Gunfire.
He heard gunfire.
His fall to the ground was instinctive, his reluctance to lift his head and check his surroundings a side-effect of his fear. Had he been caught? Had he been right when he'd identified the information as bait? Were they expecting this? Were they anticipating his every move?
He sighed heavily and pulled himself to his knees when he realized it was moving away from both him and his destination. Why, he couldn't begin to speculate, and he didn't really care to know. It was probably just some foolish intruder who had fortunately chosen this exact moment to serve as an involuntary decoy. He quickly surveyed his surroundings, then moved swiftly through to the building he'd considered his second home only a few short weeks ago.
What he found there was chaos and panic; alarms flashing, personnel rushing into the forest in confirmation of his intruder theory. Whoever it was must have discovered something mighty important. He hadn't seen the operation in this sort of frightened disarray since the original escape.
Wait a minute.
Had the intruder been an X-5, perhaps attempting infiltration to rescue Max and/or Zack? Or...was the individual in question actually not an intruder at all? An escapee...Max, even. He considered aborting the mission to find out but decided against it. He had no chance of catching up with said fugitive on foot, and commandeering a vehicle probably wouldn't bode well for his anonymity. Besides, Renfro had never been smart when it came to matters of security, and this was presently affording him perfect opportunity to enter without incident. He'd find out in due time what was going on, perhaps an added bonus to learning what had truly happened to Max and Zack.
Manticore's interior was in much the same state as its outside. It was filled with the wail and flash of the alarm and the occasional group of guards or soldiers moving hurriedly through the corridors. He didn't know how many small rooms and crevices he had to slip into to keep unnoticed, and eventually decided it would be best to get himself some sort of disguise. If they didn't register a man clad in all black and concealed by a ski mask as being a security risk, they really were lost without him.
He spotted a lone guard coming toward him from his current hiding place and prepared himself for the quick and easy battle ahead. The younger man ran by only to be intercepted by the elder, who went straight for the throat and rendered him unconscious. The guard fell to the floor in a heap, and the last thing the intruder heard was the sound of approaching footsteps and a grunt of exertion before something hard and heavy made contact with the base of his skull and knocked him cold.
*******
"Has she been retrieved?" Renfro demanded.
"No, ma'am," the guard replied nervously. "She...she was just a little too fast for us."
"A LITTLE TOO FAST?!" the director exploded.
"Well, she IS an X-5..."
"Indeed she is, which is why this is exactly what you should have anticipated! There's an amazing thing in the military that we like to call 'strategy.' I suggest you look into it."
The guard shifted anxiously from foot to foot and searched for some sort of saving grace. "Um...the choppers have been deployed and are, um, establishing an airborne perimeter. It's highly possible that they've still a chance of bringing her in."
" 'Highly possible' isn't good enough," she huffed in a harsh whisper, "and unless X5-452 is caught and returned to base in the next 24 hours, you and a great many of your colleagues will be finding yourselves on the wrong end of a highly dishonorable discharge."
He gulped noticably; he'd been around here long enough to know that such wasn't simply a fancy way of saying "you're fired," but was also a promise that one would not be alive much longer. He had to make her feel better somehow...
"Look on the bright side, ma'am," he said when it came to him, eliciting an arched eyebrow from his boss, "at least we've still got the other one in captivity."
That was indeed true, and she nodded slightly before focusing her attention on the soldier who was presently rushing into the room.
"Ma'am!" he shouted with a salute.
"At ease," she sighed, clearly annoyed and mentally exhausted.
"I apologize in advance for the report I am about to deliver, but it seems that protoype X5-452 was not the only prisoner to escape."
"WHAT?!"
"Oh crap..." the guard whispered to himself. The soldier, meanwhile, immediately regretted his decision to go with the age old approach of Bad News First.
"Um...uh..."
Renfro was having great difficulty controlling her emotions at the moment, and probably would have attacked the men in front of her had she not been embarrassingly untrained in areas of combat. "You mean to tell me that the other..."
"Yes, the other..."
"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!!" she screeched.
"S...sorry ma'am," he stammered. This was definitely not the best way to move up in rank.
The director paced madly in front of the two men, trying to decide just what she was going to do to take her anger out on them. The hoverdrone was considered but then discarded as being too painless. Hmm...looks like she had a couple test subjects for any new biological agents and torture devices the medics were currently working on. Oh yes, how maliciously delicious that would be.
"Ma'am," the soldier blurted when he'd gathered the courage.
"What now?!" she cried, turning to face him, a perfect picture of rage and sadism.
"Despite our losses, something good HAS come out of this mess."
"Go on," she encouraged, her demeanor softening slightly with the onset of curiosity.
"Well, my group and I were in the midst of deployment when I thought I saw a dark figure ducking into a vacant room. At first I was going to dismiss it as a trick of the light, but then I remembered the fear of intrusion you'd expressed and decided it would be best to investigate. Upon discovering that there really was someone there, I broke from the group and waited nearby for the intruder to emerge." As unprofessional as it was, he couldn't help but grin slightly when his boss' scowl melted into a look of satisfied realization. "To make a long story short, I managed to subdue and capture him." He paused for effect. "And ma'am, he's Colonel Lydecker."
He heard gunfire.
His fall to the ground was instinctive, his reluctance to lift his head and check his surroundings a side-effect of his fear. Had he been caught? Had he been right when he'd identified the information as bait? Were they expecting this? Were they anticipating his every move?
He sighed heavily and pulled himself to his knees when he realized it was moving away from both him and his destination. Why, he couldn't begin to speculate, and he didn't really care to know. It was probably just some foolish intruder who had fortunately chosen this exact moment to serve as an involuntary decoy. He quickly surveyed his surroundings, then moved swiftly through to the building he'd considered his second home only a few short weeks ago.
What he found there was chaos and panic; alarms flashing, personnel rushing into the forest in confirmation of his intruder theory. Whoever it was must have discovered something mighty important. He hadn't seen the operation in this sort of frightened disarray since the original escape.
Wait a minute.
Had the intruder been an X-5, perhaps attempting infiltration to rescue Max and/or Zack? Or...was the individual in question actually not an intruder at all? An escapee...Max, even. He considered aborting the mission to find out but decided against it. He had no chance of catching up with said fugitive on foot, and commandeering a vehicle probably wouldn't bode well for his anonymity. Besides, Renfro had never been smart when it came to matters of security, and this was presently affording him perfect opportunity to enter without incident. He'd find out in due time what was going on, perhaps an added bonus to learning what had truly happened to Max and Zack.
Manticore's interior was in much the same state as its outside. It was filled with the wail and flash of the alarm and the occasional group of guards or soldiers moving hurriedly through the corridors. He didn't know how many small rooms and crevices he had to slip into to keep unnoticed, and eventually decided it would be best to get himself some sort of disguise. If they didn't register a man clad in all black and concealed by a ski mask as being a security risk, they really were lost without him.
He spotted a lone guard coming toward him from his current hiding place and prepared himself for the quick and easy battle ahead. The younger man ran by only to be intercepted by the elder, who went straight for the throat and rendered him unconscious. The guard fell to the floor in a heap, and the last thing the intruder heard was the sound of approaching footsteps and a grunt of exertion before something hard and heavy made contact with the base of his skull and knocked him cold.
*******
"Has she been retrieved?" Renfro demanded.
"No, ma'am," the guard replied nervously. "She...she was just a little too fast for us."
"A LITTLE TOO FAST?!" the director exploded.
"Well, she IS an X-5..."
"Indeed she is, which is why this is exactly what you should have anticipated! There's an amazing thing in the military that we like to call 'strategy.' I suggest you look into it."
The guard shifted anxiously from foot to foot and searched for some sort of saving grace. "Um...the choppers have been deployed and are, um, establishing an airborne perimeter. It's highly possible that they've still a chance of bringing her in."
" 'Highly possible' isn't good enough," she huffed in a harsh whisper, "and unless X5-452 is caught and returned to base in the next 24 hours, you and a great many of your colleagues will be finding yourselves on the wrong end of a highly dishonorable discharge."
He gulped noticably; he'd been around here long enough to know that such wasn't simply a fancy way of saying "you're fired," but was also a promise that one would not be alive much longer. He had to make her feel better somehow...
"Look on the bright side, ma'am," he said when it came to him, eliciting an arched eyebrow from his boss, "at least we've still got the other one in captivity."
That was indeed true, and she nodded slightly before focusing her attention on the soldier who was presently rushing into the room.
"Ma'am!" he shouted with a salute.
"At ease," she sighed, clearly annoyed and mentally exhausted.
"I apologize in advance for the report I am about to deliver, but it seems that protoype X5-452 was not the only prisoner to escape."
"WHAT?!"
"Oh crap..." the guard whispered to himself. The soldier, meanwhile, immediately regretted his decision to go with the age old approach of Bad News First.
"Um...uh..."
Renfro was having great difficulty controlling her emotions at the moment, and probably would have attacked the men in front of her had she not been embarrassingly untrained in areas of combat. "You mean to tell me that the other..."
"Yes, the other..."
"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!!" she screeched.
"S...sorry ma'am," he stammered. This was definitely not the best way to move up in rank.
The director paced madly in front of the two men, trying to decide just what she was going to do to take her anger out on them. The hoverdrone was considered but then discarded as being too painless. Hmm...looks like she had a couple test subjects for any new biological agents and torture devices the medics were currently working on. Oh yes, how maliciously delicious that would be.
"Ma'am," the soldier blurted when he'd gathered the courage.
"What now?!" she cried, turning to face him, a perfect picture of rage and sadism.
"Despite our losses, something good HAS come out of this mess."
"Go on," she encouraged, her demeanor softening slightly with the onset of curiosity.
"Well, my group and I were in the midst of deployment when I thought I saw a dark figure ducking into a vacant room. At first I was going to dismiss it as a trick of the light, but then I remembered the fear of intrusion you'd expressed and decided it would be best to investigate. Upon discovering that there really was someone there, I broke from the group and waited nearby for the intruder to emerge." As unprofessional as it was, he couldn't help but grin slightly when his boss' scowl melted into a look of satisfied realization. "To make a long story short, I managed to subdue and capture him." He paused for effect. "And ma'am, he's Colonel Lydecker."