Chapter four of The Trouble with Jondy finds the girls riding fast from the mountains of Flagstaff toward the city of Phoenix. They run into a little problem and an unexpected mystery on the outskirts of the city. In the city, the unexpected mystery has problems of her own to deal with.
Yes. Here we are again staring at a new chapter. This chapter shifts the story from the opening to the middle game. A dangerous threat is revealed which will complicate things for the characters. It's a strange little life they lead.
I would like to thank everyone for reviewing. It is great to hear the speculation and worry about what I'm going to do or not do. Not only are new ideas being born but some of the old ones find a rebirth of sorts… Thanks to all of you a thousand times over. Y'all are the greatest. I mean that.
So… read, review and Enjoy! That's what you're here for after all.
Aborted Currents
Phoenix, Arizona
Near Camelback Mountain…
Ames White threw the memo into the garbage can and cursed the name written across the top. He hated the way things had turned out. It wasn't his fault but he would surely be blamed for it. Personally, he had no one to blame but himself.
Sure, he knew Eyes Only had been behind the whole thing but who had time or the resources to catch Eyes Only. No one. Those who tried failed. The elusive pain-in-the-ass had been putting away bad guys with covert operations for years and now his actions had released an army of genetically engineered super-soldiers. They had been intended for the fire but somehow that bastard with the eyes released them into the world before it could happen.
The rumor was he did it himself.
Ames White didn't believe in rumors. He had been charged with their capture and/or termination. "Get rid of all of them." He had been told. How the hell was he supposed to track and kill over 700 transgenics? How the hell was he supposed to find these abominations and destroy them? Only Forty-seven X-series kids had been found after the fire. Forty-seven out of over three hundred charred remains turned up in the dental records searched after the facility south-east of Seattle burned to the ground.
Ames and his Phalanx warriors had terminated over ninety others in the two day period following the fire at Manticore. They would have got more but she showed up. X5-452 and her friends. She and her team were all Transgenics. The tall one with the curly hair had dropped two phalanx soldiers. The wiry blonde kid with way too much attitude was annoyance when one could actually locate him. White had to assume they saw the satellite signal and came to rescue the others. He was not unconvinced that Eyes Only had been involved.
White stood in front of the bulletin board staring at pictures of his three most wanted. On the right side of the Eyes Only screen cap was X5-452. A sickeningly beautiful young woman of about twenty, she was the reason Manticore had fallen. The picture had been taken from a live security feed inside Manticore before the fall. Intel states he went in to rescue her and managed to rescue 599 as well. At least no one knew where 599 was after the fall of Manticore so assumptions were made. There was a known connection.
On the left side of the screen cap was a striking redhead that had caused a particularly violent week in White's otherwise unblemished service record. He had been making the time to see her sing every weekend in Frisco. She had that husky voice and just the slightest hint of a southern drawl that touched him in all the right places. Now that he looked back on it, he realized he had been touched all right. When she listed on his known transgenics sheet as one of the more highly sought after Rogue escapees from '09, he had lost control.
Those first few days in the training halls beneath the Conclave had left more than fifty Phalanx warriors broken. Seven suffered crippling injuries and would not be able to perform. That was when they pulled White in for psychological evaluation. Admitting his 'crush' on the dusky redhead had almost cost him his position but he recited a few ancient mantras in his head and politely convinced The Council of Elders he was maintaining the control they demanded.
They decided to give him a test. They supplied the intelligence. They gave him license to handle the situation as he saw fit. Then they sent him in. He found 453 in Frisco working corporate espionage. She remained under cover after the fall of Manticore. When he found her, he had been pleased with himself thinking he had found 452. Instead, he discovered the clone project Manticore had in operation for years. This won him points with the Conclave. He was back on track.
He took a particular joy in her interrogation. It was exciting to him watching her struggle as he tortured the man she was living with. She struggled beautifully in her bonds as her boyfriends life slowly drained from him. She cried openly. Something he never knew transgenics could do. She swore she would have her vengeance one day. She swore that oath until the moment he killed her.
It wasn't until the manhunt for 828 in Denver that The Conclave fully trusted him again. He had been hunting the voluptuous female posing as a dancer in a gentlemen's club. He watched for four days until she made her move on the target. When she took out the target, he moved in and took her out. The whole thing turned into a scandalous affair in which the man was disgraced in front of his family and peers. Manticore lost one of their best operatives in the field. His techniques were working and The Conclave was pleased. He was back in their good graces.
He had picked up or disposed of nineteen transgenics Manticore had placed in deep cover from Portland to Las Vegas without missing a beat when the call came in. Number twenty was a target that would haunt him forever. She was in Frisco, not singing at the mob dive he used to drink watered down gin and juice in. She was pouring watered down drinks at a campus dive near UC Berkeley or what was left of the once prestigious university.
A barmaid. A lowly tavern wench. He had created this fantastic past and dark future for the mob-lounge singer he believed her to be and here she was hustling drinks for a living and crooning old jazz standards on the side. He steeled himself, prepared to have fun when he brought this one in. Especially after that fiasco when he tried to meet her after her last set that weekend prior to getting the intel on her.
He had wanted her to be something else entirely. He had wanted her to be so much more but instead she was just your basic bartender flashing too much cleavage for an extra tip or two and flirting with the little rich boys that fell head over heels for her. To think he was considering her for the ritual mating…
That was a twisted thought he didn't want to deal with. It had pissed him off enough when he arrived and found out she wasn't there. The owner of the bar said she had taken off without saying anything shortly after seven p.m. The owner knew because he had checked the time following the Eyes Only broadcast announcing an hourly message until some group called X-5 had checked in. The stupid barman had thought they were terrorists or something until one of his patrons corrected him, explaining the X-5 was a covert spec ops team working undercover to take down some terrorist group known as the S1W. White listened to the chatter for a short while hearing X-5 called everything but the kitchen sink.
He ordered his men to sweep the block but somehow he had known she was already gone. He pulled up a sat-link on his laptop and waited for the top of the hour. Sure enough another Eyes Only broadcast aired.
"This cable hack cannot be traced it cannot be stopped and it is the only free voice left in this city. This is a message to those known as X5. You've been compromised. You're in danger. You know what to do."
How did they know what to do? How did Eyes Only know to warn them. White was after the redhead, yes. How in the sacred names did he know to warn them? Why did Eyes Only go public and warn all of the Rogues and the deep cover ops he hadn't secured yet? That had been the day Eyes Only went on top of his hit list right between X5-452 and X5-299. Max and Jondy as they called themselves. Whatever two impure freaks of science needed names for was beyond him. Thanks to Eyes Only, not only had the Rogues gone to ground but the remaining forty-two Manticore soldiers the project had placed were underground as well.
His already complicated mission had just grown in difficulty exponentially. It could have been quiet. It could have been neat and clean. He could have moved in under false, federal IDs and taken them one by one but instead Eyes Only had stuck his non-existent nose where it didn't belong. White had to make him a target…
But the Transgenics were a threat. They had to come first. There was no alternative. Take out the transgenics and then go after Eyes Only. It was the only path to follow. Everything in it's time.
This is how he found himself in the ninety-six degree day climbing Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona. The Conclave had located a particularly interesting find. A transgenic and not just any normal transgenic either, this one had produced a child. The only other known X-5 which had produced had given birth to a prodigy of sorts. The boy had exhibited signs of accelerated and above average abilities across the board.
He was not the target this time however. One day they would find him, but not right now. No. Ames White was cursing his way to the top of Camelback Mountain in search of a clue to the whereabouts of X5-359. She had been a late escapee from the project having only gone AWOL just a few months earlier with the help of X5-452.
Somehow, White knew Eyes Only was involved in some way but he didn't care about such a connection. His eyes were on the prize that would be 359 and her bastard child named Max.
How he hated that name. He remembered nights, long nights lying awake in bed unable to sleep. That name wandering around inside of his head trying to escape. The name alone had been a festering insecurity within him that had led to more frustration than anything else. He wanted to remove that name from the face of the planet and soon he would get his chance.
The Conclave had other plans however. They wanted X5-359 and they wanted her child to verify that transgenic offspring were indeed above average.
He had been in Phoenix for eight days now.
He had been watching her for three. They were prepared to move. Then she was gone. She was last seen heading in the direction of Northern Scottsdale through Paradise Valley. She had traversed Camelback Mountain near the Phoenician Resort. They had lost her and the child there.
He was determined to know how she had known they were moving in. It couldn't have been Eyes Only. Intel had him quiet for days and had no connections outside of the city. He figured she was aware of his surveillance team all along and had played them.
Now here he was struggling up, over the makeshift path on the north side of the middle hump. He cursed the name Max with every strain of muscle. Transgenic freedom fighter or small child didn't matter; he hated everyone with the name. They deserved no less.
Flagstaff, Arizona
Southern Sector city limits…
Max smiled and climbed on her baby. She revved sweetly, happy to be full of gas after another long, hard ride. Jondy smiled. Max nodded at her sister as the two girls sped off into the distance taking the mostly straight road out of the mountains deep into the vast forest of Saguaro Cactus at or around a hundred and fifteen miles an hour.
The whole trip had been fast. Riding these open roads were the best part for the genetically superior women. They had come on this trip for no other reason than to get out here and open up the similar Ninjas.
The 17 heading south stretched out miles before them with nothing but an occasional Jamestown or small village set just off the highway in range but of no interest to the two young women. They rolled at alarming speeds blowing by everything that happened to be on the road in front of them.
No one really saw them as they rocketed through the day stopping only once near Preston to refuel and grab a sandwich. A couple of rough looking bikers gathering supplies for their crew took notice of the girls while they were grabbing a bite.
"Hey baby." One of them said. The particularly greasy looking beard with loose eyes headed toward Jondy's side of the table as if to sit down next to her. "Where'r you two headed?" He asked. Jondy slid further out to stop him from sitting next to her. He noticed her movement.
"What's it to you?" Max asked.
"Just curious is all, honey." He said. "It's a dangerous road out there. You maybe not want to be caught alone on the road at night. There are some bad people ridin' these highways. Wouldn't want two such beautiful babes to end up in some harem somewhere doing things they didn't want to do."
Max laughed. Jondy snickered and took a bite of her sandwich. "You mean, like, you guys aren't dangerous?" Max asked.
"Oh, we're dangerous." The dumb looking one said. He spoke for the first time. It wasn't that the other one was a genius or anything. The second one now leaning against the side of the booth Max sat on just had that look about him. This guy was an idiot. "We're more than dangerous. We're so dangerous that we're… uh, really dangerous." He said. He laughed. Jondy gave Max a look, wondering which one was Beavis and which one was Butthead.
"You sound, uh, dangerous." Jondy said. She laughed. The greasy one was growing visibly angry. "Listen guys. You two are…" She paused looking for the right word. "Amusing, but my girl here doesn't swing that way, which is the reason she's MY girl."
"What's she mean, Dexter?" The dumb biker asked. "What's she trying to say?"
"You two are gay?" Dexter, the greasy one asked.
"That's right, Dexter. We play for the all girl team." Max said reaching out and grabbing Jondy's hand. Jondy pulled her hand up to her lips and kissed her ring finger. "No boys allowed."
The two bikers stared at each other for a few minutes without moving. They were completely stunned. Jondy continued to play with Max's hand and fingers until the bikers walked away, struck dumb. They were mumbling but the girls could hear every word.
"What's the all girl team, Dexter?" The dumb one asked. "I've never heard of it. There's an all girl team?"
"It's not like that." Dexter said. His voice betrayed his anger. "There is no all-girl team. It means they aren't into guys like us."
"They don't like bikers? But, they're riding rice-burners."
"No, you idiot. It has nothing to do with bikes." Dexter said. His frustration was mounting. "They don't do the opposite sex. They're lesbians."
"Oh, actresses…" The dumb one muttered as they walked out the door.
"Not thespians, you moron." Dexter said with a long look at Max. "Lesbians…" He started the explanation again but the door swung shut silencing the conversation.
Max and Jondy burst into laughter. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the biker taking a long steady glance at both ninjas parked in front of the diner.
"I'm your girl?" Max asked when they calmed down.
"It worked didn't it?" Jondy asked.
"I wonder what Logan would think." Max asked. "Actually, I wonder what Original Cindy would think." She laughed. Jondy laughed with her.
A few minutes later, they offered some cash for the food and paid for gas on the credit cards Logan supplied before hitting the road again. Max was worried they weren't through with the bikers.
Just north of Phoenix, her fears were justified as they rolled to a stop in front of a line of hogs and several burly bikers milling around. Max marked the dumb one and Dexter standing off to the side immediately. The girls could tell from the look on his face that Dexter was proud of putting this roadblock together. He seemed to be gloating in fact.
"Hello, ladies." Dexter said. "You are aware that this is a toll road, right?"
"Yeah, a toll road." The idiot barked.
"Does he roll over and play dead, too?" Jondy asked. Dexter looked over his shoulder at the moron. He looked back at Jondy and glared.
"My brother might not be so smart but only I can make fun of him." He glared at the girls. They were snickering. "You two dykes may think this is funny but I ain't. We're going to get what's coming to us whether you like it or not." He said.
"We told you." Jondy started. "We don't swing that way. We're simply not interested." She could plainly hear several of the bikers muttering about "making her interested" and "getting a fine little piece." One was even stupid enough to pick a target.
"I'm going to plug up your dyke, bitch." A particularly mean looking side of beef said staring right at Max. She rolled her eyes.
"I don't have time for this." Max said. "You take the eight on the right. I'll get the nine on the left." She said…
Snorts and hoots went around the crowd as Max and Jondy climbed off their bikes. Some snickered. Some laughed. None believed.
"How about you take the eight on the left and I'll get the nine on the right." Jondy said. "I'll bet a hundred I get finished before you." She held out her hand.
Max took it. "It's a bet." She said.
The girls moved. They moved fast becoming a blur of activity that none of the bikers could follow…
Max was on the first biker at the end of the semi-circle before he could react. She blurred through his field of vision. Before he was aware of her, she was behind him as he pitched forward, unconscious to the ground in front of him. His head bounced twice.
She jumped straight up in the air, throwing a swift front kick directly into the face of an oblivious man trying desperately to focus. He would never see her again. His head whipped backward carrying him into two of his buddies.
"WHAT THE HELL!!!" Someone screamed. "WHERE ARE THEY?!"
"OVER THERE!!" Shouted one. Max heard a giggle followed by two dull thuds. She reached out and tapped the big, mean looking one that had called her a 'dyke' earlier. He spun in time to see a fist slam into his face. He would know nothing else. Max ducked and rolled as a large body was hurled over her head. She rolled up in between two other bikers still turning circles trying to locate the redhead and the small brunette. They were being humiliated by attackers they couldn't even see.
"Behind you!" Jondy yelled. Max doubled over kicking her legs up and over in a standing cartwheel landing a solid foot on the jaw of the man behind her. She flipped and landed on a knee between the two that had just faced each other. Max giggled and punched straight up. The men doubled in pain and cracked their skulls as Max went for their hardware. Their packages would become software for a long time to come…
"WHAT IS SHE?!" Someone yelled.
"OVER THERE. BEHIND YOU… NO, IN FRONT… WAIT!" The voice fell silent with a thump and a cloud of dust alongside the road. Jondy moved back three steps bringing an elbow up into the face of the biker moving to support his fallen comrade. His head whipped back, reflexively bouncing forward and into Jondy's fist. His body dropped instantly with the second hit.
Jondy turned and moved on a guy coming at her with a knife in both hands. She didn't smile. She could do blades. She was good back in Manticore with the blade. She remembered cutting Zack the first time. It was fun to get one in on the CO. The second cut had been the kicker. They realized her potential then. She had cut many after that. Too many. They made her cut them.
She disarmed the attacker leaving him weaponless. She tossed the blades into the desert and smiled at the stunned man. He had never been disarmed before. It was written all over his face. "Knives are dangerous. You could hurt someone." She said in her sweetest little girl voice.
"OVER THERE!" Someone shouted from her left.
"Didn't your mommy ever teach you not to play with knives?" She asked just before dripping knife-boy unconscious to the ground, turning in time to deal with a screaming biker charging her at full speed from the side.
Stepping and turning with him, she used his speed and her turn to launch him over a small group tussling in a cloud of dust. Watching Max duck and roll out of his way she noticed two men spinning in circles looking for the fight not realizing it would soon be between them. A biker charged at Max from behind.
"Behind you!" Jondy shouted hearing steps behind her. Jumping straight up, she kicked out sending her extended body over his head and grabbing his long pony tail as she came down behind him. He was easily controlled at that point. Jondy used his head as leverage as she kicked out at the group of four attackers attempting to coordinate their movements on the wild redhead with the disheartening giggle.
Hanging tightly to the pony tail, Jondy jumped out and spun the confused biker while she ran a semi-circle of her own against the four. She kicked each one of them sending all sprawling back. Two fell down but the first and last ones were still standing. She yanked hard spinning pony-tail and slamming his face into the fourth guy. She giggled. Two bodies thumped as they hit the ground. A small cloud of dust puffed out from each one.
She turned to face the first of the four as another was regaining his feet. A swift kick to his head put him out of commission and she turned in time to catch the first one dropping into a combat stance. A blur flashed behind him in her field of vision and she caught a glimpse of Max going after the last group of three men a short distance away.
Three seconds later Max hollered. "Jondy. Quit playing and finish him."
"He's kind of cute." Jondy said.
"I thought you were gay?" The man asked.
"Well, about that…" She said. She moved fast and struck him square in the jaw. He fell hard to the ground. The girls turned to face Dexter and his inane sidekick. They were expecting two frightened bikers unwilling to fight. What they faced stunned them.
Dexter was sitting on his Harley. The dumb one was beside him on his own. They both kicked their starter and revved.
"Running away?" Max asked.
"Transgenic scum." Dexter said. "We weren't prepared for three of you." He looked at his sidekick and nodded. Revving the bike again, he rode a large arc out and back to the road toward Phoenix.
"You're probably not even actresses…" The other one said. He laughed out loud until the cackling was lost in the roar of his bike.
Max and Jondy watched them disappear over the horizon before returning to their own bikes.
"What did he mean?" Jondy asked.
"You mean about expecting three of us?" Max asked.
"Yeah…"
"I don't know, Jondy. I have no idea."
Phoenix, Arizona
Camelback Mountain
Middle hump three days earlier…
The tall, lithe beauty cuddled her baby in her arms as the small child fed. Soon a good burp would be followed by a couple of peaceful hours of napping. Jace could get some rest as well then. It wasn't that she needed it but every little bit helped now that her location had been exposed.
It would have been easier in Mexico. The country was still essentially poor but the pulse hadn't hit them as hard as it had the US. If that loser with the gun hadn't freaked out at the checkpoint when they were refueling then she wouldn't have been stuck here.
Things had been great for a while. No one bothered her. She was just another expectant mother without a father as far as anyone could tell. It was easy to blend in with other young moms. One even offered her a place to stay if she was willing to chip in on rent.
Working as a waitress at the restaurant in Lesser Scottsdale was a good gig. Sure she wasn't allowed into Upper Scottsdale. Only residents were allowed and she wasn't wealthy enough to live there. The place was locked up almost as tight as Manticore but she knew a few ways in here or there. It was a good supplemental income.
"Okay, Maxie." Jace said as the girl pushed herself away and looked up to her mother. She pulled her blouse over her breast and pulled the baby up on her shoulder gently patting her back. The little one burped. "That was a loud one." Jace snickered. Ten minutes later the child was asleep in her mother's arms making barely audible noises and occasionally adjusting her sleeping arrangements.
Jace looked up into the sky. Sitting here against the rock staring out at the western sky she couldn't help thinking about another time when she had been waiting. She recounted the tale again for her daughter while the girl slept.
The top of the needle in Seattle was as frightening to her as it was exhilarating. Ben had told the story to them almost every night. Soon they were all filling in their own details…
"Tell us about the good place." Max always said that. Of all of them in the group she was the one that loved stories the most. It didn't matter who was telling it. She loved them all, happy or sad didn't matter, she just wanted to hear the stories. It would figure she would be the one carrying the fight straight to Lydecker and beating him every single time.
"The good place is where only the best soldiers get to go. It's bright and warm and no one ever complains." Ben started the story differently each time but it always ended the same way. "There are no drill instructors shouting at you in the good place. No one ever tells you how wrong or bad you are and no one ever yells at you for stupid reasons."
"You can get whatever you want whenever you want there. No one hits you or makes you do things you don't want to. You can eat whatever you want…" Ben continued. Occasionally, others in the room would chime in with their ideas of what life would be like there.
"You could sleep all day and not have to get out of bed." Eva said.
"No one makes you hurt your friends." Brin said.
"You don't have to hunt bad guys." Tinga offered. "And you can be friends with anyone you want to be."
Jace had thought about Ben that night on the needle as well. She was waiting for Max to meet her after they had flown over Lydecker's head. Max assured her the needle was safe and it had been. She had been up there for a few hours when Max showed up with some food and a smile.
"How's you're guy?" Jace asked.
"He's okay." Max said.
"What happened to him? I heard Veritas talking about paralysis and a miracle cure."
"Yeah. He was shot in the spine trying to save a little girl." Max said. She noticed Jace placing her hand over her stomach. "He was paralyzed but he started to regain some strength in it and Veritas was the only doctor that could help him." She explained.
"Tell him…" Jace started but stopped. "Tell him I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. It's Lydecker's. Logan isn't mad at you."
"But I led Lydecker to her and he shot her."
"By that Logic, I would then be the one that shot Logan." Max said. She noticed the puzzled look on her sister's face and smiled. "Logan asked for my help and I refused. Had I been there, Logan wouldn't have been shot protecting the girl. Her mother wouldn't have been forced to run away and He wouldn't have been paralyzed. If I apply your logic to that situation then I'm the one that pulled the trigger."
"I see your point." Jace said. "Can he walk anymore?"
"No. He's confined to the wheel chair again." Max said. "I don't care either way but he wants out of it."
"Then he'll get out of it." Jace said. Max glanced at her unsure of where her optimism came from. "I look at it this way. I watched all of you jump out of that window that day and run into the cold night. I tried to follow you but I just couldn't. I spent the next several years hiding that memory deep inside of me."
"You did come with us." Max said. "You're one of the Rogues now whether you like it or not. So what if you were late. I always believed you stayed behind to cover our escape."
"But I didn't." Jace protested.
"Shhhh…" Max laughed. "I won't tell the others if you don't." The girls laughed. They sat up there for an hour watching the sparse clouds pass overhead and the stars in the sky. Jace ate the food Max brought and listened to stories about freedom and life in general.
"When I looked down at Colonel Lydecker as we flew over his head I couldn't help thinking how happy I was to finally be free. I've never been so happy or as scared in my entire life." Jace admitted as they girls walked toward the bus in South Market.
"We're X-5. We're not afraid of anything." Max said. Jace noticed something in her eyes as she said it though. She knew Max had some heavy burdens to carry but she also knew Max had that guy Logan with her.
"He protects you, doesn't he?" Jace asked.
Max knew who she was talking about. "Yes. So I protect him." Max smiled. "It's what we do."
Outside the bus Jace turns to Max. "It feels like I just woke up from a bad dream."
"One of the reasons I don't sleep much. Let me know if it's a boy or a girl."
"And that's how you got your name, baby. Max. My little Max." Jace whispers to the child. "It's a strong name for a strong woman. One of these days… one day soon you'll meet her and she'll be so happy to know you. I promise baby. We'll get out of here in a few days and we'll go find her. I won't let that guy have you." She swore an oath staring into the sky.
"No one will take you away from me." She swore the oath again.