "I've found that cat-burgling uses many of the skills taught at Manticore, with many more benefits." She could hear his teeth grind at the thought of Manticore technology wasted on petty theft.
"Do you really feel satisfied doing that?" he demanded. "Knowing that, instead, you could be out serving your country, fighting for the greater good?"
She laughed outright at that. "Is that what you tell the soldiers who stayed behind, Don? First, this country is corrupt, ugly, and decrepit as an aged politician, and I don't owe it any loyalty. Second, did you honestly tell the soldier that you had assassinate the Pope that it was for the greater good? There are good causes to fight for here in Seattle; I don't need to go to Manticore to have it tell me which causes are 'good' ones based on its own wack sense of morals."
"So you have gotten yourself involved in Eyes Only's 'good causes'," Lydecker mused aloud. "You know that the fact that you've done so just shows that you're looking for a substitute for Manticore; you're trying to find a similar outlet for your energies."
"Don't start psychoanalyzing me," Max snarled. "If I were looking for a Manticore substitute, I would go work for the most sadistic bastard I could find, and I'd follow his orders to commit atrocities without blinking. Working for Eyes Only---and I'm not admitting that I do---would be the exact opposite of that."
He arched an eyebrow. "If you insist."
Max decided that this would be a good point for her to take the upper hand in the conversation. "You know, Donald," she said conversationally, "I'm surprised that you haven't found your wife's killers. I mean, I know you have a twisted sense of what a good cause is, but certainly even you would think that the death of your wife was a bad thing?"
His eyes glared daggers at her. "There were no more leads to follow," he said, his voice at once angry and dejected. "And I won't abuse Manticore technology to try a fruitless search to avenge her."
Seeing how lost he looked, Max almost felt a stab of sympathy. Don't let up on him, she told herself. You've got him off-balance. "There weren't any leads, Don, or you didn't bother looking very hard? I mean, you found leads on where I was, and I covered my tracks good, at least in the beginning. Naw, I think you just never really loved her. She was just...convenient."
She was startled when he threw a punch at her, so surprised, in fact, that she didn't move out of the way. She felt his fist impact hard on her teeth, and felt her head snap back. "Never doubt my love for her," he hissed. "Never."
Max lifted her head, giving him a slow smile. "You don't even know what love is, you manipulative, careless, unfeeling, sadistic, cruel jerk." Her mind kept flashing unwanted memories at her: images of Eva being shot by him, of Jack being cut up and Lydecker calmly sipping a coffee and watching. In a quick movement, she had his throat in her hands, and she squeezed tightly enough for him to know that she could deprive him of oxygen long enough for him to die, or, if she got bored, she could also snap his neck with one hand. "And you should keep in mind, Don, that if I were the mindless killing machine you seem to think I should be, you'd be dead by now." She released him, pushing him away from her.
They ignored each other for the rest of the evening, each lost in their own thoughts.
At 2200, Lydecker said quietly, "I'm going to bed. I suggest that you do the same."
"You're not my father, Don," she said. "And, like I said, I don't sleep."
"Come on, Max," he said tiredly. "The act may work with the boys, but I know everything there is to know about your DNA. Shark DNA only gets you so far; with seizures like yours, sleep isn't just helpful, it's necessary."
She stared at him for a long moment. Why was he telling her this? What benefit was there to him if she slept? He wouldn't kill her while she slept, so what else did he have planned? "Fine," she said shortly. "But I take the top bunk."
So saying, she climbed onto the top bunk and quickly lost herself to sleep.
Lydecker did the same.
* * * * * *
Some hours later, Lydecker was again woken by Max's nightly noises. No wonder she doesn't sleep, he thought, annoyed. She can't get any rest, with the nightmares she has.
"Jondy, get out! Go! Don't wait for me," she sobbed above him. "It's so cold, so cold, I'm freezing to death...Blue Lady, what did we do wrong? Why is this happening? No! Zack, save yourself! Ben, Tinga, Seth, where are you? I can't see you!" Lydecker heard her tossing and turning above him. Then there was a very brief silence, during which he thought she had gone back to peaceful sleep, before he suddenly saw a dark shadow fall past his bed, landing on the ground next to him with a loud THUMP.
"Ugh," she groaned, as she slowly sat up. "I thought you said you weren't going to try to kill me during the night," she said groggily.
He surprised himself with a chuckle. "I didn't; anything that happened to you was your own doing," he informed her.
She just shook her head, her brain still muddled. "Whatever happened to cats landing on their feet?" she slurred. She looked up at the top bunk bed, decided it was too much effort to climb back up---especially since she would probably just end up back at the bottom, and she settled down on the floor to sleep.
Lydecker watched her for a while before going back to sleep. She looked so peaceful, he thought. None of her sarcasm or eternal fear were apparent on her relaxed face. When he had seen and talked to her for the first time in ten years, when he had met her at the genetics conference, he had mistaken her for a middle-class magazine writer who had grown up just like all middle-class children. After, he had wondered how he had ever mistaken her for a content, blissfully ignorant woman. Now, looking at her innocent, slumbering face, he knew that the mistake he had made was a valid one. She could fool anyone into thinking she was innocent, with that face.
* * * * * *
This time, Max woke up after Lydecker. She was surprised to find herself covered by a thin blanket from one of the cots. She sat up to find Lydecker pensively watching her.
Before she could speak, he said, "You're wrong about me not knowing how to love," he told her. "I loved my wife very much. In my eyes, she approached perfection. When she died, her death broke me, drove me to do all the things I had always despised. I started to drink, to become irresponsible, to be unreliable at work. I told myself that it was foolish to love, that it only destroyed people, but I couldn't keep myself from doing it. Why do you think I was so hard on all of you at Manticore? Why do you think I've always taught so vehemently not to love?"
There was a long pause as she took in his words. "You were wrong, Lydecker," she said quietly at last. "Love is not a bad thing, it's not a poison. Love is what makes us strong, and it's only when the things we love are gone that we become weak. Why do you think my brothers and sisters and I ran away? Because we had the strongest bonds of love between us of all the units of X5s. That's why we've spent so long looking for each other, too: because we care about each other, and that can never be a bad thing."
They gazed directly into each other's eyes, and both was forced to admit to themselves that they had an understanding about something. Both had lost much to love, but they remained strong in the struggle. Their brief moment of connection was lost when the cell doors were abruptly pulled open. They both glanced up to see the guard ushering them out.
"Out you go," he said gruffly. He looked at them both with something like respect. "Looks like both of you have friends in high places." He led them back into the prison waiting room, where they were both given their affects, and then they were greeted by their respective rescuers.
Lydecker was looking at one of his many minions, a man who had always seemed unexceptional. Still, if he had managed to find him in only a day or so, perhaps there was something more to him.
"Hey," Max said quietly, a small, welcoming, just-for-Logan smile on her face.
"Hey," he said back. He broke his eye contact with her to find Lydecker staring straight at him. "Are we going to be able to get out of here?" he asked Max, not taking his eyes off of the man he had come to hate on Max's behalf.
Lydecker smiled. "Well, Max, you're in much better condition now. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to get a team here before you and your...friend can get away." The look Lydecker was giving Logan was something frightening. It said, Don't break her heart, or I'll make sure you die a slow, lingering death.
Max was staring at her nemesis in something like respect, even as Lydecker's lackey gaped at the exchange. She arched an eyebrow. "I gotta blaze," she said happily. "I'm late for work today, and I missed yesterday, it'll take a few minutes extra whining for me to keep my job. You ready to go, my knight in shining armor?" She mock-batted her eyelashes at him.
He chuckled, rolling himself behind her as she sauntered from the building.
Lydecker turned to his appalled lackey. "What?"
The man gaped. "Sir? Wasn't that X5-452? Don't you want to go after her?"
He smiled. "Seattle is her home. It's where the man she loves lives. She's not going anywhere."