Author's Note: I actually had this chapter done about four days ago, but I've had some family problems so I haven't been home to put it up. It seems I actually found the solution to my muse problem: writing on my mom's laptop. It's just for work, so it's not like there's a lot of fun stuff on it, but it's kind of fun to be able to write in my room or in the living room, rather than in the computer room. Maybe my muse just doesn't like the setting.
LttleL, which sentence was it? I probably did forget a word, I do that a lot. I've already noticed that I wrote "Alec look up" rather than "Alec looked up", so it looked like a five-year-old wrote that sentence. My biggest one is whenever I try to type "living room" I somehow manage to skip to word room. I swear my computer is deleting words on me. :P
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, the FOX executives refused to sell me the rights to Dark Angel, so I still own nothing.
Dust In The Wind
By Be Boring
Chapter 7: Tough Choices
Does this woman ever give up? Logan thought irritably. Minx hadn't stopped questioning him about his little trip outside Terminal City since they had left Sandeman's house. I suppose Familiars aren't in the habit of taking someone at their word.
"How long have you lived in that house?" she asked in a would-be-casual voice.
"Ever since Manticore was burned down. It's a quiet neighborhood where people don't ask too many questions."
"But I thought that there was a canine transgenic who kidnapped a blind girl from that neighborhood and killed her?"
Logan turned to look at her, barely paying attention to the road anymore. "He didn't kill her, they were friends and he was trying to get her out of the way of some street punks that wanted to beat him up. We already know who killed her."
"Who?"
Logan glanced forward and saw the gates of Terminal City in the distance. "We're here." Before she could continue her interrogation, he climbed out of the car and gathered his clothes together.
She stayed irritatingly close behind him as they walked to the manhole cover that was closest to them. "You didn't answer my question, who killed the girl?"
Logan was hardly paying attention, as they climbed down he could hear something up ahead. It sounded like a lot of people were in one small area, and they didn't sound happy. They must have seen Alec's hack. He situated his clothes under one arm and started to climb up the ladder. "You know damn well who did it," he replied finally. Minx didn't have too much time to ponder what he had said; the moment her head popped out of the sewers, she was grabbed by practically a dozen pairs of hands.
"What's going on?" she snapped as she was thrown against a chair and a few transgenics started tying her hands behind it.
Mole smiled in an almost friendly manner as he stepped in front of her. "I guess you thought you were a pretty clever girl for fooling us for these last few days. But how much did you actually know about how Manticore did its cloning? I'm guessing you didn't know very much."
Although she seemed to be fairly calm, there was a spark of something like fear in her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."
That strange smile never left Mole's face as he turned and gestured for a group of X6s to come forward. They made their way to him, dragging a small TV with a built-in VCR. When Mole nodded, they pressed play. Immediately, Logan recognized his own eyes staring out of the screen at him through the Eyes Only banners.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom video bulletin. The cable hack will last exactly sixty seconds. It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city. Not too long ago, an intruder made their way into Terminal City. This person entered only because everyone believed that she was an X4, more specifically, the X4 that the leader of the city was cloned after. Although the barcode seemed authentic, what these people didn't realize is that there were no clones made of the X4s. Despite the fact that there are X4s out there, the first truly successful group was the X5 division. While these people did not realize this, the population of Terminal City has. It would not be wise for this woman to remain there much longer. This is also a message to those that sent her there. If you insist on sending spies into the midst of the transgenics, you must understand that their patience will only last so long. Peace out."
Silence spread throughout the area as Minx took in what she had just seen. Logan was also processing it. Alec had gotten slightly carried away when he made his ending threat, that wasn't something Logan would have said. Still, the hack got its point across without leaving any room for doubt as to who Minx really was. It seemed that she was realizing this as well, because she didn't even try to protest as some transgenics lifted her chair and started taking her towards one of the old warehouses that filled the city. She was about to find out how transgenics responded to being tricked.
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The doctors had quite a job trying to reactivate the implant in Max's head. For one thing, it was a precise job that needed to be done perfectly, but Max had to keep up her seizures so that they would still feel the urgency to get the job finished quickly. But one of the things they hadn't expected was that the implant had migrated slightly. Not much, due to its connection to Max's brain, but it had shifted. Max heard one of the doctors theorize that her body was trying to get rid of the invasion, but the implant could only move so far without causing damage. That must be why I had those seizures back when Logan and I went to Cape Haven, Max realized. According to what the doctors were saying, once her body realized that it couldn't throw the implant away, it stopped trying, and that's when the seizures stopped. The reason her pills and milk wouldn't work to stop the seizures was because the seizures had nothing to do with her serotonin deficiency, they were due to the stress on her brain as her body fought to get the implant out.
"How will we know when the implant is working again?" Dr. Hathel asked. Max was starting to wonder that herself, when suddenly she felt something wet on her face. It almost felt like she was crying, but it had a slightly different feel. Still, it wasn't until one of the doctors removed the knife they had been using to make a connection to the implant that she knew it was working again. Rather than feeling the slight, annoying stab of pain she usually did, there was just an odd tingly feeling. There was no pain whatsoever. She recognized this feeling, it was what she had felt whenever one of the Reds had punched her when she had first put the implant in. Slowly, she let her false seizures slow down to nothing, so that her body was relaxing against the table. It was strange though, she had been starting to feel worn out from her efforts earlier, but now it felt like she had been recharged.
One of the doctors felt her pulse, then nodded to Dr. Hathel. "Go and tell Agent White that the seizures have stopped."
White was sitting in a rather stiff chair as he waited to hear what they had to tell him. When Dr. Hathel finally emerged from the other room, he was on his feet in an instant. "Have they stopped?" Dr. Hathel barely got the chance to nod before White asked, "Is she restrained?"
Dr. Mitchell, who had been standing near the door, stepped forward. "Why would she need to be restrained?"
White didn't even bother to answer him, he just forced his way into their temporary operating room and headed for Max. If she was going to be several times stronger than she already was, she couldn't be left loose like this.
Max waited until White was leaning over her, starting to strap her arms down, then reached out, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and flung him as hard as she could to her left. She didn't even wait to hear him land, she simply leapt off the table and ran for the door. A doctor she didn't recognize stepped in her way, but it was a fatal mistake. She rammed her elbow into the side of his face, but to her honest surprise, the blow was strong enough to break his neck.
Gunshots were being fired behind her, but the fact that three of them hit her didn't even slow her down. She just felt that strange tingling. Out the door, down a flight of stairs, and through a window at the end of the hallway, yet she still felt no pain. The tiny cuts and scratches felt only like her body was asleep and someone was tapping it in various places. It wasn't as though she didn't notice when her body should have been feeling pain, it was just that she didn't feel the pain itself. It wasn't numbness, it was more like being beyond any kind of full physical feeling. In all honesty, she hated it. It made her feel even less human than she already was. Now I suppose I would agree if someone called me a freak.
Finally, she had to slow down. She didn't have a clue where she was, the buildings that were flashing past were all beginning to look the same to her. Something told her that she was still in Seattle, but there was nothing to indicate exactly where in Seattle she was. After maybe an hour of walking around aimlessly, still feeling slightly thrown by the changes in her body, she thought she saw something familiar. There was a bike up ahead, and it looked like one she had seen before. Snap out of it, I'm sure there's plenty of bikes that look like that. I probably saw one just like it at JamPony. That's when a smile broke out on her face. Maybe the bike was from someone who worked at JamPony.
Max hurried over to it and started checking it out. This is Sky's bike, she realized after a moment. A burst of relief rushed through her. She could just follow Sky back to JamPony. Normal had had an epiphany about the transgenics, maybe he would help her out. At the very least, she might be able to hide out in JamPony until she figured out something better to do.
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Logan couldn't help but cringe slightly when he saw Minx a few hours later, tied up in the basement of one of Terminal City's many warehouses. Some of the transgenics had taken out their anger by beating her, and she looked much worse for the wear. The fact that Familiars didn't bruise easily was another indication of how angry everyone was. Not that he blamed them, but they didn't know what Minx's purpose here was. That was why he had come here. Seeing as how Max was their main focus when it came to transgenics, and he was sure they would know that White had her, then why did they send someone else in? There were only two things he could think of: the Familiars either didn't know that White was coming in to get Max, or they didn't know that Minx was here.
Minx raised her head slightly as Logan approached. To his surprise, she offered a weary smile. "I don't seem to be able to shake you."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "It seems to me that you've got that backwards. I do believe that this is the first time that I've sought you out, every other time it's been you that's found me."
She sat back, apparently trying to make herself comfortable despite the tightness of the ropes. "Well, you must have had a reason to come see me. Let me guess, you want to know exactly what I'm doing here?"
"Yeah, that's the gist of it. Seeing as how Max, or perhaps you're more comfortable with '452', is no longer in Terminal City, then what was your purpose here? I would think that if it was your job to get your hands on her, you would have left, seeing as how she's already in the hands of your people."
She smirked at him, studying his face carefully. "You're in love with her. I guess I didn't notice it before because I've never gotten the chance to see the two of you together, but you're head over heels for her."
Logan felt shocked at first, but then tried to recover his composure. "What makes you say that?"
"Don't try and fool me, it's written all over your face. I have to admit you're a pretty good actor, but it's killing you that she's not here. Then on top of that, seeing as how you seem to know exactly who I am, you know just what the stakes are with her. It wouldn't surprise me if she's dead already."
His jaw gripped painfully, and his stomach lurched. "Don't say that," he hissed dangerously.
Her eyes danced playfully. "Ooh, it seems I've hit a nerve. Have you been trying to block it from your mind? Trying not to imagine just what White will, or probably already did, do to her? She has evaded him for months, made him look like a fool on several occasions, and took his son. He's not going to be gentle when the time comes for him to kill her. It wouldn't surprise me if he decides to take it nice and slow. That's always been his nature."
Logan desperately needed to get the thought of what White could, and assuredly would, do to Max out of his head, so he grasped onto the only piece of information that Minx had given him that didn't hurt like hell. "That's always been his nature? How well do you know him?"
"We knew each other in the Academy of our people, he's something of an old friend. That's how I know he won't hesitate to tear 452 apart."
He took a deep breath, this was only wasting time and hurting him. All he wanted was to get what he came for, then get out of here and never see her again. "You still haven't answered my first question. Seeing as how your people have Max, why are you still here?"
Minx laughed rather condescendingly. "You silly, pathetic little man, I'm not here for 452. The Conclave has no idea that Ames has her, and they have no idea I'm here. None of this is about the danger she means for my people. It's personal."
"I can see how it's personal for White, but what about you? You have no connection to the transgenics other than your physical likeness to Max, so why are you involving yourself in this?"
"Like I said, I'm an old school friend of Ames's. I guess you could say that I was something of a troublemaker back at the Academy, and he always managed to get me back out of trouble. I owe him big time for some of that stuff, and he's calling me on it now. You don't honestly believe that he thinks 452 is the only person who knows his son's condition and location, do you? He knew perfectly well that someone else had to know every bit as much, if not more about his son than she did. That's what my job was. While he tried to get the information out of her, I'd work on finding out everything I could here. Once we had what he needed, he'd kill 452 and I'd get out of this God forsaken place. It's nothing personal, but I had a debt I needed to repay."
"Well, you know what? I am taking personally. You lied to everyone here, including me. Then there's the fact that if you had succeeded, Max would be killed."
Minx chuckled. "How do you know she's not already dead?"
"I don't, but that doesn't mean I have to stop hoping. In fact, that makes me think of something else I want you to answer for me. Where did White take her? I'm sure you know, you had to keep in contact with him somehow."
"Oh please, do you think he'd tell me? I contact him via his cell phone, and it's not like I need to know his location for that. Seeing as how he has his agency position, I'm sure he has hiding places all over the city. If he wants to stay hidden, you won't be able to find him."
"Don't be so sure about that." Logan couldn't take looking at her smug face anymore. She knew the subject was getting to him, and she was exploiting it as much as she could. He finally turned and walked out. At least he had gotten something positive from Minx. Max wasn't dead. White wouldn't kill her until he knew for sure where Ray was, and she would never tell him. Then there was the fact that he'd been with Minx practically the entire time she was here, and was sure that she hadn't found out anything important, so that meant that White definitely didn't know anything. Add it all up, and there wasn't much doubt that Max was still alive somewhere. At least that was some relief.
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"Holy shit Max, what's up with your eyes?" This happened to be the first thing that Sky said when he came out of the old building. Max's hand shot up to her eyes, and it wasn't until she saw the blood on her fingers that she remembered she had been bleeding from the eyes.
"Don't worry about it, I'll get it cleaned up the first chance I get. Do you mind if I follow you back to JamPony? I'm completely screwed up right now."
He nodded, obviously having a hard time looking her in the eyes. "I'll take it slow so you can keep up." When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand to quiet her. "C'mon, I know you're a transgenic and all and you have this super-speed deal going on, but you don't need people seeing that. It's bad enough that you have blood all over your face."
She sighed and nodded in resignation. He was right, how could she not have thought of that? Then again, she had just gone through a lot and was still worried about White finding her again. It was amazing that she was still thinking clearly at all.
It wasn't until she walked into JamPony that she started to feel any better about her situation. It was nice to be here again, this was where she got to pretend she was normal. Of course, now everybody here knew differently. Still, she received some hugs from some of the workers. It wasn't the same though, her friends weren't even here. Sketchy and Original Cindy were still back in Terminal City and none of the transgenics worked here anymore. Also, only half the amount of workers that this place had had from before the incident with the Phalanxes worked here. Ever since Normal had announced on TV that he didn't think transgenics were monsters anymore, the government was requiring a blood test in order for people to work here. Unfortunately, since this information had been given out on every news program in the area, not many people wanted to fill the old positions. It was just too much hassle.
As she reached the counter where Normal was "bip-bip-bipping" every person who passed, he reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders, dragged her over the counter, and shoved her into a sitting position on the floor. "Are you nuts?" he whispered angrily. "There's feds all over the place watching every move my employees and I make, and you just come strolling in? A known transgenic leader, and with blood all over your face no less! You'll get me arrested!"
Max grabbed the box of tissues that Normal regularly kept behind the counter for himself and started wiping the blood off her face. Half of it was dried already, she would need to go into the bathroom to get it all off. "Look, I know I'm not one of your favorite people, even before you knew what I was, but I'm kinda in a jam. I need help."
"You didn't even have to say that, it's not like it's too hard to figure out. You must be desperate if you're coming here for help though."
She shrugged. "Everyone else is in Terminal City, I didn't have anyplace else to go."
"Then why didn't you go there? I'm sure they would be much more capable of protecting you than me."
Max sighed and started licking her fingers so she could wipe her face better. "I'm not asking you to protect me. All I need is a place to hide out. If the feds come, I promise I'll make sure you're not in any trouble."
He threw another package at one of the passing employees, then turned to look down at her. "I think maybe you didn't hear me the first time I asked. Why don't you just go to Terminal City?"
She hesitated, but then decided that she may as well tell him. That would at least leave someone who could tell the residents of Terminal City that she was safe. "I'm not sure I'll ever go back there."
"Why not? Aren't you their leader?"
"Not really, I don't have much to do with the way things are run over there. It's just the fact that those cult people want me, so they see me as an important figure in the city. I'm dragging too much danger in there. I thought about leaving a long time ago, but I ended up sticking around because someone convinced me it was cowardice. But now it's not about that, I just don't want White's men going into Terminal City and killing a bunch of innocent people just so they can get their hands on me. It'll be better for everyone if I'm far away."
Normal glanced down at her again. "That sounds like it's a little more personal that anything else."
He had a point. Maybe she didn't want to leave just because of how dangerous she was making things for everyone, perhaps it had more to do with how dangerous she was making things for Logan. Even though he thought she was with Alec, that didn't mean he was safe. It was obvious he still cared for her, so what was to stop him from getting infected again? She couldn't let that happen. Maybe things would be easier this way. "Are you going to give me a place to stay or not?"
He groaned and tipped his head towards the stairs. "You can stay up there. Make yourself comfortable if you plan on staying for a while."
She shook her head as she climbed to her feet, ducking behind a pile of packages just in case any feds were watching. "Don't worry, I won't be sticking around long. I'll be out of your hair before you know it."
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Author's Note 2: Just leave me a little review! Nothing special, it's just nice to see people care. Now, I've noticed that on the main page of fanfiction.net, they're saying that there's going to be a server upgrade in two weeks. Since this always seems to put the site out of commission for horribly long periods of time, I'll most likely finish the next chapter while the site is out. I'll try to hurry it up so it'll be done in time, but in case it's not, the next chapter can be found at The Broken World in the first M/L section. The link is in my bio, for some reason I couldn't get it to show up in the chapter.
