The other three were already there, crouched in some bushes by the garden wall, when Alec turned up at the house they were going to break into. The younger man checked his watch - he was five minutes early!
"Ready?" Max asked, shifting her position slightly, "Then lets do this!"
They jumped over the wall, just missing the sensors, and split up. Kitty and Nick disappeared out of sight almost immediately. The two X5s crept noiselessly along the brickwork making their way to the guardhouse.
"You know, Max…" Alec began, shattering the effect.
"Shut up,"
"Fine!" he muttered, his voice betraying the real hurt, "Rude - but fine!"
She shook her head, "No really - shut up. There's a guard heading this way."
He tensed in attack stance, but Max grabbed his arm and pulled him behind some bins for cover. She pressed one hand over his mouth and gripped his arm with the other, forcing to wait with her for the offending article of humanity to pass.
"W-what the hell was that for, Max!" Alec spluttered angrily as she released him.
"He was heading back to the guardhouse," she explained, "Way I figure, if we take him out there we can lock him in with all his other little guard buddies and we won't have to worry about nobody waking up and raising the alarm."
"Fine," he hissed, "But at what part does that include you pushing me around like a helpless baby?"
"Oh shut up before I knock you on your ass,"
"My ass again, Maxie?" Alec suddenly had that mischievous grin back on his face.
"Shut up!"
"Fine," he snapped. A few minutes passed in sulky silence … then Max grabbed his arm hard enough to cut off the blood supply.
"Ouch – what?"
"We're here," She pointed to small wooden lean-to that had been put up against the outside wall. It couldn't have been much bigger than Max's bedroom, but she could distinctly make out at least four people inside through the dirty windows on either side of the door.
Security was monitored at the house. This was just a place for the guards to rest in between patrols. One of them should be leaving in a minute to replace the guard they had let go back in, but it was cold outside and the guards looked like they wanted to make that a very long minute.
"That's great," Alec sighed, "You know, Maxie, you might wanna let me have my arm back now. I tend to be better at throwing punches when it isn't throbbing with pain," She released him quickly with a half-embarrassed smile, which was completely lost on Alec as he nursed the sore limb.
Max gave him five seconds to stop cursing, before she moved into combat position. The other transgenic copied her warily.
"On three," she whispered, "One, two …"
"Three," Alec gasped and went crashing through one of the windows. Max sat still for a second stunned before following him. She was just in time to knock the last guard unconscious before he attacked Alec, who was taking out one of his mates, from behind with a recently detached table leg.
"I thought we were meant to go in together!" Alec snapped at her, as both guards fell to the floor oblivious to the world.
"We would have done," she hissed back, "If you hadn't jumped the gun and waited for me to count to three."
Alec suddenly grinned again, "You know Maxie, I can't have 'jumped the gun' and 'waited for you to say three' at the same time. It's gotta be one or the other. Make your mind up!"
"Shut up," she muttered, sneaking back outside to sit beside one of the motion sensors, just outside of its range.
Alec joined her quickly, "You know Maxie, what is it with you? You're always either telling me to shut up or talking about my ass. It getting kinda boring. Can't you say something else?"
She punched him hard in the ribs.
"I shouldn't have asked," he muttered.
Five minutes later, he started again, "So Maxie…"
"What!"
He pulled back in alarm, but finished his sentence anyway, "Why are we baby-sitting a motion sensor?"
Max growled, but – seeing as the question had finally been vaguely sensible – she felt obliged to answer, much as it pained her. "We're waiting for it to go dead, you imbecile, so that we know Kitty and Nick have cut the power line to them."
"Okay – you know Maxie …"
"No! I don't know! I don't care! And I sure as hell wish you would just shut up!" Just at that point, the lights on the sensor flashed out of existence and she took off towards the window of the surveillance room at a speed no ordinary human eye could follow.
Alec's eyes, however, followed her graceful figure without any trouble, but all trace of smile had vanished from his face. "Fine!" he whispered and let the rest of his anatomy follow her.
She was waiting for him underneath the window, hidden from sight only by a few rosebushes. Slowly he crouched down beside her, watching her carefully in case he got snapped at again.
Thankfully though, she was all business. The windows of the security room were very large with a small balcony for pot plants in front of them. It was big enough for them to go through together, which would enable them to keep the element of surprise.
Alec tried to glimpse inside the room. Oddly, it was so brightly lit that this proved easy. He could several people sitting in front of the monitors inside without any difficulty at all. Something about them struck him as weird. He turned to mention it to Max, but she had already started snapping orders.
"On three," she muttered, "And wait for me this time! One, two, three!"
They smashed through into the well-lit room, landing side by side in a shower of broken glass. They tensed ready to fend off attackers … but nothing happened. They were just ignored.
Then the chairs suddenly swivelled around.
"Uh-oh!" Alec whispered.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Meanwhile in a side building on the opposite side of the grounds, Kitty and Nick had just finished locking the guard dogs down in the kennels for the night.
"Nice puppies," Kitty whispered sarcastically, as they slipped through a side door, the lock of which Nick had just spent several minutes picking (no mean task considering the amount of alarms on the thing), into the house.
They were in the kitchen. The male transgenic glanced up along the top of the walls. There were at least three cameras in the room.
"How do we know whether they've taken out the room yet?" he asked nervously.
"Oh simple really," Kitty replied, "If they haven't – an alarm goes off."
"Something tells me we should have thought harder about this part of our plan."
Kitty smiled, "Doesn't really matter. Even if we are spotted, the other two will have taken out the guards by now and we dealt with the dogs. That means there shouldn't be too much left to deal with us. Just the staff in the surveillance room probably. They shouldn't be to hard to take out and even if they are … we have Max and Alec for back-up somewhere in here."
"Right," Nick shrugged, still nervous, "So – do we bother to sneak along this room or do we just step out boldly in front of the camera?"
"Don't think it matters. The camera there will already be showing lots of pretty pictures of us anyway," She pointed at one Nick had missed, "Hope it's caught your best side."
"Lets just get to that darn computer!" her brother snapped leading the way.
Five minutes later, while her brother stood by the doorway watching the hall, Kitty was seated in front of what actually looked like an ancient apple-power computer, manufactured around 2012 if she wasn't mistaken. Considering the level of security protecting this tired old thing, she was actually quite disappointed. It would have been nice to test her hacking skills on something a little more challenging.
It only took Kitty a few seconds to locate the files she needed and a few more to crack the password, but then even an ordinary person wouldn't have taken much longer on something this old.
She scanned the file hurriedly and gasped.
"You okay Kitten?" her brother asked.
"Yeah, yeah. It's just … just the wrong file, that's all," she muttered, minimising it before he could read it.
"Okay," he turned back to the hall.
She brought the file up again. Unfortunately she had been lying. It was the right file alright … and she didn't like what she was reading one little bit.
'All six bodies bore deep nail marks on their necks, which ranged to up to an inch in depth. One of the bodies was clutching a small piece of black fabric, cotton, which might have been torn from her attacker's shirt. Small samples of DNA, originally thought to have belonged to the killer, were removed also from the bodies – however strangely in all cases this DNA did not appear to be human. Interestingly there were strong similarities between the samples of DNA and canine DNA, however these were not strong enough for this to actually be a canine …'
Kitty stopped reading. She hung her head in her hands for a moment. She felt like crying, but that would have alerted her brother.
Carefully, checking that Nick was still watching the empty hallway, she deleted what she had just read and replaced it with a new text.
'Remarkably for such brutal attacks there was very little real evidence found at the crime scene and even the forensic report proved inconclusive.'
Then she downloaded the altered file onto a disk and joined her brother in the hallway. She tapped him on the shoulder with the floppy.
"Make sure this gets back to Logan for me. I've got something I've gotta do."
"Aren't you going back to the penthouse?" Nick asked in surprise.
"No, like I said, I'm busy. Give them my apologies for standing them up, won't you?"
Just then the alarm went off.
"What the hell?" Nick cried.
"Someone must have woken up after the kids left the surveillance room," Kitty whispered urgently, "Come on! Let's get up there and check on them!" Within seconds the two transgenics were just blurs in the hallway.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Logan looked up in relief when he heard the doorbell ring. The transgenics were almost half an hour late now.
He was very worried. Logan had tried, unsuccessfully, to busy himself with Eyes Only work on his computer, but it didn't hold any of its usual fascination for him. He had given up now and was perched on his sofa, fidgeting, as he watched the clock tick past every oh-so-slow second.
The man spun round excitedly as he heard the lock being picked and – then froze in astonishment as he saw Nick … on his own. Of course, he reminded himself irritably, they had agreed to split up and meet here. He had just been hoping that they might arrive together … or on time …
Still he didn't like it. Logan had known Nick for a few months now, but he had never seen him without his sister … and then there was that look on his face …
"Aren't they here?" Nick said edgily, scanning the apartment.
Logan knew what he meant at once. His heart sank. "No … you're first."
"Damn! Kitty and I heard an alarm go off when we left the computer room with the disk – it's here by the way – we rushed upstairs to check the surveillance room. It was empty. No unconscious security staff. No sign of the kids. No sign of a fight either. We couldn't stay in the grounds for long, police were on their way, but we didn't find anything there either."
"So? What do you think happened?" Logan muttered quietly, biting his lip nervous at the thought of anything happing to Max.
"Kitty thinks that maybe they came round after the kids left," Nick sighed, "But I dunno. All the staff? In the two minutes that must have elapsed between them leaving the room and the alarm going off? Doesn't sound right – and Kitty seemed distracted anyway …"
"Why?" Logan asked immediately.
Nick shrugged, "I have no idea … she's just moody."
"So what do you think happened to Max?" the other man asked him slowly.
A shadow passed across Nick's face, "I dunno … She's a smart girl, but … it doesn't look good, does it?" Nick shrugged helplessly.
Logan sighed, walking back to his computer, "I'm going to check the logs of the sector cross points. Maybe I'll come up with something."
The transgenic fidgeted in the living room for several seconds before following him. As soon as he stood still again, he started tapping on the wall in frustration. Logan shot him an irritated glance.
"Sorry," he pulled away from the wall, but immediately began pacing the room, which Logan didn't like any better.
"I shouldn't have left her go in alone!" Nick finally cried, letting himself flop back against the wall, "You think somethings happened too right?"
"Shouldn't have let who go?" Logan asked distractedly, "Kitty?"
"Max!" Nick cried, "I should've gone with her! Alec's just a kid – what the hell could he have done!"
"Done about what?" Logan snapped, "We don't even know if anything has happened yet! What the hell are you so worried about Max for anyway? The way your acting anyone would think you're her father … or something …" His voice trailed off. A half-forgotten memory had crossed his mind. He remembered the way Zack had always acted when Max was in trouble. The frantic 'she's my family and I have to protect her' attitude.
"Are you?" he whispered hoarsely.
"What?" Nick looked distracted.
"Her father – or something," Logan said. No hint of amusement on his face. Suddenly other memories sprang to his mind. Memories of the first conversation he had ever had with Nick. "You told me that you'd had a charge once," the ordinary man explained, "A girl - you used the word 'she' when you mentioned her. 'She was too young to remember me now' and Max was one of the youngest in her unit…"
The transgenic stared at him. He was very still now. If it hadn't been for the fierceness in those eyes, Logan would have wondered whether he was still alive. He could only guess at the emotion raging behind those wild hazel windows.
Slowly, finally Nick smiled … and nodded, "It was that obvious, huh? Yes … I was Max's carer."
Logan nodded too, understanding the other man slightly better, "You know - she would have loved to have known about you."
Nick suddenly laughed hysterically. Logan flinched at the sound. "Of course she would, but if I'd gone to see her I would've lead Manticore right to her. What was I supposed to do?"
"Why didn't you tell her once it burnt down?"
"Yeah sure! Great idea!" Nick sank into a chair with a rueful grin on his face, " 'Hello Maxie, you don't remember me but I'm the guy who used to look after you when you were a kid. Anyway I've not been there for you your entire life, but I'm back now, so that's okay then.' Sure Logan. That'll work!"
There was an awkward silence.
Then Nick stood up suddenly, "I'm going to check their apartments and Crash again. Then I'll work across the local area – maybe they just got held up."
"Yeah – I've got to start searching too." Logan said turning back to his computer.