Max walked into Joshua's with Alec behind her. They could see four sleeping figures on the floor huddled together. Joshua was reading a book in a nearby arm chair. He lifted his head towards the two. They all made their way silently towards the small dinghy kitchen and closed the door.

"More lil people turn up." Joshua said nodding towards the lounge area with a crooked smile.

"Harry and Archie." Alec said. "They say anything? About the others?" He asked rubbing his eyes. Max peeked in his direction and realized how exhausted he looked.

"Few things. Waiting for you. Told them to sleep. They want to see you in morning." He yawned. "You two go rest. Big day tomorrow, searching for lil' people." Max and Alec nodded and followed Joshua out of the kitchen. He pointed to the bedroom. Alec laughed silently as Max made a horrified face at the suggestion they both take the bedroom. He had no intention of letting Lily out of his sight anyway, so he sat on the sofa and rested his head.

Max closed the door to the bedroom. As she sat on the edge of the bed and took off her shoes, she found herself thinking about Lily. Her mind however immediately jumped to the missing X9s. It was typical, she thought, one mission ends and another begins. Would there ever be time to think about anything other than the mission at hand? She climbed into bed and suddenly felt exhausted. Her muscles were achy and stiff but that didn't bother her. She knew her body would recover by morning.

Alec woke up to find a blanket resting over him and Joshua's chair empty. He was in the kitchen with Max. The kids were all asleep, huddled on cushions Max had fashioned into a large matress on the floor. They were beginning to stir. Lily climbed onto the sofa.

"How did it go?" She asked.

"Good. Everyone got out." He said, smiling at her. He looked down at the boys who were now sitting up. "Hey... Harry, Archie!" He grinned. They stood up quickly and instinctivly drew themselves to attention. "At ease boys." He grinned, pulling them into a hug.

"I'm glad to see you sir." One of the boys said. He was taller than all of them and had sandy coloured hair and pale blue eyes. "This place…" He stopped, and visbly shuddered.

"It's not that bad. Is it? Takes some getting used to, I suppose. But you're safe here." Alec reassured him.

"Some people are very territorial." The other boy replied. He had jet black hair and big green eyes. Before he could say anymore Max came in with a trey of food.

"Who's hungry?" Joshua called from behind her. The mood eased as they sat around eating and chatting. Max looked at Alec urging him to ask what needed to be asked. He returned her uneasy look with an acknowledging nod.

"Ready to spill?" Alec finally asked, looking at each of them in turn. Cosmo let out a deep breath and looked at Max.

"I don't know if you know anything about us, but there were 10 in our unit." He said shifting his gaze to Joshua. "When Manticore burned, we were moving to the rendezvous point before the message changed to 'scatter and go to ground'. We didn't want to lose each other, so we split into groups. Fin, Stanley, and Isabelle came with us." He said looking at Lily. "Harry.." He pointed to the sandy haired boy, "Archie.." pointing to the boy with jet black hair, "Frankie, Summer and Noah were in the other group." He continued. "My group stayed low and survived on the bare minimum. We didn't want to draw any attention to ourselves. I mean it looks a bit odd, a bunch a children hanging about on the streets. We were living underground and felt safe, at least for a while." He sighed. "It happened so quickly, soldiers gagged and bound us." He remembered, frowning. "We were taken to a big facility. It was like another Manticore." He looked at Lily for help.

"There was mostly X9's, some X8's and only a few X6's." Lily chipped in. "At first we thought it was a new Manticore but we weren't sure. They kept us in our original units at lights out. We never got to speak to the others when there were no guards around. One night we heard sirens and gun shots. So we all bolted." Lily said.

'We went through one of the vents and came out on the roof.' Cosmo took over. "We saw an X6 jump out a top story window but she was shot by the guards.' We decided to split and run. If we scattered, we would be harder to track. " He bowed his head in shame.

"Isabelle and I got free of the perimeter but before I knew it they'd got her." Lily said looking at Alec. He tucked a piece of loose hair behind her ear, and cleared his throat.

"It wasn't your fault." He said quietly."Or yours." He said lifting Cosmo's chin slightly.

Max felt such sadness. These kids were so young and little. She found it incredible that they were even capable of speaking with such maturity and wisdom. They'd been through so much already and they were only 6. She turned to Harry and Archie. "Where's your unit?" She asked.

"We were together until about 2 months ago." Archie answered. "We were all on our way here after seeing all the commotion about transgentics on the news. We thought we were being watched. Harry and I split from the others. We all agreed that we could move easier in smaller groups. I never imagined they wouldn't make it." Archie looked at Harry, who returned a solemn stare.

Joshua cocked his head to one side. "Still hope. Always hope!" He said patting Archie roughly on the head.

Alec flashed a look in Max's direction and stood up. "I'll be back in a bit." He said walking to the front door. Max took the empty plates and cups into the kitchen and then followed him out. Joshua did a good job distracting the others who had resumed their light hearted chatter.

Alec was rubbing his forehead trying to rid himself of the dull throb between his temples. He was sat in the control room, lost in thought and didn't even hear Max enter. He was tired and felt pretty low. "It's hard being depended on." Max said, sitting down nearby.

"I don't mind it." He replied, pulling himself more upright. "I don't know how easy this is going to be. To find the kids, I mean." He said shuffling mindlessly through papers that were left on the side.

"I'll get Logan down here. He's good at this kind of stuff, if you hadn't noticed." Max smirked. Alec looked up at her. "Thanks Maxie" He replied. He tried to sound light hearted but it came out low and serious. Max couldn't help but stare. She hadn't done anything. Not yet at least. She gave a quick smile and walked over to the computer.

Alec couldn't help but watch Max from across the room as she spoke to Logan through video call. Biggs had to physically nudge him to snap him out of his thoughts.

"Do we have any idea where the others are yet?" He asked.

"We need to concentrate on finding this 'facility' Lily and Cosmo were taken to." He replied. "I need to speak to them again really. Max is warning Logan that we might need him." He said nodding in her direction.

"So that's what you were looking at." Biggs grinned. "Jealous are we?" He said with an amused chuckle.

"What are you talking about?" Alec asked. He knew he was playing dumb and knew that Biggs knew it too. "Want to come and talk to Cosmo and Lily? Find out more about this place?"

"Nice change of subject.' Biggs laughed. 'Sure. I've been wondering if Fin's ok. The kids are tough, right?" He asked, looking for reassurance.

"Course man. I mean look who designed them." Alec responded. That made him think, 'Hey, do you know anything about the DNA pairings?' He asked.

'What about them?' Biggs asked curiously.

'Josh seems to think Lily's mine. As in, used me as a donor to create her. Maybe thats what they did with all the X9s.' Biggs was silent, processing what Alec was saying. He smiled.

'So Finn could be mine?' He thought for a moment. 'Cool.' Alec clapped Biggs on the back, before raising a hand at Max. He had purposefuly not mentioned about Max's involvment. He felt that was something they needed to figure out together before anyone else knew.

"I'm coming." Max called across to him. "Look Logan, I've gotta jet. We need to get more info from the kids." With that she signed off and went after Alec and Biggs.