7 Months Ago
Alec broke off from the vision, his eyebrows scrunched up in anger. He turned to Lydecker, who had laid out a map and was pouring over the area between Cairo and Athens, searching for something. "What do you know about the new class?"
"New class?" Lydecker grimaced at the suggestion and met Alec's glare. "Of what? Soldiers?" He shook his head, realizing Alec had meant soldiers.
He gave the colonel a warning look. "You cannot tell me you didn't know Manticore was still pumping out puppies and kittens."
Lydecker rose to his full stature and moved away from the map. "Strategically, that would make sense for Manticore to do, but as you are aware, Max burned those labs down and let all the kiddies out to play."
He didn't appreciate the sardonic tone he was using, but Lydecker was right. "When you were still there, did you have any units of designer hybrids under the age of 12?" Alec went straight to the point, his confidence in the former CO dwindling. It was already on thin ice, but not to divulge information like that would destroy the miniscule amount of trust he'd obtained with Max.
It dawned on him what Alec was really asking. He took a deep breath. "My last ten years with Manticore were predominantly spent searching for the escapees, and dealing with the older kids. Again, it would make logistical sense for Manticore to continue designing different kinds of hybrids for different purposes, but I was not aware of them." He paused at Alec's wary, pensive countenance. "But, what's more likely is that someone inside Manticore took the genetic material to the South Africans, or to some other bidder. Think about it: what would you do if you wanted to fast track your way into the genetics game, but didn't exactly have the thirty years' experience in the industry?"
Weighing Lydecker's reasoning, Alec let silence fall over the room. Sure, Manticore had its share of trouble, but it would be extremely difficult to compete with an entity that had been in the genetics game for more than three decades. Their experience and knowledge alone would intimidate the best of the best out there, not to mention, they had able bodied soldiers to remove competition like that. Alec had been one of those soldiers, once upon a time. Too, Max and Alec already had some proof of Renfro's involvement with another, non-Manticore entity. Would it be just as easy for her to have stolen the genetic materials and given them and Manticore research to her other employers?
Before Alec could say anything else, Lydecker's phone trilled. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the number out of habit. It could only be one person, though, and annoyed, he answered. "Tell me you got something, Stadler. It's been over a month." He paused, looking to Alec, as if Alec could help him with the imbeciles by which he'd felt surrounded. "No, you can't back out of this one. You are already in it." Lydecker meandered to the front bedroom of the vessel, leaving Alec to his own ends.
Good time to make a call, he thought, pulling his own phone out and dialing.
"Dix here."
"Hey, got a minute? I want to talk to you about a few things."
"Yeah, what's up?"
"What do you know about the Dark Web or Dark Net? Lydecker recalled Sandeman hacking into the Dark Web circa early 2000s and discovering his kids were all being used for other peoples' dirty work. Assassinations, corruptions, sex, everything."
He heard some typing on the line. Christ, it was like having a conversation with Logan, he thought bitterly. Tap, tap, tap.
"I got a light bulb about that," Dix started, wheeling to another monitor at Net Comms.
Alec shook his head. At least Dix's word choices were entertaining, even if he did fail common verbal usage.
"If Sandeman found out who was using us all those years ago, I could probably write a program using old code to fish out an older transgenic. They'll remember debriefs from old missions."
"Yeah, if they're still alive."
Dix's upbeat response came quick. "Right."
"And then maybe they can tell us who was using them."
"If they're even still alive," Dix pointed out.
He had a point. If these older soldiers were alive when Max burned the place down, they might want revenge for the acts others transgressed upon them. Which gave Alec another idea. "Maybe also see if there is a cluster of murders that are kind of weird. Like, mass murders at research facilities, I don't know."
"Okay, strange and unsolved murders. Got it." Dix chuckled, "Max finds out who these guys are, there's going to be hell to buy."
"Pay," Alec corrected. "And that's why I don't want her to know about it just yet."
Dix was confused. "Why not? These guys definitely deserve it."
"Yeah, you're right, but Max is like an accelerant. We take these guys out now, we may never get the answers we need. All pieces need to be on the board in order for us to play the long game."
There was quiet on the other line for a moment as Dix began typing again. "What's going on with her?"
"That's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about." Alec scratched the back of his neck, trying to figure out how to suggest what he hopes not to be true. "She's got a missing rune. It was on her neck, and now it's not."
He heard more typing, as, presumably, Dix brought up the saved pictures of her runes. "Okay, which one?"
"The fourth one down."
"Okay. I see it."
He pressed his lips together in some effort to keep himself from requesting what he was about to request. But he had to know. "Could you cross-reference that symbol with the phrase 'earthquake'? There was an earthquake in Chile, and I just want to see if you get any hits."
"Sure. I can do that. Have you guys been… um…" Dix trailed, waiting for Alec to finish his sentence for him. "Uh… intimate?"
Alec reeled back a bit in his stance. Well, at least he didn't say hittin' boots again. He, too, was unsure whether or not their relationship or relations had any effect on Max's runes. "I think the tidal wave and the earthquake are the only catastrophes that have happened since we've been away."
"So…"
Alec sighed. "So, I would have expected way more catastrophes if what you're suggesting is true."
"Oh. Oh."
Lydecker walked back into the room, clearly frustrated. He returned to the map.
"Anything happening there?" Alec assumed that if anything serious happened, Dix would tell him immediately.
"All quiet on our front. Just building a community," Dix responded, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a bunch of transhuman and transgenic evacuees to foster a sense of civilization.
"Alright, hit me up when you get something," Alec instructed. "I gotta go."
Alec felt the weight of his knives in his khaki cargos as he walked through the street fair to find the café Max mentioned earlier. It was comforting to know he had something on hand if he or Max ran into those scrappy little assholes.
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the red, blue and black scarf Max had perused. He stopped by the small booth, ran his fingers along the length of material, and noted the elderly woman, her eyes clouded over with cataracts. Her white hair was unkempt, flyaways drifting lightly in the breeze.
"You like for your lady?" Her voice was raspy and matronly like an old grandma's. Or so he'd heard from Sketchy once or twice. There was a contentment about it, and it calmed him.
Alec smiled, thinking about Max. He imagined her wearing this scarf back in Seattle. It would throw some bold splashes of color in their otherwise gray word. She would wear it somewhere, and when she looked at him, it would bring out the twinkle in her eyes, and she would smile wide and say his name and tell him how much she loved him. And maybe, his thoughts turned more intimate, she would wrap just this scarf around her body and say those things to him.
"I'll take it," he said, pulling a few bills from his pocket. "How much?"
"Twenty."
Before he could pay the woman, the hair raised on his hackles, putting him on alert. Was someone watching him? He kept his eyes on the vendor and concentrated on listening for something out of the ordinary.
The little old woman's white eyebrows gathered together toward her nose as she picked up on Alec's unease. "There are no shadows when the sun is high," she said.
Well, that was vague. And straightforward. He handed her the money and discreetly looked around. Through the throngs of people, he could not see any out-of-place children, or anyone who looked like they might be Familiar secret service. "Efharisto," he said to the elderly woman, accepting the small bag in which she'd put the scarf.
When he arrived at the café, Max sat in the patio section, sipping from one of the two mojitos on the table. Several bags rested at her feet. She jumped up to greet him as soon as she spotted him.
"Hey."
Alec leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. "Hey. Did you have fun shopping?"
Her brows furrowed a bit. She ushered him to their table and they sat next to one another. "Yeah. I had a run-in with some unfriendlies. Two little shitheads that broke some kid's wrist."
Searching his memory, Alec recited. "One had a cat's face / one whisk'd a tail, / one tramp'd at a rat's pace / one crawl'd like a snail," he began.
She realized he'd used his connection. He'd seen what happened. How else could he know about the encounter? She watched him in awe and listened to the poem. He described the two sisters who were cautioned against going to the market, warned of the goblin men who would attempt to entice them with their goods. Listened to the way the one sister heeded the advice while the other did not.
Alec continued. "The whisk'd-tailed merchant bade her taste / in tones as smooth as honey / the cat-faced purr'd / the rat-face spoke a word."
Max disliked this poem. It reminded her of Manticore's creations, the Nomalies. They sounded like the monsters that kept her unit up at night, weird creations that didn't look like them. It reminded her of Joshua and Isaac, two very different brothers who had learned how to be, what to be, from someone else.
The tale continued, as one sister gave in to the market's goblin men and was poisoned, and how the other sister braved the aggressive goblin men to obtain the antidote. The poem's finale offered insight into sisterhood, which saddened Max, having lost her sisters in one way or another, to Manticore's market. Except the goblins weren't the Nomalies. The goblins were the men and women who sent them out into the world to kill, who could care less about the children they were helping to shape, who drove Ben crazy and sacrificed Tinga and took away Zack's identity.
For now, though, Max had a job to do. She compartmentalized the anger and frustration, and looked into Alec's awaiting eyes. It was as if he was on the edge of his seat, wondering what she would think of these words Sandeman had him memorize all those years ago. Was this part of it all? Was this a clue he'd given Alec, so that they'd know they were on track?
"It bothers me that these new kids are so merciless," she said.
He knew she'd feel this way. He knew she took issue with the soullessness of Manticore's – or whoever's – creations. It created an imbalance in her world. Children were supposed to be innocent and adventurous and excited, not programmed. He reflected on his own upbringing. He hadn't understood the implications of his actions when he was younger. It wasn't until he was in his early teens that he began to comprehend that there was anything outside of 'no, sir,' 'yes, sir,' and 'mission accomplished.' And he'd still felt as if he were caged – as if he didn't have a place in the world outside Manticore's walls.
Like a ripple in a pond, Max saw how her words swirled through his experiences, and he looked away a moment. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
"Let's just talk about something else," he said. He fingered the handles of the bag and brought it up. "I got you something."
A sneaky little smile started on her lips. "You got me a present?" Her eyes already twinkled at the idea, which echoed his earlier fantasy. She must have seen that change in his gaze, as she added, "Should I wait until we get back to open it?"
He smiled and shook his head. "Go ahead."
Max reached her hand into the bag and pulled out the scarf she'd been eyeing earlier. She held it against her face to feel its softness, then dropped her hands into her lap. "Thank you."
Sincerity shined through her eyes like a beam of moonlight through a turbulent ocean. "You like it?"
In response, Max leaned toward him and kissed him softly. He put his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder, her nose nearing the place on his neck she swore she could live in forever.
He squeezed her shoulder. "Do you see anyone? Anything?"
Max glanced around. "No, not yet. You?"
"Nope."
"We'll just keep at it until they reveal themselves."
Lydecker spent most of his time traveling out to different cities, looking for signs that White or Fink had been there. Every day, he looked for bodies, for buildings big enough to house a Manticore-like operation, for little children that looked like experiments gone wrong. He would be gone for days, sometimes a week at a time.
And every day, Max and Alec picked a different local restaurant, his weapons hidden somewhere on his body, sometimes on hers, and sat and talked and ate and kissed and waited for White's lackeys to scurry out of the woodworks to chase after them. For a solid week, all they'd managed to do was get one another all riled up from the caresses and chaste kisses and hooded eyes, and then rush back to the boat, eager to tear off their clothes and sink their teeth into each other.
But one day, they spotted a little, lightly grey-skinned, bald girl with big black eyes. At least, Alec thought she had a feminine heir about her. She had open pores where he assumed they'd planned for her to have whiskers. She watched them from the water, partially hidden, as they sipped their lemonade, ate their sandwiches, and kissed each other.
"Max, I think we have a tail," Alec said nonchalantly.
"I had mine surgically removed," Max said, giggling at her own joke. She reached for her lemonade.
Alec gave her an impatient look. "Seriously. Four o'clock. Girl in the water."
Checking the direction of the alleged 'tail,' Max sat up a little straighter and set down her drink, trying to remember their strategy. Keep running. Do not go back to the boat until they're sure they lost them. "I was beginning to wonder if we were way off."
Alec dragged his feet back from their outstretched positions under their table, and slid his hand down Max's arm to rest on the back of her chair. He turned and looked straight at the grey girl, who panicked, averting her gaze to somewhere to her left. He followed her line of sight and tapped Max on the elbow with a wave of four fingers.
"Ready?" Max noticed the four hybrid creatures Alec had called out. The twin felines from the street fair blinked their first set of eyelids as they spotted the seated duo, and motioned to the two girls next to them. The blonde girl elbowed the brunette, and two familial faces with protruding noses like snouts pointed their direction.
"Yep." Alec put some money on the table and then without further reservation, jumped up and started running, Max, hot on his heels.
