Chapter Fourteen: Ambush
The group watched anxiously as Kito grappled with the younger X-11 known as Blade, of two minds to interfere or not. Tinga was especially worried considering what Kito had told her about this particular Manticore, she knew hand to hand that he could be in serious trouble.
"Get Max!" they heard him shout, and reluctantly they extended the distance between them heading for the door where Max was purported to be held.
Tinga held back even as the others moved toward the objective moving back down the hall toward where the two were scuffling. She was still unsure if her help would be welcome in this matter, but considering that this may be a distraction to allow for more soldiers to move in unnoticed she decided that she had better interfere anyway.
She knelt down, aimed her rifle and waited for an opportunity to strike.
The others had taken no notice of Tinga's absence, and being near the halfway point in their mission all focus was for what lay ahead not what was happening in behind.
Zach paused at the door Kito had indicated waiting for the rest to catch up. He stood to one side plastering himself against the door as Tima did the same on the other side of it. Logan moved in behind Zach allowing the more experienced soldiers to clear the room. Zach reached over and tried the door, and his eyebrows raised as he found the door unlocked. He slowly turned the knob and then swiftly pushed it open sweeping the room with his gun, Tima a step behind him doing the same.
Oddly there were no soldiers in the room itself, just the chair, spotlighted and Max securely strapped to it. Zach didn't like the feel of it… this was too easy. What his eyes saw was hard to refute however, he lowered his weapon.
He looked at Max, so vulnerable in the chair, and wanted to rush to her. Zach had never stopped loving Max, he had always wanted her to chose him, not a man in a wheelchair. He glanced back, but even that had changed. Logan was no longer in a wheelchair, he was walking, and worse, at least to Zach's mind, he was as capable as any Manticore soldier in his new found abilities. And Max had fallen deeply in love with that man, long before those abilities had even manifested themselves. She had… married Logan, and he knew that is what hurt the worst, that she had been happy with a normal man. He closed his eyes drawing an unsteady breath, then he called, "Logan."
Logan stepped into the cleared room and Zach stepped aside allowing him to see her, "Oh my God," he whispered, half expecting this to be all a hoax, a way to hurt him deeper, to trick him into revealing himself. To see her actually here and alive was more than he had been prepared for. He slowly set down his gun and stepped up to her as she raised her head slowly. Zach looked to Tima and with a nod of his chin ordered her outside. She complied, crying happy tears that this had not been for nothing.
Max heard the name called with a familiar voice, breaking through the fog of her half consciousness. She opened her heavy lids seeing the blurry shape in front of her move to one side and another shape drawing closer. As her eyes focused, she was sure that Lydecker had finally broken her, because she was now seeing an apparition floating toward her. It looked to be Him, he moved like him, but he was dead…. Was he now coming to release her from her misery here in the real world? Somewhere in the back of her mind she reminded herself that she was not a highly religious person.
So she was hallucinating? The injuries done to her body now causing delusions of grandeur? A short laugh tore from her throat at that thought.
Max blinked in surprise when the apparition touched her face, the warm, solid touch of flesh and blood, proving the reality of what she was seeing. Her brows furrowed as she whispered in a cracked voice, "Logan?"
A smile broke on Logan's face then, a relieved and concerned smile. To hear her voice after so long not hearing it at all was like a knife of pain in his heart. But it also had proved her reality to him, "Max," he replied in the descending tone of relief.
"I… thought they had killed you!" She said.
"And me you," Logan replied softly, tilting her head down and kissing her softly on the forehead. He closed his eyes and fought back the tears that were threatening. So overwhelmed by the event was Logan that he did not recognize when his danger sense went off.
Behind the two of them the door slowly shut, clicking loudly as it slipped home in the frame. Logan wheeled around and Max's head came up just in time to see Lydecker slip the card key into the lock, denying access to all without and trapping those within.
"You!" Logan growled rising to his feet, kicking himself for laying aside his weapon.
Zach and Tima covered the hallway to either side of the room both allowing Logan some privacy and to protect themselves from possible ambush from other forces that still manned the base. They watched intently as Tinga and Kito rejoined the group.
Kito was bloody and bruised from his fight with Blade, one eye was swollen nearly shut and his lip was cut and bleeding profusely. The wound on his arm had opened yet again and blood had run down his arm all the way to the wrist where it was quickly drying into dark red streaks. He was holding his side and his face was drawn up in pain.
"Tinga where'd you go?" Zach asked of her as she stepped up.
"I was backing up a teammate," she said testily as if the answer was obvious. Her face smoothed as she asked, "did you find her?"
Zach nodded, "Yeah, Logan is in with her now," He said as he turned to find himself facing a closed door. His brows knit knowing he had left it open on his way out so that when Logan was done with his reunion he could enlist their help in freeing her from her bonds. He tried the knob only to find it locked, "What the…" He trailed off, "Logan?" He hollered pounding on the door.
"What's the matter?" Kito asked sluggishly, his injuries slowing him considerably now that the adrenaline was no longer in his system.
"Something's wrong… the doors locked!" Zach said, worried and angry about having let his guard down.
That was the least of their worries as more soldiers appeared at either side of the room essentially pinning them in. Each contingent was lead by a Manticore, one was a short dark-skinned female, and the other was taller dark-haired Caucasian man.
"Surrender your weapons and put your hands in the air," The short woman said to them in a mid range voice that easily carried.
Zach looked grim, unhappy at the turn of events. He nodded to the other three and they all laid their weapons putting their hands on their head.
"We can't do this," Kito protested, "They don't want us alive!"
"What choice do we have," Zach growled, "We're surrounded, and while I'm sure that we could take some of them with us we'd all be dead anyway."
"Sir," The short Manticore said into a two way.
They all heard Lydecker's voice on the other end of the line, "What is it Torri?" He sounded pleased with himself.
"They're in custody sir," Torri said as she watched them gather the groups weapons.
"Good, keep them there and await further orders."
Logan stared icily at Lydecker as he talked to someone outside the room. Inside his heart sank, they had captured Zach and the rest. And he was trapped in here with Lydecker, and Max was still bound. A poor situation to say the least. His fear was burnt away by his seething anger at seeing this man again, a man that had caused so much pain in his past, himself and Max included.
"So it was you," Lydecker said with a chuckle. He glanced at the floor pursing his lips before looking back at Logan, "I've been wondering about you since seeing you in the alley that night," Lydecker added and Logan's eyes flashed with hatred at the reminder of what Lydecker had taken from him, "The last time I had seen you prior to that, you were in a wheelchair, during the hostage crisis. You so bravely offered yourself to save the women, Max included.
"Then when we came to claim Max four years ago, you were walking… interesting enough. But then you help Tima escape here, several months ago. And not with guns, but with the speed and agility of a Manticore X-5. Absolutely intriguing…" He said as he paced back and forth in front of Logan.
Logan for his part said nothing, there was no point, and the man had all the facts in front of him. That did not make him feel any need to confirm the information. Lydecker had a memory like a steel trap once it was there it never got back out again.
"And what may I ask could have brought on such a miraculous change in you?"
Logan crossed his arms taking a deep breath and just continued to glare at him.
"Oh you don't need to tell me I think that I have it figured out," He said quickly when Logan didn't answer, "There was an unsubstantiated report that you had a miraculous blood donation during a time when no one else had blood available; during a surgery related to your spinal injury. You were in the same hospital that Max was arrested in when we were hunting for her.
"I just never imagined that Manticore blood could have such a profound effect on a normal human." Lydecker sounded happy about this new discovery, and that dug under Logan's skin that much more.
"So you know, so what?" Logan spit, "Don't think that I am going to be volunteering to be your next prize experiment."
"You really think you have a choice?" Lydecker asked acidly, "You're trapped, and unless you cooperate, the 'friends' you came in here with are going to meet an untimely demise."
Logan began to move forward, but stopped when Lydecker pulled his gun and pointed it not at him but at Max. Logan raised his hands in a warding motion, but his gun did not relax.
"Logan," Max whispered behind him. He turned around to look at her, "Don't," she pleaded, "He can't be trusted," She looked into his eyes.
"I know that, Max. I'm not making deals," He said softly, his anger bleeding through. He held her hand in his as he rose and turned to look at Lydecker again, "What about our child?" Logan asked as the welfare of the child occurred to him.
Lydecker shook his head, "Max was in desperate shape when we got her here," Lydecker offered, "We tried very hard to keep her alive, especially when we determined that she was pregnant."
The words stung as Logan realized that they had only kept her alive as a brood mare to provide another test subject for their research, "But there was nothing we could do… she miscarried two weeks after arriving here."
Logan looked back at Max, wanting confirmation, her face was downtrodden and as she looked into his eyes she nodded. Logan sank to his knees before her, the tears coming unbidden now, "I am so sorry, Max," He said trying to comfort her even as his own heart broke.
Even as he grieved for the child he had never know another part of his mind was formulating a plan of escape. He wasn't staying and neither was Max, he was determined that it not be so. Yet another part of his mind, the built in radar in his head tracked Lydecker as he moved through the room, approaching closer. He made an educated guess about what Lydecker would do in the next few minutes and planned accordingly.
As Logan felt the Proximity of the gun barrel against his neck he reacted. Lydecker obviously had not paid attention to his own assessment of Logan's ability for he laid a hand on Logan's shoulder. Logan rolled backwards onto his shoulder blades and drawing his legs in he kicked out directly into Lydecker's chest. Both knocking him back several feet and making him lose his grip of the pistol. Logan followed through in the motion pushing up with his hands arching slightly and landing neatly on his feet. Without pausing he rushed in tackling Lydecker and hearing him hit the deck with a grunt. Somehow Logan's hand had found Lydecker's errant gun and Logan quickly pushed up aiming it steadily at the older man's form.
Lydecker raised his hands eyeing Logan closely, "Go ahead," Lydecker said, "I know you want to, I can see it in your eyes. I've cause you a lot of agony in the last six years."
Logan felt the urge well up within him, and felt his grip tighten on the trigger. Lydecker had so much to atone for, the blood on his hands was still visible to Logan.
"Shoot!" Lydecker ordered him.
Logan blinked, realizing that if he did Lydecker won, because though he were dead they would never get out of here alive. He took a deep breath as his want for vengeance burned away, "No, not today. Today you get to live… so long as me and mine get the same courtesy," Logan said firmly, "Get up!"
Slowly Lydecker did, looking as if he was going to try something. Logan's danger sense reinforced that visual assessment. Logan pulled his aim and pulled the trigger, catching Lydecker in the meat of his shoulder, "If you still think that I am that meek Cyberjournalist you met at the Tanaka conference, you'd better reassess the thought," all thought of countering Logan left his face, "Now get up and release Max…"