Disclaimer
Part 11
Jondy was sure that she must have looked like a complete idiot. Her mouth was frozen half open and her eyes as wide as saucers, babbling to find something to say as she watched the darker girl speak to Apion through the comm. "Apion get them back to the van."
She barely heard the confirmation, "Yes ma'am."
"Good. I'm sending out Jondy. If I'm not out in ten go without me," she lashed out snatching the earpiece away, her chest heaving, "What are you doing?"
They caught gazes, blue meeting brown, time slowing down like it always had. The persistent voice of Apion broke them from the trance and she handed the ear-piece back, "Ma'am . . . ma'am are you there? Did I hear you right? Can you hear me?"
"If me and Max aren't out in ten minutes leave without us," Jondy explained and broke contact, "You ain't doing this alone."
******
The air was tense in TC. Alec could feel the fear and anxiety wash over him the second he stepped past the broken wire fence. His eyes shot left and right as if searching for some invisible monster as he walked into headquarters.
His suped up reflexes were the only thing that allowed him to jump out of the way as a fuming Mole rushed past.
He watched the lizard man burst up the stairs, his jaw clenched so hard on his cigar that Alec watched as it broke in two and fell to the metal grate floor. Transgenics were running around like mad as Mole yelled and ordered them around, the pale misshapen transgenic, he'd seen the last time he'd been here, was furiously bringing up windows and typing onto the numerous computers as if his life depended on it.
A quick glance to the green transhuman on a warpath and that possibility didn't seem so ridiculous.
He strode towards the higher balcony, avoiding as many people as he could, not quite sure himself on what he was going to do.
"Mole? What's happening?" the nomlie looked up in a rage and Alec suppressed the urge to back away, "I'll tell you what is fucking happening. That idiot of your breeding partner just decided to go save a fucking ordinary!"
"And what's wrong with that?" he asked confused.
He glanced around quickly when the whole room just halted staring at him. His eyes returned to the stormy red eyes of the lizard, "Oh I suppose you think it's very noble of her don't you? That it was the right thing to do?"
The soft tone Mole spoke with was mocking and jeering but when Alec opened his mouth to speak the transhuman yelled with rage looking down on him nose to nose, "Well I have news for you pretty boy, it isn't. An ordinary doesn't and will never be worth risking a transgenic for. NEVER!"
Alec felt his anger growing and he spit back, "See that's why we're being hunted down in the streets. Because people always think that they're better and they're the ones that need to survive. We're the same as them, we're just as human, we make the same mistakes and have the same successes!"
"We aren't like them and we never will be! Open your freaking eyes and look around! All they see is a pack of monsters that are out to get them! You've been out in this world too long for your own good and I can't speak for everyone here but the last thing I want to be is an ordinary. They think they're life is bad cause they're poor. But they can't understand, YOU can't understand. You think life at Manticore was bad when you were ten, a little brainwashing, a few maneuvers outside?!" the lizard boomed.
"Well it sucked pretty hard yeah!" Alec retorted his anger rising with each of Mole's words.
He smiled bitterly, "Well take it from us, later on it got a whole lot worse. Ask anyone here who's been through it. You think you're a god cause you had the guts to leave well let me fill in the blanks, the ones who had the guts were the ones who stayed. The ones who got punished for each one of the mistakes you little rug-rats made. Ask any X5 that was brainwashed, simplified and tortured to see if they'd turn like you, your old unit members that didn't make it, heck ask the clones! You were living the life and meanwhile us . . . we were living the punishments, choking on the tightened leashes."
Alec refused the urge to cower but the guilt seeped into his eyes for a flash of a second, "Why don't you ask Max about her life?! About how it felt in psy-ops at age 7 and at age 9 and at 16 and at age 19. Ask her how it felt to be TORTURED, to be TESTED, to lose your own sanity locked inside a metal box. To be poked and prodded by doctors for so long that you're not sure if it's day or night or Monday or Thursday of March or May! SHE'S NOT WORTH LOSING OVER SOME STUPID DUMB FUCKING ORDINARY! Maybe to you but not to me."
*******
"Oh no way we aren't doing that," Jondy began shaking her head violently speaking loudly enough to give their position away, intentionally of course, as they came out from behind their hiding place, "Do you have a death wish?" she hissed.
"The dumbest plan has always worked for us. Remember Beijing?" she scoffed back, "Besides I outrank you."
"Oh trust you to pull rank," an arrogant grin was her only reply as they walked towards a flabbergasted White.
"So you're the latest guy on my ass. I mean Renfro was a bitch but she liked me alive. Why do you want me dead so much?" she asked cocking her hip to the side. She smiled sensually and winked as the guards surrounded her and Jondy and the two sisters went back to back.
"Oh I like him, he's kinda cute," Jondy announced pointing to Otto even as White's men drew their guns, "You think this has something to do with that Sandeman guy? I mean the reason why they want you so much."
"Glad you could stop by 210. Now we'll have to birds with one stone. Get them!" White ordered covering up the surprise he'd felt when they'd uttered his father's name.
She grinned as the men jumped forward to grab them and the two jumped up contemporarily kicking their legs out and smashing two men to the ground each.
452 landed again, her eyes turning cold, like stone as she faced her opponents. She felt the swoosh of air as someone raised a gun to her back and her elbow shot back subconsciously as her left hand snatched the gun away and shot a man heading for her. A foot kicked the gun away and she grinned turning towards her attacker.
Never hesitating she lashed out; a perfectly aimed punch flying towards the man's skull following by a right hook into the man's gut causing him to recoil in pain. Grabbing his head in her hands she smashed it upon her knee; a deep, dark side of her reveling in the blood that flew as she felt his bones smash against her flesh.
She could see Jondy with the back of her eye fighting beside her. She could feel her mind become one with her body, as more men punched and kicked at her.
The beast was roaring at its door, smashing its whole body against it as she jumped a leg and kicked a man in the torso watching him fly and smash into the cage. She rolled her eyes at Asha's terrified scream losing her concentration long enough for someone's foot to smash into her back.
Twisting her body as she jumped back up her legs wrapped against somebody's neck, the momentum swinging her round and the man smashing to the ground his neck snapped. The sound echoed in her ears, the animal within her growling to be released.
Her hits were precise and powerful and the sounds of flesh hitting flesh and the breaking of bones wafted through the warehouse. Her eyes glinted as she breathed unevenly and observed the massacre on the ground.
Blood was everywhere; on her face, clothes and she wiped her hands on the legs of her pants. White stood in front of her clapping, a gun in his hand, "Bravo. Congratulations for you have just taken out 12 of my men. And all that just to save a human. That's very martyr of you; sacrificing yourself for the blonde."
"What can I say Ames, I try," she taunted.
"We'll I've caught my bigger fish. I don't need her anymore," His hand rose with the gun to a terrified Asha.
Her eyes clinched closed and her arms circled her knees as the shot rung out.
*******
Alec sat on a chair as Mole shouted commands left and right feeling all but helpful. Dread washed over him as he realized that he was letting history repeat itself. He was gonna stand on the sidelines saving himself like he'd always done.
White didn't sound like the kind of person someone wanted to tangle with but neither was he.
"Where are they?" his voice was low and tense barely hiding the ascent of sentiment.
"Oh like I'm gonna tell you so you can go and get yourself killed," the transhuman scoffed not even looking up from the screen, he was looking at, that showed the satellite footage.
Mole didn't even have time to blink suddenly finding himself pinned against a wall 2 feet from the ground. The hands around his neck tightened and he stared straight into Alec's green tempest eyes, "Where is she?"
Two arms wrapped around his own neck and yanked him off of Mole holding him suspended in mid air but he didn't change his expression as he looked at Joshua, "Little fella is in Sector 12."
Mole rubbed his neck righting himself; "She's on the docks. Steam factory. Go and get yourself killed, no skin off my back."
******
Jondy watched chilled in place as Max's body connected with White's making him miss the shot and knocking the gun away from him, "Get her out of there! NOW JON! Don't worry about me!"
Jondy jumped into action prying the cage open and pulling Asha out.
452 jumped back onto her feet and began circling her opponent. She watched with the back of her eye her sister hesitate, watched the guilt and concern flash over her face, "Just go Jon!"
The sound of running feet comforted her and she focused her attention on the man in front of her. Her nose scrunched up in disdain as he cracked his neck, "So what's this breeding cult thing-e-ma-jig Ames?" her expression was still 452's, a mocking tone, the same disobeying obedience she'd had at Manticore.
His answer was his fist as he shot out going straight for her face but she'd anticipated dodging the blow and going for one of her own to his midsection and propelling him to the ground where he smashed his face.
He rose again touching his split lip; "You seem to have done your homework 452. Then you must know that we don't feel pain," the quick quirk of surprise made him grin, "Oh you didn't know that. Well you DO feel pain."
Faking a left hook he swept his leg under hers and went to punch her but she rolled, "Well you see Ames. While you were busy doing . . . well whatever it is that you do, I was learning 'The hundred easiest ways to kill a man'."
Fingers curled her palm shot out hitting his kneecap smashing it back with a resounding crack quickly followed by a kick between his legs. Her arms grabbed his shoulders flinging him off of her and into a stone pillar.
Not missing a beat she jumped to her feet again and back into the fight. The punches and blocks and kicks and spins seemed to be an orchestrated game, a practiced routine. The sound of cracking bones and hitting flesh becoming a symphony nursing the animal.
Her shoulder ached from when she'd fallen on it and it felt stiff and swollen. Her head seemed full of cotton from when she'd banged it but none of it mattered. Her movements were subconscious, instantaneous like nature. It was like she was detached from it all.
Pain flashed through her throbbing at her side, the familiar pain of a bullet graze and she turned with a flying kick smashing the risen man in the face breaking his jaw.
She could hear the sound of running feet, she knew that back up was coming but she ignored the voice that told her to run instead nursing the one that wanted to fight.
Her heart palpitated and her side felt like fire as her eyes crossed and she could feel the steel door giving way, breaking from the incessant pummeling. A fist smashed into her face sending her flying into the bars of the cage breaking her collar bone and ripping a scream from her throat that became a growl as the door inside her smashed, in unison with the warehouse door, and the animal was released.
Her opponent raised his eyes to the entrance and she took full advantage of his distraction throwing herself at him, punching, kicking, jabbing and using every trick she knew. Her eyes were fiery, burning and flashing with something primitive, the look a cornered predator would have.
Ames found himself staring into the eyes of a killer as he tried desperately to keep blocking her ceaseless attacks. She wasn't Max anymore, she wasn't 452 either; she was the animal every transgenic contained within themselves, some more successfully than others did.
*****
Alec could only feel the reverberating purr of the motor beneath him, hear the thundering buzz of the engine as he pushed the bike harder. In and out and between cars flying down the streets of Seattle. He could see the warehouse and the tall chainlike fence in front of it. A smile appeared upon his face as he gunned it harder and saw the ground move away from him as he sailed over it, the wind running through his hair.
The rear tire skidded knocking down the two men at the gate. Regaining his balance he sped for the door breaking it open and sending splinters of wood flying.
He didn't even worry as he dropped the bike onto its side and ran towards the fight. Her scream halted him and he watched the animalistic figure that had been Max throw herself into the fight, strength winning over mathematical precision.
He watched the blood fly from White's face as her fists crunched against his flesh breaking bones as if they were twigs. Adrenaline surged through his blood as he ran towards them. White on the ground unconscious with her on top smashing her hands into his face till her knuckles ached and burned, no doubt a couple of them broken.
His arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled her with him forcing her to run. He dragged her along out into the open and towards the gate as shots rang out behind them from guards that had come in aid of White and his men. He felt her jerk just a second before the telltale burning of a bullet ripped into his thigh.
He stumbled for a split second before determination set into his face and throwing Max over his shoulder he jumped propelling himself airborne and over the gate.
******
She could feel the burning throb of an open wound oozing blood, the fire to her side and her shoulder. She could feel her broken collar bone and her knuckles grinding against each other and she didn't fight the darkness.
Soft smile upon his far too pink lips as he trailed kisses on her abdomen. The silky texture of his blonde hair through her fingers made her shiver, "Brendan."
The intimate glow of the room turned to harsh and she squinted trying to see past it, "He didn't have to die. It's your fault he died you got attached."
The laser seared a path into her eye, pain shooting through her brain stem and down her spine, as she struggled against the restraints, "NO . . . you killed him, it was you . . ."
Rough hands shoved the horse bit into her mouth blocking her screams as the images began flashing past her eyes. Her body convulsed in the chair fighting against the pictures flashing. The straps held her down in place and the laser was incandescent. She fought, battled the images… DUTY… DISCIPLINE… MISSION… TRAITOR…
"You are nothing 452… you are a soldier… soldiers don't have feelings… they don't have the capacity to love… you're poison… Brendan's death is your fault… it's all your fault… your actions."
The blinding laser died but she was still strapped this time to a table. She tried to look away but there were mirrors on every wall and metal forced her eyes to stay open, forcing her to see the doctor's ghastly art that played on her chest.
The scalpel cut and danced onto her naked skin, splitting it open, blood dribbling down to soak the towel beneath her. The bloodied tools reflecting over and over as a strangled scream was torn from her.
"It's nothing personal 452 . . . we need to determine your mental stability . . . clone . . . 453 . . . schizophrenic . . . sadistic . . . nothing personal 452 . . . Sam . . .
*******