disclaimer: dont own it

AN: I had an extremely difficult time writing this chapter, that's why it took me so long to post it. Personally I think it's a little weak, but i'd love to hear what you thought of it, even if you hated it!

CHAPTER 7

As the clock approached 0600, Renfro paced the briefing room impaciantly. Just as the clock hands turned to the assigned hour, Max knocked on the briefing room door, "Enter" Renfro called from the inside, and Max and 115 walked into the room and stood at attention. "452, 115" Renfro acknowledged both of them with a nod before giving them the command, "At ease." Then Renfro turned to Max and looked her up and down, "Are you ready to prove your loyalty to your unit, your team, and your home?" she asked

"Yes ma'am!" Max gave a resounding reply at which Renfro nodded and continued,

"Throughout the past year, all of our progress in bringing your brothers and sisters home has been compremised by one man. Eyes-Only." Renfro watched Max for her reaction. Max stood complety still, in soldier mode, but her mind was racing as Renfro, satitsfied by Max's preformance, continued, "We have him here in our custody, and the commitee has written out an order for his termination." Again she paused waiting for a reaction, but Max didn't flinch, so she continued. "After the past few weeks of careful survielence, your superior officers have recommended that you should be assigned this task. I want you to take him out to the yard and shoot him, execution style in the head. Then bury him. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am!" Max replied

"When you are finished, report back to me and I will assign you to a barrack where you can live among your siblings again." Renfro said

"Yes ma'am." Max saluted. Outwardly, she appeared to be calm and happy about going back to the barracks, but internally she was a mess.

"115," Renfro turned to the X-6, "If 452 can't finish the job, kill Eyes-Only, then bring 452 back to her cell."

"Yes ma'am." 115 replied

"Good." Renfro nodded, "Dissmissed."

At that, Max and 115 saluted and walked out of the room, closing the door behind them. When they were a little ways down the hall, the facade that Max had been wearing broke away, "I can't kill him." she said frantically, more to herself than 115, "But if I don't then they will. I have to get him out of here."

"You have a parapaleigic who is badly injured and weakened, X-7's patrolling the perimeter with automatic rifles, and a ten foot fence with razor wire. Now how do you get the parapaleigic over the fence without alerting the X-7's, who would shoot and alert command?" 115 layed out the outline of the situation more for herself than Max, but Max replyed,

"If I knew then I wouldn't be in here, I'd be gone."

"Sorry." 115 apologized, and the hall went silent as both were trying to think of a solution to the dilemma that was facing them. As they arrived at the room where Logan was being kept, 115 went to talk to her CO, who was guarding the door. "I have orders from command that place the prisoner under my control." she handed him the signed order and he looked at it briefly before handing 115 the keys.

"Termination huh? How come you get all the fun jobs?" the CO asked with a laugh

"I'm special." 115 replied with a laugh, "You don't happen to have any wire cutters lying around do you?"

"Not on me, why?" the CO looked at 115 suspiciously.

"I'm gonna be out in the yard, and I've been cooking up a little practical joke on those X-7's out there, but I need wire cutters." 115 said

"Another practical joke? You almost got caught last time." the CO looked at 115 in amusement.

"I know, but this is too good of an oppertunity to miss. I mean just look at those kids out there, I've never seen one of them smile, they need a little prank pulled on them." 115 insisted with a grin

"I guess your right. I've got some in my locker, hold on while I get them." the CO walked down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

"Practical joke?" Max asked 115 in surprise, "You've actually pulled practical jokes on people in here before? And your CO knew about it but didn't turn you in? Manticore's evolved since my time I guess."

"He's cool," 115 said referring to the CO, "I think he likes to see the mood lighten a little, but he's all soldier. If he knew that when I say how terrible Manticore is, that I ment it, he'd probably turn me in. But he goes along with my jokes, because even Manticore soldiers got to have a little fun."

"I guess." Max replyed

"Yeah," 115 agreed, then got back to buisness, "Allright, I have an idea on how to get out of here, I'll tell you when we get outside. Go inside the cell and get Eyes-Only, but there are video cameras in the cell, and you could bet that Renfro is watching, so act like a soldier." 115 opened the cell door and Max walked inside.

"Get up, it's time to go." Max tried to sound like a soldier, but she could feel a lump form in her throat when she saw Logan up close, he looked so weak and injured. He opened his eyes and looked up at her,

"Max?" he asked, not believing his own eyes at first, then smiling, "Oh my god, Max. You're alive. But how? You died in my arms." Max didn't show any sign of recognition, even thought she was fighting to keep control of herself, she wanted to kiss him, and just lay in his arms. 'There will be time for that later.' Max thought to herself, 'Just concentrate on getting out of here.'

"Time to go." she repeated and pulled Logan out of his cot and into the wheelchair next to it. Then after placing handcuffs on his hands, she started wheeling him out into the hall.

"Where are you taking me Max?" Logan asked

"452." Max replied

"What?" Logan looked confused.

"My name's 452." Max stated and Logan fell silent, confused. Up in the control room, Renfro was watching the security camera footage of Logan's cell and nodded her approval.

Once Max wheeled Logan out into the hall, 115 shut and locked the cell door, and led them out to the yard. They came to a stop near the perimeter fence, in a place where they were under cover of trees and shrubs. "Stay here." 115 said to Max and Logan, as she went off swiftly and quietly to the perimeter fence and started working with the wire cutters, making a hole near the ground, just big enough to crawl though.

"Max?" Logan asked again, and Max could not contain herself any longer.

"Logan," she wrapped her arms around him, "I missed you. I thought....the pictures she showed me....I thought I killed you." Max was trying despertly to hold back tears, 'Your not out of the woods yet,' her commen sense kicked in and she started to pull away, 'He will be dead if you don't keep your head in the game long enough to get out of here.' But Logan pulled her closer, not wanting her to let go.

"Alright." 115 said interupting the moment, "The X-7's shouldn't be around this area for another fifteen minutes. There's a hole big enough to crawl through, belly down. Will you be able to do that?" she asked Logan

"I think so," he replyed, "but what do we do after we're on the other side? I can't exactly walk away, and this wheelchair doesn't fold up."

"We'll carry you down to where the road is, then maybe we can hitch a ride with someone driving westward." 115 said. Logan didn't like the idea of being carried, especially in front of Max, but he knew there was no other apparent soloution, so he just nodded.

"Let's go." 115 said, and crawled easily through the hole. "Him next." she pointed at Logan, who started crawling through the hole. It was clear as day that he was in severe pain, and it was hindering his ability to get through fast. But after a minute or two, 115 saw an X-7 starting to make his way down towards them, so she grabbed Logan's arms and pulled him until his entire body was on the other side of the fence. "Sorry, the guards coming." she explained her actions. Max quickly joined them on the outside and they started moving slowly into the woods outside Manticore, 115 carried Logan on her back. They were startled by gunfire, and turned to face the X-7 on the other side of the fence briefly, before picking up pace and booking farther into the woods as the sirens of the alarm that was sounding inside the perimeter fence started wailing. "Damn hive minds." 115 muttered as they headed down towards the road.

TBC...

AN: allright, I dont know if I was being mean stopping there, or if people are falling onto their knees in thankful prayer that I'm done writing this chapter. I'll try to update later today or tomarrow, or again today and tomarrow. I promise next chapter 115 will get a name, but other than that i'm not 100% sure where i'm going with this story, so any imput is appriciated. and please let me know if u think I did ok on this chapter, i was so skeptical about posting it because everytime I read through it, I found more things that I did wrong.

-peace, love, and space to believe,
--trish