TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME




Chapter 6 by Big Sister



Author's Note: For those of you who don't know off-hand (I had to look this up) 210 is Jondy and 734 is Brin and the angelic wicked Suziegirl just told me that Biggs is 511


452 glared at the screen for several seconds. 'Typical!' she thought, 'It would be just like that idiot to go and get himself killed just when I need him most.'

It was of course always possible that 494 was actually still alive. 'Unfortunately,' she silently added.

The device that fed her computer his vital signs could simply have become damaged or disconnected. In which case he would still be fighting for his life and desperately in need of backup. If he was dead, then there would be twenty odd seriously annoyed guards inside that fertility and, if this mission was to be completed, she would be desperately in need of backup.

Either way – she reached for the phone beneath her desk and punched in a secure number.

"Jampony messenger service," came a cheerful voice on the other end.

"494 is in trouble," Max shot down the line, "I need backup now."

"Really!" the voice retorted, "Have you never heard of being polite? You're supposed to start up a conversation by saying 'hello'!"

Max groaned. I don't have time for this.

"Listen you little mind-altering phy-ops bitch, if I don't get a couple of kick-ass genetically empowered soldiers knocking on my van door in five minutes, 494 will die. So shift your telepathic ass in gear and contact the others!"

"It's not telepathic, it's …" But 452 hung up on her.

At four – make that five – transgenics this was a major mission. Huge, by normal standards. A single X5 was usually more than enough, but in this case it had proven necessary to use more.

It wasn't even a particularly difficult task. 494 and 452 were supposed to stage a bank robbery and keep the local police busy, while 511 and 210 broke into the homes and offices of several high-ranking police officers and obtained copies of various files that Manticore wanted – and that was it.

However the number of police officers Manticore wanted files from was by no means small – more like enough to sink several small battleships. Which was why Manticore had declared it a two-man job.

The decoy mission, the bank-robbery, wasn't exactly that much harder – or at least it shouldn't have been. Normally it would have been a simple case of running the decoy and then getting onto the main mission – but due to the difficulties of staying undetected with a large amount of loot, while trying to break into the houses of the very same police officers that were already searching for you, it had been decided that it would be easier to use a separate team for each mission.

Which presented a new whole problem, keeping Team Alpha (511 and 210) and Team Beta (494 and herself) talking to each other. Obviously, simply phoning each other to check on their status wasn't an option, as by this point the police had most of the phone-lines in Seattle tapped.

The problem was solved by a unique idea of 210's during recon. Which got her in damn fine favour with Renfro now, didn't it? Max thought bitterly. The idea was for someone from Manticore to get a job as a dispatcher in a messenger service and act as an intermediary, interpreting messages from one team and sending them on to the other. The advantage of using a messenger service was of course that, should the phone cease to be an option, they could always send each other packages.

Renfro had naturally been 'building on the idea' when she decided to use a phy-ops unit for that role. Phy-ops would have no trouble getting the job and even less maintaining cover for all parties (messengers would simply forget that they had made fifty runs to the same address, bosses would not notice the unauthorised runs and so on), but 452 still didn't like the fact that the phy-ops unit was there. She couldn't forget the year she had spent at the hands of the adolescent phy-ops units after she and 210 had been recaptured during the '09 escape.

Her musing was rudely interrupted by sound of somebody knocking on the van door.

Warily she opened it, ready to dodge a would-be attacker.

"That makes it 4 minutes 59.3 seconds exactly since your phone call. Do we get a lollipop or something?"

"210!" 452 said by way of greeting.

She could never look at the other X5 without some kind odd feeling stirring in the pit of her stomach.

She remembered the night of the escape.

Together they broke out of the woods. Herself and the others.

TRAITORS SNEAKS RATS

She saw 210 run across the ice. She followed her.

It broke.

She was plunged into the ice-cold water. She could see 210 above her staring down after her rapidly vanishing body. She struggled to reach the surface. Get out. Breathe.

Then she saw 210 look up in fright and everything went very bright. Foolishly she tried to escape her Manticore rescuers by swimming further beneath the ice. Escape them.

WRONG STUPID IGNORANT SINFUL BAD

But in the end they found her and took her and her sister

FELLOW SOLIDER

back to the warm safety and security of Manticore

RIGHT HAPPY GOOD

where they were taught the true value of who they were once more.

"Hey," another voice said, "We're here too." 452 noticed a pale dark-haired male X5 immediately behind 210 and beside him – 452 gritted her teeth instinctively – the chirpy brunette that was the phy-ops unit.

"I'm sorry 511," 452 replied quickly, "It's just that I saw 210 first as I came out of the van." She didn't want 511 thinking that she was in any way closer to her fellow solider from her old traitorous unit than she was to him or 494 or any other member of the unit she had been transferred into after the escape. Because she wasn't. Not at all.

"So what's happened to 494?" 511 asked.


Slowly as his vision cleared he found himself looking into the face of 452.

"Okay, if I've got to be dead – can't I at least have something better to look at?" he muttered.

"Err buddy?" a voice said and the face changed into that of his best friend from his unit, 511.

"Better," 494 murmured, "But I was thinking more along the lines of female and hot and …"

Something seized his shoulders, lifting him up and spinning him around so that his vision fell on two rather cute brunettes.

"That's good! Now just let them get naked and I'm there."

For an answer something struck him hard across the head.

"Ouch," he paused, rubbing it where he'd been struck, "I can feel pain – I take it I'm not dead then?"

"No sorry pal," 511's voice came laughing in his ear, "But I'm sure that girl over there can make you think you are again if you'd like."

"So can this one over here," 452 added.

Slowly 494 took stock of his surroundings. He was kneeling on the floor, with 511 and 452 supporting him, in a large room with a row of safes lining one wall and a corridor full of offices coming of another. Bound securely with duck tape to pillars in the centre of the room were 599 and all of 494's twenty-odd attackers. In front of him 494 now recognised the two brunettes as 210 and the phy-ops unit that he and 452 had used as the messenger between themselves and Team Alpha.

"We're still in the bank?" he asked trying to ascertain the facts, "This is the main vault room that I was heading for?"

"That's right," 452 replied, leaving him to check on the unconscious prisoners.

"And you guys managed to take them out okay?"

"What does it look like, 494?" 511 retorted, joining her, "Just because you fight like a girl and can't handle a couple of ordinary civilian soldiers – doesn't mean we all have to."

"I am telling you, man, those people are not ordinary," 494 shot back at him, "They fight as hard as transgenics – and I should know – I fought a transgenic just five minutes before them."

"What you mean this loser with 10 years less training than you?" 210 laughed, slapping the man in question across the head as she passed him.

It was the phy-ops unit who took pity on him. "We used stun-grenades," she explained, "It was really fun!"

As one the X5s turned around and stared at her. She shrank back into her corner.

Alone out of the entire party she was not involved with the task at hand of checking on the duck-tape bound captives. In fact she seemed to be avoiding contact with everyone, transgenic and prisoner alike, she was just standing apart in a corner by the window, ignoring them. Or more accurately they were ignoring her.

494 could see why. All X5s hated and feared phy-ops, because of the way they were used to control the X-series, so naturally they wanted her and all her kind to be as far way from them as possible. Not exactly the right set-up for a best pals situation.

He wondered for a second why she didn't just use her mind-control thingie on them to make them like her, but then he guessed – correctly as it happened - that there were just too many X5s here for her to get away with it.

"So what's the plan now?" 494 asked rising to his feet, "Are we gonna just take the money and leave this lot here?"

"Nah, we've gone to plan B," 452 explained, "We're gonna take them all hostage."

494 started to laugh at this, but stopped as soon as he saw the looks on their faces.

"You're not serious?" he gasped.

"Sure are," 210 smiled.

"But what if they wake up?" his voice had become strangely high-pitched as he thought of it.

"Oh don't worry your little wussy head about that, 494," 511 laughed, "They're gonna stay sedated. We have enough here to last for about 10 hours at least. After that there's always mind-control girlie."

"Okay," 210 smiled looking up, "They look okay to me. Keep checking on them you two. Don't want of them to choke or fall into a coma or something.511 and I have to go and meet 734 now."

"You're leaving?" 494 gasped, "You're gonna leave us alone with them?"

"That's right 494," 246 replied, "Now that you and 452 have the situation back under control, somebody's got to go and get those files, haven't they?"

"But … but …"

"What?" 210 laughed, "Don't tell me your afraid of them? What are they gonna do? Snore at you?"

"But that one's White! You know! The one Manticore is always sending transgenics to assassinate and from whose house they never return!"

There was silence.

Then a smile lit up 452's face.

"Really?" she grinned.