Chapter Eleven:

Conspiracy Theories

Logan stared uncomprehendingly at the words on the screen in front of him. Sebastian had sent him these files three hours ago, and it had taken him the entire time to get through all four pages. It wasn't that Project 44 wasn't interesting, quite the opposite, in fact, but all Logan could think about was the fact that Max had an appointment with Dr. Carr scheduled at two o'clock this afternoon, and although three thirty had already come and gone, he still hadn't heard a word. Shaking his head, he looked down and frowned at his only companion.

"Life must be easy for you," he muttered to Milly, who was napping beside his desk. She opened one eye slowly, as if the movement required far too much effort, and stared up at him. "No worries, nothing to complain about. You don't have to worry about genetically engineered viruses or secret government agencies trying to kill the woman you love." He leaned over to scratch her head, and though she didn't move, he was rewarded by a loud, rumbling purr. "Well, I take that last part back. I can't imagine you're all that happy about the fact that those same people are after Jondy."

Sighing, he set his glasses aside and rubbed his tired eyes. Glancing down at his notepad, he scanned the notes he'd managed to put together. Towards the bottom of the page, he'd finally given up and started writing in pen. He'd gotten tired of sharpening the pencil after every other word because his nervous fingers had applied too much pressure and broken the lead. Frowning, he gave the last paragraph on the computer screen another reading, just to be sure that he hadn't missed out on any important details.

"Hey." The sound of the word broke the silence of the apartment. He hadn't heard the door open, but then again, he rarely did. Taking a deep breath, he turned to face its owner. He began to rise from his desk chair, but stopped halfway up as his gaze met her eyes.

He hadn't seen Max in a week, and as he glanced across the room, he decided that no one had ever looked so beautiful to him as she did at that moment, but as he took a closer look, he had to admit that she looked like hell. As the afternoon sunlight shone through the window onto her face, it seemed to accent the tired lines that resided there and the bags beneath her weary eyes. Leaning against the doorjamb, she looked almost as if she needed the wall to hold her up. She looked so terribly pale, and even on her slight frame he could tell that she'd lost weight. He frowned. "Are you okay?" He watched as the trace of a smile took root on her lips and blossomed there. A sparkle came into her eyes.

"Never better." He smiled back.

"So the virus . . . "

" . . . is pretty much gone," she finished with a shrug. She glanced down at the floor for a moment, the smile sliding away. "My system is clean, but Sam wants to wait a few days, just to be on the safe side . . . in case it mutates and comes back."

As her brown eyes focused on his face again, he found it hard to fight the urge to rush across the room to her side. She looked so tired and weak that the need to take care of her was overwhelming. Don't fool yourself, Cale, she could still kick your ass. "How long?" he asked after a moment.

"Three days." He pondered this for a few seconds, another thought on the tip of his tongue, a thought that he was afraid to voice.

"What if . . . " He couldn't quite get the words out.

"If it's not back in three days, then we'll know that it's gone. And if . . . something . . . should happen, Jondy says that the lab tech is willing to work with it until we win." She glanced down toward the floor for a moment and swallowed before meeting his eyes again. "Logan?"

"Yeah?" He watched her expression for an agonizing moment, pleased as the hint of another smile slowly touched her lips.

"We're gonna beat this bitch." He smiled back, and for the first time in a long time, the world seemed to be a little more hopeful.

"Yeah."

The sounds of footsteps came down the hallway, interrupting the moment. They both looked away as Jondy appeared from around the corner and shoved a sandwich into Max's hands. "Here, eat this. You've been sick for days, you look like hell, and you need food." She pushed Max down into the closest chair, and glanced over at Logan, who seemed to be studying a ballpoint pen in his hand. Max was showing an unusually strong interest in the sandwich. "I know, I know," Jondy muttered, "I just interrupted you two making eyes at each other . . . again." She rolled her eyes. These two are so predictable. She glanced towards her cat.

"Sheesh. Come on Milly, let's leave these two lovebirds to themselves." Milly merely opened an eyelid to glance at Jondy. Then she lowered it again. "Hey, mouse-breath, tuna." That earned more of a reaction. Milly rose leisurely and padded delicately across the floor, as if trying to remind her owner that patience was a feline virtue. Jondy chuckled to herself, knowing full well that patience was not one of Milly's best qualities. She waited until the cat was in the kitchen and out of sight. "You know what?" she muttered to Max. "That cat's gonna hate me when she finds out it's just a can of catfood."

Chuckling, Max took a bite of the sandwich, relieved to notice that her appetite seemed to be coming back. As an X5, she had spent very few days of her life sick, and she had to admit that she had no liking for it. You threw up for the man, Jondy had joked on their way out of Dr. Carr's office, now that's love. She glanced up at Logan's computer screen. "So, did you find out anything about that special project Manticore had going? Jondy was telling me about it this morning." Logan frowned and spun his desk chair around to retrieve his notes. In truth, he'd forgotten all about Project 44 the moment Max had walked into the room.

"Well, Sebastian turned up a little bit, but even he couldn't find much."

"Nobody could keep a secret like Manticore," Jondy supplied from the doorway. Max turned her head to glance at her.

"I thought you went to the kitchen to leave us alone, baby sister," she teased. Jondy held up her hands in defense, her open palms faced outward.

"Hey, I wasn't listening in on you. I just have sensitive hearing . . . that's all." She smiled mischeveously. "So, what did you dig up?" she asked Logan. He turned to face the computer screen and tapped a few keys.

"Well, according to Sebastian's source, Project 44 had nothing to do with Manticore, at least not in the beginning. In fact, it wasn't even American." Jondy knit her eyebrows together in confusion.

"Wasn't American? So what was it?"

"That's the big question, actually. There are speculations involving the UK and France, maybe even Germany and Canada. The facility itself was located in Siberia, but there's no solid evidence to link the project to Russia, either."

Max swallowed another bite of her sandwich. "Sounds like every conspiracy theorists dream," she commented in between bites.

"Sounds like Manticore," Jondy added.

"Close," Logan said as a new page filled the screen. "From all appearances, the purpose wasn't that different. Genetic engineering. Subjects designed to be superior to other humans."

"How original," Max commented dryly. "So, how many of these guys are there running around in the world?"

"Four," Logan answered simply.

"Four?" Jondy raised an eyebrow. "You've got to be kidding me. All that trouble for four people?" Logan tapped on his keyboard again.

"Two males and two females, all born back in '01, apparently just weeks apart." Max shook her head.

"Four? What kind of damage did they think they could do? They couldn't exactly take over the world with four."

"Well, that wasn't really their goal. Manticore wanted to create armies of transgenics, but four must have served their purpose." Turning, he looked back at Max and Jondy.

"Okay," Jondy said after a moment, "I'll bite. What was this 'purpose?'" Logan shrugged.

"Nobody knows, but Sebastian has a theory. Ever hear of something called 'the Coalition?'" Max frowned at him, clearly at a loss.

"Sure," Jondy supplied after a moment, "Jolene's a big conspiracy buff. She was always feeding Brian some story or another. Supposedly there's a group of old guys sitting around somewhere, influential members of foreign governments that are friendly with but don't entirely trust the US." She shrugged. "Somebody dreamed it up after the Pulse, or so I heard."

"Actually, the theory was around long before then, but after the Pulse, people were eager to blame anything or anybody, so the idea gained popularity."

Jondy leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and crossed her arms in front of her. "So you think this 'Coalition' is responsible?"

"That's what Sebastian thinks. I tend to agree that it might be possible. Think about it. If they found out about Manticore in the late 90's, what would their greatest fear be?"

Jondy shrugged. "What? Did they think we were going to invade them with armies of transgenics or something?"

"Not likely. Their countries weren't hostile towards the US, and the US never showed any hostility towards them. Invasion was highly unlikely." Jondy shook her head.

"If they weren't afraid of invasion, then what threat would transgenics . . . " she trailed off mid-thought as memories of her childhood training flitted through her mind. They'd been taught to kill, that was certain, but not just moving, fighting targets. They'd been trained to kill innocents as well, people who had no clue that their lives were in danger. "Assassinations."

"That's what I was thinking myself. Maybe Project 44 wasn't intended to create soldiers. Maybe it was intended to create bodyguards who would have a chance of fighting off an X5."

"It wasn't about countries," Max said as she swallowed the last bite of her sandwich. "They just wanted to save their own asses." She paused a moment in thought. "So where are they now?"

"Nobody really knows what happened to them. The rumors start to disagree a few months before the Pulse. Some claim that they were eventually killed, others say they were sold to a foreign government. Sebastian even found some guy who's convinced they were carried off in a UFO."

"Something tells me you've got a new theory," Max said. Turning, Logan tapped a few keys on his keyboard, and the picture of an old man with white hair and a kindly face filled the screen.

"Doctor Alexander Voinovich," he supplied. "One of the most brilliant geneticists the world has ever seen."

"Didn't he win a Nobel or something?" Logan nodded.

"Among other things. He did a lot of work towards curing genetic diseases. The man was a genius. I'd be willing to bet that there wasn't a lab tech at Manticore that wouldn't have killed to be him. He also vanished in March of '09. Rumor has it that he was working to 'perfect humanity' at the time."

"Sounds like something a scientist would say," Jondy said.

"What happened?" Max asked as she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "They off him to keep his mouth shut or something?"

"Not exactly." Logan tapped the keyboard again, and a new image filled the screen. It appeared to be what remained of a group of burned out buildings. A rusty and broken-down fence surrounded its perimeter. "This is what is left of a military base located in Siberia, or so the government says. It was supposedly burned to the ground in March of '09, when an underground fuel tank exploded."

"Looks pretty small to be a military base. Something tells me you aren't buying it."

"Nope. There's a village a few miles away. The residents didn't even know the place existed until it was burned out, but they claim that the area was under heavy attack the night of the fire. Explosions, strange helicopters, the works."

"So what do they think happened?" Max asked, though somehow, she thought she had a pretty good idea.

"They don't have a clue," Logan supplied, "but I'd bet money that Manticore was involved. Sebastian has a source who thinks the 44's may have been created from altered DNA that had been smuggled out of Manticore."

"Guess they wanted it back," Jondy muttered. "Really bad."

"Not to mention the fact that they would have loved to get their hands on Voinovich's research," Logan added. "Once they got possession of your Russian cousins, they probably brainwashed them, added them to the ranks."

"And used them as lab rats," Jondy added with a shudder. "White and his contact said something about an escape in '17."

"Sebastian asked around, but nobody else seems to have theories connecting Manticore to their disappearance, so the only information we have on that is from what you overheard." Frowning, he spun his deskchair to face them.

"So you think they made an escape of their own in '17?" Jondy asked.

"It sounds that way. When you guys broke out in '09, they kept that a big enough secret, but I doubt many people outside the most influential circles at Manticore knew about the 44's."

"So if they broke out, nobody would have made much of an effort to hunt them down. They couldn't have without letting a whole lot of people in on the secret." Jondy frowned. "But how'd they get out? It was hard enough for us. I'm sure they turned the place into a lockbox once we broke out. It's not like they let them walk out the front door or anything." Her frown deepened, cutting lines of thought in her forehead. They didn't just let them walk out . . . did they?

"Do you think they might have-" but Jondy's thought was cut off by the slamming of a door in the distance and the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hall. A breathless Asha appeared in the doorway.

"Asha?" Logan asked, clearly confused as to what was going on. "What's wrong?"

"Alec sent me over," she managed between breaths. "He wanted me to warn you."

"Alec? Warn somebody?" Max muttered. "How surprisingly caring of him. What's the warning? He piss somebody off and now they're after him?"

Asha shook her head, pulling another lung full of air in as she struggled to catch her breath. "I don't know. We saw some transgenics in a park over in Sector Seven. He wanted me to come over and tell you-" she paused for another breath "-that your brother Zack is back in Seattle."