So I do have a plan for drawing the these two storylines together, and much of that is already written. Hopefully those of you who are reading won't mind a little more set up - this enstallment does take things a bit closer.
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Manticore, a few weeks later…
Life in Manticore settled into a tolerable, if mundane, routine for Max. During the day she trained with her team engaging in all types of combat; at night she prowled the corridors of Manticore looking to find answers for forgotten questions. A few hours before sun up she'd sneak back to her bunk and spend an hour or two in her safe place, usually floating amid the now familiar images, smells, and sounds that greeted her. The weight of unease never lifted from Max's gut, but slowly the feeling of loneliness began to dissipate.
Today was one of the more bearable ones. Max had been assigned to a team of six soldiers from her unit who were engaged to go on a deep-ops mission in France; her first real mission in as long as she could remember. They were required to invade a terrorist ring where one of the leaders was supposedly an enemy of the country. Termination was required.
Plans had taken a few hours to develop, but now things were taking a decidedly less "professional" turn.
"I'm just saying, if we could swing down to the Bordeaux region and pick up a few bottles of wine, we could make a handsome trade and no one would be the wiser," coaxed Alec, the X5 also known as 494.
When Troy, or X624, refused to answer, but continued to glare at him with immovable firmness, Alec turned his appeal to Max.
"Come on Maxie, don't you agree with me? Wouldn't you like to take a stroll through the romantic regions of southern France?" Alec pleaded, an annoyingly insinuating tone to his voice.
Since meeting, Alec and Max had forged a barb-filled, teasing relationship with one another. His smug charm often meeting its match in her wry sarcasm. Short exchanges had led to long-term jokes; one of which was this annoying implication that Troy would defer to Max's preferences, as if the stern Commanding Officer had a puppy-dog crush on her. It was one weapon in Alec's arsenal that tended to get a rise out of Max when other taunts failed.
Letting this particular incident slide, Max countered, "Why would I want to do that when I have the lovely gray-halls of Manticore to vacation in?"
Both Troy and Alec smirked.
Despite his exasperating yapping, Max knew that Alec's comments weren't meant to wound. Something about their unique connection to Ben had created this sibling-like relationship, and prickly though it maybe, Max knew when she wasn't around Alec was one of her staunchest defenders.
Nevertheless, more often than not, Max wanted to give her little 'brother' a swift kick in the ass.
"All I'm saying is that if Manticore wants to give us an all-expense paid vacation to France we should take them up on the opportunity." Alec continued.
It was Brin who intervened. "X5 494, our mission is relegated to Paris and I expect you to behave in a manner befitting your unit. Command would not be pleased with your renegade attitude."
The other members of the unit shifted uncomfortably, Biggs and Dirk openly gave Brin mutinous glares, and Troy's jaw twitched with annoyance.
Max had realized early on that there were unspoken rules within the X5 community. For one, despite the efforts of command to 'simplify' the X5s after the '09 escape, they had been unable to breed out an innate sense of superiority and loyalty that was contained within their ranks. Discipline and punishment were handled, for the most part, within their individual units rather than appealing to outsiders, who in the X5s' opinion, were weaker than themselves. Therefore, a threat to go to command was both an insulting and an aberrant method of dealing with insubordination.
Max had come to realized that whatever Brin's reindoctrination process had been, it had left her more deferential to command and oblivious to the nuances of X5 life. She seemed incapable of picking up on the X5 slang that punctuated the conversations of the X5s when "handlers" weren't present. She never called them "ordinaries" or differentiated between those who were 'party-line' and those more 'in with the Xs.' This made Brin an often unwelcome addition to most groups. It was also, quite possibly, why she was included in their current mission.
Intervening for her unpopular sister, Max interjected, "I think what Brin means to say Alec, is that those on high will be watching us a little more closely than usual and we wouldn't want to risk disciplinary action…" before he could interrupt, Max added, "my fault again, I'm afraid."
Unlike Brin, Max had no trouble picking up the lingo, slipping into Manticore dialogue as easily as she had once acquired the language of Seattle's streets. Her attitude coupled with her strength as a teammate had made Max a favorite within their group and she often acted as the conciliatory moderator between Brin and the rest of the team.
Her stress of their names combined with taking on the responsibility for the added pressure by command deflected the direction the conversation was headed down as both sides focused on reassuring her.
"It's not your fault Max," Brin argued, "they wouldn't be sending you on this mission if they didn't believe you were fully recovered."
"Besides," Alec chipped in, "I'm quite pleased for your little lapse to the dark-side; if it weren't for your screw-up we wouldn't be enjoying the current freedom from the all-knowing watchers."
The freedom Alec was referring to was the internal monitoring system which had been shut down since the genetics lab explosion. The relief from "the watchers" as they were dubbed had provided the X5's with an unprecedented amount of liberty to engage each other in their more laid-back style. It also allowed the 'transactions' Alec often engaged in to become a nearly full-scale business. On Max's part, it gave her the opportunity to explore Manticore halls at night without fear of the cameras stationed everywhere.
Giving a brief signal of thanks to Max, Troy continued to lead the discussion away from the inflammatory topic.
"Rather than focusing on what we do after the mission, what do you say we try to figure out how to achieve our objective without sacrificing our hides."
From there the talk had focused on various details of their mission. It wasn't going to be an easy one. The terrorist group was well-armed and suspicious. The fact that this particular mission required six of them was in and of itself enough to make them cautious. Nevertheless, Max found herself excited at the prospect of a mission. She was eager to leave the prison walls of Manticore behind her, at least for a little while, and spend some time with those fellow soldiers she had begun to think of as friends.
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20 minutes later…
As the team began to break up and go their separate ways, Troy stayed behind to look over some paper work. Soon everyone had left except Max and Brin who were having a slightly strained conversation in the corner of the room.
Troy watched the exchange that was taking place between the "sisters" will hooded eyes, and after a moment's hesitation decided to use his advanced hearing to pick up on the subject of their debate. He was in charge of this mission, he rationalized, and needed to know what was going on within his team.
"All I'm saying Brin is that it wouldn't kill you to ditch some of the command rhetoric; we're a team and we should keep our family squabbles to ourselves," Max insisted.
"There you go again with your family obsession; this isn't a family Max, this is a military unit with an objective that requires sacrifice. As soon as you realized that we're not here to play siblings…" Brin didn't finish her sentence, realizing that in her heated response she had let part of her carefully crafted façade fall.
Troy was startled by the slip.
Despite Max's seemingly perfect transition into party-lines, command had requested a lot of additional surveillance to be placed on her. Troy knew that Brin was the lead soldier on that front; monitoring her and reporting Max's progress to Renfro herself. He knew this because he was also within this circle. Unlike the other X5s who simply suspected it, Troy knew for certain that Max hadn't rejoined Manticore three years ago and been kept on solo missions until her lapse; he knew that she had been living a life outside the confines of Manticore and her memory loss was a protection for those siblings that she intensely loved.
For this reason, he had been put in charge of monitoring her whereabouts and keeping close tabs on her when she was outside regular command training. In addition to the mission in France, part of X624's assignment was to watch if Max used the trip as an opportunity for escape, and to track her if she did.
At first, Troy had had no qualms about his assignment. Max was a defective soldier, an '09er who needed to be watched. However, as some of the details about Max's conversion came to light Troy found himself slightly irritated by the strategy that had been used.
He learned that it had been 734's idea to use Max's weakness for family, for human connection, to gain her submission. By itself, the strategy wasn't cruel, it would allow Max to be spared from some of the physical and psychological torture in store for her while expediting her training; however, there was something in the way that 734 mercilessly used Max's love for her, without seeming to reciprocate any of it, that didn't sit well with Troy.
He recalled two weeks earlier when Max insisted on naming everyone in their immediate unit. The idea didn't sit well with him, all his life he'd been X624 and to have a fellow soldier give him another name seemed somehow too intimate, a breach of boundaries.
Troy remembered the exchange he had with Brin, as they debated reporting this bit of information to command.
Brin's expressionless response had been: "Max's psychological make-up demands that she make a personal connection with the members of her unit. This decision to give you names, though unconventional, is a sign that Max has fully accepted her position at Manticore. Nevertheless, like her breach in military language I recommend that we keep this incident to ourselves lest command mis-interpret the signs."
If her voice had shown even the slightest bit of feeling, Troy might have persuaded that "Brin" was anxious to keep her sister from command's retribution, but it didn't.
It had annoyed him then, and it annoyed him even more lately. He hated to watch all the times Max interceded on behalf of her sister or took on extra training to be near her. He felt like she was losing a game she didn't even know she was playing.
However, at the moment it seemed Max had unintentionally scored a point. Brin's misstep was more than a small flub, it was a sign that Max had gotten to her, annoyed her. If Max was able to do that then it seemed to suggest that Brin wasn't as apathetic to her sister as he thought. Perhaps Manticore's most command-friendly daughter wasn't as party-line as she considered herself to be.
The thought made him internally smile, Max had a tendency to get to a lot of people.
Thinking back, Troy remembered how quickly his own unease about the names had dissipated. Their unit was supposed to be debriefing on arms traders, but instead they were participating in their own naming process.
Alec's name had quickly been settled on, and Max's threat to call him Dick had lightened the mood considerably. Troy remembered the debate that had waged about his own name. Max had wanted to name him after one of the great Greek generals, Hector or Achilles. He had rejected both claiming Achilles implied a weakness and Hector wasn't pretty enough for him; he'd been joking, but Max
responded with a quick jibe at his conceit – "Fine, then we'll name you after the prettiest person in history… Troy, after Helen of Troy." The roar of laughter that this had caused had pretty much sealed his fate.
To their surprise, the members of Alpha team, found the transition from using their designations to using their names to be a fairly easy. Before anyone realized it, they had all begun to use the "Max names" not only with one another, but even privately within their own minds.
Quite an interesting development, mused Troy
Suddenly, Max's raised voice, brought Troy out of his reflections.
"Listen Brin, no one's asking you to win a contest for Miss Congeniality, but just maybe you could stop acting like such an uptight bitch!"
With that, Max walked out on a stuttering Brin, who gave Troy one searing look of challenge before also stalking out of the room.
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Seattle, Lydecker's base of operations…
The X5s were out of patience. Over five months had passed with no news of Zack and no word of Manticore's demise. Some of Lydecker's unidentified sources had given them reason to believe that Manticore was a house of cards, waiting for one strong breeze to knock it down, but Donald's "kids" didn't put much stock in his, or his sources, word.
So despite stake outs and hacks, the inside of Manticore remained a lock box and neither Logan nor Max's siblings were willing to wait much longer to crack.
"How about we attempt to get someone on the inside?" suggested Seth, "someone who could pose as a regular soldier and get into the base."
"We've been over this soldier," replied the colonel. "It takes a special appointment and recommendations to get into Manticore special ops. While command might not notice your 'substitution' those within the unit would sniff you out quickly."
Turning to Logan, Lydecker asked, "Any word on new hires for lab techs or doctors, any additional personnel?"
"Not a thing," Logan responded. "Seems you were right about the hiring freeze; nobody new in and nobody old coming out, except in body bags."
"Eliminating the brain-trust," stated Lydecker, as cooly as if he himself hadn't been responsible for the death of Dr. Vertes less than a year prior.
The thought made Logan's blood pressure rise slightly. Just as Max's family could hardly stand to be around Lydecker without doing him bodily harm, Logan sometimes found himself staring with hate at the old soldier remembering all the pain and anxiety he'd caused Max, and by association him. He remembered the long, sorrowful trip to the cabin when they'd both thought Max's cover was permanently compromised and she would be leaving for good. He remembered the agonizingly close calls they'd had when Max had found Hannah and when Max had been locked in prison nearly dying from her serotonin deficiency.
But the episode with Dr. Vertes triggered a special type of resentment in Logan. If Vertes had lived and her treatment had worked, Logan reasoned, his relationship with Max might have been expedited. He might have had the courage to kiss her sooner, to touch her the way he had been dreaming of for months. They could have had more moments together, and though he knew it was impossible, a small part of Logan wondered if they had had more time to solidify their relationship if he couldn't have talked her out of storming Manticore that fateful night.
Ridiculous to play the what if game, Logan reasoned, but when all one had to cling to was two kisses and a few stolen touches it made one greedy and prone to dream of ways to have had more.
Still, he knew, it wouldn't have been enough.
"What are the reports from the field?" Lydecker commanded, breaking into Logan's thoughts.
Krit replied: "Derek reported back 48 hours ago from Washington; he said the committee has met three times this week and that Renfro attended the earliest one; he requests permission to intercept her on her next trip for interrogation purposes."
"Negative to that." Lydecker responded, "We grab her and we can kiss any surprise attack we might have had goodbye."
Krit continued, "Zane, Jondy, and Syl are stationed in the point out points surrounding the Manticore perimeter; they have yet to have a visual sighting of Zack – although Zane did want me to pass along that the accommodations suck and he requests a Cale special catering service."
"Duly noted."
"And that's it for now; Logan and I have been unable to get anything off the Manticore database as no new communication seems to be occurring and internal surveillance is still down." Krit concluded.
"What about looking into Renfro's personal e-mail server; she's probably handling all communication directly from her office."
"We'll look into," Logan stated.
"Don't get trigger happy," warned Lydecker. "Partly this is a waiting game. It's only a matter of time before something on the board changes, and when it does we're going to be ready to capitalize on it."
Although he may be right, thought Logan, the gun was already cocked and the trigger was halfway pulled.
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Fogle Towers….
"Hey boo," welcomed Original Cindy, as Logan and Krit walked in. "Hope you don't mind, Bling let me in."
"Not at all," remarked Logan, distractedly. "Didn't realize you were coming by, otherwise I'd have let security know."
Since that first night of drunken reminiscences, Cindy had made a sporadic habit of stopping by for booze and memories. It was a situation that served them both well when the sadness became too much.
"Any word on the mission to bring down the government agency from hell?" asked Cindy. Once she had learned Logan's double identity and met Max's siblings, it had been Syl who had told her of Max's death, there had been little point in denying the revenge game that they were playing.
"Not a damn thing," stated a frustrated Logan, "Five months of leg work from the nation's most elite fighting force and intel work from the most comprehensive informant network, and we still aren't one step closer to bringing Zack home and revenging Max."
Watching him pace back and forth in aggravation, Original Cindy was grateful for the exo-skeleton which allowed him to expend some of excess energy. However, she could sense from both men that it wouldn't be much longer before things came to a head.
That was the thing about revenge, it required a lot energy to sustain and the buy-product of anger that it engender was an explosive poison that invaded the body and upset the soul.
"Listen, I know it seems bad right now, but you know it's always darkest before the dawn," Cindy stated, with only a hint less of her regular attitude. "There is no way Max's spirit is gonna let you down; you'll see, she'll send you a sign soon and it will lead you to where you need to go."
It was the closest thing to prayer that any of Max's inner circle had ever murmured. And although Original Cindy had no idea how far from heaven Max's spirit really was; she was correct in thinking that Max was about to send them a sign.
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Manticore, late at night…
At night, Manticore was like a graveyard, cold, somber, and final. No matter how many times Max ventured through the halls, her mind would inevitably wander back to the nightmares of her childhood, as she and her brothers and sisters would be forced to march in perfect military alignment to whatever
set of drills had been on the agenda for that day. It always made Max feel vulnerable and lonely, and no matter how she tried to fight it, she couldn't help but think of those lost siblings and wish she was with them.
It took a few weeks, but her night time activities were eventually rewarded when Max found an abandoned medical lab on the basement level. The lab contained a small computer terminal that had once been hooked into the heart of Manticore. Although the computer was now largely obsolete, the old files were still contained within its working database. Apparently even Manticore wasn't immune to office decay.
Through its system, Max found files containing information on herself and each of her siblings, as well as information on the next X5 class and preliminary data on the X6s. She was able to learn about the different "cocktails" which each of them had sprung from, their different progress reports, and the seizures that plagued them; she was also able to learn about the medical experiments that were being conducted during the time of their escape.
Given what was here, Max came to the conclusion that this particular lab had been closed around the time of the '09 escape, perhaps right before the pulse. It seemed to have specialized in finding cures for human illness, and given the slight humanitarian bent of that project, Max figured it was probably the first one closed when the funding had become tight.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she was able to hack into the personal e-mail account of the lead scientist of the lab. Right before they had been shut down and reassigned, he had sent out a series of irate e-mails waxing on about how close they were coming to solving a number of previously incurable aliments. Looking at the list, Max had to admit it was pretty impressive.
Personally this man, Thompson, had been loathed to be moved to the more "active" labs of the Manticore facility. He was apparently squeamish about participating in the "simplification" process that was being conducted on the remaining X5s and X6s. Max learned from his records that the method being conducted on the two groups was radically different. X5s were submitted to psyops evaluations, given psycho-enhancing drugs and submitted to propaganda. However, they were deemed to be too old to be included in the neuro-manipulation techniques that were practiced on the four and five year old X6s. Actual brain wave patterns were being altered and apparently Dr. Thompson, whose specialty hadn't been limited to medical research, had felt it was too invasive of a project to be successful.
He'd been right, Max thought, as she considered the X6s. DNA wise the X6s were replicas of the fifty X5s that had been created in the original two classes. Their genetic codes had been slightly upgraded in specific areas that corresponded with their natural "gifts," but without a functioning, independent will they were unable to capitalize on these traits.
Max was amused to learn her X6s clone had been designed specifically as an enemy recon specialist, a soldier who would slip into dangerous enemy territory to gather information before any preliminary investigation had been completed. Her success at escape and evade missions, her skills in hand-to-hand combat, her multi-cultural appearance, her ability to go for long-periods without sleep, her creativity
during live drills were all noted as attributes that should be exploited. There was also a large note in her file examining the effects of feline DNA to her body. Although most of her siblings had some of the furry-ancestor in their genes, apparently, Max was one of five where a slightly different sequence had also been used. In particular, they seemed interested in how the sequence, which was related to reflex and muscle control, would ultimately impact her reproductive system.
Max had to scoff, so those scientist who had made her hadn't purposely given her the little "side" effect that had plagued her sex life since she was sixteen. Typical.
However, the most interesting information that Max was able to gather was access to inter-department memos that had been flying between the big-wigs. Scientist Thompson was nosy and had felt that he should be in the know for whatever decisions were being made, and so he had hacked into command's personal files. The messages, particularly between Lydecker and the committee, were enlightening. There were also other messages between players Max had never heard that made little sense without their context. It was all food for thought.
It took a week to look through all the material on the computer, even with Max's advanced processing abilities. Yet, even after she had parsed through most of the information there remained certain files that were too encrypted for Max to access, an impressive feat given this guy had been working with technology that was over a decade old.
Nevertheless, Max felt satisfied at her progress, and for reasons she couldn't decipher, she decided to transfer the information from the computer to CDs that she intended to hide away for vague future purposes. What those purposes might be Max had no idea, but she didn't feel settled until she had the information hidden high up, in the knot of an old oak tree. The spot seemed somehow meaningful for Max; she had twice now hidden things in Manticore's verdant canopy and she wasn't completely sure why. Despite her cat DNA, she wasn't the climber of the group that had been Zack, a fact that made a lot of sense given what she now knew about his genetic cocktail.
The logical part of Max's mind was completely bewildered by her actions, but somewhere in her subconscious she knew she was doing the right thing; obeying that vague voice which commanded: "Fight them Maxie!"
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Hillside near Manticore…
Zane was cranky; although he wouldn't have phrased it like that. He would say he was uncomfortable, cold, and tired. That he missed his dog, his job, and his bed. He would say that after five months of work and worry he deserved some much needed R&R. If he thought about it, he might even have been able to verbalize that being in such close proximity to his childhood hell was a subtle form of torture. However, if someone were to ask either Syl or Jondy who were stationed at different lookouts, what his problem was, they'd tell them: Zane was cranky.
Fortunately for all involved, Zane was still an X5. No matter how many years had passed or how cranky he was, he still kept a close watch on what he was doing. So, when something happened, he saw the slightly unnatural sway to the forest canopy and was able to use his enhanced sight to zero in on the Xseries soldier who emerged briefly into his line of vision, high above the ground. He wasn't close enough to see a barcode, or to see what exactly she was doing. But when her face briefly turned in his direction, Zane had a sudden flash back.
With nearly perfect recall, he visualized the Jam Pony badge that Original Cindy had brought during one of her recent visits; right before they all dispersed on their various assignments. It was the only image him, Jondy, Derek, Seth, and Coreen had ever seen of their adult baby sister: of Max.
Zane only paused in shock for a moment; almost immediately he picked up his com link and called for Syl to meet him on the east ridge. She would be able to tell for certain. However, long before she got there the mysterious visage had vanished.
"Zane, what happened, what did you see?" Syl panted, having run over at the first sign of trouble.
Hesitating momentarily before his voice regained the soldier's confidence, Zane stated: "Max. I saw a vision of Max."
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Thank you for the reviews.
Please let me know if there are things that seem confusing or incoherent to you - it makes sense in my mind I swear. If you're following, I have changed a few things - Luke to Zane, Brin's designation - in order to be more in line with the show.
