They decide to start with Lydecker, who, as it turns out, was still kicking around.
Max was looking forward to knocking the answers out of him. She seemed disappointed that he was happy to give them information.
He smiled at them and said, "Oh, I guess you're here about your kid."
Logan had told them that X-5's were being used to 'produce' more supersoldiers. Natural fertilization, followed by removal, implantation in willing and non-superpowered surrogates - in other words, women who wouldn't cause problems. And then after, the children were subjected to some kind of experimental treatment.
Apparently, someone had decided that the old batch of supersoldiers weren't obedient enough; better just to start over clean, they thought.
So she and Alec had a child somewhere.
Logan was able to find out that it was a son.
Lydecker had even more information. They had asked him to train the new batch, his being the expert and all. He had been surprised that anyone was willing to try again after all the spectacular Manticore failures, especially given the years and years of invested time and money it would require.
It turned out that the new investors were takings some shortcuts.
Rapid aging of transgenic children. The process was so full of bugs that they needed natural fertilization of the egg to help the survival rates. So they designed situations tailored to encouraging intimacy. And, for the most part, the experiment worked.
Adult supersoldiers in just a few years, with both physical and cognitive development rapidly accelerated.
The psychosocial development left a little to be desired, but really, how well-adjusted to quick-grow disposable supersoldiers need to be?
Lydecker decided that the project was beneath his moral standards. He left.
They made him repeat that part, actually. And yes, Lydecker decided that the project was beneath his moral standards.
So they had a son out there, and he was, for all intents and purposes, about fifteen or sixteen years old.
And they demanded Lydecker tell them where the facility was.
That's when Lydecker started laughing.
"This time, it only took three years to have all hell break loose. Shortcut, right?" he said.
The kids had broken out.
Alec and Mac looked at each other, glad that the kid was free, concerned about how to find them.
Turned out, wouldn't be a problem.
The kid had followed a bloody trail to Lydecker, having remembered him from his early childhood. Their son, it turned out, was an angry angry boy. He wanted answers about who he was, why he was being raised in a lab.
Lydecker raised his shirt then, and they prepared for him to take out a weapon. Instead, they just saw acid burns on his torso.
"Your son is not as pleasant an interrogator as you are," Lydecker grimaced, "Kids today, right? No manners."
"What happened?" Max said, voice less hard.
"Kid wanted answers. Bad. I told him whatever I could to make him stop."
"Which was what?" Alec asked.
Lydecker smiled bitterly, either in apology or triumph; with him they were sometimes the same. He said, "He wanted to know if he had parents. And why these parents would abandon him.... I told him about you, showed him your pictures, said you were last seen in the Seattle area. I told him that everything that ever happened to you was all your fault."
"You told him that to save your own ass? Or just to screw us over?"
Lydecker turned his lips up again. It might have even been with regret. "Don't say I didn't warn you. You want your son? Go back to Seattle. He's looking for you... Says he's going to kill you, going to avenge all the parent generation who abandoned their kids to be lab rats."
"You sons of bitches, this is all your fault!" Max yelled, "It was bad enough what you did to us, how could do it to a bunch of babies, two-year-olds?!"
Lydecker barked, "He's not two. He's taller than you. And you better be prepared to defend yourself, because unlike you, he hasn't been away from combat training to learn to politics and diplomacy like you two have. He's as strong as you, as fast, as smart, better trained, more unpredictable, and believe it or not, a shitload angrier than you are too. Be careful. And be prepared. In case you have to put him down."
"Put him down! Like he's an animal!" Max yelled.
"Let's get out of here," Alec said.
"You just want to leave Lydecker after what he did??"
"I want to find our kid, Max. Okay? And to do that, we have to go home."
She looked at him a moment and he wondered briefly if she was even the same person he left three years ago. But she rolled her eyes at him and stormed out the door, leaving Lydecker intact.
They spoke little on the way back to Seattle, riding full speed. The roar of the wind helped cover the noise of their thoughts.
It wasn't until they got back to Max's place that they had a real conversation about their son.