AS202 Breakdown Chapter Eight, a dark angel fanfic

Breakdown by Star24

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Chapter Eight

A Warehouse in Sector 5

The Tac team had settled in with the ease of long practice as they waited for a location and orders for their mission. Their leader walked around checking out the preparations and nodded in satisfaction at what he saw. This was a good team. Even the one new member, the X5 they had brought along on orders from Renfro, was fitting smoothly into the routine.

He wondered briefly what had caused the X5 they were after to go rogue, but decided it was better not to know. Like most of the normal soldiers, he was wary of the X-series. Even the ones who looked the most human were different from the rest of them. They were handy to have around in the heat of battle, but other than that he preferred to keep his distance.

"Sir?"

He turned, startled to see that the X5 had come up behind him without him being aware of her approach. As she stood there patiently waiting he took a moment to look closely at her. Like all of the X5 series she was pretty, no, she was more on the order of beautiful, if he was honest with himself. She was average height with a slim build but it was her face that caught one's attention. It was oval shaped and there was a slightly Asian cast to her features. Her coloring however was pure Scandinavian, blonde hair and clear blue eyes, which combined with her features to give her an exotic look.

"Yes, soldier?" he forced himself to stay in character as her commanding officer for this mission, even as he found himself intensely aware of her as a man. He briefly wondered if physical attractiveness had been a deliberately planned parameter for the Xs, since they were often used as undercover operatives.

"Is there anything you would like me to do? In preparation for the mission?"

"What's your designation?" he asked ignoring her question for the moment. "I can't call you Hey You in the middle of combat."

"X5-865."

"What's your specialty X5-865?" he asked.

"Hand to hand, sir."

He let out a short laugh at the idea that such a fragile looking flower could excel at hand to hand combat, and she frowned at him. "Very well soldier. I'd like you to run some drills while we wait. Wake up my team."

It was a challenge and she knew it. She slanted a look at him and gave him a salute that definitely had a hint of mockery in it. Then she turned on her heels and headed over to his team, leaving him to wonder why he had felt a need to provoke her.

Fogle Towers

Syl, Bling and Original Cindy had finished eating and were sitting in Logan's living room. An air of defeat had fallen over them. Every attempt to decipher Lydecker's cryptic message had led them into dead ends.

"It's not like we could get the information to Logan anyway." Bling observed glumly.

Syl was about to answer but she was interrupted by a shrill beeping from the computer room. She jumped up and ran in, the others right on her heels.

They arrived to find her rapidly typing commands into the keyboard. Suddenly the speakers crackled to life with what were clearly Manticore communications.

"Special Team 4967 reporting in as ordered. Have the coordinates for X5-452 been determined yet?"

"Negative. It appears you will have to wait for the homing transmission to start at 24:00 hours. Confirm that you have the receivers in place to pick up the signal."

"Affirmative."

"Your orders remain in place. Directive 399 is in force. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledged."

"Good luck. Report in when the mission is accomplished."

Syl turned off the sound as the transmission ended. "Damn those bastards to hell!"

"What?" Original Cindy demanded.

"They must have implanted a homing device under Max's skin and its set to start transmitting at midnight tonight. We have until then to find Max and Logan and get rid of it. Otherwise it won't be the Welcome Wagon Lady who's comin' to pay them a visit." She paused, "That's not the worst of it. They're operating under a Directive 399."

Bling and Cindy looked at her waiting for enlightenment.

"Translated into English, Directive 399 means take no prisoners. Shoot to kill on sight. They've decided that Max is expendable in order to take out Eyes Only. If we don't get to Max and Logan before Manticore does, they're dead."

Safe House 11:56 PM

Max had spent the day grilling Logan about events they had shared in their past life together, but she still didn't seem convinced that it was all true. To make it worse she alternated between being the Max he knew, and X5-452, the Manticore soldier.

Logan could only surmise that the re-conditioning procedures she had undergone hadn't been quite complete when she was sent out on her mission to destroy the Informant Net and kill Eyes Only. She was now teetering between giving in to the conditioning and forgetting Max Guevara completely, or breaking free of it for good.

Max had called for a break, complaining that she had a headache, and Logan thought hard. He knew that he didn't have much time to figure out how to handle her. He would bet that Manticore had some fail safe in place to locate Max in the event that she didn't report back in by some specified time. That deadline had to be approaching quickly.

He thought back to his only previous encounter with the Manticore conditioning techniques, Zack. He tried to remember exactly what Max had told him about Zack's experience in using them to protect her and the others that time he had been captured. She had said that Zack had forgotten about all of the others except for her. Zack had told her that he couldn't forget anything about her. Max had passed it off, but Logan had a hunch as to why Zack hadn't been able to forget Max. He had been in love with her. It was that emotion that had kept him from forgetting her. It had to be, there was no other logical reason he could think of for it.

Max turned back to him, and he could tell from her stance that the Manticore soldier was once more in control. Logan took a deep breath and made his decision. Logic had failed to get through to Max. That left only one way to go, and he was basing that hope on his interpretation of the brief events of several months ago, on those few brief moments he had shared with Max before she had set out to rescue her sister, Tinga and then later to take down Manticore. If he was wrong they could both end up dead, or worse yet, as prisoners of Manticore.

"Are you ready to cooperate with me yet? " Max demanded as she moved closer to where he sat.

Taking her off guard, Logan rose from the bed and began to walk toward her.

Max dropped into a defensive posture. "Stop there or I'll have to hurt you."

Logan shrugged. "You're gonna have to do your worst to stop me, Max because I'm not stopping on my own."

"If you don't stop it's on you." she warned.

"Then it's on me." Logan moved another step closer.

Fogle Towers, Shortly after Midnight

It was Bling's shift at monitoring the Manticore communications frequency. "Syl you better come listen to this," he turned and called urgently to Syl.

Syl and Original Cindy both hurried over, and Bling turned on the speakers so they could hear what was being said.

"…moving out to Sector 6. Location coordinates are coming in on our transmitter. Over."

"Acknowledged. Report in when mission is complete."

"The transmitter must have kicked in. Why didn't they give the exact coordinates?" Syl turned and kicked the trash can that was nearby, sending it flying across the room. Then she turned and headed to the door.

"Where are you going?" Original Cindy wanted to know.

"Sector 6. Maybe I can find them somehow. I've got the comm. Monitor the police frequencies for any reports of disturbances and let me know if you hear anything that sounds like it might be them." With that she was gone.

Original Cindy pulled over a chair and sat down next to Bling. "Gimme one of the headsets and tune me in to one of the frequencies. Two sets of ears have gotta be better than one."

Sector 6

The Manticore Tac team pulled their van to a halt outside of what appeared to be a deserted building. The van was dark and nondescript, nothing anyone would take note of. At least not until the back doors opened, and half a dozen soldiers in full gear piled out. A vagrant who was rooting around in a dumpster in an alley across the street took one look and quickly melted away into the shadows. Residents of Post-Pulse Seattle knew that when something was about to go down, it was wise to get out of the way if they wanted to survive intact.

The team leader began giving soft directions into his comm. He had his team ready to disperse and was about to give the command to move out, when he felt a presence behind him and whirled, his gun at the ready.

A man of about average height with short light blonde hair stood there, hands spread wide to show that he had no weapons. He looked oddly familiar to the team leader.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the leader demanded.

The man held out a flat leather case. The team leader took it and briefly perused it, then brought his eyes up to scan the man once more as he handed it back.

"I should place you under arrest."

"You could do that, but if you do, I don't think you, or your team, would make it back to base in one piece. It would be in your best interests to hear what I have to say before you do anything."

The team leader looked around. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the six X5 rogues who have an ambush set up inside that building for you and your team. If you walk in there, you'll never come out again except in body bags. Even your one X5 isn't a match for six of them.

"Rumor has it that you went rogue yourself. How do I know that you aren't working with them?"

Lydecker held out a comm unit to the leader. "This is tuned to the frequency they're using. Listen."

The leader took the comm unit and placed it in his ear listening intently.

"How do you happen to know all of this? Why should I believe that you aren't part of the ambush?"

"I know it because I have connections with them. I have been out in the cold, but that's about to change and I have no loyalty to the rogue X5s. My loyalty has always been to the Manticore project. You're right not to trust me though – keep me here in custody if you want. If anything happens to any of you, your man can kill me easily."

After a moment, the leader signaled to his team to return to the van.

"Take this man into custody." He pointed at Lydecker and two soldiers immediately seized him. Lydecker didn't resist. The leader continued on. "Change of plans. Ronson, I want you to stay here and hold him inside the van until we return. If we walk into a trap you know what to do with him. The rest of you listen up. It appears we've been set up. The inside of this building is an ambush. This is what we're going to do…"

* * * *

Syl randomly cruised the streets of Sector 6 on Max's bike, straining her enhanced senses to detect anything out of the ordinary. So far all she had found were a couple of hoods rolling a drunk in an alley, and some gang bangers out for a rumble. Suddenly the comm in her ear came to life.

"Syl, police radio reports gunshots fired in the vicinity of 10th and Yesler."

"I'm on it. Thanks Bling. Wish me luck." She leaned the bike into a hard turn and headed towards the location Bling had just given her.

When she arrived it was to a scene of complete chaos. A building was going up in spectacular flames. Police and fire vehicles were arriving even as she watched, followed by television news trucks. She glanced down the block and caught sight of an unmarked dark van that was speeding away. Making a quick decision, she turned her bike and took off after it, unnoticed in the commotion surrounding the burning building.

End of Chapter Eight