Okay, okay, yes I know I said it would take me more time to update but at the moment I just can't stop. This chapter is shorter though. Hope you still enjoy.
Divine Fighter: Well, sorry :) I didn't think one of you would think about Jondy. It always bothered me she wasn't seen in the series while she seemed to have been very close with Max back in their childhood. About Lydecker I have to say he sometimes reminds me of my own superior. Grumpy old bastard but loyal to the core to his men.
throwerpro: Welcome back and thanks to you too. Well, if you want to read more, here is more.
Taeniaea: Thanks again, Taeniaea.
Here we go!
Max felt overwhelmed having her long lost sister at her side again.
"I thought I would never see you again" she said in a low voice not because she was afraid but because speaking still hurt.
"Same here, Maxie." Jondy smiled broadly. She had come home just some hours ago from her mission and the Colonel had filled her in about what had happened to Max. She was allowed to use their old names for the moment, if only to reassure Max. She looked at her younger sister's bruised face and her eyes were filled with sorrow and sympathy. "My god, what did they do to you?"
"I will live. How are you?"
"That's my sister!" Jondy laughed. "You're the one lying in a hospital bed, not me. But as a matter of fact I'm fine. Just got home. I'm sorry I wasn't here when they brought you back."
Suddenly Max realized what it meant if Jondy was here too and her happy expression faltered. "So they got you, too? I'm so sorry."
"Don't be." The brown-haired transgenic just kept smiling. "I don't feel miserable about it."
"But why?" Max had regained some of her strength and looked at her sister in sudden disbelief. "Zack told me you had a life out there."
"Yeah, right!" Jondy snorted. "If you call working in that shit-hole of a bar every night and fighting for survival every day a life."
"But don't you miss your freedom?"
"I did at first, but when you look at it closely enough life out there is not that much different from the one in here."
"At least I don't get tortured out there!"
Jondy nodded sadly and took another look at her sisters still pretty much beaten up face.
"No, probably not. But you and I know there are people out there dying every day just because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least in here I have people around me who look out and care for me. And in here I don't have to hide what I am. Don't get me wrong: What happened to you was not supposed to happen, not ever, not to anyone. I don't know who is responsible for this but everyone on the base is feeling miserable about it; the other X5s, 301 and 451 in particular, even the instructors and the Colonel."
"Does that mean I should feel better about it?" Max snapped feeling her anger returning. Apparently Doc Cottle and his staff had really done some good work for she felt stronger every minute or perhaps it was just the boiling rage inside her searching for a target. Jondy looked at her with a shocked expression.
"No, that's not what I wanted to say! But you shouldn't judge everybody here like those bastards from PsyOps."
"I do not care, Jondy" Max hissed partly in physical pain again because those painkillers seemed to wear off but also because she felt betrayed. How could her sister talk like that? "I don't want to be here, I never did. I want to be free, far away from Lydecker and his goddamned military games. They brainwashed you, can't you see it?"
"No, Max, they didn't." Jondy sadly shook her head. "I saw what they did to Brin, that's brainwashing; she remembers almost nothing from her former life. When they brought me in Lydecker somehow managed the reindoctrination to be less forceful. I got reindoctrinated, yes, but it was nothing like the things that have happened to Brin or even you. I remember everything but I still chose to stay here out of my free will. It's where we belong, it's our home."
"But how can you work for the men who took Jack away, for Lydecker who shot Eva?"
"I've had a hard time figuring it out, too, Max" the slightly older X5 assured her, "but we were children back then. We saw everything through the eyes of young and inexperienced children. Sure, it was their fault too; they should have given us some explanations which they didn't. Let me ask you something, what did they do after Jack had died?"
"They took him away and dissected him" Max growled remembering that night when she had sneaked out of their bedroom. She had seen her brother's corpse lying on that examination table, the scientists around him with their bloodstained instruments and Lydecker standing by drinking coffee.
"They didn't just dissect him", Jondy disagreed. "He had been killed by some sort of seizures, seizures we were all gonna have, you know what I'm talking about, your seizures were the main reason we escaped. The scientists were trying to find out what was wrong with Jack so they would be able to cure all of us. They didn't kill him, he was already dead."
Max pressed her lips together and looked away. She had been so happy to see her sister again but now it seemed to turn out that even she believed Manticore's lies. The problem was: Her arguments sounded reasonable.
"And Eva" Jondy continued in a calm but persistent voice. "I know what you think; I know what you see in your dreams. You see your sister getting shot while trying to protect you, a girl you've grown up together and who gave her life to save yours."
"Stop it!" Max suddenly shouted.
"Do you know what Lydecker saw?" Jondy continued her voice louder now ignoring her sister's protests. She knew it was painful to see that particular truth, she had felt and acted the same way like her little sister did now when she had heard the words for the first time. "He didn't see a child, he didn't see a little girl. All he could see was a highly trained soldier with a gun threatening him and his subordinates. We let him no choice, it was our fault! We should have held Eva back. She got herself killed because we were not strong enough to hold her back!"
"Shut up!" Max screamed at the top of her lungs ignoring the pain in her throat. "Shut up! I don't want to hear it anymore! I don't… I don't want…I don't…I don't know what to believe anymore."
She had been screaming but the last sentence had been a mere whisper. Jondy looked at her trembling sister and couldn't help but reach out and carefully caress her cheek.
"It's alright", she whispered soothingly. She still remembered how confused she had been after her first sessions in PsyOps; how much worse had it to be for Max? "I didn't want to yell at you, I'm sorry. You'll see, with enough time you will remember anything exactly like it had been but this time you will also understand Manticore's point of view. Lydecker and the instructors…they can be assholes sometimes but they have changed and we have changed, too. And believe it or not, but the Colonel does care about us."
Max just looked at her silently, her latest outburst seemed to have consumed what little strength she had managed to build up. Finally Jondy stood up and looked at her with a confident smile.
"You'll find your way out of this Max, I know it. You've always been the stronger one." Suddenly her smile wavered and she added in a lower voice. "Be strong, Maxie, you have to be. I don't know if Icould bear it losing you again. See you soon."
"Don't go" Max voice was back to a half-whisper again. "Jondy, don't go."
"I have to, I'm sorry, but I'll be back as soon as I can." Before she opened the door she looked back at her sister a last time. "I'm really happy to see you again, Max, I want you to know that. If you need anything, just call 451, he's standing right outside. Goodnight."
When she had left the room and closed the door Jondy closed her eyes for some brief seconds and breathed heavily.
"Tough argument?"
At his voice Jondy jumped slightly and then looked at him clearly annoyed. She had known he was there but still he always managed to freak her out and considering the smirk on his face he enjoyed it.
"I told you about a hundred times not to sneak up on me like that!" Despite him being her CO she knew without the guards or instructors around she could use a more aggressive tone but he just kept grinning.
"Couldn't resist." Suddenly his face became serious again. "How is she?"
"Confused." The female transgenic shrugged. "You know how it is after the first sessions and god knows what they did to her. It will take her some time."
"At least she has someone she can trust now."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that" she mused hesitantly. "It will take a lot of time to make her understand. What were those fuckers thinking?"
"I don't know, but as we know the Colonel he will take care of it. You should get some sleep. Shark DNA or not you could use it."
"I'm not tired, but you should get some. From what I've heard you've been standing here since they brought her in."
"I will stay. Report back to the barracks, 210."
"Understood." Jondy nodded but added, "I understand why you think you have to be here and I'm sure Max would appreciate it, but even a CO needs to lie back sometimes."
"Not tonight."
'And neither tomorrow or the day after tomorrow' was all Jondy could think. 451 was a great leader who cared about those under his command but sometimes this lead him to wear himself out too much and they both knew that there were limits even for the X5s. She mentally shook her head. It would be of no use if she started arguing with him, she had tried once and the result had not been pretty.
"Goodnight, 451" was all she said before she disappeared into the labyrinth of grey corridors.
Meanwhile in the conference room of the facility a cold and dangerous discussion was taking place. There were five people in the dark room. One was Colonel Lydecker. He had just finished his recapitulation of what had happened to Max in PsyOps. In front of him was Elizabeth Renfro. At the beginning she had been the perfect picture of self-confidence but after Lydecker had presented his cause and the written witness statements from the two scientists and the three guards that had 'treated' Max her behavior had changed; she didn't seem too eager anymore to be where she was at the moment.
"Do I get this right, Director Renfro" the third person in the room who was sitting right to Lydecker spoke up. It was Colonel James McGinnis, Lydecker's friend and ally. "Your men were torturing X5-452 for two months without any psychological treatment?"
"It was a necessary step", Renfro tried to defend her actions. Denying that it had been her who ordered 452's special treatment would have been fatal, every one of the five men under her command had written pretty much the same: That she had given the order. "452 has been outside for a very long time, she needed to be broken first before reindoctrination could start."
"If I remember correctly there has been another 09er who had to undergo PsyOps not too long ago. Which one was it again, Donald?"
"X5-210", Lydecker answered without taking his eyes of Renfro. If only there would be the slightest chance she would be dead already. He had thought about strangling her so often during the last days his hands still hurt.
"If I remember correctly she had to undergo a very different sort of PsyOps treatment, what was the result?"
"Well, she just came home from her first deep covert operation some hours ago. The operation has been a full success." He just loved the way Lizzy was looking at him right now. They had never liked each other but they had managed to work together but from this moment on he would do anything he could to destroy that woman. McGinnis nodded, smiling.
"So, I understand that you're actions were not necessary at all, Director. We need soldiers, not trained vegetable like X5-734."
"You can't just compare them like they were all the same" Renfro tried to save her position. "They are very different and need to be treated differently."
"And how the hell would you know that?" It was the first time since the meeting had started Lydecker lost his composure. "You don't know anything about them. I trained them for almost ten years and spent the next nine looking for them. If anybody knows what and how they are it's me and let me tell you one thing: 210 and 452 have always been close to each other. The same sort of thinking, acting and feeling. If 210 turned out to be alright and properly reindoctrinated the procedure used on her would have had the same impact on 452."
"How dare you…" Renfro hissed and stood up but one of the last two people in the room interrupted her.
"Director, sit down!" He was a four star general and his voice made it clear he hadn't gotten that rank in his office but out in the field. Reluctantly the blond woman obliged. "Now, for my turn I have heard enough, what about you, senator?"
The last man wearing an expensive black suit hadn't spoken a word during the whole meeting but this just made him appear more dangerous. Even now when he was looking from one to another you could feel the amount of power this man was used to have. Finally he nodded.
"Very well", the general straightened up a little bit. "Colonel Lydecker, what do you think? Will X5-452 be able to return to active duty?"
"Yes, sir, but we will need time."
"Acknowledged. Director Renfro, I'm revoking your status as head of PsyOps with immediate effect. Your actions did already limit the possibilities of X5-734 and know your misjudgment almost cost us another X5. This cannot be tolerated. You are to report to my office tomorrow. There you will receive further orders." Renfro grew even paler than she already was but was smart enough to remain quiet. "This meeting is cancelled, good evening."
Everyone got up and waited until the senator and the general had left. Renfro was quick to follow them but the last glance she shot at Lydecker was one of pure hatred.
"You'll have to watch that woman, Deck", McGinnis said. "She lost a battle but now you pissed her off."
"Good. If she's angry she will start to make mistakes." Lydecker shook his friend's hand. "Thank you for helping me here, James."
"Just paying back some of my debts. Good luck!"
Lydecker watched him leave and stood in the now deserted room for a few moments. Sure, Renfro was an enemy to be feared especially when she started to take things personally but it had been worth it. Finally he had full control over his base again, no PsyOps guards, no foreign scientists anymore. He smiled to himself while making his way towards the medical wing.
Suddenly there was a piercing scream tearing through the otherwise silent base. It was full of agony and an almost feral fear and Lydecker recognized that voice in an instant.
Max!
He didn't remember when had been the last time he had run that fast. His body started to hurt but he didn't care; his child was in danger. When he approached Max's room the door was open and there was no sign of 451.
Oh no! Max!
He drew his gun and stormed into the room.
Okay, not the all happy family reunion but that wouldn't have sound very logical to me at that moment.
And what's going on in Max's room? Come on, you all should know by now I love cliffhangers!
(and reviews *grins wickedly*)
