Author's Note: Don't forget to review.
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EP3 CHAPTER 4: RED ALERTVANCOUVER PORT
Otto is talking over the phone with the shipping manager. "You have to make sure to keep radio contact. You'll be passing through several nautical miles from the Seattle port and we don't want anything happening to you as you do so… Yes… Yes, a man from our office will be waiting in San Francisco to ensure the safe transfer of the shipment… Good… We'll see you then."
He placed down the receiver and went through the files in the computer. He had been accessing Ames' computer when he had received the call. He knew Ames had information that no one else did… or information that are not government property. He intended to find out. They had been tasked to clean up the mess left by Manticore, but Ames knew much more than he was telling any of them… he even knew more than the bosses do. With the government trying to cut their funds, he wondered how Ames was able to hire those men a few months back during the hostage situation. However, the man's computer was impossible to get into. It was protected with a password, which would insert a virus into his system should the wrong one be entered three times.
Otto sat back on his chair and stared into the ceiling. He knew there was more to Agent White than what he was telling them. He also knew he was obsessed with finding and killing all transgenics, but a particular one at that – this 452.
Just then, his cell phone rang to interrupt is thoughts. "Agent White. Yes. Yes. That will take aty least 48 hours, sir. No. Do we have clearing on this from the NSA? I understand. Yes. Sir. Right. Away." Otto put the phone down, turned off his computer and left his office.
TERMINAL CITY
Logan was in a conference with Max and the Terminal City crew. "I'm sending you the route of the barge carrying the tryptophan shipment. My informant told me that it would be leaving earlier than expected. The shipment will cross Seattle 180 nautical miles from shore and will reach San Francisco by tomorrow at 4 am. You will need to intercept the shipment at midnight."
Max spoke, "We don't have that kind of equipment, Logan."
"I'm uploading a satellite feed on a government 2 miles near the port. Their surveillance shows that only five men are manning the perimeter. You got to get these equipment within 5 hours or the change in guard shift increases the guards 3 times."
"Thanks."
"Yeah. I need the team on comms for my satellite feedback on the barge. We can't alert the San Francisco port on what's going on. I have to get going and will get back to you in a while." Logan disconnected his connection.
Max turned on the people. "Five up for the water ride. Stirctly volunteers coz the same heads will be on the op."
Alec stepped up, "I'm in." He looked at the others and one by one, four other X-series stepped in including Dix and Dalton.
Max pushed the box containing comms against Alec's chest with one hand. "You the CO for this. Debrief them. Give Logan a heads up soon as you're ready."
Alec bellowing a little on the impact of Max shoving the comm box to him. "Max Logan said 5. Hell, we can even take a coupla beers… this is X-series you're talking to."
Max shot Alec a killer smile and he smirked at having irritated her again. He went on with his team, saying to Max as he passed by, "You a little more wind up we got ourselves a free clock." Then he walked off whistling.
Just then a signal went off the computer. A red button started flashing on the satellite feed Logan had given them of Terminal City to keep their surveillance at maximum.
Mole shouted as he opened some lockers and started throwing off guns towards the passing transgenics, "Red Alert! Bring those kids down the gutters! The rest go to your designations."
Max ran to look at the computer where Luke stared at the blinking red lights surrounding the Terminal City map except for the location of the City police, which did not indicate anyone from the police department went through the barricade. Max was about to garb the comms, but stopped and braced herself. She started shaking as she scrounged her pocket for something when Luke handed her a tryptophan pill. She swallowed them immediately and waited a second for it to take effect, "Not now!" She turned and shouted to everyone grabbing for guns and readying themselves for a siege. "Aiight! Go on threes, the middle gets the comms. Wait for my signal." She grabbed a comm unit from the table and shouted at Luke, who wase in front of the computers, "Get Logan! We need a feedback on here. Number of men, arms… everything he has on this! Get to me." With that, Max went to outside the main headquarters of Terminal City.
Luke started connecting to Logan's, but he couldn't. He pounded his fist on the table "Damn!" Just then another computer started connecting to his system. The monitor showed Cyd on the other line. Cyd looked at Luke and hurriedly said, "Government men just went through your perimeter."
Luke looked incredulously at the child wondering how she got the lead, but he could not afford to think about it now. "Yeah got it, but we don't have aerial view Cyd. Do you think you can give us a feed? Been trying to connect through Logan -"
"He's on in on Alec and the team back at the port. I'm sending you the feed."
Luke frowned at his monitor seeming to conk up. "Better I connect you to Max. Know how to guide he through this? She needs the heads up on number of people, weapons, location."
"Sure thing. Wait. Let me hook up through my satellite feed and I can -" Cyd pressed the enter button on her keyboard as she used a Satellite's signal to contact Max and the Terminal City guarding their fort. " – Connect to Max."
Max asked confusedly upon hearing Cyd's voice, "Cyd? That you? Where's Logan?"
"Later. Three teams inside the perimeter Max, heavily armed. There has got to be three groups of 50s from 3,6, and 9 o'clock. Only 12's free due to police barricade. Five barges 20 miles from shore are drifting on the waters."
Max was flustered at hearing Cyd's 6-year old voice telling her all this things. She shook her head and tried to focus. "150 tops coming to us now?"
"They broke into 5 lines each. The surveillance shows that the police do not know. There someone I could contact to inform these guys?"
'Contact Detective Sung or Clemente."
Max signaled on Mole, Arctic and Joshua, "You heard her. We need ten tops on 3, 6 and nine. Mole you take the three. Arc, take 6 and Joshua your crew takes the nine. The rest follow me, we need to get out and surround them from the back. Then ten needs to go take those barges off the coast. We can't have them escaping on us." The groups dispersed as Mole, Arctic and Joshua led the other transgenics to prepare against White's men.
"Heads up, don't kill them, just maim so they can't shoot us."
Mole grunted, "They'll kill us, Max"
"We don't have time to argue about this, Mole." Max led her team of 10 transgenics out the perimeter fence without White's men noticing them. Upon reaching the alleys, she dispersed two charged with the barges. She then motioned for the group to disperse in groups of threes on 3, 6, and 9 o'clock, Max taking the three. Slowly, the transgens began taking out White's men from the back without the group noticing them. Max had the strangest feeling under her skin.
She used her comms, "The ones in the middle are familiars. Mole, Arctic, Joshua, warn your crew. These people know how to fight. They can take us out. The first two lines and the last two don't have their abilities. Take those and keep them safe but on the ground. The rest, do what you can. If it's possible not to harm them, don't, but if not, we'll deal with the consequences… and so will they. No backing out people. On guard."
Max, Artic and Joshua said simultaneously, "Got you."
"Max, the barges are gone. Lai and the crew brought them to shore. I'm asking them to follow you now. You've got 35 on 3, 33 on 6, and 37 on -" Suddenly, Cyd's eyes grew as she heard shouting and guns firing. She watched through the Satellite feed as White's crew started exchanging gun-fires with the transgenics, most of the people being maimed by the transgenics using their enhanced eyesight. The sector police outside the perimeter heard the guns and started preparing themselves. They contacted Clemente and asked for direct orders on what to do. In then end, there were the familiars and only a few people were up and about. Both forces were out of shells and threw their weapons aside.
Some unknown clean-cut guy in a black coat went out in the open, "Well, well, well. We didn't think you'd be so well prepared." He motioned at his men lying behind the tired, crates, and other debris. "What are you gonna do? Shoot us? That'll only confirm that you are dangerous." He smirked as his men stood up and surrounded the transgenics.
Max signaled her crew and the entire crew fighting White's men, "That's not. White. Don't know who it is, but it's not White. Brace yourselves. They can kick our asses and feel nothing on the pain we can inflict on them."
Mole grunted through the comm., "We can take these people out now, Max"
"No! Can't have unnecessary casualties… else we'll prove them right. We have to come through this clean."
The man smirked, "What? No sign of 452? She's the only one we're after, you know. The only one we're after and you shall be left in peace… we may even arrange the distribution of tryptophan, which you so badly need."
Arctic grinded his teeth at this. "He's responsible for the shortage. Let's take 'em out now!"
Max said firmly through the comms, "No! We take 'em out now when they have no means to protect themselves would only prove us dangerous. We have to fight fair… if we want to survive through this, we need to fight fair. Throw down your weapons." After signaling for her crew to stay , Max went with cat-l;ike grace and invisibility to face the man.
"I'm 452. Who are you and what do you want?"
"Ahh… are you going to be the sacrificial lamb?" he said sarcastically.
"Get out of our City while you still can."
"So they finally relented and offered you to us, didn't they? I knew they'd see reason." One of the men had his gun pointed to Max. As a red light targeted Max on the chest, Mole leapt to tackle the man. All else broke lose as the familiars started fighting against the transgenics. They were closing in on the transgenics as kicks and punches were exchanged with Max fighting the leader of White's crew. The transgenics were losing out with the familiars not feeling any pain in the whole scene. They knew they needed reinforcements but did not know where else to get. Ther crews had been dispersed on missions and they did not know how else they could fight these men.
Max was thinking about the same thing as the man had her pinned down on the concrete with her arm twisted at her back. The man told her as he pushed his knees down her spine. "So you and your kind finally come crawling to me, huh? You good for nothing little freak!"
Max looked ahead and saw the fighting transgenics. She could not betray them now. When the man lifted his knees to land a kick on her side, she took the opportunity to roll over, twist her arm and in the process pin down the man on the ground. He moved her head to whisper against the man's ear. "See here? I need my personal space and I hate people intruding on it. Next time you come for a visit… try to bring a whole empire coz you and your cult freaks are never gonna push us off this City." With that, she tied the man's hands and legs with a duck tape she got from the trash nearby. The other transgenics picked up their guns and aimed it at the intruders. Max pushed the duck-taped man towards his crew. The transgenics closed in on them as they pushed the familiars and the rest of the intruders through the police barriers for the police to take care of them.
Clemente was waiting for Max. He got the man that Max shoved towards him. "We were wondering what was happening inside."
"Couple of your men tried to take us out."
"These are not my men."
"I know. They got lucky this time. Next time it happens, I don't know if my crew's gonna hold back. I can't tell them what to do."
"I'll see that these -"
"Make this right."
"will be appropriately charged with the violation of the state ruling. I'll try."
With that, Max and the rest of the Terminal City crew went back into the city. They closed the gates and barriers as Clemente brought the Familiars and NSA crew into the vans to be brought to the station for questioning.
Back in the main head quarters, the transgenics were putting back their weapons and going about their usual things. The kids and some of the women were let out of the underground "safe house". Max was sitting in front of the computer and talking to Cyd. "Do you have a heads up on Alec's crew? …Sorry you had to see that Cyd."
"No problem. I'm used to that back in Ma- uh… Logan's still with Alec. The security on the ship seems pretty tough. I'm looking in on them using the same signal Logan's using. That was awesome, what you did, Max."
"That should never have happened. Security gotta be tight."
Cyd nodded, "I got some video feed and well… the clouds were over your satellite feed so you didn't to see them. They also had state of the art -"
Max shook her head tiredly, "It shouldn't have happened -" Just then, Max's whole body began to shake uncontrollably before Cyd. Max tried to reach into her pocket for her tryptophan, but the bottle was empty. She remembered having given her last to Gem as she collapsed on the floor, unconscious.
Cyd, who saw the whole thing, including Luke and Joshua coming over to attend to Max, shouted, "Max? Max!" Then the screen went blank before her eyes.
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Author's Notes: I feel like I owe everyone an explanation for the delay of the postings of the chapters. The chapters are done (till end of episode 3), however due to constraints in time and VS3, I have been quite busy. Please be assured that I am not abandoning this fic and will continue to post. However, it might be on longer intervals since I'm still working on VS3 along with other writers. I hope you all keep reading it… and reviewing.