ready for more, anyone?

Four days ago...

It was over. The threat was over. She had done her job. She had not only retrieved the file 494 had stolen and that he could have used to expose them. She had also captured him and the precious 452. That they were dead was a little inconvenient, since they hadn't yet gotten all information out of them. Still, it was probably for the better.

She was sure the old man wouldn't think of it that way. A sigh escaped her at the thought because she was already on her way to his office. He had summoned her after he had learned of his precious creation's death.

But the way she saw it, they could finally proceed as planned. They could get more Manticoreans into all important government institutions and take over the rein from the ordinaries. Once that was completed, they could get rid of their S1W tools. These people had been useful, but soon would no longer be needed. They couldn't be kept around afterward. She had to get rid of them, even if it would be a tedious and somewhat annoying job. She should get started with a plan for that.

First she had to talk to the old man, though.

The knock on the door was immediately answered with a loud "Come in," and she straightened her back before entering the room.

"Sir."

"Fawn," he said, using the name she had been given a while ago. It didn't mean anything to her, other than that it had been useful for dealing with the ordinaries. He was one of them.

"So it's true," he said.

"Sir?" Never answer a questions that hasn't been asked. One of the things she had learned very early on in her training.

"452, Max, and 494, Alec, they were terminated by the M-series?"

"Yes, Sir." She looked at him, an old man with gray hair and many wrinkles, still standing proud and tall despite his age. Yet now he looked as old as his years for the very first time. Involuntarily, she added an "I'm sorry, Sir." She didn't know where that had come from.

He nodded, then, and looked at her.

"Thank you, Fawn," he said as he fell back into his chair, heavily. "I take it you made sure it was them?"

"Sir?"

His gaze had taken on a different quality, intense. She had to fight the urge to look away. "If I'm not mistaken, the M-series had the order to protect Max with their lives, is that correct?"

"Yes, Sir."

"So, did you make sure it was them? The bodies?"

"I saw to it that the bodies and all individuals of the M-series got examined."

"By who?"

"Sir?" Fawn was a little flustered. She hadn't been prepared for these kind of questions. It annoyed her. She should have foreseen it.

"Who examined the bodies and the Ms?"

"I had the M-series taken to the PsyOps and reindoctrination section. The bodies were disposed of at the morgue."

"Disposed?"

"Yes, Sir. I had them examined and then..." Suddenly, she felt hot and cold at the same time.

The old man was dangerously quiet. "You disposed of the most valuable soldier we ever created. Did you at least think to tell the forensics to take as many samples of her DNA as possible and freeze it?"

"Sir..."

"Did you?"

"I..."

"Did. You."

Despite the fact that she was a genetically enhanced superior being, young and healthy and in her prime while he was just an old man and an ordinary she was suddenly anxious.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I did not." Termination. It was the only consequence. He would have her terminated after all.

Instead of calling in a team to retract and terminate her immediately, he asked another question, his voice eerily calm. "When the Ms were examined, were there any PsyOps involved? Or just the staff of ordinaries?"

"PsyOps, Sir. We wanted to get into their minds as soon as possible, to get an accurate picture of the previous events."

She was prepared for the worst, then she heard him snort. Snort! What had she said? What had she not seen? What was it? She wanted to ask him but she was too afraid. "Sir?"

Her only answer was a full out laugh, followed by one incredulous, "Accurate?" The rest was drowned out by more laughing.

Maybe the old man had gone crazy, Fawn wondered.

[The present]

"What's going on, Sir?"

Alec, still clutching Max's hand, looked to the kid that was trying to run through the water-filled hallways beside him. "Don't Sir me, kiddo. - And I have no idea. All I know is that we better start to get the hell outta here before this whole place fills up with water."

"Yes, Sir!"

"Dude, what did I just tell you?"

"Sir?"

"Stop with the Sir already. It's Alec, alright? Alec. And this is Max, not Ma'am. Geez!"

"Yes, S-Alec."

He rolled his eyes, then concentrated back on the task at hand: getting out of the building.

Max, beside him, was still oddly quiet. At least she was just as quick as he was. Ever since their trip to PsyOps and reindoctrination, she had been better. No trace left of her injury, or the toxin. They hadn't yet talked about those few days down there. But if his own examination was anything to go by, someone had made sure that her injuries were treated and then forgotten.

There had been at least one PsyOps transgenic present that had meddled in his examination, making the doctors forget that they had seen an only half healed wound on his torso. He didn't know why the PsyOps had helped him - helped them - but without that help nobody would have believed that they were who they claimed to be. Especially in Max's case. Her perfect DNA should have given her away immediately. Thinking about it, Alec wondered whether the people in forensics had been PsyOps-ed too. They must have been. Nothing else made any sense.

Before he could think about it any more, he felt Max tug at his arm when they passed by a staircase leading down. "There's people down there, Alec. Innocent people. Some of them helped us! - We gotta get them outta there. We-"

She already knew it was too late. Part of her wanted to believe otherwise, part of her wanted to go down there and do something for them. But all they could see was more water washing up the stairs, gurgling upward, out of the hallways downstairs.

"It's too late, Max," Alec said. She could see him clench his jaw, the muscles twitching. "Come on, we gotta go get Josh and Logan."

"We can't just-"

"Whoevere is down there, they're already dead. The lower floors must already be flooded."

Max wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. They had to think about their friends; they had to get out of there themselves. Briefly, their gazes locked, then she nodded, "I know," she whispered.

Without another word, they both ran past the staircase, continuing on.

Joshua was dreaming. Of father. His legs were twitching in his sleep; a yowling sound escaped him at some point, then he was quiet again.

After all this time, he had finally seen him again a few days ago. But while he had been overjoyed, father had looked so incredibly sad. He had touched Joshua's cheek lightly, lovingly, but his smile hadn't quite reached his eyes before it died. He had apologized, Joshua didn't know what for. He had felt the strong urge to console father somehow, but it hadn't really worked. In the end, the old man had told him to stay with the ordinary. He had locked him in with Logan. Joshua adored father too much to question the move, he had been certain that father's intentions were good as usual.

It had been Logan who had dared ask Sandeman why he did it. Joshua was his creation, after all, he was Manticore. Why would he lock him up with him, Eyes Only, the ordinary?

The old man had merely smiled at that. Nodding to Logan he had said, "Things change, Mr. Cale. I know Joshua considers you a friend. For what is to come I want him to be with a friend..." Then he had left, ignoring Logan's following stream of questions.

"Come back!" Logan had called out at some point, sounding desperate even to himself. "Come back! - What is to come? What are you talking about? What are you talking about?!"

But then they had taken Logan away, and they hadn't freed Joshua in the process. Now here he was, sleeping on the cold floor, dreaming of better days, when he was gradually woken up by a growing feeling of wetness seeping into his clothes.

Sleepily, he opened his eyes, still a bit dazed when he noticed the water on the ground. Instantly, he was wide awake. What was going on? Frowning, he rushed over to his cell door, but it was closed tight. He tried shaking it, rammed it with his full weight. It wouldn't budge.

As he watched the water rise at a rate that was disconcerting, to say the least, he couldn't help but start whining. He had to get out of here or he would drown... He didn't know how to do it, though.

Max would know. But Max wasn't there...

"Isn't it strange?" Alec wondered aloud and threw a glance at Max, "The water?"

Only a few minutes had passed in which they, along with their new unit, had made their way up another floor, just in time before the lower floors were entirely consumed by the water.

"What? Max was only half listening. She was too preoccupied with finding the way to the holding cells where they had left Logan and Joshua. At least the Alphas proved to be an obedient little group that seemed to do whatever Alec ordered them to do and she didn't have to worry about them, too.

They were currently roaming the building, trying to locate more survivors. So far without any luck.

"I mean," Alec continued, without slowing his pace, "'our' Manticore had this fire mechanism that burned down everything. That way they didn't leave any traces of what they had been doing. But water? Ya think this is something different?"

"Alec," Max sighed, annoyance creeping up inside of her. "I'm a little busy trying to save my ass from drowning here, and find Josh and Logan, so, if you have to say something, just say it!"

Her voice sounded stronger, more like Max. There was even a little snark back in her tone. Despite the dire situation, Alec couldn't help but smile at that.

"I know. But just think about it for a sec, Max. This doesn't at all look like something Manticore would do, right? The water - that's not Manticore trying to destroy itself; someone else is doing it."

Dumbfounded, Max stopped in her tracks, whirling around to face him.

"You are saying someone is attacking Manticore?" she asked. It was not really a question. Looking up, she could see it in his eyes, how certain he was, and suddenly, strangely so was she.

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Max."

Thoughts started whirling around in her mind, chasing each other.

Someone was attacking Manticore.

That was a good thing, or it should have been. Yet that someone was also killing innocent people. They didn't differentiate between the institution per se and its victims. They went for a state of tabula rasa.

They were trying to kill her and Alec, too, and this time, she had no idea who "they" even were. She had no idea who or what she was fighting against. At least with Manticore, she had always known that much.