Alec, Max, Logan et al, are owned by James Cameron and his people. Sophie
and Tess are mine though.
....................................
Alec was early to the rendezvous and it was this fact that saved his life. Otherwise, he wouldn't have caught that it was a trap. He was thankful he had talked Max out of coming. Despite their newfound affection for each other, he was expendable, she wasn't. Savior of the world and all. The plan had been for him to meet up with some new contacts in New York, hopefully reinforcements. But as he stood under the great ceiling of Grand Central Station, he knew it was fubar.
He scanned the crowd and could see the Familiars placing themselves strategically. They didn't seem to realize he was their target. But soon they would, he had no doubt. He could still see one way out, through an archway to a train that was boarding. He started sauntering towards it, watching the Familiars milling around. Then, he saw one of them point towards him. Crap. He still hoped to not alert all of Manhattan to his presence, so he attempted to nonchalantly run as if late for his train. Crapcrap. The Familiars were having none of it though. One attempted to block his path, but he was able to blur around them and sprinted towards the platform. He heard shots ring out behind them, and felt a slug entering his shoulder. It hurt like Hell, but he had been trained to ignore such trivialities as pain and he was able to board the train as it pulled out of the station. He watched long enough to make sure the familiars had been left behind, then he slunk into the bathroom. The bullet was lodged in his shoulder. He was going to need to get help to get it out. He cleaned the wound and bandaged it with strips from his t-shirt. He was going to need help sooner rather than later and he didn't even know where this train was going.
He ventured out and found the conductor, who told him that the train was headed for Boston and would be arriving in 4 hours. Alec slumped into a seat and racked his brain trying to remember who the Hell he knew in Boston. Figuring it out only made it worse.
It took him two days to find her. She was Sophie Crawford, an old girlfriend of Biggs's. Alec had only met her a few times, and wasn't at all sure what she knew. Most of what he knew about her came from what Biggs had told him. Which wasn't much. She was a tall brunette, curvy with a great sense of humor. Alec had admired his friend's taste. He knew that they had kept in touch and that Biggs had spoken to her a few days before his death.
He saw her leaning over a car parked along a tree lined street. She stood up and Alec realized she was holding a child of about two, who was obviously the daughter of his old pal Biggs. Could this suck anymore? Alec asked himself. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the brunette mother.
"Hi, Sophie, I don't know if you remember me.."
She turned and looked at him, then nodded. "I don't remember your name, but you're a friend of Biggs, right?"
"Um..yeah. My name's Alec. But that probably wasn't how Biggs's introduced me before. Look, I'm really sorry to be so pushy, but I've been shot and I need your help."
Sophie opened her mouth as if to refuse. "I have nowhere else to go. I'm really sorry."
Sophie sighed resignedly shifted the child from one hip to another. "Can you tell me something first. Where is that bastard, Biggs? He hasn't called me for two months."
Alec sighed; he had known this would come up. "I'm sorry about that too. Biggs is dead. There's a lot I need to tell you, but that's all I can say here." Alec looked around him to accentuate the publicness of the location. "Can we go inside?"
Sophie looked shocked. God, and that's only the beginning. I hate my life, thought Alec.
Her apartment was small and crowded with papers, baby gear and books. She gestured to an empty chair into which he flopped. She flinched at the chair's creaking reply.
"I have to get Tess settled, hang on." She left the room for a few minutes, giving Alec a chance to collect his thoughts. He took off his jacket and sweater and started unpeeling the bandages from his shoulder. It was infected, but if the bullet could be taken out it would heal. Sophie returned and immediately went to look at Alec's now bare back. She had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in her hand.
"I'm going to need something stronger than this. Is the bullet still in there?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not a doctor. I can't do this. Go to a hospital." She slammed the bottle on the table.
"I can't. Look, I know I'm asking a lot and you hardly know me."
"That's one hell of an understatement! All I know about you is that you're a friend of that bastard who went off and died on me!" With this she ground to a halt and sat heavily on the couch. In a dead voice: "What happened?"
"I need to know what he told you about himself, about us." Alec looked Sophie squarely in the eye.
Sophie's eye's narrowed. "Biggs didn't tell me much. He told me he worked for a research center in Wyoming; He really didn't talk much about it. I got the feeling he had no family. He just introduced you as his friend. That's all I really know. What happened to him? Tell me, please."
"He died in Seattle, he."Alec took a deep breath, "He was killed by a lynch mob. I was talking to him on the phone when he was attacked. It was terrible." He couldn't look at her, the words were so hard.
"Oh god", Sophie's voice had become tiny. Alec only felt that way.
Alec managed to talk Sophie through removing the bullet. Fortunately, she still had a bottle of Biggs' favorite scotch. Even so, Alec gritted his teeth through most of the procedure. After Sophie bandaged his shoulder, and started setting up the couch for him to sleep on.
"I'm sorry it's not more. Since Tess was born, it's been so crowded."
"S'okay, it's great. My place in Seattle is even smaller."
Sophie stood up and looked Alec in the eye. "So why are you here? Why darken my doorstep? Who shot you?"
"It's a long story and you're happier not knowing."
"I don't know anything. How can I possibly be happier not knowing anything about why Biggs died? Why a lynch mob killed him while he was talking on the phone? Did they then shoot you?"
"Not exactly."
"Who did? What trouble were you two in?"
"It wasn't just the two of us. Did you ever see the tattoo on the back of Biggs' neck? Do you know what it meant? I have one too, it's hidden now, but it always comes back." Sophie was quiet. He looked at her. "Do you know what that means? It means we're not like you. We were made in a lab to fight for truth, justice and the American way."
"He was a transgenic. I knew something was different, but I never imagined. Oh it all makes such sense now." She looked up at him. "You getting shot. Is it to do with the situation at Terminal City? I've been following it on the news. It's terrible."
"Yeah, short story. I was trying to get reinforcements, but it was a trap. I was shot and had to run. I ended up here and you're the only person I know in Boston who wouldn't shoot me on sight."
"I probably don't want to know this, but what did you and Biggs do for Manticore I mean what were you.. bred? to do?" She seemed to be holding her breath, afraid of his answer.
"We were assassins, covert ops, cat burglars, soldiers, whatever Manticore needed. When we worked together it was usually because they needed someone really important taken out. Otherwise we usually worked alone." Alec avoided Sophie's eyes while he said this.
"What was it like? Was it hard to kill people?" Alec was quiet for a long moment, "Sometimes, but it was what we were created to do. What they built us for. To fight and to die for our masters." Alec's voice was tinged with bitterness.
"I never imagined Biggs was anything so.I don't know, I just thought he was a normal guy with an odd tattoo who took many strange business trips."
"That was the training. We were supposed to be undetectable even under deep cover. We were trained to appear normal."
Sophie nodded.
That night, Alec lay on the lumpy couch, sleepless. He could hear Sophie crying quietly in the next room. Will someone cry for me when I'm gone? He thought desolately. Will anyone even notice?
He thought about Max. She had probably figured out by now that the meeting had gone pear shaped. They had agreed before he had left that he would not contact them in case of a trap. What would he do now? Go back to Seattle? He found himself loath to do so, but where else could he go? Things had gotten.complicated in Seattle. Max had come to rely on him more and more especially after Logan had to leave Terminal City. Then, Joshua had arranged living quarters for the three of them in close proximity and the constant togetherness had made them more like a family than before, for good and ill. But will they miss me? Will they think I'm dead?
Alec sighed deeply. Need a plan. His shoulder was bulletless, but still needed a few days before it would be ok. If given a choice, he would have chosen to stay here and try to help Sophie. Her crying had died down, but he couldn't shake a feeling of responsibility for her and Tess. Biggs had been his buddy, the closest thing he had to family before Manticore's fall. Crap, getting sentimental, bad for plan. Need plan.
Alec awoke, still planless, to the sounds of activity in the kitchen. He sat up and tested his shoulder. Stiff, but better. He got up and went into the kitchen. Sophie saw him and gestured towards a seat.
"Have you thought about what you're going to do?" She asked handing a cup of coffee.
"Yeah, but I haven't got a plan yet."
"Well, you can stay here as long as you need. It will be cool to have another grown up around. Oh, are you a secret?"
Alec looked confused.
"I mean do I have to keep you a secret."
"Oh! Um, well I guess you should tell people I'm an old friend from out of town or maybe a friend of a friend. I wouldn't mention Biggs though. I've never used the name
Alec here so no-one knows me by that."
"What's your real name?"
"X5494 is my designation."
This was clearly not what Sophie had been expecting. "Oh." There was a long silence. "I have to go to work, will you be ok?"
Alec nodded towards a television covered with books. "Does it work?"
Sophie nodded.
"Then I'm cool."
Alec watched the TV until the news came on. Terminal City. Nothing had changed, but it made him no less anxious to see it. Out of boredom and habit he began reading through the papers and books strewn across the apartment. Sophie apparently worked for a company called Conrad Pharmaceuticals. A small bell went off in Alec's head. She seemed to be working on a patent for some sort of drug that reversed a rare deficiency that caused seizures. The seizures, Alec realized from the papers were the very seizures that the X5 class suffered from without tryptophan. By the time Sophie came him he had some questions for her.
"Soph, what do you do exactly?"
"I'm a lab tech, why?"
He held up some papers. "You've been working on our tryptophan problem."
"What?" She grabbed the paper from him, putting Tess down.
"X5s, that's me and Biggs' class. We were almost perfect, but we got a few kinks. One of which is we have these seizures. THESE seizures." He held up a piece of paper. "By the looks of it you guys are close to a solution."
Sophie looked at the papers. "I guess. Alec, does this mean that Biggs was just with me to get information?"
Alec looked at her squarely. "That's probably why he initially contacted you, but Manticore fell over a year ago, and I know he talked to you after that. I also know that Biggs kept his visits to you secret from our superiors, a punishable offense. He kept Tess a secret from me. He was serious about you. Big time."
She looked relieved, then confused. "If he told you about me, why not Tess?"
Alec tensed slightly, "A girlfriend on the outside we were punished for, but a child they would have grabbed and.Biggs' couldn't be sure I wouldn't crack under reprogramming. He couldn't risk it. "
"Oh, god." She picked up Tess and held her close. The child squirmed out of her grip.
Alec was quiet. He watched her form crumple slightly. He put his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I came here and dumped this all on you."
Sophie looked up at him, "S'okay. It's better to know."
He smiled, "I wish I didn't know any of it." He touched her cheek. "I wish I could lose myself here. Never look back on it all, never remember."
Sophie smiled back, but sadness was still in her eyes. "So this tryptophan thing, if we figure it out, will it help your people?"
"Yeah, it would be great, but I doubt your company will just give it to us. Manticore was probably paying Conrad a fortune to find this. All Terminal City has is rats and transgenics."
"Well, why can't you just steal it? I can keep an eye out for documents."
"That's pretty risky for you. But my papers look good, maybe they'll hire me."
The next day Sophie brought Alec into her building. The papers Max had procured Alec worked their magic and Alec worked his charm and these combined into a job as a janitor.
"It's perfect. Everybody always ignores janitors and they get clearance everywhere!" Alec told Sophie over dinner that night. He felt like celebrating for the first time since. since a very long time and took them all out for dinner.
"Do you know what you're looking for?" Sophie asked him in a conspiratorial whisper. She's so sweet, thought Alec; I can see why Biggs fell for her. Damnit, too sentimental, stop it.
"Alec, are you ok?"
"Huh, oh, yeah I know what to kinds of things to look for, if not exactly what. It's the kind of thing I was made to do." He actually felt excited about this mission. His excitement faded on the way home; it turned into the being followed tingle as soon as they left.
"Soph" Alec said in a low voice, grabbing Sophie's arm and pulling her close. "Hold on to Tess and do what I say, we're being followed."
"Who? Where?"
"Shhhhhh!"
He stood and listened. He could hear two people, following them, 20 feet back. He gestured to Sophie to get behind him and turned to face his attackers. He tested his shoulder (stiff) and got into a defensive posture. Two guys came out, one in a blue jumpsuit the other in denim. He had no clue who the hell they were, but they didn't look like police, familiars or steelheads. Leaving only a half dozen other possibilities that he knew of. They looked like dock workers and were carrying crowbars.
"Guys, how can I help you?"
"Give us your head."
Hmmm, looks like revenge, Alec decided. "I think that may be a problem, there being several other requests out for it ahead of yours. Actually, what is your party's name?" At this moment, Tess started to cry. Alec's opponents looked behind him, giving him the opening to attack. He decked the guy on his right, knocking him back, then swept the other guy down. He turned to face his first opponent, who attacked him with the crow bar. He blocked with his left arm and did an upward strike with the base of his right hand into the guy's nose, feeling the crunch of bone vibrate through his arm. The guy fell back, leaving Alec to tackle number two. He turned to the other guy and smiled. He could hear Sophie's breath sharp and jagged and knew she was probably horrified by what she had just seen. He needed to end this quickly. The guy looked worried.
"Why don't you go back and make sure you've got the right guy, cos I don't think you do. And I hope we don't need go over this again." He grabbed the guy by the shoulders, spun him around and thwacked him on the back of the head, knocking him out. He then turned to Sophie, who looked, as he had expected, horrified. She had Tess so close, like she wanted to press the child back into herself. He walked over to them, unsure what to do.
"We need to get out of here." He gently touched Sophie's arm. He was surprised that she did not pull away, and relieved. He led her away from the scene. After a couple of blocks, he stopped and looked in her face. She avoided his eyes.
"Sophie, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry you had to see that."
"Who were those guys, why did they want you?"
"I don't know, something me or one of mine did. Soph, if you want me out of the apartment, I understand."
"No, it's ok, but lets get home. Carry Tess, we'll move faster." She handed the girl to Alec. Tess grabbed on as for dear life. They took a roundabout way home, Alec's senses primed for signs of someone following them.
That night, Alec sat up all night keeping watch. Shortly before dawn, Sophie came into the living room and saw him peeking out the window.
"Alec you should sleep. You'll be a wreck at work."
"Don't need to sleep, I'm ok."
Sophie looked at him curiously and sat down on the couch. "Alec, talk to me."
"What about?" He replied not moving his eyes.
"You probably killed that guy tonight. Why?" She didn't sound accusing, but curious.
Alec shifted to face her. "I.I didn't.I couldn't let them hurt you or Tess."
"So if we hadn't been there, you wouldn't have killed him?"
"I don't know, but probably I would have just taken off before they got that close."
"So we slow you down?"
"You change the parameters of the situation. I just have to react differently. Defend instead of elude." He turned back to the window. "I'm sorry, I should get out of here before I put the two of you in real danger. I'll find someplace else to crash tonight"
"Alec, don't. Look, I don't want you out. I just need to know what having you here entails. How many people are after you?"
Alec looked at her, surprised. He wasn't used to people wanting him to stick around, and was unsure how to react.
"I don't really know. I mean there are the people specifically after me first. That's mostly from jobs I've done. There are the people who want people I know. That's mostly the guys who shot me in New York. There are the people who want me for things they think I've done. And then there's the people who want me for who I am."
"And they all want to kill you?"
"Kill me, torture me, convict me, do experiments, blahblahblah."
Sophie regarded him silently.
"So, do you still want me to stay?" Alec braced himself for the boot.
"Yes."
"Why?"
For some reason, this made Sophie laugh. She got up and kissed him on the cheek. "Just because."
With that, Sophie went into the kitchen to start breakfast, leaving Alec staring behind her.
Alec quickly got into the swing of his job, and the next couple of days flew by. The news from Terminal City became more dire, but he knew that if he could find the solution to the tryptophan problem, it was more use to the cause than if he were there. And he could tell the information was somewhere in Conrad Pharmaceuticals. It became clear that the testing was primarily being done here, but that transgenic blood was being used. It appeared that the blood was coming from another source. It seemed to be coming from one or two transgenics, probably X5s. But thus far Alec couldn't tell where these transgenics were being held.
TBC
....................................
Alec was early to the rendezvous and it was this fact that saved his life. Otherwise, he wouldn't have caught that it was a trap. He was thankful he had talked Max out of coming. Despite their newfound affection for each other, he was expendable, she wasn't. Savior of the world and all. The plan had been for him to meet up with some new contacts in New York, hopefully reinforcements. But as he stood under the great ceiling of Grand Central Station, he knew it was fubar.
He scanned the crowd and could see the Familiars placing themselves strategically. They didn't seem to realize he was their target. But soon they would, he had no doubt. He could still see one way out, through an archway to a train that was boarding. He started sauntering towards it, watching the Familiars milling around. Then, he saw one of them point towards him. Crap. He still hoped to not alert all of Manhattan to his presence, so he attempted to nonchalantly run as if late for his train. Crapcrap. The Familiars were having none of it though. One attempted to block his path, but he was able to blur around them and sprinted towards the platform. He heard shots ring out behind them, and felt a slug entering his shoulder. It hurt like Hell, but he had been trained to ignore such trivialities as pain and he was able to board the train as it pulled out of the station. He watched long enough to make sure the familiars had been left behind, then he slunk into the bathroom. The bullet was lodged in his shoulder. He was going to need to get help to get it out. He cleaned the wound and bandaged it with strips from his t-shirt. He was going to need help sooner rather than later and he didn't even know where this train was going.
He ventured out and found the conductor, who told him that the train was headed for Boston and would be arriving in 4 hours. Alec slumped into a seat and racked his brain trying to remember who the Hell he knew in Boston. Figuring it out only made it worse.
It took him two days to find her. She was Sophie Crawford, an old girlfriend of Biggs's. Alec had only met her a few times, and wasn't at all sure what she knew. Most of what he knew about her came from what Biggs had told him. Which wasn't much. She was a tall brunette, curvy with a great sense of humor. Alec had admired his friend's taste. He knew that they had kept in touch and that Biggs had spoken to her a few days before his death.
He saw her leaning over a car parked along a tree lined street. She stood up and Alec realized she was holding a child of about two, who was obviously the daughter of his old pal Biggs. Could this suck anymore? Alec asked himself. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the brunette mother.
"Hi, Sophie, I don't know if you remember me.."
She turned and looked at him, then nodded. "I don't remember your name, but you're a friend of Biggs, right?"
"Um..yeah. My name's Alec. But that probably wasn't how Biggs's introduced me before. Look, I'm really sorry to be so pushy, but I've been shot and I need your help."
Sophie opened her mouth as if to refuse. "I have nowhere else to go. I'm really sorry."
Sophie sighed resignedly shifted the child from one hip to another. "Can you tell me something first. Where is that bastard, Biggs? He hasn't called me for two months."
Alec sighed; he had known this would come up. "I'm sorry about that too. Biggs is dead. There's a lot I need to tell you, but that's all I can say here." Alec looked around him to accentuate the publicness of the location. "Can we go inside?"
Sophie looked shocked. God, and that's only the beginning. I hate my life, thought Alec.
Her apartment was small and crowded with papers, baby gear and books. She gestured to an empty chair into which he flopped. She flinched at the chair's creaking reply.
"I have to get Tess settled, hang on." She left the room for a few minutes, giving Alec a chance to collect his thoughts. He took off his jacket and sweater and started unpeeling the bandages from his shoulder. It was infected, but if the bullet could be taken out it would heal. Sophie returned and immediately went to look at Alec's now bare back. She had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in her hand.
"I'm going to need something stronger than this. Is the bullet still in there?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not a doctor. I can't do this. Go to a hospital." She slammed the bottle on the table.
"I can't. Look, I know I'm asking a lot and you hardly know me."
"That's one hell of an understatement! All I know about you is that you're a friend of that bastard who went off and died on me!" With this she ground to a halt and sat heavily on the couch. In a dead voice: "What happened?"
"I need to know what he told you about himself, about us." Alec looked Sophie squarely in the eye.
Sophie's eye's narrowed. "Biggs didn't tell me much. He told me he worked for a research center in Wyoming; He really didn't talk much about it. I got the feeling he had no family. He just introduced you as his friend. That's all I really know. What happened to him? Tell me, please."
"He died in Seattle, he."Alec took a deep breath, "He was killed by a lynch mob. I was talking to him on the phone when he was attacked. It was terrible." He couldn't look at her, the words were so hard.
"Oh god", Sophie's voice had become tiny. Alec only felt that way.
Alec managed to talk Sophie through removing the bullet. Fortunately, she still had a bottle of Biggs' favorite scotch. Even so, Alec gritted his teeth through most of the procedure. After Sophie bandaged his shoulder, and started setting up the couch for him to sleep on.
"I'm sorry it's not more. Since Tess was born, it's been so crowded."
"S'okay, it's great. My place in Seattle is even smaller."
Sophie stood up and looked Alec in the eye. "So why are you here? Why darken my doorstep? Who shot you?"
"It's a long story and you're happier not knowing."
"I don't know anything. How can I possibly be happier not knowing anything about why Biggs died? Why a lynch mob killed him while he was talking on the phone? Did they then shoot you?"
"Not exactly."
"Who did? What trouble were you two in?"
"It wasn't just the two of us. Did you ever see the tattoo on the back of Biggs' neck? Do you know what it meant? I have one too, it's hidden now, but it always comes back." Sophie was quiet. He looked at her. "Do you know what that means? It means we're not like you. We were made in a lab to fight for truth, justice and the American way."
"He was a transgenic. I knew something was different, but I never imagined. Oh it all makes such sense now." She looked up at him. "You getting shot. Is it to do with the situation at Terminal City? I've been following it on the news. It's terrible."
"Yeah, short story. I was trying to get reinforcements, but it was a trap. I was shot and had to run. I ended up here and you're the only person I know in Boston who wouldn't shoot me on sight."
"I probably don't want to know this, but what did you and Biggs do for Manticore I mean what were you.. bred? to do?" She seemed to be holding her breath, afraid of his answer.
"We were assassins, covert ops, cat burglars, soldiers, whatever Manticore needed. When we worked together it was usually because they needed someone really important taken out. Otherwise we usually worked alone." Alec avoided Sophie's eyes while he said this.
"What was it like? Was it hard to kill people?" Alec was quiet for a long moment, "Sometimes, but it was what we were created to do. What they built us for. To fight and to die for our masters." Alec's voice was tinged with bitterness.
"I never imagined Biggs was anything so.I don't know, I just thought he was a normal guy with an odd tattoo who took many strange business trips."
"That was the training. We were supposed to be undetectable even under deep cover. We were trained to appear normal."
Sophie nodded.
That night, Alec lay on the lumpy couch, sleepless. He could hear Sophie crying quietly in the next room. Will someone cry for me when I'm gone? He thought desolately. Will anyone even notice?
He thought about Max. She had probably figured out by now that the meeting had gone pear shaped. They had agreed before he had left that he would not contact them in case of a trap. What would he do now? Go back to Seattle? He found himself loath to do so, but where else could he go? Things had gotten.complicated in Seattle. Max had come to rely on him more and more especially after Logan had to leave Terminal City. Then, Joshua had arranged living quarters for the three of them in close proximity and the constant togetherness had made them more like a family than before, for good and ill. But will they miss me? Will they think I'm dead?
Alec sighed deeply. Need a plan. His shoulder was bulletless, but still needed a few days before it would be ok. If given a choice, he would have chosen to stay here and try to help Sophie. Her crying had died down, but he couldn't shake a feeling of responsibility for her and Tess. Biggs had been his buddy, the closest thing he had to family before Manticore's fall. Crap, getting sentimental, bad for plan. Need plan.
Alec awoke, still planless, to the sounds of activity in the kitchen. He sat up and tested his shoulder. Stiff, but better. He got up and went into the kitchen. Sophie saw him and gestured towards a seat.
"Have you thought about what you're going to do?" She asked handing a cup of coffee.
"Yeah, but I haven't got a plan yet."
"Well, you can stay here as long as you need. It will be cool to have another grown up around. Oh, are you a secret?"
Alec looked confused.
"I mean do I have to keep you a secret."
"Oh! Um, well I guess you should tell people I'm an old friend from out of town or maybe a friend of a friend. I wouldn't mention Biggs though. I've never used the name
Alec here so no-one knows me by that."
"What's your real name?"
"X5494 is my designation."
This was clearly not what Sophie had been expecting. "Oh." There was a long silence. "I have to go to work, will you be ok?"
Alec nodded towards a television covered with books. "Does it work?"
Sophie nodded.
"Then I'm cool."
Alec watched the TV until the news came on. Terminal City. Nothing had changed, but it made him no less anxious to see it. Out of boredom and habit he began reading through the papers and books strewn across the apartment. Sophie apparently worked for a company called Conrad Pharmaceuticals. A small bell went off in Alec's head. She seemed to be working on a patent for some sort of drug that reversed a rare deficiency that caused seizures. The seizures, Alec realized from the papers were the very seizures that the X5 class suffered from without tryptophan. By the time Sophie came him he had some questions for her.
"Soph, what do you do exactly?"
"I'm a lab tech, why?"
He held up some papers. "You've been working on our tryptophan problem."
"What?" She grabbed the paper from him, putting Tess down.
"X5s, that's me and Biggs' class. We were almost perfect, but we got a few kinks. One of which is we have these seizures. THESE seizures." He held up a piece of paper. "By the looks of it you guys are close to a solution."
Sophie looked at the papers. "I guess. Alec, does this mean that Biggs was just with me to get information?"
Alec looked at her squarely. "That's probably why he initially contacted you, but Manticore fell over a year ago, and I know he talked to you after that. I also know that Biggs kept his visits to you secret from our superiors, a punishable offense. He kept Tess a secret from me. He was serious about you. Big time."
She looked relieved, then confused. "If he told you about me, why not Tess?"
Alec tensed slightly, "A girlfriend on the outside we were punished for, but a child they would have grabbed and.Biggs' couldn't be sure I wouldn't crack under reprogramming. He couldn't risk it. "
"Oh, god." She picked up Tess and held her close. The child squirmed out of her grip.
Alec was quiet. He watched her form crumple slightly. He put his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I came here and dumped this all on you."
Sophie looked up at him, "S'okay. It's better to know."
He smiled, "I wish I didn't know any of it." He touched her cheek. "I wish I could lose myself here. Never look back on it all, never remember."
Sophie smiled back, but sadness was still in her eyes. "So this tryptophan thing, if we figure it out, will it help your people?"
"Yeah, it would be great, but I doubt your company will just give it to us. Manticore was probably paying Conrad a fortune to find this. All Terminal City has is rats and transgenics."
"Well, why can't you just steal it? I can keep an eye out for documents."
"That's pretty risky for you. But my papers look good, maybe they'll hire me."
The next day Sophie brought Alec into her building. The papers Max had procured Alec worked their magic and Alec worked his charm and these combined into a job as a janitor.
"It's perfect. Everybody always ignores janitors and they get clearance everywhere!" Alec told Sophie over dinner that night. He felt like celebrating for the first time since. since a very long time and took them all out for dinner.
"Do you know what you're looking for?" Sophie asked him in a conspiratorial whisper. She's so sweet, thought Alec; I can see why Biggs fell for her. Damnit, too sentimental, stop it.
"Alec, are you ok?"
"Huh, oh, yeah I know what to kinds of things to look for, if not exactly what. It's the kind of thing I was made to do." He actually felt excited about this mission. His excitement faded on the way home; it turned into the being followed tingle as soon as they left.
"Soph" Alec said in a low voice, grabbing Sophie's arm and pulling her close. "Hold on to Tess and do what I say, we're being followed."
"Who? Where?"
"Shhhhhh!"
He stood and listened. He could hear two people, following them, 20 feet back. He gestured to Sophie to get behind him and turned to face his attackers. He tested his shoulder (stiff) and got into a defensive posture. Two guys came out, one in a blue jumpsuit the other in denim. He had no clue who the hell they were, but they didn't look like police, familiars or steelheads. Leaving only a half dozen other possibilities that he knew of. They looked like dock workers and were carrying crowbars.
"Guys, how can I help you?"
"Give us your head."
Hmmm, looks like revenge, Alec decided. "I think that may be a problem, there being several other requests out for it ahead of yours. Actually, what is your party's name?" At this moment, Tess started to cry. Alec's opponents looked behind him, giving him the opening to attack. He decked the guy on his right, knocking him back, then swept the other guy down. He turned to face his first opponent, who attacked him with the crow bar. He blocked with his left arm and did an upward strike with the base of his right hand into the guy's nose, feeling the crunch of bone vibrate through his arm. The guy fell back, leaving Alec to tackle number two. He turned to the other guy and smiled. He could hear Sophie's breath sharp and jagged and knew she was probably horrified by what she had just seen. He needed to end this quickly. The guy looked worried.
"Why don't you go back and make sure you've got the right guy, cos I don't think you do. And I hope we don't need go over this again." He grabbed the guy by the shoulders, spun him around and thwacked him on the back of the head, knocking him out. He then turned to Sophie, who looked, as he had expected, horrified. She had Tess so close, like she wanted to press the child back into herself. He walked over to them, unsure what to do.
"We need to get out of here." He gently touched Sophie's arm. He was surprised that she did not pull away, and relieved. He led her away from the scene. After a couple of blocks, he stopped and looked in her face. She avoided his eyes.
"Sophie, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry you had to see that."
"Who were those guys, why did they want you?"
"I don't know, something me or one of mine did. Soph, if you want me out of the apartment, I understand."
"No, it's ok, but lets get home. Carry Tess, we'll move faster." She handed the girl to Alec. Tess grabbed on as for dear life. They took a roundabout way home, Alec's senses primed for signs of someone following them.
That night, Alec sat up all night keeping watch. Shortly before dawn, Sophie came into the living room and saw him peeking out the window.
"Alec you should sleep. You'll be a wreck at work."
"Don't need to sleep, I'm ok."
Sophie looked at him curiously and sat down on the couch. "Alec, talk to me."
"What about?" He replied not moving his eyes.
"You probably killed that guy tonight. Why?" She didn't sound accusing, but curious.
Alec shifted to face her. "I.I didn't.I couldn't let them hurt you or Tess."
"So if we hadn't been there, you wouldn't have killed him?"
"I don't know, but probably I would have just taken off before they got that close."
"So we slow you down?"
"You change the parameters of the situation. I just have to react differently. Defend instead of elude." He turned back to the window. "I'm sorry, I should get out of here before I put the two of you in real danger. I'll find someplace else to crash tonight"
"Alec, don't. Look, I don't want you out. I just need to know what having you here entails. How many people are after you?"
Alec looked at her, surprised. He wasn't used to people wanting him to stick around, and was unsure how to react.
"I don't really know. I mean there are the people specifically after me first. That's mostly from jobs I've done. There are the people who want people I know. That's mostly the guys who shot me in New York. There are the people who want me for things they think I've done. And then there's the people who want me for who I am."
"And they all want to kill you?"
"Kill me, torture me, convict me, do experiments, blahblahblah."
Sophie regarded him silently.
"So, do you still want me to stay?" Alec braced himself for the boot.
"Yes."
"Why?"
For some reason, this made Sophie laugh. She got up and kissed him on the cheek. "Just because."
With that, Sophie went into the kitchen to start breakfast, leaving Alec staring behind her.
Alec quickly got into the swing of his job, and the next couple of days flew by. The news from Terminal City became more dire, but he knew that if he could find the solution to the tryptophan problem, it was more use to the cause than if he were there. And he could tell the information was somewhere in Conrad Pharmaceuticals. It became clear that the testing was primarily being done here, but that transgenic blood was being used. It appeared that the blood was coming from another source. It seemed to be coming from one or two transgenics, probably X5s. But thus far Alec couldn't tell where these transgenics were being held.
TBC