Disclaimer: It's not mine
A/N: Phil returns! YAY. Thanks so much for your reviews. Additional thanks to my sis Jess, who's also a DA fanfiction writer (called DirtyLaundry) for she is one of my best inspirations! 'Tis a rather hectic chapter! Perhaps a little shorter than usual?
Philosophy!
CHAPTER 6: MIA? KIA? OK?
After cancelling their order and requesting the bill for his drink, Logan decided to take advantage of Max's sudden absence and check his pager. Still nothing. What's taking him so long? Logan worried his bottom lip with his teeth. Phil should've called by now…
1 hour earlier…
He stalked towards a mat grey monolith-like office building, rain blending its edges into the night sky, electronic hisses and swishes and servo-motor chirps accompanying his every footfall. Effortlessly jumping the 10 foot fence that lined the property's perimeter, Phil couldn't help feeling that little bit of satisfaction from being back on the job. Sure he'd been sniffing out scandals and pursuing the odd promising lead back home but nothing as upfront and risky as this! Bagging files on corrupt sector cops and judges and profiles on snake-god breeding cult members responsible for some rather dubious backroom entourage via infiltration of prestigious positions in the legal system for some ultimately apocalyptic purposes (one of his more singular assignments but nonetheless awesome) and working for Eyes Only nonetheless! What more could he want!? Back to making a difference, changing the world. He could make Francesca really proud with something like this. And Clara too.
Clara. Something twisted in his stomach as he remembered how he'd stood her up tonight.
Standing up my pregnant wife… is this really the right thing to do? He shook his head, "Destiny makes no exceptions, Phil. Let's do this."
Creeping around the side of the building, he leapt upwards and latched onto a fire escape ladder pinned to the outside of one of the third floor windows. The ladder rattled irritably. Suddenly, it rasped downwards on its supporting rails. Phil threw an arm out to grapple onto the window ledge. He gingerly repositioned his feet on a few of the higher rungs. He paused a moment. The noise may have alerted the guards. He clung to the wall and waited. A sector bus lumbered by. Silence followed. He sighed and fished out the Slim Jim from his trench coat pocket, setting to work on the window.
Once inside the building's adumbral innards, he weaved through a disarray of basic tables, fold up chairs and pungent coffee cups to reach an open door at the end of a rectangular room. He exited into a hallway with an elevator at its focal point and moved silently down the flight of stairs at its end. After stealthily investigating several of the junctions that sprouted off of the new corridor Phil faced, identical to the one above, Phil found the storage room. Leaning close to the door, he carefully shifted his weight onto the steel handle and swung the door inward. It swung only a little before banging into the first of a series of tall cabinets and mangled cardboard boxes brimming with detailed files and dossiers. The noise had been conspicuous enough. Yet still no-one responded. Logan had said there would be a skeleton security unit of eight men patrolling the building tonight. By luck, had they not heard it? By coincidence, had no one been around? Phil was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
Nonetheless, he climbed through the door space available to him-discovering the room to be much larger on the inside than it had appeared from the outside. He extracted the reference list Logan had given him from his coat pocket and recalled what he'd said at the briefing as he thumbed through the contents of each cabinet in order…
"Deputy Georges Milan partnered up with an old college buddy who's now one of the high-ups in the judiciary-" Logan pulled up a headshot of a man with a deeply furrowed, sagging brow and an unnaturally jagged jaw line.
"Judge Samsten Hayes about a year or 2 after the Pulse of '09; both wanting to make damn sure they get out of the depression without a hitch and both willing to get their hands dirty. So they start arresting the few people who've still got money left after the pulse, trumping up charges about the money being laundered, bank scandals, failed loan repayments, fraud, counterfeit, you name it. But of course they're found guilty every time because who gets assigned their case but good old Judge Hayes. The two of them then swoop in and claim the money for themselves and no one's the wiser. What's worse is that when rumours spread about all that was going on, not one of the higher ups tries to stop it. Some Politicians even wanted in on the scandal- recruiting Milan and Hayes to take out some of the smaller opposing political parties with the same methods. 'Two of them have been putting innocent men behind bars for years but that all stops now." Logan's eyes lit up as he sat forward in his chair,
"I got a tip off from a source that these guys messed up the cover-up on a couple of their operations. There's enough written evidence in that building to send the two of them to jail on life sentences for abuses of the legal system. 'We make this evidence public; the authorities will have no choice but to follow up with an investigation. If you can get me files on the Billy Andrews case of '11 and the Kathy Gifferd November elections scandal of the year before last then we could really make a difference. What do you say? Opportunity of a lifetime here, Phil. Chance to do the world some good…"
The second-and much more interesting part of the mission for Phil- had been to retrieve the listed aliases and fabricated personnel files of suspected Familiars. Logan had recruited him to search for two in particular, a Senator J. McKinley and a Mr. Aimes White.
Finally locating the relevant files, Phil peaked inside the first folder. An austere, pale-faced man with very pronounced cheek-bones stared out from the photograph in the top right-hand corner of the first page. Phil's eyes wandered down the page. He frowned.
"No way is this guy 22."
"Well, nobody likes to give their real age, do they?" Phil quickly turned to face the door. Through the gap, Phil could see three men- two of which he recognised from the files in front of him.
"Uh oh."
"You were right, Aimes. Eyes Only went straight for the bait."
"And it looks like he's been using the transgenics to do his dirty work."
"'Transgenic'? No, no, I don't know what you're talking about." Phil frantically searched the room for an alternative exit. He spotted a small window screened by a metal grate on his left.
"Don't play dumb. How else could you possibly have jumped that fence?"
"Oh there could be LOTS of other explanations for that," Phil tore off the grate and smashed his hand through the glass pane.
"Looks like he's trying to get away. You wanna do the honours?" The third Familiar stepped forward, put both hands to the door and hauled it off of its hinges. Phil began to clamber out of the window. The Familiars made their way towards him. The third dragged Phil away from the window. Phil stood. Drawing back his empowered leg with a mechanical hiss, he kicked the third Familiar full force in the chest. He slammed into the wall behind him. Phil cried out as White dealt a sharp blow to his knee, dislocating it with a sickening crack. He banged his head on a cabinet as he slumped onto the floor.
"Transgenic scum." As Phil steadily lost consciousness he strained to hear the Familiar's conversation.
"Where should we interrogate him?"
"I see no reason why we should take … back to the Conclave. This … is deserted tonight, correct? Find… suitable room, broth…"
"At once."
The elevator bell rang sweetly as its bulky doors shuddered apart.
"This better be good, Logan." Max announced as she marched into the living area of the penthouse. Logan rose out of his chair and Alec turned away from the muggy cityscape that the apartment's ceiling to floor windows afforded tonight. Her steps slowed to a halt.
"Oh…hey." She stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Alec glanced upwards at her briefly.
"I said we got it, Logan. Why'd you have to call her here? Aren't two genetically-engineered killing machines enough?" Max frowned.
"Two…?"
"Hey, little fella." Joshua appeared from the kitchen with a greasy bag of cashew nuts in one hand. She sighed; Joshua's here too. At least things won't be completely awkward. She hugged him tightly round the waist.
"Hey, big fella."
"We've got a problem." She turned to address a very sombre-looking Logan. "Shoot."
"I think Phil's in trouble. He said he'd call me back to confirm that everything had gone OK, but it's been too long since-"
"Wait, what's supposed to have gone OK? Where's Phil?" Logan took a deep breath and locked eyes with Max,
"I got a lead on the location of some very important files-" Max immediately started to shake her head, turning her back on Logan and pacing the room distractedly. He'd kept something from her again, in spite of his promise. He continued regardless of her motions,
"-files that will help us take down two major bad guys and- very possibly- our good friend Aimes White." Max paced faster. Logan snapped in response,
"Hey, I would've asked for your help getting them, but- big surprise-you weren't around. You were going through one of your 'little phases' and you'd conveniently decided to ignore me all week long-"
"Oh for the love of- look, if I knew you called me here just to bear witness to one of your little couple's tiffs I wouldn't have come." Logan shot Alec a look and continued,
"I needed to get things done. You weren't around; Phil was- simple as that." Max frowned.She thought their talk over dinner about an hour before had gone pretty well. They'd talked things through; they'd tied up all their loose ends. So why was he being such a jerk all of a sudden? Did it really have to be a romantic relationship or nothing with him?
"I get the point, Logan, so where the hell is he?" He sighed.
"District 6, 205th South Marsha Street; it's a covertly run federal building masquerading as your run-of-the-mill office block. But… considering the stuff he was investigating… worst case scenario is White and his familiars have their hands on him. I'm sorry, Max." Max stood very still, then shook her head,
"It's gonna take a lot more than an apology to make things right this time, Logan."
"Excuse me?" She raised her head,
"You shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have dragged Phil into something that was nothing to do with him. You knew he couldn't say no to a friend, but you asked him to do it anyway, didn't you? You should've called in a group of us to do the job instead of leaving it 'til now to call us in for the rescue mission-"
"Hey, I did this as a favour to you! If things had gone the way they were supposed to, White wouldn't have been a problem for you anymore!"
"I sure as hell would never have wanted White off my back if it meant the expense of a friend!"
"Like I said, you weren't around-"
"Then wait for me to show up!"
"You expect me to wait around for you, Max?"
"As opposed to going behind my back and manipulating people? Yeah!"
Alec interjected, "O--k, I'm out of here. Joshua, buddy, 'you coming?" Joshua shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
"Alec, no. Phil needs help." Alec nodded.
"You're absolutely right, Joshua. Hey, I hate to break up a happy couple when I see one, but me and Joshua are heading out to go rescue Phil. Now if either of you two star-crossed lovers wants to help out, then be my guest, but don't waste everybody's time pointing fingers all night, okay?" Max stopped and met Alec's eyes. Of course. He was right; arguing like this was pointless and stupid and wasting precious time that could be spent finding Phil. She'd let her emotions get the better of her. She wouldn't let them do it again. She needed to regroup.
"You're right. Let's move out." The transgenic trio moved towards the door. Alec pushed towards the front.
"Finally."
"Max wait-"
"We'll finish this later, Logan. Phil needs our help right now." If he's still alive…
