AN: I guess I should warn you, this chapter gets a tad dark and brutal when White tries a new tactic to torment Max... I've tried to counter-balance that with some light-hearted camaraderie with Alec and Mole. Hope you'll stick through it - this fic is nearly at an end!
Also, please note the last segment of the previous chapter has been revised, hopefully it's not as sucky as it was before. Not that there's any sense going back to read it. Just putting it out there...
No Need To Argue - Chapter Nine
by Sorrow Reminisce
ll l lll ll l lll
The transhuman studied the compound below, deliberating on whether to follow Alec's plan or come up with one of his own. One that involved running the hell outta here. Clearly, the guy was crazy. And he probably wanted him dead. Mole still wasn't entirely convinced psychopathy wasn't a genetic condition.
The sixteen foot high fence laced with razor wire and infrared sensors didn't seem too difficult. Though the hidden tripwires that were rigged to silent alarms probably would be. Especially if any of those tripwires had claymores attached - which wouldn't surprise him. Guards patrolled the perimeter fence every three minutes. Their attire was casual, farmer style even, but their demeanor screamed military trained. Basically, gaining access to the buildings beyond the fence without being detected was about as probable as flying nuns.
"Is it just me.." Alec began to whisper as he crawled closer to his comrade, "Or is there something familiar about these guys?"
Mole gave a small nod. "Read my mind."
"Well, now that we've established this isn't just some off-the-records military thing, it should be fun." The gleeful anticipation in Alec's voice sounded sincere, and Mole wondered if his friend had actually missed these kinds of missions since Manticore's demise. Not that he'd blame him if he did - away missions had always been a highlight to being a Manticore-bred supersoldier.
"Well, they've got every kinda set-up imaginable aimed at keepin' us out -so, yeah this is gonna be a barrel of fun." Mole spat out the blade of grass he'd been chewing on since going cold turkey on the wheat, and crawled a foot closer to the party. This was like being on the outside of a POW camp and trying to get in - completely insane.
"Nothing's too big or small for us Mole. This is just a... a walk in the park."
"In a minefield Alec. A walk in a minefield."
"Hey! Where's that I'll grind your bones to make my bread optimism buddy?" Alec turned wide laughing eyes onto his friend before dropping his tone with a remark guaranteed to get a bite out of the hot headed lizard. "You're not going soft on me are you?"
Mole turned to him with a snarl and flicked an offensive hand signal. Laughing away the tension of their upcoming showdown, Alec turned back to the cluster of buildings and fell silent as he once more took to waiting.
Of course, the silence didn't last for long, and then Alec started on a new tangent. Mole shook his head in a mixture of amusement and exasperation at the X5's latest topic. Bitter mutterings regarding Logan's self-appointed right to play at being Superman simply because of his vague resemblances to Clark? Whatever that was about.
Eventually, Mole's patience wore thin. They'd been waiting far too long for outer-perimeter sentries to stroll on by, and at this rate it'd be full daylight before they got anywhere. Sometimes, you just had to go with the Hollywood version.
"Aw, screw this shit." Unscrewing the silencer from his sniper rifle, Mole ignored Alec's look of alarm as he began to edge away from the X5.
Swearing under his breath, Alec grabbed Mole's foot and hissed. "Hey, whatcha doin!"
Wrenching his limb away, Mole muttered complaints to himself of encumbersome X5's before swinging his head back to his companion, a look of impatience on his inhuman face.
"Well come on Princess, you gonna prattle on about Robo-legs forever, or are we gonna gatecrash this party?"
Without waiting for a reply, Mole sprang to his feet, and ran.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The high pitched wail of the first missile moments before it struck the target was what wrenched Max from her dreamless sleep and into a living nightmare. With her ears ringing from the thunderous sounds of buildings exploding, and the screams of the dying that followed, Max ran from her decrepit apartment and into the tortured streets of Terminal City. Around her, buildings were shattering in all directions, rising up into the sky, and then raining back down again, while transgenics ran in a futile attempt to seek cover. Some merely stood in shocked horror, their grotesque silhouettes showing them to be Nomolies - terrified that the past had caught up with them, and not knowing what to do to save themselves from it.
Max yelled at them to take cover, but there was no way to escape. No one knew where the next missile would strike. And there were so many - so many to save. The fiery destruction of Terminal City made the demise of Manticore seem a basic fire drill. The task of saving these peoples lives had become an impossible one.
As Max ran to those who stood dumbstruck, a part of her wondered if this truly was their fate, coming to claim them at last. If so, this was her fate too. As true helplessness overwhelmed her in the face of such a realisation, she wanted to sink to her knees in the midst of it all and scream. And so as she witnessed the horror around her, and heard the screams of her friends and comrades as they begged for the pain to end, that was exactly what she did.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Eyes snapping open, Max stared up at the fluorescent lights above her, heart rattling in chest as if trying to beat it's way right out from its cage of bone. Straining against the straps that bound her to the steel hospital cot, she fought to breath - fought the images of death as she tried to bring her mind back into the present. Panic threatened to overwhelm her as tragic memories of the past and doomed visions of the future plagued her mind and she drew in large gasping breaths to try and calm herself.
"Screams like that could wake the dead 452."
The voice made Max's skin crawl and did nothing to reduce her panic attack. In the moments that passed since having woken from her nightmare, she hadn't noticed White cross the room to stand beside her. Now he perched on the edge of the thin mattress, a surgical scalpel dangling casually from his fingers as he looked down at her with a dark smile. "Now, shall we test that theory?"
Max stared transfixed at the blade as it swayed back and forth before her, despair threading its way through her stomach as she noted the sleek rivulet of blood that had already congealed on its edge. Blood that was not her own. Finally tearing her gaze away, she raised her eyes to meets White's own. "Need I tell you once again to bite me?"
The familiar's smile turned into a cruel sneer as his eyes hardened. "Don't tempt me 452."
Lowering the scalpel towards her, both pairs of eyes watched its descent as he dipped the blade towards Max's stomach and ran it ever-so-lightly across her skin, leaving a fresh trail of beading blood to mingle with the old. White waited for the pain to sink in and mar his captor's pretty features. Smiling with satisfaction as she clenched her eyes tight, White leant over his prize, his face inches from her own as his lips glided over her ear.
"Now 452, are you going to tell me where my son is?" Smiling as she muttered another curse, he continued,"Or am I going to have to feed you slices of your own quivering flesh?"
"How about you do that?" Max wrenched her head away as she felt the vibration of his laughter brush against her skin. "Because it'll only serve to remind me just what a whack job you are. And that's exactly why your son is better off as far away from you as possible. Now how 'bout you listen to me. Whoever you've captured - you're gonna them let go. Alive. Then maybe I'll talk."
"Nice wish list 452. How about I see what I can work out for you huh? Because you know I just wanna find a peaceful ending for all of us."
"Yeah whatever." Mumbling under her breath, Max turned her head away and began to inspect a wall, fighting the defeat that rested so heavily within her, she half wondered if she'd be be able to rise from this bed even if she weren't bound to it.
"I already know that Ray is with his aunt, and that Logan Cale arranged for them to cross the border into Canada."
She snapped her head back towards him, her eyes widened in shock. The sudden realisation that it was Logan's blood on the blade and the fear of what White had done to draw that information out of him, caused a small cry to escape her lips.
White grinned. He wanted her to believe he had tortured Logan to great lengths for this information. Because he had. But that wasn't how he'd found out the truth.
"Don't worry, Eyes Only refused to give that pearl up, no matter how I tried to... Convince him." He softened his voice to a whisper as he leant over her once more. "No 452, those frightened eyes of yours just gave it away."
Laughing out loud, the familiar then continued in a conversational tone. "You know I've been toying with you all along, right? I mean, it wasn't difficult for me to find out that Wendy's sister had packed up and left within a day of Ray's abduction. It wasn't hard to guess that you and your chumps would have smuggled them out of the country. And it certainly didn't take much brainstorming to come to the conclusion that Canada is filled with more of Eyes Only's refugees than it is Canadians."
Max didn't trust her voice enough to try and speak. White's mention of Eyes Only chilled her to the bone. Just how much had he tortured Logan to find out his alter-ego?
"Well what do you say to that one 452? Come on - I'm itching with curiousity!"
"Yeah well perhaps you should try lice treatment!" Max's words were laced with frustration. Hopelessly sure now that none of them were going to be getting out of here anyway, she tried to play on White's conscience. If he even had one.
"If you really loved your son, you'd let him stay with his aunt." She looked to him and noted how the angry twitch in his cheek. What was the point in holding back now? "Can't you see that dragging him back into your life is just gonna turn an innocent kid into a fucked up psychopath like yourself?"
Grabbing Max's head and twisting it back towards him, White fought the urge to wrap his fingers around the X5's throat and simply wring the life right out of her - taking that smug little smile of hers with it. But of course, that wouldn't get him his son back. Rage boiled deep within him at the frustration of knowing his efforts were so far only leading him in useless circles.
"You know what 452? You have this knack of making me so damned angry. And I'm not a patient man."His fingers dug into her skin as he continued."I think it's time we try a new method of information extraction."
"Information extraction huh?" Max gave an ironic laugh as she rolled her eyes at him. "Is that the politically correct term for torture now Ames?"
"Well you know me 452. I try to be diplomatic." He smiled at the memory of how good it felt to riddle this piece of transgenic scum with holes. A scowl then chased the smile away as his mind played an image of how it had been necessary to personally keep the damn bitch alive after his hot headed actions."And to prove that I'm generally a fair person, I'm going to give you two pleasant little options to choose from."
Loosening his hold on her, he ran a finger softly along Max's cheek, brushing back her hair in an almost affectionate manner, and grinning with sincere pleasure as his touch made her irises darken with black hatred. Her obvious discomfort only served to please him further.
In the back of his mind, White briefly played over the fun he could have with the X5 for the simple sake of seeing her humiliated and crumbling beneath the weight of self-hatred. But there was no time, the Conclave would soon find out he had 452, and they would insist he bring her to them. His twisted sense of logic told him to act quickly, least this opportunity be lost.
Standing at last, White threw down his final cards. "If you tell me exactly where Ray is, then I might just let the geriatric who I presume to be your lover boy, Mr Eyes Only - live."
"Or alternatively, you can save your mother. I hear the doctor has already had a chat with you about that little chapter of your natal life. We had to remove her from your presence unfortunately. Seeing you tied down like that... well it made her freak out a little. Poor woman is so unbalanced as it is." White sighed in mock sympathy before continuing. "The asylum she's spent half of her life in isn't the most humane of places unfortunately."
"Oh yeah, I remember the woman. The familiar. " Max rolled her eyes as she scoffed. "And that's a far-fetched story if ever I heard one."
White ignored her retort and turned towards the door. Exiting for a few moments to speak to someone who waited outside, he then turned back towards his prisoner. "How about I give you a moment to acquaint yourself with her before you make your decision?"
"Spare me your shit White. How about you just untie me and we fight this bitch out?" Max pulled against her restraints once more, although she knew the futility in her efforts. If White were to take her up on the decision she'd be as helpless now as she was the day he caught up with her in Harbor Lights Hospital.
Sitting back on the edge of the bed once more, White stared down at the transgenic, the smile that haunted his lips causing Max to shudder with repulsion. Studying her features, he lowered his voice as he remarked. "I have to admit, my father certainly reached his goal for physical perfection when he manufactured you."
"You're out of practice with the pick up lines White. How about you try it on someone your own age?" Max tried not to shrink beneath his gaze, refusing to show weakness although her stomach churned at the suggestion in his tone of voice. Reminding herself that he detested her far too much to bring her growing fear to fruition, she added. "But I suppose rendering woman helpless is the only way assholes like you can score. I bet you tied down and drugged your wife too huh?"
As White's face turned up into an ugly sneer, Max instantly regretted her words. She expected him to lash out at her and beat her into a bleeding pulp. For a moment it seemed that he would. But as he drew back his arm, a new look came into his cold glittering eyes. One much more sadistic.
"How about I show you just how I treated my wife 452?"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The lizard-like man slipped through the darkness and towards the perimeter fence. On the hill above him, his partner watched and waited. Their bodies and minds fully prepared for what was to come, as if it were the single most defining moment of their entire being. Considering what was at stake, it probably was.
Even as he was only a few meters from the fence, the familiars who stood watch had still failed to notice the tranhuman. So much for creating a diversion. Sometimes green skinned reptilian men could be too damned inconspicuous for their own good. Mole chose this moment to let off a burst of gunfire towards the direction of the buildings. So now they finally clued on. About bloody time.
To his left he caught flashes of light in his peripheral vision. The sound of automatic gunfire sliced through the still air as the bullets themselves did - propelled towards their target. Blurring past the bullets, Mole skidded to a halt as he reached the fence and cursed himself for having done so already.
"Come on Mole, veer away from the fence damnit." Realising what Mole was up to, Alec crept closer, waiting for his moment to step into this little drama. Silently he swore beneath his breath, wondering why the hell his friend had wound up so close to the wire mesh. The combination of down hill propulsion, wet grass, and a deep-seated desire to take flight like a superhero had lead to the lizard man reaching the fence faster than anticipated, but if Alec left the camouflage of the trees right now, their plan would instantly fail.
Groaning as the familiars closed in on his companion, Alec began to creep out from his seclusion, then stopped and watched with numb fixation as the familiars brought his friend down. First firing at him from a distance, then approaching once he fell to the ground. As Mole's limp body was carried away, Alec heard the snapping of twigs from behind draw closer as a couple of familiars approached. Slinking further back into the darkness of the copse of trees, he waited for them to draw closer. Now it was his turn.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Max tugged her head away as White wrapped his fingers tightly, cruelly, through her locks, inhibiting her movement. His smile was cruel and inhuman as he leant towards her. With Max now fully restrained, White began to kiss her with near brutal force, his mouth travelling down to her jawline and along her neck, nipping roughly with his teeth as he went before returning to her mouth once more.
His mind ignored both the petty threats she choked out between his kisses, and the silent protests of his own mind. The thrill of degrading 452 and wiping that smug grin off her face once and for all, was too much temptation to turn down. His sadistic desire to see 452 violated and broken overruled his blinding hatred for her species.
This was his revenge on the embarrassment she caused him to suffer time and time again. Tightening his grip on her hair, White ran his free hand along her body. The lust of rage and hatred infused his every touch and he smiled as he felt her shudder with revulsion beneath his palm.
Forcing tears back for the hopeless futility of her situation, Max tried to disconnect her mind from her body as she felt White's lips trail over her skin, his hands kneading at her flesh. She stopped snarling at him to stop between insults at his family hereditary - it only made him enjoy this more. Instead she closed her eyes and prayed silently that Alec would find her before it was too late. Before White took this insanity any further.
His taste was in her mouth, choking her, his scent filling her nostrils. As his hand glided over her skin, she felt it crawl beneath his touch. Never before had she felt so helpless and god damned weak.
Fighting the silent screams inside her mind that threatened to surface, she knew this was exactly how he want her to feel. And she refused to give him that satisfaction. Wishing desperately that she hadn't provoked him as he forced his mouth back over her own, Max finally realised her own foolish arrogance. She had made a grave mistake in mis-judging Ames White.
And now she knew just what sort of a dangerous creature he really was.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The black clad familiars turned back towards the facility they guarded, the transgenic limply slung over the shoulder of one as if he were a sack of meat. As they passed through the entrance and strode towards what appeared to be a cargo bay, the gates automatically began to close behind them.
Two veered off towards the main building, leaving the familiar who carried the transgenic to his own devices. He dumped the body onto the ground beside a large wooden crate and began to remove the lid. Briefly he wondered why they didn't just burn the filthy thing, but he stifled the thought. Ames White had his reasons for ordering that all transgenics be taken in alive and sent to him. He knew better than to question his instructions. Familiars were trained to have an extremely high tolerance to pain, but if the right buttons were pushed, they could feel pain immeasurable. And from what he had heard, Ames White knew how to push those buttons.
With his thoughts so pre-occupied, the familiar was completely taken off guard when the 'dead' transgenic suddenly sprang to life. Turning towards the sound of movement behind him, he found himself suddenly being flung backwards. In an instant, the transgenic was before him once more, picking him up and bringing him back down again across a raised knee. A glimpse of red rimmed eyes flashed into his mind moments before his spine was broken and his neck then efficiently snapped. Mole wasn't in the mood for pissing around.
Dropping the lifeless familiar, the lizard-like man began to pull bullets from his body - reptilian skin had its merits, offering a natural armor. Sensing someone behind him and whirled around, finding himself encountering another cult-bred wacko. Swearing a loud complaint, he launched himself at the leanly built guard, intending to finish this one off in less time than the last. He was feeling a world of hurt right now and needed to bash his pain out by hitting something. Hard.
"He-ey!" The familiar apparently didn't expect to be attacked and his attempt to sidestep the approaching bundle of scaled fury was not made quick enough. With a whoosh of expelled air as the transhuman barreled into him, he fell backwards, too winded to call out. To breathless to try and communicate the fact that he wasn't in fact a familiar, but a transgenic in familiar clothing. X5-494 wearing a riot helmet and bullet proof gear.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Max's whole body recoiled with disgust as she tried to wrench her head out of White's cruel grasp. Despite her earlier efforts to tell herself not to react, she couldn't help herself. Her mind and body both screamed for her to do something, to take defense. As White's weight shifted and he moved himself on top of her, Max knew she would truly rather die than have this go on any longer. Pinned fully beneath him now, there was only one thing she could do.
Opening her mouth to allow his tongue access, she bit down upon it with all of her might. Suddenly White's body began writhing in a different manner as he struggled to pull free. Clamping down even harder, Max ignored his thrashings. She blocked out the angered screams that gargled from his throat. In fact, in the back of her mind, she felt a perverse sort of pleasure as her mind grasped on to the thought that familiars could be made to feel pain after all. White smacked at her wildly, but each flaying punch only encouraged her to bite down harder.
Max felt her mouth fill with blood that wasn't her own. She wanted to vomit from the taste but refused to release her hold. This was her revenge. He had tried to defile her and she could never return the clock and pretend it didn't happen, but she could to some degree at least, seek compensation. Once she let go, he would make her beg for death. Therefore she intended to make the most of her last few moments.
Suddenly Max's body was racked with pain as White plunged a finger into the bullet wound in her thigh. The pain turned to searing agony as he twisted his hand and ploughed his finger further in, as if trying to dig out the lead that was still lodged within her flesh. Gasping from shock as a wave of nausea took full control of her body alongside of the unendurable pain, Max instantly released her hold on White's tongue. Her stomach heaving as she fought the urge to vomit.
White jumped back, cursing aloud as he wiped blood from his mouth. Striking Max hard across the face, he snarled as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut to hold in the scream which threatened to spill out from the deepest recess of her being.
Almost instantly, White had control of his own pain and so he waited for hers to ebb away. He wanted her eyes open so that she would see him coming when he stepped forward once more - to tear her apart.
Max dragged in long shuddering breaths as she fought to bring her mind and body under control. Forcing the pain from her mind, she turned to her captor and briefly took in the disarrayed sight of him before hissing, "I'm not your fucking wife."
The familiar's backwards glare was chilling as he crossed the room and grabbed a handful of paper towels from a dispenser on the wall. Slowly he approached, his manner entirely predatory as he dabbed tentatively at his mouth, cautiously checking that his tongue wasn't severed. Blood flowed freely from his mouth and ran in rivlets off his chin, dripping onto his clothing and collecting in a small pooling trail along the floor.
"Now look at what you did to my suit." Ames White's words were slurred as his tongue had begun to swell, but his voice was laced with venom non the less.
As he stepped up to her, Max returned his icy glare with her own, refusing to show signs of submission even as she knew what was to come. Especially as she knew what was to come.
White delivered a backhanded blow across Max's face with all of the strength and anger one would expect of a familiar who had for the first time since childhood, been forced to experience pain. He expected to hear the satisfactory sound of bone splintering but scowled at the anticlimax of his actions. She was a transgenic after all. Raising his fist once more as she glowered up at him behind eyes that betrayed her fear and pain, White briefly savored the moment before he took his second swing. But as she at last flinched beneath him, the blow never came. Instead a loud knock at the door paused his fist in its decent.
"What!"
The word came out as a snarl as the door opened and a guard entered, the woman who White had planned to use as a bargaining tool, under his hold. Pushing her forward, the guard's eyes slid between White and Max, taking in the blood that still ran from White's mouth, lending him the deranged appearance a serial killer straight from a pre-pulse slasher movie.
The guard opened his mouth to speak, his lips slightly curled in disgust. White growled a warning for silence and waved him away before stepping forward to grab the woman by her hair. After watching with impatience as the guard exited the room, he turned to Max once more, although his words were directed to the woman who cringed beneath his hold.
"Now, before I kill you both, I want you to tell your daughter just what you are. I want to see the repulsion in her eyes as she looks upon the woman who I'm certain she has always longed to meet."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Mole stop!" The words were less of an exclamation and more of a shuddering out take of air. But it was enough to give the transhuman a moment of pause - moments before he would have ploughed Alec's skull through a concrete wall.
"Alec?" Mole pulled the helmet away to reveal a red-faced gasping X5, trying desperately to dredge up the ragged remnants of his self-pride and with it, a dry smile.
"Bro -" Straightening himself, Alec clapped Mole on the back. "Bro, you should have made the football team. I coulda hooked you up with some fine cheerleaders."
"Since when did Manticore have a football team?"
The presumably puzzled expression on Mole's features brought the cocky grin back to Alec's face once more. "Ah... we didn't. It just seemed the thing to say."
Nodding vaguely, Mole eyed his friend critically, wondering if he were suffering some kind of concussion. The last thing he needed was to babysit an X5. Lugging around the guy's dead clone had been bad enough. "You know, this wouldn't have happened if you'd taken off that damned helmet."
"Oh no my friend, this wouldn't have happened if you'd kept to the plan!" Alec had recovered and was now throwing furtive glances around the corner as Mole began to drag the body out of sight.
"How was I to know it was you? You don't go sneaking up behind a guy!" Mole hissed the words, sounding decidedly reptilian. Being that he was, the noise wasn't entirely out of place. "While wearing a helmet! Where'd you get the hell'd you find that thing anyway?"
Having stashed the familiar's corpse, the two transgenics then continued to quietly bicker as Alec bound Mole's hands behind his back in a fake knot. They then began towards one of smaller buildings.
"Why this one Alec? Why not that one?" Mole was simply arguing for the sake of it now, the words coming out in a barely audible whisper as he tried to speak without moving his mouth.
"Because." Glancing about to ensure they weren't being too closely observed, Alec continued. "The main building would appear to be rigged with the best security. Therefore it would seem logical that Max would be kept there. But only an idiot would believe that ruse and go for the main building..."
The last sentence was said with a cocky laugh, before Alec paused to retrack his pattern of thought. "Whereas we know that White would have Max in a small building, with seemingly minimal security."
Alec grinned at the transhuman, his smile faltering beneath Moles blank stare as he realised his great idea held a few flaws in its logic.
"What are you on about Alec?" Mole scoffed, having come to the same conclusion as his pal.
"Well..." Alec continued slower this time, trying to map out his thoughts as he went. "He'd expect us to think that we'd know he would hide Max in a smaller building. So he'd think that we'd think he'd try and fool us by putting her in the big building after all. So we're going to go to the building that he expects us to not think that we think he thinks... "
Once again, Alec's words faded away. There was no sense trying to unravel the many possibilities of White's twisted mind.
"So then, shouldn't we look in a shed? Or an underground bunker? Or maybe a small hut in the forest?"
Alec sighed deeply in exasperation. Though who it was directed at, he wasn't sure. "Just shut up and act like a prisoner."
Pulling a seemingly unwilling Mole along with him, Alec headed towards a... medium sized building. Alec smiled optimistically as he let out a little chuckle. So far, this plan was going off without a hitch.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Tell the little transgenic whore just how human the human side of her really is." White shoved the dark haired woman forward towards the bed.
Max was momentarily stunned to see her face stained with tears. But she smothered the surprise, hiding it beneath the customary scowl by which she greeted strangers and more often than not, friends and loved ones too.
Behind her, White's cruel mouth turned upwards in a faintly calculated smile. Max's gaze upon the woman hardened and she grudgingly pulled her stare back to the monster in the middle of the room. "Why don't you tell me where you've put my men White?"
Hesitating only for the barest moment, White held his arms out questioningly. "Gee 452. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to ask? And here I was thinking you no longer cared."
"Well I was kinda pre-occupied until now." She replied through clenched teeth, angrily eyeing both White and the woman who had remained at her side. The fact that the woman continued to stare as if she were the main attraction of an art exhibit did nothing to calm her already shattered nerves.
Ignoring her, White turned his attention back to the woman, withdrawing his gun as he stated in a slow cold voice. "I thought I gave you an order."
Turning frightened eyes from Max to White, and back to Max again, the woman made an attempt to speak but found that her voice had evaded her. Lunging forward, White struck her across the head with his gun, sending her flying across the room.
"Hey!" Max cried out in anger, wishing for nothing more than to break free so that she could choke the life out of the sadistic freak. She didn't give a flying fuck who the lady was, but she couldn't bear to lie helpless and watch her be beaten either.
"It's okay 452. She's a familiar." He dragged the woman to her feet, blood ran from a wound on her temple. "She can't feel pain."
It was true that she didn't seem to be hurting. It was more a blinding fear that was locked in her eyes. Max couldn't stop the queasy feeling in her stomach that accompanied the series of 'what if's' that had begun to charge through her mind. What if this lady really had spent her life locked away in the same institute as CJ? She surely looked messed up, it would take a lot to put a familiar in this kind of mental anxiety. And her own mother had been locked away...
"Look, I can believe some of your kind turn out lacking a bit in the brain department. I've met your brother remember? And well, there's you as well to further back up that fact."
White ignored the remark and and merely dug his fingers into the woman's arm in an effort to control his growing anger and impatience.
"But right now, I really don't care why the hell you've dragged her in here. I want -"
"I really don't care about what you want 452!" White's voice thundered through the room. "I what you to to shut up and listen!"
Holding his gun to the woman's bleeding temple, he yelled. "Speak!"
"Sandeman..." With her voice trembling, the woman sought the words to stop Ames White from pulling the trigger. "I was on his side. Ag-against the Conclave. There were a few of us. For some of his experiments, he used our DNA. He wanted his transgenics to have natural immunity to a virus carried within a certain species of snake -"
"Yeah yeah yeah, she knows about the snakes." White pushed the gun further into the wound. "Cut the crap and get to the point."
"Most of the surrogate mothers were human. But I was asked to carry a foetus within me. I was young. I thought I wouldn't care. I didn't realise how having you would change everything I had ever..."
The woman's voice faded, her eyes filling with tears at the memory. Max's stony expression was unfaltering. She refused to believe that her genetics could be in any way tainted by the breeding cult.
"Oh look! It disgusts me too 452!" White sneered down at her. "Why do you think I hate your kind so much? You're an insult to our race!"
Something broke within Max. If this woman lied, the raw hatred in White's voice told her that he at least believed her.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to take you away from it all. I should have tried harder." The woman's eyes begged her to understand.
The sudden ring of gunfire broke the uneasy silence and White released the woman and turned to the door as the guard burst in.
"Sir. 452 has visitors." The man waited in the doorway for instructions, his eyes darting down the hall towards the approaching source of noise.
White turned back to 452 and hissed. "Well they're going to fine one very dead transgenic waiting for them."
Without shifting his eyes from Max, he turned his semi-automatic towards the woman who claimed to be her mother and pulled the trigger. Smiling as the transgenic's eyes widened in horror as the dark haired woman collapse soundlessly to the floor, he then trained the gun on her.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TBC...
I hope you've made it this far! Stay tuned for the final chapter which is almost complete - I just have to figure out what's going on with Logan. I may have forgotten about him in this chapter...
