Insensitive
Summary: A young experimental soldier escapes Manticore and searches for clues to a memory she can't quite piece together. Logan, with the help of the escaped X5's, plans an attack in memory of Max. S1, postAJBAC, AU, no evacuation of Manticore or 'nomalies, but plans for Alec. Implied ML, R&R Please!
Pairing: ML implied
Rating: K+
Notes: I fully understand that it's been over 3 years since I updated. If you care about excuses you might like to look at my profile page. I cannot thank you enough for continuing to read. I'm setting a goal to finish everything I have.
Chapter 3:
Believe In Me
Jo watched her company in her peripheral vision from her position on the middle of the couch as she stared at the piece of paper with Logan's name in her hand. Krit looked and sounded asleep, laid out awkwardly on the love seat, Syl and Johndy were missing from the room, and Zane was sitting in an arm chair between Logan and Jo with a steely gaze stuck unwaveringly on the newcomer. Logan was on his computer obsessing over the fact that his name and current address were listed in a reverse look up phonebook.
Jo was feigning exhaustion, trying to sit in a natural slouching position, and hiding the fact that she was paying just as much attention to Zane as he was to her. Half of her brain was annoyed that it had to work so hard, the other half was proud that she had the ability and almost missed the opportunity to get good marks on a practical test for Lydecker.
'I have to stop thinking of ways to impress him,' Jo thought to herself, and watched as Johndy and Syl both walked back into the room from where they had been cleaning the kitchen up for Logan. Jo tried to look surprised to see them enter the room, and not like she had heard every word the two X5's exchanged in regards to Jo herself.
Syl was convinced, but still quite hesitant. She was relating her own training to what she saw before her, and was very nearly confident that she herself wouldn't have been able to act so little like a soldier, especially if placed in a room of X5s. Johndy was even more convinced even though she chastised herself for being too trusting. Jo seemed too lost and in too much need of direction for Johndy to suspect her to be a super soldier spy assassin. There wasn't the sleek mechanical coating to Jo's speech or the snap to her eye movements as she took stock of her situation that gave away all the X5s.
Both women agreed to do everything they could to catch a look at Jo's neck for a barcode.
Jo listened in with equal parts elation at the imminent threat on her life being just a little bit less, and panic that the soldiers knew she was listening and were leading her into a false sense of security.
Jo was having to try less and less to just look tired.
"Sweetie," Johndy started, and the surprise Jo felt at being addressed as such by anyone, let alone an X5 was genuine. "You want a shower?"
"Um," Yes, yes Jo wanted a shower more than anything. She had run, hitchhiked, hid and stole used clothing between Wyoming and Seattle, and she very much so wanted a shower. However at Manticore, she had always had a temperature controlled shower with measured products and monitored time. It'd be hard to know how to shower outside of barracks. Quickly flipping through all her lies, she decided to bank on this 'farm' situation she'd described in Montana.
As Jo was too slow to answer, Johndy rephrased her question when she sensed Zane becoming suspicious. "Get cleaned up?"
"Oh, yeah, yes, please." Jo said quietly, and hid the paper in between flat palms, between her knees to keep herself from crinkling it anxiously. "I'm used to baths..."
"Ah, I see." Johndy said, and stood holding a hand out towards the hallway to direct Jo out of the living room. "Well, Logan doesn't have a tub for us to use right now, but you'll like a shower, it's faster."
The two of them walked right past Zane and everyone in the room, including the civilian, noticed the extra inch or two of space Jo placed between herself and the burly looking blond soldier. No one said anything, but Krit grinned.
Once in the guest bathroom, which did indeed only have a shower stall, Johndy laid out a towel and started the water up for Jo. "Do you want to check the temp?" She asked, and Jo had the good sense to just stare at her. "Oh," Johndy smiled warmly at Jo and once again the younger girl wondered how an X5 (rogue, no less) had become so compassionate. "Here," Johndy reached into the shower stall and palmed the water for a moment before making a few adjustments and stepping back again.
"Thank you," Jo said with a bow of her head and after a split second awkward pause, started to peel off her layers while Johndy made a show of adjusting the water more. Jo wasn't overly modest after being in a military setting for her entire known life, but she had also almost always been the only soldier in the room at a time. Lydecker didn't mind showing favoritism to the most physiologically advanced creation he had. At the risk of being entirely too obvious and basically just to get Johndy to leave, Jo pulled both of her layered shirts over her head and made a special effort to get her long brown hair to be all swept over one shoulder once the shirt of was removed. Just as Jo planned, Johndy stared at Jo's bare neck and finally left with a small smile and a nod of her head.
"I'll bring in some clothes for you." Johndy said on her way out, her tone quiet and thoughtful.
As Jo quickly cleaned her hair and body, she thought about her predicament. She had been so dead set on erasing the anxious feeling in her mind when she had heard X5-452 repeating 'Logan' in her dreams for so many days on end that she had never formulated a plan for what she would do after she found him.
Though Jo was the last person Director Renfro wanted in charge of watching the recovering prisoner, she stood guard over X5-452 for weeks on end. Without her commanding officer present, the only other option for Soldier 0 was to place her with the X6's and that meant time out in the yard and Renfro had been certain that Soldier 0 would spread Lydecker's poison though the entire facility. So, Renfro ordered silence over the unique soldier and set about coming up with a plan for her captive rogue.
Little did Renfro know, Soldier 0 had no intention of leaving or spoiling Manticore until after she had met and guarded the prisoner.
X5-452, or as she had screamed to be referred to as, 'Max' had only been lucid a few times while Jo was in charge of her. On the day the director had first turned up the ECG volume, Jo was placed outside the door and ordered to not enter until the occupant had been sedated, and from then on that had been the general routine anytime Max was awake. Once, during the dead of the night, Max opened her bleary and heavily sedated eyes and looked over at Jo. "Don't let them get Logan." Max had muttered, her face and tone so scared and remorseful that Jo just nodded.
A few weeks later, after the heart surgery had almost completely healed, Refro started sedating Max as a punishment for not going by her designation. Again, Max came around just after Jo took her position standing next to the door with a semi-automatic weapon and looked straight at Jo and very lucidly, almost threateningly said to her, "You aren't a number."
Jo managed to keep her stoic blank face that time, but something in the back of her head knew that was true already since she didn't have the same designation system as the rest of the X soldiers. She had always just correctly assumed she was the only soldier in her group, but never needed to wonder why. That night Max started screaming for Logan in her sleep, instead of muttering it. The following morning Jo casually walked out of Manticore as though she was leaving on a field mission.
Coming out of her memories, Jo made sure all the soap was off of her now clean body and shut off the water. A towel and clean clothes were laid out on the counter by the sink, along with a hairtie. Jo grinned and made sure to put her hair up in a nice high pony before walking out of the room.
She'd figure out why she needed to find Logan so badly eventually.
I'm going alphabetically down my list of stories and updating in order. I also don't have the internet at my house so I'll update when I have a connection.