Author's Note:  This chapter is going to switch back and forth between many new, or little used characters.   Think of it as a montage.

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Stupid boy.  Stupid pair really, rushing off to sacrifice themselves for one another.  Personally I can't imagine anything more ridiculously stupid or useless.  I just know that only one of them is going to come back, and whichever one it is will be covered in blood with a few bones busted for good measure.  Damn superhero types.  "Kate?"

"In here Dix.  Did they bring Alec back, or Max?"  It can't possibly be that both of them were rescued.

"They've got Alec, and he's injured of course."  I'm worried in spite of myself, indestructible though he seems, I think that he might be on his ninth life by know.

"Nothing life threatening right?"

"No, just a shitload of cuts, bruises, broken bones, burns, and basically anything else superficial and painful that that bitch could inflict on him."  Then the irregularity of the situation comes to me.

"Not that I don't love your company Dix, but why'd they send you ahead?"

"Oh, they sent me with a sample for you to analyze.  They couldn't move him for a few hours until he stabilized and they wanted you to get working on this right away.  It's a sample of toxin.  Apparently that psycho familiar bitch smeared a poison on his lips, figuring that the first thing Max would do when she got to him was kiss him.  We want you to analyze it to see if we can duplicate it.  Apparently the stuff works damn fast, and its literally strong enough to incapacitate you for a couple of hours."

I look disbelievingly at the little vial in my hands.

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Charlotte smiles smugly to herself, hands folding against the waist of her high necked, ceremonial robe.  Five more days until the Day of Silence, and as the first born daughter in the oldest line of familiars she would be presiding over the ritual.  She can practically hear the screams of the poor foolish humans who will soon be extinct.  Hers will be the position of power, the title of queen is sure to be bestowed on her.  A shame that she would have to wed that spineless boy Otto, but she was quite sure in her ability to dominate him.

"Lotta, I have heard from one of Lela's servants, she has undergone the final transformation.  Our scholars and alchemists are ready to begin the process of translating the runes into the formula for the toxin."  Charlotte's lip curls at the mention of her outcast sister.  She was a pathetic little piece of baggage, scorned by her people and only kept for this one purpose.  After the Day of Silence was over, Lotta would have to think of a fitting way of disposing of the little fool.

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Jacob looked with concern at the old man at his side.  The grandfatherly figure had been his mentor and idol since Jacob was a very young child, though at the age of nineteen one would hardly consider Jacob old.  He had always seemed to Jacob, to be filled with a sort of special internal light, but this past week he had seemed to grow both in power and sadness.  Jacob knew that the Day preyed heavily on his mentor's mind, though he rarely spoke of it.

"We are almost there sir, but I have to ask you how you plan on getting in once we arrive.  From what I hear the security is very tight, and we can hardly vault the perimeter fence as one of them would."  The old man smiled his gentle smile, and his blue eyes sparkled merrily behind his thick glasses.

"Now really Jacob, have you ever known me to be without a plan."

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I smiled at the boy at my side.  At the very darkest point in my life, when I feared that forty years of planning and careful work had been useless, I had found Jacob.  In the most unexpected place I had found a quick and accepting mind, and more importantly an ally for the hard times in the future.

Sadly I shook my head at the protestors circling the city of the transgenics.  If those poor fools only realized that had the transgenics been the vicious animals they thought them, they would have long ago been dead carcasses in the streets.

Carefully skirting the crowds the two of us walked to the back of the compound, and after a dozen minutes of careful searching we simply walked through the hidden entrance the presence of which I had counted on.

Stepping through as though we owned the place I held my hands out to the guards in Manticore's stopping signal, before they opened fire.

"I would like to speak to Joshua if he is available."