Zack couldn't remember Max anymore let alone lost friends from his early childhood, Logan thought as he chewed on the end of a pencil and regarded his two visitors. One was a very big very muscular man in his early thirties with a full head of boisterous light brown hair that was just starting to turn grey, the other was a tall skinny woman of the same age, with long hair of same colour as the man's that been plated to keep it tidy. They were both dressed in rather shabby clothes and they both looked extremely tired and in desperate need of a good meal.
Apparently they were both X3s, 'siblings' from the same unit. They had shown him their barcodes to confirm it, but those distinctive marks had been covered up again now; his by a high neck collar that was starting to fray; hers by a dirty brown scarf that didn't really go with the rest her clothes.
Both the two men had been totally silent for whole of the five minutes they had been each other's company. Only she had spoken.
When they had opened the door she had told him that they were X3s and that was when they briefly uncovered their barcodes. Then she had asked if they could come in for a moment. After they were both seated on the coach in front of the window (Logan was in his wheelchair at the time, so didn't need to find a seat.) she had told him quite frankly that she was looking for Zack. Apparently she was a friend of his from his early childhood and she had kept tabs on his whereabouts ever since (without revelling his location to Lydecker, she added) but after Manticore had burned down she had lost track of him. She knew that Zack had been briefly reunited with Max and through her with Logan and that this had caused some serious problems due to his treatment at Manticore (those were her words not Logan's) and that they had been forced to rehabilitate him as a result. She just didn't know where and she would like too. She didn't need to speak to him, but she did want to see him to make sure that he was all right.
That was all she had said and she had said the entire lot without letting any hint of emotion contaminate her voice. A prefect military report. Logan didn't like it.
On the one hand doing small favours like this for transgenics seemed to be turning into something of a habitual pastime. On the other, this was Zack. Zack, who didn't trust anyone. Zack, who never kept any contacts or friends except his fellow escapees. Zack, who if he started remembering who he was would very likely set off to Seattle to blow Logan's head up, literally. No thanks - he wasn't risking that! He had been lucky to escape with his life the first time. If Max hadn't been there …
Still he couldn't just turn them away. Max would kill him herself if she found that he had treated members of her family like that! Heck, he wouldn't have anyway. Eyes Only was in the business of distributing information, not concealing it.
Still … this was Zack and he wasn't entirely sure if he trusted anyone who wasn't a fellow X5 from his unit, let alone make friends with them, even if they were X-series too. No, Logan took that back. He was sure Zack didn't trust anyone who wasn't a fellow X5 from his unit, even if they were X-series.
"Look, I'm sorry," he sighed at length, "I'm going to need more information than this."
"What sort of information?"
"I dunno," her eyebrows raised sharply at this, Logan noticed. Nobody at Manticore would have been so imprecise as to ask a rhetorical question. "Do you have names maybe? How did you meet Zack? For that matter – how the hell did you keep tabs on him without Lydecker's knowledge? How the hell did you do anything without Lydecker's knowledge? I find your story kinda hard to believe."
The transgenic couple turned their heads towards each other, their eyes locking in a long hard stare. It seemed almost like they were fighting each other with those glares, Logan thought, but then quite suddenly they nodded simultaneously, as if they had come to decision. The women turned her face back to face him. Her eyes had softened a little, Logan noticed. Her 'brother', however, continued to stare at the side of her head. Clearly he had just lost whatever battle of wills had taken place.
"You asked for my name, Mr Cale?" This was the woman speaking. Her voice had adopted a horse quality now, making it more tense and emotional, quite different from the flat military drone she had used earlier.
"Logan." He corrected with some surprise, not only was this the first time she had addressed him directly, he hadn't expected something as refined and upper-class as the use of his surname from a member of a group of people who didn't use names at all, let alone a system of social classes.
"As you wish. My name is Katherine Maria Estellar, X3-327, and my brother is Nicolas Simon Estellar, X3-326. Back at Manticore they used a lot of the same DNA to create the two of us, just changing key factors like our different genders, so we decided to use the same surname. As for your other questions – I'm going to have to tell the whole story to answer those, aren't I?"
Her eyes lost all their military focus at that point. They really had softened. Her whole face had softened. Logan realised with a start that she was smiling. A warm clear smile that made her look almost human, every trace of Manticore training vanishing from her features like a cold winter frost under warm spring sunshine. Logan suddenly found himself replying with a grin, as he sat back in his chair to listen …
A soldier crept silently into the lab that had temporarily been turned into a nursery. At ten years of age she was the youngest of her unit and she knew without a doubt that her older brothers and sisters would consider her self-appointed quest both foolish and wrong for the simple fact there were no orders for it. If they found out they would report her for certain. But she didn't care – she had to see.
Silently she pressed her tiny shaven head to the door and listened concentrating with all her might. Nothing. Any other room this important in Manticore would have been locked with at least an iris-scanner, but staff needed to be able enter and leave this room quickly. There was merely an ordinary lock, which it didn't take her long to pick.
Cautiously she opened the door just a crack and scanned the room with her sharp hazel eyes. There was no one inside, so she entered noiselessly remembering all the stealth techniques in which she had been drilled. Then she saw it. A tiny bundle lying in a small box of clear plastic in the centre of the room, but it was paced out of her reach on top of a metal case, which was several heads taller than her and from which her sensitive ears could pin-point the whine of electrical equipment.
She would have to take a chair from a nearby desk to peer inside. A tactical problem, her sharp Manticore-drilled mind noted, because if somebody disturbed her she wouldn't have time to return the chair to it's former position before vanishing back into her dormitory. Even if they didn't see her, they would know someone had been here by the rearrangement of the furniture. Still that was a risk she would have to take.
But … once she stood up on that chair, once she saw inside the box, all thoughts of tactics and problems vanished from her mind as the young soldier's heart surrendered itself entirely to the male who would possesses it for the rest of his life. This was what – who – she had come to see. She had heard the rumours first from several nurses chatting idly as they put her and her sisters through their regular medical check-ups and she had persevered until she eventually located his position.
Him. She watched the tiny chest heave and fall beneath his blanket. She gazed at his peaceful sleeping expression. He was the first of his series. The first one they had successfully created. The first X5. Her baby brother. Before she even realised it her hand slipped through one of the great holes in the plastic and begun to stroke his tiny head. Across the soft blonde down that was too scarce for them to shave away.
The baby awoke beneath her gentle caress, but he didn't cry out. He just lay there peaceful, gazing up at her with enormous green eyes that seemed too huge for his tiny little face, as she gave him the first loving looks and the first affectionate touch of his tiny little life.
"Would you like to hold him?" a voice broke through the silence. She jumped away from the box. Fear washing through her. She had stopped paying attention. She had been caught. A nurse stood in doorway. She had seen her. She would report her. She would never see the baby again!
"Wait!" the woman cried, "Don't! It's all right! It's okay, I'm not gonna … I should really. Report you, I mean. Your not supposed to … X3-327, isn't it? Do you want hold him?" The child paused … afraid and confused. The woman sighed and took a few steps forwards. A mistake! Startled the child jumped backwards. Ready to flee. But the woman was beside the incubator now. Carefully she lifted the baby out of his blankets and held him out to her. The girl watched, petrified.
"Would you like to hold him?" the nurse asked again.
This time the child came forward, if hesitantly, the temptation of the baby was clearly too much for her. It somehow managed to override both her enhanced natural instincts, which told her to run, and military training, which told her to kill the nurse and then run.
Instead, she held her arms out cautiously. Hesitantly. The woman gently placed the baby in the child's waiting embrace and arranged her arms around the tiny creature. "You have to support his head like this … see … there you go" The nurse stepped away watching the girl with the baby.
He had her entranced once again. His little fists reached up and started clutching at her Government Issue nightgown. "What's his barcode?" the child breathed softly, glazing down into his huge green eyes.
"X5-599"
Katherine stopped, shivering slightly. Logan wondered for a moment if she was cold, but her clothes looked warm enough and the room was actually beginning to feel slightly overheated. Then he noticed the tear on her cheek. She stood up, moving away to stare out of a nearby window. She couldn't have known it, but she was standing exactly were Max had stood that time when she had that confession to make about Raifer.
"I returned almost every night after that," the woman continued more slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on some point beyond the window, "The nurse was always there. Felicity, her name was. She let me look after the baby. Taught me how to care for him properly; bottle-fed him, change his diaper, that kind of thing … until one night just a few weeks later …"
The little girl picked the lock and pushed the door open quickly, eager to inside to see the baby. "Felicity?" she called out and then gasped in horror, because the face staring down at her was not that of the cheerful nurse – in fact she never saw her again – no, this was Lydecker.
Helplessly she stumbled a few steps backwards, horrified eyes fixed on his face. She knew what had happened. Her siblings had noticed her empty bed and reported it. Lydecker had decided to catch her red-handed. It was that simple. It was no use running either. His eyes had been fixed on her from the moment the door opened. She was caught. Her eyes darted from Lydecker to the two armed General Infantry at his side. There was no escape.
And then the baby started crying. The sound tore her heart out. Lydecker turned his head distracted. He raised a hand. What was actually going to do was uncertain, but before she even knew what she was doing, she darted between him and the baby so fast that they couldn't even see her, let alone stop her.
"Don't hurt my baby!" the words tumbled out her, torn from her desperate young soul. She tensed her whole body, ready to fly at them if they took another step closer.
Lydecker stared at her. One of the two GIs scrambled back onto his feet. She had knocked him over on her way past. Lydecker was still staring at her.
"Your baby?" he gasped. He was shocked. He had expected to come out here to frighten a disobedient child, not a face this … this … "Your baby? In what way 'your baby' 327? You're not his surrogate. He has none of your DNA. Yet you claim to be his – what – mother?"
"His carer," she whispered defensively. These were thoughts she hadn't even voiced to Felicity, but she meant them. Conceived of a childish fantasy and impossible for her to implement, but she meant them. Nothing was more important to her than that tiny bundle of humanity in his plastic cot. Even Lydecker could see that.
It was weird, but something in those frantic hazel eyes touched him deeply in a way that nothing had since his wife died. He almost smiled, but caught himself just in time.
"327!" he growled, " You have disobeyed a direct order. Violated Manticore protocol. Compromised the security of a very valuable piece of equipment." At this he indicated the still wailing infant, "Do not expect to go unpunished. You will report to Private Regents here after drill each day for a series of punishment tasks until I say otherwise. However … this is the first there has been any problem with you, 327. So … so long as this remains the only time there is a problem with you, and … seeing as there is a vacancy to fill, now you've caused the removal of the current chief nurse, you may continue with your uncalled for services as 599's 'carer'."
Her heart skipped a beat, her eyebrows rose sharply and her expression began to broaden into a grin.
Lydecker noticed the change in her features. "So long as this remains the only time there is a problem with you," he warned again.
She came to attention sharply and saluted.
Logan chuckled slightly. "So the old boy had a soft spot after all!" He didn't see her wince when he said that. "So how long were you doing these 'punishment tasks' for?" he asked out of idle curiosity.
She laughed suddenly. Sarcastically. "You know when Manticore burned down a while back … I was still doing them."
Logan smiled sheepishly, "Should've guessed."
