Zack looked at her,

Zack looked at her, as if sensing her thoughts, then his face seemed to turn unreadable, but his eyes remained on her.

Bree stared back. His jaw was squared and set, giving the feeling that he was going to ask something, and he wanted a proper answer. He seemed defiant of here, momentarily.

"Zack?" Max asked. He didn't look away. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Maxie, I just had a question for Bree here, in fact, a couple questions. We shouldn't invite our family in to this mess without having some answers for them when they get here."

Logan raised his brows, then shrugged it off, looking at Max, then Bree, who were seated side by side, Cindy on the other side of Bree.

"So, comes the question that hasn't been answered," Zack began, "Exactly how did you escape, and why are so many people after you? What did you do?"

Bree, who had been fairly focused until then, flinched and retreated in to her head once more. The room around her disappeared as the world in her head came to a sharper focus:

She was in barracks, with everyone else in her group. Although most didn't sleep, she'd been quiet and graceful enough to slip past them and hide in the cleaning closet.

Bree remembered how a plan had formed in her head, even then, sitting in the closet with the odor of cleaning supplies tickling her nose.

She waited there for what seemed like forever, until she heard the familiar noise of someone entering the room.

Keys rattled against the metal knob and the door opened inwards in the other room. She was sure that had been enough to wake the others. The others who didn't want to escape. Who swore it made sense here, when really, nothing made sense here.

As soon as the Janitor, a tall black man who cleaned all the rooms, opened the cleaning closet she jumped at him, using all her pent up energy against him, intending to knock him out. Only, when it was all over Bree knew she'd gotten carried away, because the only one who was nice to them, ever, was now on the floor. Not breathing.

Her plans had almost gone to shit right then. When she'd almost been sick and couldn't go anywhere, but the monitors everyon e carried was currently sending a signal to alert whoever was awake and watching, that there had been a disturbance in the room.

The other X6's sat up in their beds at the quiet noise, and looking through the shrouded dark back at them, the young Bree knew they were staring back at her. Ready to pounce.

She made her move quickly then, flying out of the closet, the keys grasped in her clammy hands, not understanding in all totality of the trouble she'd gotten herself in to.

The first door opened easily, with a swipe of a quick care in the correct slot, and the entry of the pass code she'd listened for over a week to make out.

She remembered, entered it, and as soon as she entered in to the room just past that, the door closed behind her, separating her from her family. She kept going.

Only, as she attempted the second door, she noticed that it was a heavy metal, impossible for one X6 to break through. And even if she could have, it would have made too much noise. So she waited for the inevitable. The night guards coming to the 'rescue'. The same guards who frequently thought of them only as kids, and didn't know the implications of what Manticore was doing in their gene therapy.

As the first one unlocked the door, the girl squeezed in behind the door, making herself what seemed impossibly small in the corner of the darkness. There was only one. But she'd heard footsteps of two.

Unfortunately, they weren't that stupid. She rushed in to the hall as soon as the door behind the guard shut and rushed the second guard, who seemed ready and waiting.

She hit him almost at full force, throwing them both to the ground. The gun went flying from his hands, and the girl attacked until he was down and out.

Then she ran down the hall. Past the anomalies, who's faces were pressed up against the windows. And towards the door to freedom.

A voice managed to stop her cold, however. She stopped on the spot, turned around, and focused down the hall on several figures standing in the hall not fifty feet away.

"Bree," Lydecker's voice greeted her. Using Haley's nickname for her. How she wanted to slaughter him, just for that.

"Where you going?" he asked. She stared back dumbly, her heart beating steadily, but loudly. Then, without another word he shot the fist, which had been at his shoulder, straight forward, and the figures behind him raced forward towards her.

She turned, and ran.

Someone was shaking her, she realized, as the world around her came to focus again, leaving the past behind. Her heart was thudding.

"Hey," Max said, "You okay?"

Bree nodded, then looked at Zack. "I suppose I got away much like you guys did." She replied after a beat.

"That's only half the question," Zack replied easily.

"I wouldn't kill anyone," she answered, meeting his gaze again, "He killed my friend and I wouldn't kill for him. He was mad and tried to drive me to it, and he had some doctors do gene therapy on me. When I woke up, I heard him talking to someone about my bases structure. How I had the ability to be bred and pass on my genetics successfully, about how I had none of the faults the X5's had except for the seizures. He went on about half the stuff I didn't understand until they realized I was awake. He put me against my own family. And I still wouldn't kill," she explained. A tear fell silently down her cheek, and she looked away, brushing it and then rising and walking out of the room to find Logan's washroom.

Zack made a grunting sound then, looked at Logan, whom he found was staring at Zack. "Where's your phone?" he asked, "I'm tired of waiting for the phone calls."

Logan pointed at the counter in the kitchen, where the cordless sat, not ringing. Zack walked over to it and picked it up, going in to the guest bedroom down the hall and closing the door.

Logan sat there, alone in the room for the first time that evening. He turned the wheel chair around as Original Cindy walked in to the room.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She's a strong girl, but we all hungry Logan. Max tellin' me this was a dinner meeting, so where's all our dinner?" she gave a smile.

Logan gave a quick smile back, rolling in to the kitchen and pulling out his already prepared food from the fridge.

In the guest room, Zack waited on the phone for Jani to come on the line. While he did so he managed to liste n to a few of the words Max and Bree were saying. Max was telling her she shouldn't worry, and Zack was always uptight, not to take it personally.

He ignored the rest of it from then on. //You should be more careful too, Maxie.// He thought. You're gonna get your ass hauled off to Manticore again otherwise. He finished the thought as a voice came on the other line.

"Hello?" a girl's voice asked.

"Jani." He replied, knowing the importance of that single name. He knew her friends called her Janet, which was who he'd asked for. She knew it was him.

"Zack, what's wrong?" she asked. "You never call me unless there's something wrong, what is it?"

"You didn't see the broadcasts?" Zack asked her.

"No, what broadcasts? Are we in trouble?"

"Not yet," Zack replied.

"What broadcast?"

"It was nothing."

"So what are you calling for, not to take me out to dinner I'm guessing. You never hang around long enough for us to do anything like that."

Her unworried mannerism reminded Zack of Max. "There's some people that need our help" he began.

"Who?"

"A friend of Max's. She's in trouble, and lots of it. She's got a lot of people after her, and they're all pissed off. I've contacted some of the others, they're all coming so far. I still have to call Risha, Kita and Tayrahn though."

"Who's this girl, and why does she have so many people after her?" Jani demanded. "And why is this a problem for our family?"

"The girl, Bree, is an X6. Lydecker's courting Seattle, and he's getting closer. He's already been to where they're working."

"You're back in Seattle?" she asked.

"Aren't I always?" he replied easily.

"Yeah, Yeah, I get the point, what's the addy?"

He rattled off one for her and waited.

"I'll be there tomorrow morning." She replied, hanging up the phone. Zack held on to the receiver for a moment, listening to the dead air, then hung up, and began dialing again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~