Outside
By Be Boring
Chapter 2: New Danger
About a week later, Kay sat at the bar and watched the scene around her. She was at a club in a tiny town just outside of Seattle. She studied her newfound friends with interest. There was three of them. She had met them at a tattoo parlor in this town. She had been thinking about getting her barcode removed, although she knew it would come back in a few weeks anyway. She had found a much better solution. The kids who ran the place were very nice and took a liking to her right away, and since she did have artistic talent, (she had discovered that on one of her missions) they hired her to help them. They were an all-around thing because they both made and took off tattoos. This meant that she had access to the equipment to remove her barcode whenever she needed and no one had to know. Just as a celebration of her being hired, they had taken her to this club. It was actually pretty cool. The music was great and the lights were definitely setting the right mood.
Her friends themselves, she had noticed, were terrible dancers, but never gave up. Jason and Katie could pretty much only do disco, which really looked stupid, while Mark just bopped his head up and down like he was dancing to rock music.
Kay wiped her forehead, it was getting warm in here. She stood up and walked outside for some fresh air. She leaned against the side of the building and looked up at the stars. Her eyes started seeking out things like the Big Dipper and other pictures in the sky. She blinked hard and looked back up. She could have sworn one of the stars was blinking. After studying it for a moment, she realized that it was Manticore's signal. It said where they were to regroup. Kay frowned. She had the feeling this wasn't right. Manticore had quite obviously tried to self destruct, so why would any of them need to regroup? Others might not feel the way she did though. Some of the younger kids, like X6s and below, might follow the signal's instructions. She sighed and shook her head. It wasn't like she had to do anything about it, but she'd feel guilty if she didn't. Glancing at the time the signal said to regroup, she went back inside.
The next day she headed for the meeting point a little early. She didn't want anyone waiting when she got there. She also didn't walk right up to where they were supposed to meet; she hid in the trees and watched the bridge they were to go to.
About an hour later a vehicle pulled up and five men got out. Four were dressed in soldiers' uniforms, the other one was wearing a black trenchcoat and a suit under it. It was just Kay's opinion, but he didn't look friendly. She strained her ears to listen in on the conversation.
"You know what to do when they get here?" the man in the trench coat asked. The soldiers nodded.
"Good," he said, "Then we can get this pathetic mess cleaned up."
Kay clenched her teeth. She had been right. This man was here to kill off the transgenics when they arrived. She wished she could just kill him now, but she wasn't in a good position to pull any sudden moves. She listened carefully for sounds of approaching footsteps. It took about fifteen minutes for her to hear anything, but finally she saw a group of X6s coming. When the men's attention was turned to them, Kay inched her way closer to the bridge. After looking for a good spot, she saw the perfect place to position herself to attack. She climbed into a tree overhanging the bridge. The kids all lined up on the other side from the men. They seemed relieved to be getting back to Manticore. Too bad that wasn't going to happen. She saw the man in the trenchcoat nod his head and the soldiers raised their guns. Just as it hit the kids what was about to happen, Kay dropped down onto the shoulders of the man in the trenchcoat. She slammed her knees together against both sides of his head, knocking him out cold. She landed on her feet and snatched the gun from the soldier on her nearest left while kicking out with her right foot and hitting the man behind her in the nose, breaking it. The other two soldiers moved to attack, but she swung the gun like a bat and hit one of them in the collarbone. The other one she simply punched out.
She turned to the kids and shouted "Move!" just as another army vehicle pulled up behind her. She turned and fired the gun at it, sending glass from the windshield flying in all directions. She shot out the tires and the engine as well. When she was satisfied with her handiwork, she dropped the gun and took off after the kids. She followed them until they reached an old warehouse just outside of town. The youngest girl just turned to her and smiled sadly.
"We're on our own now, aren't we?" she asked nervously.
Kay nodded and smiled back at her, hoping to at least somewhat cheer her up. The kids didn't seem to know what to do about this. They went to sit where they seemed to have been sleeping before. A boy finally spoke up.
"What are we supposed to do now?"
"Stay under the radar and protect each other. You don't want that man finding you again."
The girl who had spoken earlier spoke again.
"Why would they want to kill us? We were good soldiers."
Kay shrugged.
"I think Manticore self-destructed. Since they have all the information they need on disks, they can just go recreate a new Manticore. From what I've seen on TV, Eyes Only gave the whereabouts of it so people could take it down. Rather than let that happen, Renfro blew the place up. I don't know who let us out, but that was obviously not planned. Renfro would never have let us loose in the world. This was an accident that those men were trying to fix. It has nothing to do with what kind of a soldier you are. You could be the best soldier in the world and they would still get rid of you to save their own asses. Don't take it personally."
After seeing that the kids were alright, Kay left the building and looked back at it sadly. That had been quite a shock for them, one they would have to adjust to over time. She decided to go back to the meeting point the next day. She knew she couldn't keep doing this. There had to be a way to stop it permanently. She decided not to worry about it for now. She would just continue what she was doing.
Sure enough, more kids arrived at the bridge the next day. Kay noticed with a grin that the man in the trenchcoat hadn't made an appearance today. She knew he must have an awful headache after what she did yesterday. The soldiers were new too. They were about to fire on the kids when suddenly Max came flying in on a motorcycle and knocked them out. She shouted to the kids to run and finished off the men quickly, then turned and followed the kids. Kay followed along as quickly as she could without being noticed. She found herself in an old barn that was now littered with junk food. She looked at the people gathered in the barn. There was a group of X6s, an X7, an X8, and two X5s. She recognized Alec right away. What is that obnoxious ass doing here? She listened to what was going on and grinned at the names Max had given the kids. Fixit, Bullet, Ralph, Bugler, and Zero. If I ever have kids, then I'm not letting her name them. It was also interesting to watch Alec throwing popcorn at the X7, who was standing by the window and not joining in on the group. Finally, she headed back home.
She was coming out the next day to see if any more kids showed up at the bridge when she saw a van coming down the road. It was headed for the bridge. It passed a red Cadillac, whose driver leaned out the window and shouted, "Hey, you're going the wrong way!" She realized that the driver was Alec, and the people in the van were the kids. She watched as Alec drove on for a little while, then did a quick U-turn on the road and drove after them, swearing the whole way. She followed along, curious to see what was going on.
They went past the bridge and continued to what looked like a temporary army base. From what she could tell of Alec's conversation with the kids, Max had been captured and they wanted to get her out. She waited for a while as they went in and saw finally that Max had emerged from one of the tents. She also watched as they changed the machine that was sending out the signal. She read it and grinned when it said to scatter. It didn't take too long for other people to show up after it was changed.
After seeing the transgenics got out safely, Kay was about to go back home, feeling disappointed that she had been utterly useless here, when she heard someone swearing. She saw the man in the trenchcoat walking around and muttering to himself under his breath. Suddenly, he turned to one of the soldiers near him.
"Since 452 is one of the '09 escapees, I want you to bring me the files of all of those who made it out back then."
Kay slid under the fence and followed the soldier fetching the files. She wasn't going to let that man catch any of her brothers and sisters, no matter how mean they had been to her in Manticore. As soon as he entered a tent, she went in with him and knocked him out as soon as he started to head back out with a file in his hands. She picked it up and glanced through it. She didn't know what that man expected to find in here, since they had all changed so much since then and there were no recent pictures. She ducked under a table as another soldier came in and saw his fellow worker on the ground.
"Oh, White is not going to be happy about this," he groaned and walked back out. So that was the trenchcoat man's name. Kay snuck back out and headed home, finally worrying about what might happen to her in the future.