here's the next installment. yes, mugen is pretty "weird" but you've got to agree she's pretty kool. ^_~ in this chapter, you sort of learn of her background as well of the devious things she does. and...you learn of what's going on with max in the captivity. r&r!

Chapter Six
"Mugen Nagosaki?" Logan cried incredulously as they entered his apartment. The doctor had handed him a cane to help him with the walking for now. But it was good to be up and about again. "You have such a long last name."
"Runs in the family," she responded tersely and shortly as she shut the door and placed some paper bags onto the counter of his kitchen. "By the way, I bought you some things...your apartment is virtually ragged out with no food. A girl like me should have something to chow down on..."
"Who said you were staying?" he demanded, suddenly on guard.
She turned her bright eyes to him. "Oh, did I forget to mention that Bling went off to vacation with his family?" she asked innocently as she stashed away the food. "So you're going to be stuck with lil' ol' me for a while." She smiled; a short, brief smile tingled with sadness.
Logan sighed. "Don't tell me, lemme guess who got him into that.."
Suddenly, something started to sound. "Gomen," she muttered as she disappeared into the living room, then returned after a brief moment. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...."
"But what?" Logan asked, perplexed.
"I have an under-cover agent inside Manticore," she explained abruptly, "and apparently he uncovered something deep. He found the area where your friend, Max, and her siblings are being kept. Unfortunately, there's even more bad news attached to this; they're being held for a series of, er, tests on their metabolism now."
"Damn," Logan cursed, "Max…"
Mugen squirmed, as if the whole thing was her fault. Logan suddenly regretted what he said. "I will meet up with my contact later on," she said shortly, "to discuss these recent developments. So I guess you'll have to cook dinner." She winked. "Besides, it's good to kick in to the old, boring things we people have to do when we walk."
Logan ignored the final comment. "It's not safe, Mugen," he told her firmly. "The streets are crawling with pickpocketters and God-knows what sort of people. Besides, how do you know you can trust this guy anyhow? Maybe it's better if I---"
"No," she interrupted. "You will compromise your position if you do so. Besides, you're not one hundred percent "all better" yet. You could collapse any moment from now, and then what? I will have to worry both about escaping myself and you without being in a casket!" She shook her head. "Too risky. Leave the risks to me."
"Are you insane?! You're still a child!"
"A child you can defend her from anything," she countered. "You can scream and rant and do whatever, but it won't change my mind. I will go up and see my contact whether you like it or not, and I will see what the hell is going on around here. I don't need a parent to tell me how I should discreet myself!"
Silence. Logan and Mugen were staring at each other.
Geez, she reminds me of Max, he thought. Too much. He remembered the time when he went to see Dr. Vertes, ex-Manticore doctor. Max wasn't too pleased, but she came to accept it. But Mugen seemed like someone who wouldn't accept it...maybe because she never met someone as vile and firm as himself.
Damn, why can't I be nice for a change? Logan asked himself.
Mugen sighed inwardly. There was no point yelling at this guy; he was a so-called contact. Her guardian briefed her before leaving to Seattle; he was a firm and stubborn man, the so-called "Eyes Only". She remembered reading his bio over once and placed mental notes in her mind about him. Pretty touchy for a guy who's experienced being in a wheelchair, she thought grumpily.
"Look, I'm sorry," he began.
"No, don't," she intervened. "It's just---aside from my guardian, I---I never had anyone who cared for me that much." She paused for a brief moment, and then recovered and said quickly, "My business is my business." She shrugged.
Who is her guardian? Logan nodded silently.
"It's okay that I go alone," she continued when she found the voice. "I just don't want more people to die. I've lost so many comrades and friends along the way---and in your current position--I can't afford to. You have your whole life ahead of you..."
Logan got a brief memory of the handgun. "But you're..."
"Just a child, Mr. Cale?" she finished wisely. She shook her head. "Not exactly. I've seen so much...I've lost so much." She shrugged and spun on her heel. "Just chill'ax. I'll be back before you can even say "Sayonara". We'll get her back, Mr. Cale, I promise."

Max was dreaming. Or was she hallucinating?
"Calm down, soldier," the doctor had said harshly as two assistants tried to hold Max down to the chair. "This won't hurt one bit...it'll be okay...try to relax..." He was treating her like a young child afraid of getting a needle.
I will not get this examination! she thought. Oh, Logan....
Max drifted off again to another hallucination.
She was lying on the bunker, the ceiling very shaky from where she lay. She felt a throbbing pain in her head and a weakness passing over her body. She felt her hands pulled back by restraints. In a distance, she could've sworn she could hear Zack hiss, "Max!"
Max's eyelids fluttered and fell back into hallucination.
Lights. Painful lights. She was tied back into a chair again and something was being tucked into her system somehow. She could feel the effects. Lydecker's face hovered above her, the same hard, cold glare he always gave to them when they were younger. She tried to attack, but she was too worn out.
She felt back asleep.
She woke up once more to see that her vision was normal. She was no longer in the guinea pig room but was in the cell again, lying down on the bunker. She still felt slightly dizzy and her body was incredibly weak but she managed to turn to the cell's only window to see some light growing dim.
"Uh..." she groaned.
"Max?"
She scowled and turned to see Zack at the next cell, his head pressed on the bars. He was extremely pale, his eyes red and a scar just visible at his right cheek. He was looking at her peculiar. "Z-Zack..." she murmured. "I'm...so...sorry..."
"No, not right now Max," he said harshly. "Don't get all sentimental with me. If you had left Seattle when I told you to, we could've avoided all this. Now look at us. We're locked up and tortured slowly." He paused. "At least they aren't beating anything out of us...yet." He sighed, gasping in some pain.
"Where's...Brin?" Max asked shortly.
"Still in that butcher room," he said sadly.
Max didn't say anything. He had a painful point; she should've left a long time ago. But she didn't. She was comfortable with her life in Seattle despite the low profile and all...and there was Logan. She couldn't leave the guy hanging around like dried goods. She couldn't bear it at all.
Logan...
"Do...you think...there's a way..."
"Out? Highly unlikely," Zack snorted coldly. "The place is packed with soldiers from top to bottom, outside the door guarding us every single minute. No use; we're doomed here till we're either broken or dead." He sighed.
Max swallowed dryly when some scuffling was heard. Zack jumped to the front of the cell, shaking the bars hard as a janitor hunched in, his materials squeaking behind him. Max watched with keen interest as he stopped in front of her cell, and hissed her over. She scurried to the front of the cell as Zack watched with interest.
"Will you..." she began.
"No...not me," the janitor responded, a tall oriental. "But someone will. A contact of mine. She'll get you and your siblings out of here. This is a note from her...for now you can only hold tight and hope that they get ready quickly...I gots to go...they're coming back with your sibling... may the good graces be with you..." He then squeaked away from the cells.
Max stumbled back to the bunker as she sighed in exhaustion.
"So, Miracle Boy got an idea, huh?" Zack mocked.
"Zack," Max said exasperatedly. "Shut…up!"
At the same time, the doors opened and two guards came in, dragging by the elbows a young girl into the cell to the left of Max. They unlocked the key and threw the limp body inside harshly towards the bunker before slamming the bars shut and trooping away.
"Brin!" Zack and Max shouted in unison.
The young girl moaned from where she lay.
"Poor baby sister," Zack cooed from his cell before glaring coldly at the back of Max. "You better start praying that your Miracle Boy will come quicker otherwise we're as good as dead."

"Mr. Cale?"
Logan turned his head from the window to the door. It was downright pouring outside, the sky heavy gray and crying rain. For a moment, he thought that Max was standing at the door, but after a hard look, he saw that it was only Mugen.
"Well?" he prompted.
She nodded and approached him. "My contact should have talked to Max and them by now," she told him hoarsely, "with the message. Now, I am leaving again tonight to check out the facilities tonight, to ensure a route to get in and out. I have a rough idea of what to do, but we can't allow any slip-ups, now can we?"
Logan nodded numbly. Understanding the movement, Mugen was about to turn around when Logan said, "How is it...where you live?"
She stopped, paused for a considerable moment. "Not bad."
"The Pulse---"
"It wasn't as bad where I was raised," she responded immediately. "It wasn't like a third-world, but some parts were hit slightly more than others. But I was up north, where it's the freezing hell you wake up to every morning and never see light till noon." She shrugged.
"Did you...have a good childhood?"
"I don't think it's fair for me to say so," she responded crisply, walking about, her shoes making clicks as she stepped. "I don't know…rough. Solid. One road."
"You're like Max."
Mugen shook her head. "No, not like Max," she corrected. "I was...am not a genetic hybrid made for fighting or anything such. I was born an ordinary child, just like you. Normal human brain, normal bodily functions. Something came up."
"What?" he asked, slowly interested.
"I'm not sure if I should mention this at all," she said slowly, closing her eyes and leaning against the wall. "But this information might be vital to you if you wish to save this world from the coming catastrophe." She breathed in. "You see, Manticore has been trying to make the perfect killing machine, to protect the United States in case other countries would take advantage of this… state they're in. My parents found out about a secret project about making this thought a reality. They were enraged and tried to leave Manticore. The man you knew as Lydecker did not wish them to walk around in public with this information. During a so-called explosion at the lab, they..." She stopped before continuing. "Anyways, the project was a success. This hybrid is known solely as X-10, a really strong kind with capabilities far beyond the X-5."
Logan was now in reality zone. "This isn't good."
"I know," she agreed. "Their purpose was to hunt down the X-5 who escaped Manticore in 2009. But then things started brewing up, both politically and economically, and they began to be trained more as soldiers for military purposes. But a certain fraction is still out causing havoc for the other countries and such. That's why I volunteered to be enhanced by my guardians."
"So, you can---"
"Well, I'm not sure of the technical terms, really," she admitted sorely, wincing slightly. "Do lots of stuff, I suppose. That's why I need those files, Mr. Cale," she said ominously. "I want them burned or something before even more horrible creatures like those X10s are made."
Logan nodded. "I see," he responded. "That could explain, well, a lot of things, really. Jumping out of the window, computer accessibility, contacts...if you're so smart, why are you still in school?" He cocked his head to a side, interested.
"Besides a cover-up?" She shrugged. She didn't say anything else as she turned around, thinking. "I will leave tonight. Don't worry about it...tomorrow, if your legs are up to the challenge, we will get them back."