'.43rd percentile, of course there's a significant likelihood that General
Douglas won't mobilize the 28th division until the second phase, in which
case the chance of survival in the first phase would rise to 59 percent.
representative of the total power. periodic reinforcements.. '
Alec dipped in and out of the conversation, Emerald had been delivering the bad news in her slightly atonal voice for at least half an hour. He looked at Max, her forehead creased from concentration, her whole bearing attentive. Mole and Luke had drifted across the room, pulled in by Emerald's tide of statistics and risk analysis. What had Brain called it? Heuristics. Data knowledge. Probability Algorithms. Whatever.
'mission objective variants.. Termination and Retrieval. third stage.2 percent chance of survival.'
Alec had come to the conclusion that Emerald was an X5, I.T concentrate, like Brain. He had seen the stealth programming as an asset initially, but combined with his tiredness it was more like a design flaw. His eyes slipped away from her once again and he wondered what good it was to have a General, complete with staff, that tired field soldiers would be unable to see.
He gazed around the room and stretched subtly on the spot, working up methodically from his feet. He had joined his hands and pushed out behind himself, stretching out his stiff shoulders and the muscles across his chest when he heard Emerald stammering to a halt. Her eyes had a glazed look and her mouth was hanging slightly open. Mole and Luke were smiling and Max, hand across her mouth, was barely holding a straight face. She cleared her throat and Emerald flushed from her neck to the roots of her hair.
'Alec. You should probably get some rest' said Max with a quick smile. 'We can continue this tomorrow. We've got at least a week right?' She glanced at Emerald who snapped back into I.T mode.
'Nine days. 80 percent'
'Yeah. O.k.' said Alec, giving in without a struggle. 'What about Logan?'
Mole and Luke appeared confused at the sudden change of topic. There was a brief flash of pain in Max's eyes but her voice was neutral.
'What about him?'
'I've ascertained that security was not breached but his computer systems could still present a risk, if they were to fall into the wrong hands. On the other hand, we might be able to get something from them.' Alec paused, 'I suggest retrieval, and if necessary, a scorched earth policy.'
Alec thought he saw Max wince but it could have been a trick of light as she glanced at her wristwatch.
'0400 hours' she announced. 'Anybody know when dawn is?'
'2 hours, 10 minutes' supplied Emerald.
'Right' Max's lips pursed with thought. 'Too late for a mission. Tomorrow night we'll go. For now send someone over to stand guard. Secretly. They can hide during the day and we'll send a team at night for retrieval. If there's a risk, torch it. I don't want anyone other than us getting their hands on his stuff'
'I'll take care of that and then I'll hit the sack' said Alec turning to go. ''Night all.'
'Alec' called Mole down the hall. He stopped to allow him to draw level.
'Yeah?'
'Where's Cale? Vacationing in the Bahamas? '
'Dead'
'Oh' he seemed lost in mournful thought. 'You kill him?'
Alec narrowed his eyes.
' Don't answer that' continued Mole. 'Wouldn't want you to incriminate yourself. Max seems to be taking it well. No Shakespearean hysterics.' He smiled goulishly 'You know what that means?'
'What?'
'Something rotten in the state of Denmark' and he walked away, chuckling to himself.
Alec looked over the food procurement lists. It wasn't looking good. New transgenics were still trickling in and even the black market suppliers were starting to dry up. Fresh food was hard to get even for ordinaries and it wasn't like they could just send someone down to the market. Dried, packaged and storable food was slightly easier to get hold of but still just as difficult to transport in large quantities. Some of the transhumans needed special food and getting raw meat of any kind was the most difficult of all.
Things were looking bad. Very bad. Not that it really mattered, if Emerald's intell was anything to go by. According to her they would be annihilated within 3 weeks. There was enough food to last until then. Just. He wondered whether Max had decided anything about strategy or troop movements. Probably not. It wasn't her area of expertise.
Alec glanced out of the window, looking down to the street where they were drilling in combat training. He saw Max instantly, sparring with an X6 he recognised as Eric. Initially, the transgenics had been uncertain about pounding on their leader. It wasn't exactly encouraged at good old Manticore but Max had made it clear that she didn't mind getting hit and falling down. They had all gotten over it soon enough, and thanks to the daily beatings she took and the constant drills, Max was almost caught up on 10 years of combat training.
The X6 was feeling the benefits of her hard work, holding his own but only barely. They were in direct sunlight and both were sweating. It took a lot to make a transgenic break a sweat and Alec wondered exactly how long they had been going at it.
The X6 had removed his T-shirt. Max's hair was pasted to her forehead and her golden skin gleamed as moisture ran down her chest and arms. The khaki singlet she was wearing had darkened to black in places and clung to her wetly. Her legs were caked in dust, and blood trickled from a small gash high on her outer thigh. The black shorts she wore were filthy.
A small crowd had collected around them but neither Max nor the X6 paid the least attention as he forced Max onto the defensive. She shifted tactics, blocking and parrying, but a gap in her guard allowed him to get a solid shot at her head. She reeled back, her lip split and bleeding as the crowd tensed and waited for him to 'finish' the bout. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, quickly, but before he could lower his hand she had snapped a roundhouse kick to his head with her right foot. It connected with enough force to break the neck of a norm and the X6 crumpled to the ground, dazed but conscious.
Alec smirked to himself. The X6 had made a common mistake, underestimating Max's potential for gritty persistence, and he would have some lovely decorative bruising to remind him.
'She's really something huh?' came a voice from beside him and he turned to find Emerald less than 10 centimeters away.
He looked down at Max, who was wiping herself down with a ragged towel and extending an arm to the X6 on the ground.
'Her defense is sloppy' he offered.
She smiled lopsidedly. 'She's not the kind of person who always keeps her guard up'
He appeared to be thinking her statement over. 'Sorry I skipped out on you last night. Any decisions get made?'
'No.' she tilted her head. 'Not really. I think Max will be looking to discuss things with you further before committing to any specific course of action.'
'Right. Have you been given quarters yet?'
'Yep.' She smiled so widely Alec was worried her face would split. 'Mole showed me. I was just on my way to meet him when I saw you in here moping.'
'I don't mope' said Alec, frowning.
'Of course not' she said seriously.
He suspected she was humoring him and gave her a quick smile to show he hadn't totally lost his sense of fun. She returned it but as she turned to leave a thought occurred to him.
'Why Emerald?'
'Pardon?'
'Why choose Emerald as your name?'
'Oh.' She thought about it and smirked. 'I've always loved the colour green.'
Alec looked at the map on the wall and grinned. Just when you thought all hope was gone, the sun shone through the clouds. A supplier had failed to come through with a delivery of black market Canadian beef, saying the truck had been held up at the border. He had his transgenic hearing to thank for the fact that he heard his supplier's flunkies in the background, talking about how the Mayor was allowing the free passage of narcotics through his fair city. In return, he was getting enough dead cow to last a good year.
His Honor would be eating white meat if Alec had anything to do with it.
The door slammed open and he looked over in time to catch the dramatic entrance of Blue, a female transgenic who probably thought that 'lay low' was a sex tip. Other transgenics arrived at T.C stealthily; Blue and her 'boys' had vaulted the fence in broad daylight, much to the surprise of the trigger-happy spectators.
'You asked for me?' she purred, giving him a thorough once over with her eyes.
'I did and I'm glad. You look good enough to.', he allowed his own eyes to rove from her boot clad calves to her bare midriff to her face, 'spank.'
She laughed, then pouted. 'Oh 494, so much promise, so little reward.'
'That's only because I'm worried that you'll kick my ass 445'
Her eyes glinted with amusement but she focused over his shoulder, looking at the wall behind him.
'That the route?'
'Sure is. Do you like it?'
'It's gorgeous. Do I get accessories to match?'
He passed her a slip of paper with 15 digits written on it in his precise handwriting. 'It's a code to the police impound lot. Madame may have her choice of the dishes on the menu and nobody will know she was there until long after she's gone'
'Very nice' she said, looking down at the paper. 'I'll be bringing the boys, of course', as she casually scrunched it up, popped it between her glossy red lips and swallowed it.
'Of course.' He tilted his head to the side. 'Where are they by the way?' Blue never went anywhere without her entourage of two, a pair of stoic and silent X6 males, one of whom was named Eric and had been beaten by Max that morning. He didn't know what the other one was called but it didn't really matter. Behind their backs, everybody called them Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
'Eric has a foot print on the side of his head. I asked him to wait in the hallway.' She shook her head as if Eric's bruising seriously displeased her aesthetic sensibilities.
Alec knew better than that. It had been clear since their arrival at T.C that she was as devoted to them as they were to her.
Max chose that moment to walk through the door. Her lower lip had a gash in it and her cheekbone had a purple ringed graze that must have been caused by going face first into the dirt. She came up short at the sight of Blue, and Blue tensed.
'Max'
'Blue'
'Congratulations on your fight this morning'
Max shook her head slowly. 'That last shot was a lucky one. Eric really got through my defense'
Blue relaxed and smiled slightly. 'He did, didn't he? Still, shouldn't have underestimated a hell cat like you.'
Max smirked an acknowledgement, anything more would've opened up her lip again, and glanced at the map. 'Big plans for tonight?'
'Yeah. Me and the boys are gonna bring home the bacon. Beef. Whatever. How many guards on the truck?'
'Just two, up front' replied Alec. 'They should have sector clearance, so Mole will meet you here', he indicated a red pin pushed into the map, 'and then he'll take over.'
'How's he gonna get them in?' asked Blue curiously. 'Hard to sneak a truckload of dead cow through a sewer.' It was a rhetorical question. Mole's methods were a secret to everyone but himself. 'That all?'
Alec nodded.
'Gotta blast. Me and the boys are gonna need our beauty sleep.'
And, with a swirl of her electric blue hair, she was gone.
'Why did they engineer her hair that way?' asked Max absently, her eyes on the closed door.
'They didn't' Said Alec. 'Back at Manticore her hair was blonde.'
Max didn't seem to hear him. 'Do you think they really.?'
'Max' he recalled her to reality. 'Was there something you wanted?'
'Oh. Umm. Yeah' She collected herself. 'About tonight.'
'The beef run?'
She shook her head and he remembered the other 'tonight'
'Logan's? I was gonna go over there and take care of it myself'
He watched Max forcibly set her face in 'expressionless' at the sound of Logan's name.
'I want to come with you.'
'Fine. I'll meet you in there at 9.'
She thought about it. 'Sure thing'
And Alec was alone again
Alec dipped in and out of the conversation, Emerald had been delivering the bad news in her slightly atonal voice for at least half an hour. He looked at Max, her forehead creased from concentration, her whole bearing attentive. Mole and Luke had drifted across the room, pulled in by Emerald's tide of statistics and risk analysis. What had Brain called it? Heuristics. Data knowledge. Probability Algorithms. Whatever.
'mission objective variants.. Termination and Retrieval. third stage.2 percent chance of survival.'
Alec had come to the conclusion that Emerald was an X5, I.T concentrate, like Brain. He had seen the stealth programming as an asset initially, but combined with his tiredness it was more like a design flaw. His eyes slipped away from her once again and he wondered what good it was to have a General, complete with staff, that tired field soldiers would be unable to see.
He gazed around the room and stretched subtly on the spot, working up methodically from his feet. He had joined his hands and pushed out behind himself, stretching out his stiff shoulders and the muscles across his chest when he heard Emerald stammering to a halt. Her eyes had a glazed look and her mouth was hanging slightly open. Mole and Luke were smiling and Max, hand across her mouth, was barely holding a straight face. She cleared her throat and Emerald flushed from her neck to the roots of her hair.
'Alec. You should probably get some rest' said Max with a quick smile. 'We can continue this tomorrow. We've got at least a week right?' She glanced at Emerald who snapped back into I.T mode.
'Nine days. 80 percent'
'Yeah. O.k.' said Alec, giving in without a struggle. 'What about Logan?'
Mole and Luke appeared confused at the sudden change of topic. There was a brief flash of pain in Max's eyes but her voice was neutral.
'What about him?'
'I've ascertained that security was not breached but his computer systems could still present a risk, if they were to fall into the wrong hands. On the other hand, we might be able to get something from them.' Alec paused, 'I suggest retrieval, and if necessary, a scorched earth policy.'
Alec thought he saw Max wince but it could have been a trick of light as she glanced at her wristwatch.
'0400 hours' she announced. 'Anybody know when dawn is?'
'2 hours, 10 minutes' supplied Emerald.
'Right' Max's lips pursed with thought. 'Too late for a mission. Tomorrow night we'll go. For now send someone over to stand guard. Secretly. They can hide during the day and we'll send a team at night for retrieval. If there's a risk, torch it. I don't want anyone other than us getting their hands on his stuff'
'I'll take care of that and then I'll hit the sack' said Alec turning to go. ''Night all.'
'Alec' called Mole down the hall. He stopped to allow him to draw level.
'Yeah?'
'Where's Cale? Vacationing in the Bahamas? '
'Dead'
'Oh' he seemed lost in mournful thought. 'You kill him?'
Alec narrowed his eyes.
' Don't answer that' continued Mole. 'Wouldn't want you to incriminate yourself. Max seems to be taking it well. No Shakespearean hysterics.' He smiled goulishly 'You know what that means?'
'What?'
'Something rotten in the state of Denmark' and he walked away, chuckling to himself.
Alec looked over the food procurement lists. It wasn't looking good. New transgenics were still trickling in and even the black market suppliers were starting to dry up. Fresh food was hard to get even for ordinaries and it wasn't like they could just send someone down to the market. Dried, packaged and storable food was slightly easier to get hold of but still just as difficult to transport in large quantities. Some of the transhumans needed special food and getting raw meat of any kind was the most difficult of all.
Things were looking bad. Very bad. Not that it really mattered, if Emerald's intell was anything to go by. According to her they would be annihilated within 3 weeks. There was enough food to last until then. Just. He wondered whether Max had decided anything about strategy or troop movements. Probably not. It wasn't her area of expertise.
Alec glanced out of the window, looking down to the street where they were drilling in combat training. He saw Max instantly, sparring with an X6 he recognised as Eric. Initially, the transgenics had been uncertain about pounding on their leader. It wasn't exactly encouraged at good old Manticore but Max had made it clear that she didn't mind getting hit and falling down. They had all gotten over it soon enough, and thanks to the daily beatings she took and the constant drills, Max was almost caught up on 10 years of combat training.
The X6 was feeling the benefits of her hard work, holding his own but only barely. They were in direct sunlight and both were sweating. It took a lot to make a transgenic break a sweat and Alec wondered exactly how long they had been going at it.
The X6 had removed his T-shirt. Max's hair was pasted to her forehead and her golden skin gleamed as moisture ran down her chest and arms. The khaki singlet she was wearing had darkened to black in places and clung to her wetly. Her legs were caked in dust, and blood trickled from a small gash high on her outer thigh. The black shorts she wore were filthy.
A small crowd had collected around them but neither Max nor the X6 paid the least attention as he forced Max onto the defensive. She shifted tactics, blocking and parrying, but a gap in her guard allowed him to get a solid shot at her head. She reeled back, her lip split and bleeding as the crowd tensed and waited for him to 'finish' the bout. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, quickly, but before he could lower his hand she had snapped a roundhouse kick to his head with her right foot. It connected with enough force to break the neck of a norm and the X6 crumpled to the ground, dazed but conscious.
Alec smirked to himself. The X6 had made a common mistake, underestimating Max's potential for gritty persistence, and he would have some lovely decorative bruising to remind him.
'She's really something huh?' came a voice from beside him and he turned to find Emerald less than 10 centimeters away.
He looked down at Max, who was wiping herself down with a ragged towel and extending an arm to the X6 on the ground.
'Her defense is sloppy' he offered.
She smiled lopsidedly. 'She's not the kind of person who always keeps her guard up'
He appeared to be thinking her statement over. 'Sorry I skipped out on you last night. Any decisions get made?'
'No.' she tilted her head. 'Not really. I think Max will be looking to discuss things with you further before committing to any specific course of action.'
'Right. Have you been given quarters yet?'
'Yep.' She smiled so widely Alec was worried her face would split. 'Mole showed me. I was just on my way to meet him when I saw you in here moping.'
'I don't mope' said Alec, frowning.
'Of course not' she said seriously.
He suspected she was humoring him and gave her a quick smile to show he hadn't totally lost his sense of fun. She returned it but as she turned to leave a thought occurred to him.
'Why Emerald?'
'Pardon?'
'Why choose Emerald as your name?'
'Oh.' She thought about it and smirked. 'I've always loved the colour green.'
Alec looked at the map on the wall and grinned. Just when you thought all hope was gone, the sun shone through the clouds. A supplier had failed to come through with a delivery of black market Canadian beef, saying the truck had been held up at the border. He had his transgenic hearing to thank for the fact that he heard his supplier's flunkies in the background, talking about how the Mayor was allowing the free passage of narcotics through his fair city. In return, he was getting enough dead cow to last a good year.
His Honor would be eating white meat if Alec had anything to do with it.
The door slammed open and he looked over in time to catch the dramatic entrance of Blue, a female transgenic who probably thought that 'lay low' was a sex tip. Other transgenics arrived at T.C stealthily; Blue and her 'boys' had vaulted the fence in broad daylight, much to the surprise of the trigger-happy spectators.
'You asked for me?' she purred, giving him a thorough once over with her eyes.
'I did and I'm glad. You look good enough to.', he allowed his own eyes to rove from her boot clad calves to her bare midriff to her face, 'spank.'
She laughed, then pouted. 'Oh 494, so much promise, so little reward.'
'That's only because I'm worried that you'll kick my ass 445'
Her eyes glinted with amusement but she focused over his shoulder, looking at the wall behind him.
'That the route?'
'Sure is. Do you like it?'
'It's gorgeous. Do I get accessories to match?'
He passed her a slip of paper with 15 digits written on it in his precise handwriting. 'It's a code to the police impound lot. Madame may have her choice of the dishes on the menu and nobody will know she was there until long after she's gone'
'Very nice' she said, looking down at the paper. 'I'll be bringing the boys, of course', as she casually scrunched it up, popped it between her glossy red lips and swallowed it.
'Of course.' He tilted his head to the side. 'Where are they by the way?' Blue never went anywhere without her entourage of two, a pair of stoic and silent X6 males, one of whom was named Eric and had been beaten by Max that morning. He didn't know what the other one was called but it didn't really matter. Behind their backs, everybody called them Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
'Eric has a foot print on the side of his head. I asked him to wait in the hallway.' She shook her head as if Eric's bruising seriously displeased her aesthetic sensibilities.
Alec knew better than that. It had been clear since their arrival at T.C that she was as devoted to them as they were to her.
Max chose that moment to walk through the door. Her lower lip had a gash in it and her cheekbone had a purple ringed graze that must have been caused by going face first into the dirt. She came up short at the sight of Blue, and Blue tensed.
'Max'
'Blue'
'Congratulations on your fight this morning'
Max shook her head slowly. 'That last shot was a lucky one. Eric really got through my defense'
Blue relaxed and smiled slightly. 'He did, didn't he? Still, shouldn't have underestimated a hell cat like you.'
Max smirked an acknowledgement, anything more would've opened up her lip again, and glanced at the map. 'Big plans for tonight?'
'Yeah. Me and the boys are gonna bring home the bacon. Beef. Whatever. How many guards on the truck?'
'Just two, up front' replied Alec. 'They should have sector clearance, so Mole will meet you here', he indicated a red pin pushed into the map, 'and then he'll take over.'
'How's he gonna get them in?' asked Blue curiously. 'Hard to sneak a truckload of dead cow through a sewer.' It was a rhetorical question. Mole's methods were a secret to everyone but himself. 'That all?'
Alec nodded.
'Gotta blast. Me and the boys are gonna need our beauty sleep.'
And, with a swirl of her electric blue hair, she was gone.
'Why did they engineer her hair that way?' asked Max absently, her eyes on the closed door.
'They didn't' Said Alec. 'Back at Manticore her hair was blonde.'
Max didn't seem to hear him. 'Do you think they really.?'
'Max' he recalled her to reality. 'Was there something you wanted?'
'Oh. Umm. Yeah' She collected herself. 'About tonight.'
'The beef run?'
She shook her head and he remembered the other 'tonight'
'Logan's? I was gonna go over there and take care of it myself'
He watched Max forcibly set her face in 'expressionless' at the sound of Logan's name.
'I want to come with you.'
'Fine. I'll meet you in there at 9.'
She thought about it. 'Sure thing'
And Alec was alone again