Part .12
Move Over, Move Over



The message Logan read was almost exactly what he wanted. Montego would e-mail the plans of the government building in Anchorage to Logan in as soon as confirmation came up on his screen. Logan sat tensely for a few moments, thinking, wondering how to phrase the reply to the message.

"Move," Original Cindy pushed Logan aside and began writing. "Dear Mr. Montego," she said aloud, her tone commanding. "We are please to receive your e-mail and will be anxiously awaiting the plans that you have offered to send us. If it would be of little or no trouble to you, could you please include in the plans for any government or military-like buildings that are located in or about the towns of Anchorage or Nome? We have recently found new developments in the project that we are working on and," Original Cindy flexed her fingers, her long nails painted a bright red, "require this information as soon as you are able to give it to us. We are forever in gratitude toward you. Sincerely, The Eyes Only Organization."

"Nice," Seana commented from her perch on the bed. The room was filled with the others on various pieces of furniture or, in the case of Krit, cross-leggedly on the floor. Zack, with his usual air of disapproval almost gone, was watching from the chair next to Cindy, sharing it with Logan without a word of complaint. It was almost comical, seeing the two of them sitting there together, each with one half of the chair.

Cindy glanced up triumphantly. "Should be. Original Cindy learned to type as soon as Boy-Legs over there started pacing when he was working. Soon as soon, I was his little secretary while Lord King was dictating from the other end of the room, sometimes pulling his hair out by the fist fulls." Original Cindy smiled fondly at the recollection. "Now we wait another hour while he makes certain he doesn't want to back out. Original Cindy suggests, Logan, in that hour we work on finding another man who might do us the same favors this boy is thinking of, just in case the flooring his too chilly for his feet."

"Ah, sure," Logan said, smiling a bit at Cindy. "Move," with that, Logan pushed her out of the chair, onto the floor. Seana whooped with laughter while Syl giggled appreciatively. Logan began his typing, which was only a few words per minute faster than Cindy's, as all the Manticore's in the room quickly analyzed. "What do you think about this one, Jhondie?"

Jhondie leaned over the table, glancing at the laptop with a sideway view. "He died three months ago, saw it in the papers," she said finally. Logan looked up, a look of bewilderment on his face. "I'm sure of it. Damn sure of it. In fact, he might have been wiped out because of this slight explosion that Justin and I weren't able to stop . . . one of our failed a**ignments, Eyes."

"Damnit to hell," Logan said. "You didn't report any fatalities in that; it wasn't even a large explosion." Jhondie shrugged, so Logan began his typing again, with small muttered Jesus-Christ-there-goes-another-contact flirting in and out of hearing.

Suddenly, a chime on his laptop sounded. Logan had mail. Original Cindy checked the clock, then laughed; a rich, throaty laugh that held every one person in the room captivated. The laugh, as Syl had thought at the moment, was enough to turn any one to the female sex.

"Boy done took fifteen minutes," she told Logan after a moment of catching her breath. "You got a good contact; Original Cindy most certainly expected him to fink out on you, Logan, but he didn't. You might want to put him on the top of your list of guys to thank big time when you strike oil in Persia or whatever they call Israel now."

"We don't know what the letter says, Cindy," Krit reminded her. "It might very well be a condolence letter; Montego is sorry but he is unable to fulfill our demands. You talk a lot before you even investigate the facts. I'm just warning you, it might not turn out as you wish it to turn out."

"At least one of the five adjectives to describe me isn't 'taciturn,' Krit, m'dear," Original Cindy said smugly; very well aware that she was most certainly the exact opposite of taciturn. Silent by nature indeed! Now, Krit on the other hand, well, if Original Cindy didn't know that Manticore's were above average in intelligence, she just might have thought him mentally retarded or the like.

"Will you guys just shut the hell up so Logan can tell us what's in the e-mail?" Syl asked irritably from the couch. Logan glanced at her. Yes, she was agitated, but he didn't expect her to be more so than the rest of those a**embled. Syl glanced around nervously. "Got my baby at home turning five today, sorry."

"Hard life, toots," Original Cindy said sympathetically. "My little sister had her twenty-first last month and I didn't have the time to go to New England to wish her happy legal drinking days. Bummed me out for days; being away from your little one has got to be a twelve worth worse."

"Yeah," Syl said, nodding in agreement with what Original Cindy had said. Logan was glad that Cindy had played peacemaker there; he didn't want to have over used and under fed Manticores all over his ass while he was working.

Returning his gaze to the computer screen, he pressed the button on his laptop to open the e-mail. Within the first few lines Logan knew that the future of the mission was decided. His heart beat wildly and his mouth went dry, then suddenly watered as if he'd smelled something insanely delicious, which wasn't likely, as most of the personage in the room hadn't taken a shower in three or even four days.

"He's got five plans for us, but he doubts we'll need them," Logan told the others in the room. "The facilities in all but one of them are exactly the same. Apparently, about a year after the first, and variable, facility went up, these other four were built. It took a year. They were finished and, apparently, pronounced operational about three months before Max died . . . or, actually, was taken."

"Tell him to send them all. There are always differences in the landscapes and such everywhere. There are always variables," Zack said. "We cannot let it go by chance that we don't have a certain corridor or level on the blueprints we have. Tell him to send them all over, clearly marked."

"He sent the first one, the Anchorage one, and he's waiting for us to tell him whether or not we want one or four of the others," Logan said, bringing up a small screen cap of some blueprints. "So, I'll drop him a quick note and then we'll take a look at these plans. Cindy, go into the third box, you know the one, and bring out the printer so I can hook it up to my computer. We'll need to print these."

"Girl got you covered," Original Cindy said with a careless toss of her hand toward Jhondie, who was putting several sheets of what Cindy always called continuous computer paper in the printer. "She knows what you need, apparently. These X-5s got some sort of sixth sense, and," Original Cindy said decidedly, "it gives *me* the creeps."

Original Cindy smiled a bit to herself, remembering how she had to a remorseful Max once, "What do I know? I'm just a big ol' lezbo." The tone itself was hers, Cindy mused, but the words could be used over and over again to have so many different meanings. She shook herself mentally.

"Thanks, Jhondie," Logan told her as she handed the printer cable to him to hook up into his computer. Logan leaned over and plugged the cable into the correct place, then began printing the document with a few swift keystrokes. "There it is," he told them as the printer noisily spat out the plans on one of the sheets. "I'm printing three copies for you guys, get in a group and work it out on one, then place it on the second. I know there are going to be mistakes on that one, transfer the corrections onto the third. I want to be able to get in there, if we have a chance, and leave Renfro a small recording near the front gates. I just want to make sure you guys know how to keep covered."

"Yes, oh high and mighty Lord," Original Cindy with the sort of saucy grin that Logan had only seen on her face after she had dumped an unsatisfactory girlfriend. "After we do that, we'll weed the cabbage patch and we'll water the carrots."

"We got a comedian on our hands," Syl said, tossing her hands up in the air while Zack got the papers and a handful of pens from the desk.

"I'm attracted to comedians," Seana put in. Original Cindy turned to Seana.

"I'm attracted to people who are attracted to comedians," Original Cindy told Seana.

"I'm attracted to people who are attracted to people who are attracted to comedians," Seana said.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, can't we stop this? Max is at Manticore!" Krit said. Absently, Original Cindy wondered where Krit had gotten the balls; he certainly hadn't been like that the few times he'd dropped by with Zack after Max's death . . . or, non-death. Damnit, this was just confusing.

"Max isn't at Manticore; she's in a division of Manticore operated by the director of Manticore, who is also the directed of Phase Four, as this is called," Logan said. "I thought you were listening when we went over the notes, Krit. Lydecker, who is basically in charge of Manticore, in no way had any idea that Max was alive; nor did he have any real idea that she was, as we thought, dead."

"So it was the b***h Renfro who screwed us over," Original Cindy offered. Krit shrugged his shoulders, his dark eyes seemingly impa**ive.

The computer gave the mail notice. The people who had, moments before, been bickering suddenly ceased their chatter and watched with baited breath as Logan downloaded the files that had been attached to the brief message in the e-mail from Montego.

Printing out the blueprints, Logan gave a small sigh of relief. The blueprints, indeed, did seem to be identical. It would mean so much less for the Manticores, for the X-5s, to memorize, which would mean so much less that they could mess up on. Not that he had any doubts of their abilities, knock on wood, but still . . .

Zack snorted. "That idiot," he said. Logan glanced up. Montego, the idiot? Why, Montego had been top in their mathematic cla**es at Yale . . . "look right here, these blueprints, why, its silly! The corridors and such in this blueprint are smaller, making for more space, which, consequently, turns into three extra rooms. Look," he pointed, "here, here, and up there near the bottom left of the page."

"My God," Original Cindy said, "they look nothing more than broom closets!" She gave a toss of her head, indicating she didn't much liked Zack's attitude. He gave it no notice, however, and continued speaking.

"If we had to count the number of doors down a certain hallway, it would have been suicide," he explained patiently to her, as if she were but a mere child. Original Cindy took another look at the blueprint, carefully examining the closets, as she had described them.

"Damn," she said. "Original Cindy hadn't any idea that closets were so important. This will make her a lot more careful with what she says about them in the future. She doesn't like eating her words; most of the time they got this bitter taste that just does not do it for her."

Logan turned away from the computer. "This is what I think, and I emphasize that word, is the situation," he started. "Renfro has her headquarters and probably her younger generation soldiers here in Anchorage. Anchorage is probably where she keeps the rogues -- meaning insubordinates -- while she's working them over. After she's satisfied, she sends them to one of these points," Logan placed a finger on each of the four blueprints, "and that's where they train. Look at the size of these rooms, possibly an indoor training facility. We've got the word gymnasium on everything . . .

"We know that Max was being held in Nome. We know that for certain. We just need to know if Renfro is cocky; we need to know if Renfro thought that maybe we knew of her location in Nome," Logan took a deep breath. "Maybe she hyped up security, maybe she took Max to Anchorage, maybe to another one of the training facilities. The only way is to start working against them."

"Hand us the Nome blueprint, stupid, so we can memorize it," Seana said, "and then let's work on a plan."

At the end of the night, there was a plan. Not much of one, but a plan. Original Cindy, even, as she said, saw the many ways it could go wrong; the many ways a person might never return. It was, as Logan put it late the next morning, over his third cup of coffee, up to fate if they would make it out or not. The Manticores remained hopeful.