"Max?" the voice whispered. "Max? Wake up, it's time to go." Although urgent and harsh, the underlying message of the voice was clear: Are you all right?
At first Max didn't hear the hushed tones due to the fact that she was still groggy and disoriented from the sedatives in the tayzers. Her head was swimming in a pool filled with the faces of Boo, Tinga, Lydecker, Logan, and more people than she could name all at once.
Slowly, she tried to move her arm to reach for this person that was calling her, but she found that her wrists were strapped to the sides of the bed, preventing any unnecessary movement on her part. Max was too tired to fight it and decided it best to go back to sleep. After all, sleep was the only place it seemed that the enemy could not harm her, could not reach into her mind and destroy what mere sanity was left.
Then the voice came again, "Max." This time it was not a question of her health, but a statement that her life was in utter peril.
Slowly, her eyes lifted open, burning and stinging from whatever had been in the tayzers, and she saw the shadowy figure crouched beside her bed. The moonlight that filtered in through the large window above her head was not enough to reveal their face, and she knew that her eyesight was not in top quality anyhow.
"What-" she began, but was cut off by the person.
"Not now." And with unimaginable strength, they tore away her bonds, ripping the material straight through. Then, they pushed down the bars surrounding the bed so that Max could sit up and swing her feet over the side.
She proceeded to stand, but collapsed to the ground both from dizziness and the searing pain of her foot. If she had been able to see it in the dying light, she would have seen a mangled mess of blood and pus, both ready to explode from underneath the infected skin. Gangrene could even have been setting in, unknown to her.
When the other person saw that she could not stand, they scooped her up in their arms like a hero out of a romance novel-her head resting against their shoulder and legs hanging over the side of one of their arms. Only as she pressed her head to their body and heard the strong pulse of their heart, did she realize who had rescued her.
"Zack," she whispered, her voice long and drawn out like someone who has had a little bit too much to drink.
"We gotta get out of here, Maxie," he replied in an undertone, cautiously approaching the door and watching for any Manticore guards outside. "I got five bombs on each floor-definitely one in each of the main rooms too-, not to mention grenades on me. We have, at the most, seven minutes to get out of here. You understand?"
She nodded blankly, the world around her spinning.
"Good. Let's go." And with that, he opened the heavy iron door with his knee, pushing himself into the fluorescent-lit hallway and began to rush down it.
Zack was faster than a speeding bullet, that fact was unarguable to anyone. But, carrying the sick Max in his arms, he realized that hand to hand combat was impossible. At the best, he would probably be able to kick someone in the groin or smash a kneecap, then keep on running. He wouldn't have even been able to reach the grenades stored on his belt.
Suddenly, out of one of the rooms, Boo burst out at him. She had been looking forward to any sign of Max, and now that she had seen her friend, Boo was ready to help. After all, she had watched them lock Max away in that dreadful room, then put her away in a place where they thought she would stay. Thought. Definitely an underestimate on the anomaly's strength-she had blown the hinges right off the door without hesitation and had been waiting behind it ever since.
Zack jumped back, wheeling around and starting in the opposite direction. Even he, the captain of the X5s, was scared of anomalies.
"Wait! Max is friend!"
Zack stopped dead and slowly turned back around. The clock was ticking; he didn't have time to deal with this kind of problem. He needed to keep on moving. But, what was up with this creature?
"Zack," Max whispered, hearing the anomaly's distinctive voice in the distance, "Boo's right."
"I can help," Boo offered.
"Just shut up then, and let's move," Zack hissed back.
Boo nodded, glad to be of help. She started down the hallway at an awkward hobble and hurried as fast as her mutated legs could carry her.
Zack wondered how in the world the anomaly could have escaped when he noticed the handcuffs on either wrist. The chain linking them was snapped due to over-exertion, and the hinges on the door where the anomaly had been staying were broken right off.
At that moment, the emergency signal began to wail, signaling intruders. Zack clutched Max closer to his pounding heart; he wouldn't let her die.
"Let's move!" Zack bellowed to Boo.
She gave an understanding nod, pivoted sharply as she turned a corner, which led them down another hallway. At the end of this hallway was an iron door, padlocked like the thousands of other doors in the Manticore base.
"It's a dead end!" Zack cried, as worry and tension began to burn through his veins. Not only did he have to outrun the clock, but now Manticore was after him. This could not be happening.
"No!" Boo replied defiantly, curling her mangled lip. Then, bringing her shorter leg up beneath her, she kicked the door in so that it fell with a heavy clang. This motion opened up a shorter hallway where, off to the side, a stairwell could be seen that would lead them down to the ground floor.
Suddenly, two armed guards jumped out at the trio. Zack backed away, ready to propel himself over the men, when Boo slammed her bleeding fist into one of their faces, then delivered a sharp kick to the other's stomach.
Zack followed the creature down the winding stairs, skipping a couple so that he could move faster. There had to be anywhere from three to four minutes left now. Would he make it? Better to die with Max, than to let her die within Manticore alone, he reasoned. But, this thought still couldn't take the edge off of his panic.
He and Boo nearly flew down the stairs, covering six to seven at a time, without any hesitation. For a creature with such limited brain capacity and severe mutations, she was, indeed, a rather good warrior.
At the end of the stairs, four men waited, ready to take the X5s back to where they belonged, and kill the anomaly.
Being above them, Boo dove down, landing on one of the men and slammed his head against the brick wall so that he fell into a puddle of his own blood. She then, turned her attention onto another soldier.
Zack roughly slung Max over his shoulder, knowing that he couldn't be all prim and proper at a moment such as this. He kicked outward, knocking the wind out of the nearest soldier, then cracking his neck as the man fell.
Out of the corner of her twisted eye, Boo noticed one of the men leveling a gun at Zack, who was occupied at the moment. She quickly pushed the man she had been fighting down to the ground and sped towards the gunman.
"Max! NO!" Boo screamed.
Zack, hearing the scream, whipped his head around and tried to dodge out of the way. But, carrying Max, he was weighted down significantly, and couldn't move nearly as fast.
Boo, diving towards him, sent him sprawling on the ground as she pushed him out of the way. Zack bounced as he hit the floor and Max came tumbling out of his arms, already unconscious. Unfortunately, the bullet, meant for him, hit Boo in the leg.
The anomaly screamed a hideous shriek, and with her blood coating the waxed floor, she lunged toward the man who had shot her. This was what had been done to her all of her life, she couldn't back down now.
"Get away, you thing," one of the men sneered, pointing the gun directly at her. She was, after all, just another lab rat in the world that could be as easily disposed of as she had been created. Another imbecile that had lost its place.
"I. Am. Not. Thing!" Boo screeched and, using all of her strength, wrapped her hands the man's neck. She brought her distorted and pain-streaked face closer to his and whispered, "I am Boo." Then, without hesitation, she killed him like she had seen Zack do.
By this time, Zack had risen to his feet and was opening the door that led to the outside. All four soldiers were detained, but he knew that more would be on the way, not to mention the fact that the building was going to go at any time.
He turned back to the monster that had saved his life and asked, "You comin'?"
Boo gave an affirmative nod and ran out the door after him.
They jumped the fence together, despite the pain in Boo's upper thigh. She was able to ignore it though because pain was a factor that had been given to her all of her life. By hurting her so, the doctors in Manticore had unknowingly only made her pain threshold higher. Never again would they think that experiments were done solely for their benefit.
Finally, on the crest overlooking the Manticore base, did Zack gently lay Max down in the snow. The ice on her back awakened her senses slightly more and she noticed, for the first time, where she was.
"Zack?" she whispered, although her eyes were rolled slightly back into her head.
"Yes, Max? We're out now, there's nothing to worry about. Everything's going to be fine," Zack panted, sweat glistening on his ruddy cheeks in the pale moonlight as his breath came out in tiny clouds. He was victorious; Max was alive and so was he.
"No, Zack. Logan. He's still in there."
Zack flinched, not expecting the comment, and stopped breathing for a moment. "Logan?"
"Please, I need to get him," she said, struggling to rise as she pushed against the icy snow. Her body was still weak from the tayzers, and any attempts to save Logan would ultimately result in her death.
Zack watched her with pity in his eyes. He could leave Logan inside the building, but could he ever forgive himself? Could Max ever forgive him? No, he reasoned, you know what you have to do.
Before rising to his feet, Zack gently pushed her back down. "I'll get him," he whispered to her, bending over and clutching her freezing face in his palms. "You stay here, Maxie. I'll go."
Then, without any hesitation, he began to walk back down the hill, leading to the Manticore base. He flew over the fence with ease and grace unknown to any human. Finally, on the other side of the fence, he turned around to face Max and Boo, both who were bleeding on the top of the rising.
Tears formed in his placid eyes as he knew what he had to do. Self-sacrifice, that was really all it was. Besides, Max would be happier with Logan. She would never love Zack the way he loved her. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and paused before fleeing into the building. Yet, although he knew that Max would never hear him, he whispered slightly so that his voice came out as a thin strand.
"I love you, Max."
Hearing the words out loud, he turned and ran into the building, filled with rage and embarrassment that he had let emotions take control of the mission. What kind of soldier was he? A weak one, obviously, one that does not deserve to live. Then, with a silent cry to himself, he slammed the door behind him.
Max watched him from her peak, worrying and trying not to cry. But, just as the door closed behind him, the door of his fate, the building erupted, as the explosives swallowed it like a giant monster. And, as the bombs meant for Lydecker's destruction went off, one by one, not only the building disappeared, but Zack and Logan as well.
