Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I wish I did! Just playing with them for a while.
Summary: Set during season two. A mysterious message from a supposedly dead Lydecker ends up being a trap that Max waltzes straight into. Will Alec be able to save 452, or will his attempt only end up risking his life as well? Hurt/Empathic!Alec.
A/N: This story is dedicated to scifigeek22.
Max hid her bike in the brush half a block from the warehouse so no one would see or hear her approaching. She continued the rest of the way on foot, constantly in tune with her surroundings in case this was some sort of ambush.
She wished like hell she had brought backup, but she had already wasted too much time helping Alec and it would take hours to track down another transgenic since her brothers and sisters had all gone to ground.
And while Joshua was incredibly strong and handy in a fight, she wasn't about to risk the big fella's life for personal gain. No, this breeding cult disaster was her own problem and she would have to face the consequences of her actions alone.
When she reached the clearing surrounding the warehouse, she gazed upward in awe at the enormous building before her. Lydecker could be anywhere in there. No wonder he chose the location. He would be able to spot someone breaking in long before his position was compromised.
Her eyes zeroed in on the back door. There was no security in sight. Well, she shrugged, here goes nothin'…
Dr. Sam Carr no sooner rang Logan's doorbell when the door swung wide open, admitting his entry. "Logan," he nodded in pleasant greeting.
"Thanks for coming, Sam. Sorry for the late hour but it's an emergency."
"Not a problem, my friend. I still owe you more than you owe me. So where's my patient?"
"Living room," Logan answered, gesturing the doc forward.
The young, male transgenic simply appeared to be sleeping on the couch. If it weren't for his furrowed brow or shallow breathing- not to mention his pale and clammy skin- Sam wouldn't have thought any differently. As it was though, he could tell the boy was suffering.
"Any idea what might have happened?" he asked Logan, lowering his voice so as not to disturb the X-5's uneasy slumber. "Did he touch anything? Eat anything…?"
"Not to my knowledge. Max said he was complaining of a headache earlier and was shaking on the way over but he insisted it wasn't being caused by the X-5's tryptophan deficiency. One minute he was standing in the doorway, the next he was curled up on the floor in pain. Not long after, he passed out."
"Well then, let's take a look, shall we?" Sam pulled a stethoscope from his bag and draped it around his neck before moving towards his fallen charge.
Sam knelt by the edge of the couch and started checking the young man's vitals. He slid the end of the stethoscope under Alec's T-shirt and while his heart was beating a bit fast for the doctor's liking, two fingers pressed to the inside of his wrist confirmed the boy's pulse was steady and strong.
Next, Sam pulled a tympanic thermometer from his bag and placed it in Alec's ear, then waited for the beep. When it went off, Alec groaned softly and tried to turn his head away from the intrusion. A quick glance at the read-out told Sam his patient had a fever of 104.6.
While the number would be dangerously high for a human, the doctor knew that a transgenic's basal body temperature ran higher than normal on average. But even so, the number was a bit disconcerting.
"Alec?" he called softly, hoping the kid was finally starting to come around. "Can you hear me?" Sam moved his hands to Alec's throat, checking for swollen glands that might indicate an infection, but the second he touched the X-5's over-heated skin, Alec cracked his eyes open and saw the stethoscope dangling in front of his face.
Without taking the time to process his surroundings, Alec's immediate thought was that the worst had happened and he was somehow back at Manticore. His adrenaline kicked in and he sat bolt upright, knocking away Sam's hands and latching a potentially crushing grip around the doctor's own throat to turn the tables.
"Don't. Touch. Me." he hissed out between clenched teeth.
"Alec! Stand down!" a sharp voice instructed from across the room, immediately making the hairs on the back of Alec's neck stand on end. Whipping around, his eyes locked onto a bespectacled man who appeared to be desperately trying to placate him. "You're okay! Let him go!"
"Logan?" Alec practically whispered, confusion evident on his face. He turned his attention back to the man in his grasp and eased his fingers from around the guy's throat. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
Sam was too preoccupied with drawing in breath to respond so Logan updated the transgenic instead.
"This is a friend of mine, Doctor Sam Carr. Max asked me to call him down after you passed out."
"Max?" Something important niggled at the back of Alec's mind as he fought to catch up on the current situation. New mission, Lydecker, meeting, warehouse, trap… He straightened immediately. "Where is she?"
"She's gone," Logan replied simply.
"How long?"
"'bout forty minutes now."
Alec pushed himself off the couch unsteadily. He kept a hand on the closest light stand to keep himself from collapsing to the ground again, purposefully ignoring the doctor who hovered close by with an arm out in case Alec needed it. "Call her back in. She's in danger."
"What are you talking about, Alec?"
"It's a trap! You have to get her out of there!"
"Whoa, slow down a second… Where's this coming from?"
"I don't know, okay? I can't explain it. Just trust me on this! She shouldn't have gone alone in the first place!"
"I agree with you there. I would've gone with her as back up but…" Logan hesitated, flicking his eyes over the agitated X-5's weakened body.
"But what?" Alec had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.
"But she told me to stay here and keep an eye on you until she gets back," Logan muttered apologetically.
Alec swallowed down his guilt. "So this is my fault… Again. Damn it." He shoved himself away from the table and staggered towards the front door, pressing the palm of his hand to the side of his head as the room tilted alarmingly around him.
Logan stepped forward to block his exit. "Hang on, where do you think you're goin'?"
"I've gotta help her. She's saved my ass more times than I can count. It's time to return the favor."
"You're not in any condition to…"
"Out of my way, Logan. Don't make me ask you twice," Alec threatened coldly.
Logan exchanged a quick glance with the doc who shrugged, clearly asking what choice did they really have in this matter? He nodded reluctantly.
"Bring her back safely."
Alec returned the gesture, jaw clenched in determination as he strode quickly towards the door. I'm comin', Max. Just hang on…
Max entered the warehouse stealthily, keeping her back to the wall to prevent any unwanted surprises. Her cat-like night vision allowed her to scan the first floor without any difficulty. So far, she was alone. Something didn't feel right here.
She made her way to the second story, flinching when one of the steps gave a particularly loud groan under her weight. She paused, listening intently, before continuing up the rickety staircase.
The second floor was designed for office space and though the center of the floor was wide open, there were multiple rooms on the left and right that she would have to check out. This could take a while… she groaned inwardly, once again wishing she had backup who could take one side while she cleared the other.
Max took two steps forward when the sound of a gun being cocked behind her had her freezing, every muscle tense and ready to strike if need be. "Don't move another muscle, 452," the owner of the gun growled.
She hadn't heard him approaching which typically meant one of two things. Either he was another transgenic which she highly doubted, or he was a Familiar which certainly didn't bode well for her.
"Sorry, have we met before?" she asked with a falsely sweet air to her tone while contemplating potential exit strategies.
"No, but I've read your file and the pleasure's all mine."
Max shrugged her leather-clad shoulders. "Not gonna argue with ya there."
She could hear movement all around the floor now and her heart plummeted to her stomach. One idiot with a gun she could handle, but a small army of them… Not so much.
They came out of the rooms in pairs, each one armed with a gun and a cattle prod. The odds weren't looking good. When their sites trained on her chest, she reluctantly raised her arms in surrender. Then one voice boomed down to her from the third story balcony and it was a voice she knew all too well.
"Thanks for coming, 452. I was hoping you'd get my invite," Ames White smirked.
"I'm never one to pass up a good party," she volleyed back, trying not to reveal just how screwed she really was now. "Where's Lydecker?"
"Haven't you heard? He died months ago. But I knew you couldn't turn a blind eye to a good conspiracy theory. All I had to do was leak some information for your little Eyes Only companion to find, and voilà. I knew you'd take the bait."
"Am I supposed to be impressed or something?"
"I really couldn't care less what you think, 452. The outcome is still the same. You're coming with us."
"Sorry, I don't take rides from strangers, or assholes. And in case you didn't get the memo, Manticore was burned to the ground so there's no place to go."
"Correction, a Manticore facility was burned to the ground. You didn't think that was the only one in existence, did you? Buildings come and go, and while it was an expensive loss to the government, it was hardly the end of the project."
Max's stomach clenched as she fought down the bile that threatened to make an appearance at White's declaration. Manticore was still out there in full swing? Why hadn't she considered that possibility before?
She was shaken from her reverie when White continued his monologue. "They hired me to clean up the mess because there are plenty more of your brainwashed friends still held in captivity where they belong and it's just not worth the effort of trying to bring you all in."
"So why don't you just put a bullet in me and be done with it?" she demanded, refusing to beg for her life.
"Because apparently you're more important than the rest of them and it was requested I take you in alive. But don't you worry, 452. By the time they're done with you, you'll wish I had put a bullet through your skull."
He nodded to his team and a handful of them moved forward to surround her, cattle prods at the ready. Max put up a good fight, taking five of them down before the next wave of soldiers moved in and overpowered her. She grunted in pain as the first prod hit her side long enough to force her to her knees and from there, she was an easy target.
They jabbed at her until she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. "Enough," White ordered as he made his way down the stairs to their level. He stood over her twitching body with a smirk on his face. "Get her in the truck. We move out in five minutes."
Glancing at his watch, he noted the time being 1:32 AM. Plenty of time to make it home for breakfast.
By the time Alec stumbled his way through the woods surrounding the warehouse, it was just turning two o'clock. Standing there, panting and surveying the area, Alec knew in his heart he was already too late.
"Damn it!" he barked. Where are you, Max? He pulled his cell phone from his pocket which he had switched to silent mode before entering the woods. Glancing at the screen, he saw one missed call followed by a text message from Logan.
JUST SAW THREE TRUCKS PULL AWAY. TRACKING THEM NOW.
"Logan, you're my new best friend…" Alec muttered aloud and he called the hacker back. "Hey, so where am I going?"
TBC
Thank you all for your supportive reviews so far! Please keep them coming and I'll do the same with the chapters. Plenty more to come!