Hidden Danger Crouching Cat.

By Shannon Hearn

The characters of Dark Angel are owned by Twentieth Century Fox Television and Cameron Eglee productions. All other characters are of my creation.

Chapter 4: Origins, New Beginnings and Night Audits

The flashback for Mel and Aspen for the morning that they were going to start working at Jam Pony Delivery Services was on of counter dictions and bad dreams. For Melfina who had taken her name from a Japanese Anime character, her dreams focused upon the night of the fire at Manticore.

X6-209 was running through the hallways of the Manticore barracks, flames were erupting all around her and two other members of her unit, X6-330 and X6-228 were right beside her as they attempted to escape from the burning structure. As the three of them rounded the corner of the hallway and encountered, one of the security personnel in the standard gray and green security garb. X6-209 and her two cohorts thought that they found someone that could help them evacuate the premises and get the other Transgenics to safety. Then suddenly she heard something that she never thought she would hear from a guard, "Die you filthy Transgenic!!!"

Those words rang with a cold harshness that terrified her to her very being. By the Blessed Blue Lady, Mother of them all. He was an infiltrator, and she and her cohorts had run directly into him. The next few seconds passed like a possessed nightmare, as he took the HK-90 assault rifle and open fire upon the three of them. Somehow, as she turned to run away, the shots had missed her out of some supernatural force. But X6-330 and X6-228 were not as lucky, they were both mowed down by the infiltrators gunfire. Under some circumstance that was behind X6-209's control and been caught under the dead bodies of her friends. She was pinned to the floor and unable to get up and get away. As X6-209 was struggling to get out from under the bodies and the infiltrator was approaching to finish her off, a miracle happened. As she heard the click of the rifle being switched from full auto to single shot. Another voice was heard, a deep meaty, bestial growling voice that said, "Get away from her." All X6-209 was able to see was some longhaired seven-foot tall transgenic proceeding to grab the guy and toss him headfirst into the hallway wall. The amount of force used by this large Transgenic was sufficient enough that the man's head had been buried at least six inches into the wall itself. the rest of the body was hanging, still twitching from the body attempting to send information to a brain that was longer there.

A sense of relief came over X6-209 as two very large hands reached down and pulled her out from the bodies of her friends and teammates towards her feet. She saw the Black combat pants, the old Green single color field jacket with the Manticore logo on the left pocket and the Grey unwashed t-shirt. Then as she looked up into his face, she saw fear grab the back of her feline DNA neck. She was staring into a face of a Nomilie. A Nomilie with over amped Canine DNA, and standing over eight-feet tall. She was more scared than ever, but the Nomilie did something that she would remember. He said, "Path out down, this hallway," The Nomilie gestured then he finished, "then out to outside." X6-209 stared at him for a few seconds as he sniffed the air, as if he was using his amped up Canine DNA to smell for something or someone. The words that came out did not make much sense for X6-209 but it was probably this Nomilie's shorthand, which he said with a grin, "Little Fella".

The Nomilie looked down at her and gestured for her to escape down the path he had pointed out to her. Then the Nomilie sprinted off down the hallway that she and her friends had come up from. Looking around, and seeing the now dead infiltrators gun on the ground, X6-209 picked it up and ran at top speed getting out of the complex and into the night.

It would be weeks later when she had hooked up with others of her kind that she would see a picture of that same Nomilie again, but it was on a tabloid announcing the "Mutant Menace." But X6-209 still had dreams about why he had saved her life, was it some divine intervention by the Blue Lady or was it fate. She did not know.

The alarm clock went off and Melfina's eyes opened up to a new day. This was a day that she would be starting work along with her big sister Aspen at their new job. As she got out of her bed, she noticed Shadow was asleep on the couch from performing the night audit at the hotel he worked at. For even a Transgenic three back-to-back nights working and performing the necessary math and deeds needed to keep an upper class, business hotel running was no piece of cake. Even with a Transgenics need for only four hours of sleep, the job tended to be rough, but work for twenty-four hours at a pay rate of six dollars and hour. It was enough money for them to live off of for the time being. But to keep the small three-bedroom apartment that they all were living in. They needed extra income soon or they would be booted out onto the streets. So, Aspen started playing Big sister to Melfina teaching her a crash course in field operations and how to operate in a hostile environment. An environment like they were currently in now. Keeping a low profile was important now and for Melfina for the last two days Aspen and Shadow had trained both her and Jim how to act in public. No Saluting, no saying "yes sir" or "Ma'am" unless in certain situations and act relaxed when spoken too, the more at ease you were the less chance of being discovered.

Melfina was still scared of Norms due to her past experience with them the night of the fire. The feeling that Melfina had of the way that Aspen behaved around them as if they were invisible. It was probably due to Aspen being an X5 and her being an X6.

As Melfina walked through the apartment, she could smell Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal being made by Jim in the Kitchen area. The short four-foot five X8 with his brown eyes and extra fluffy blond hair Transgenic was gladly listening to the radio as he was standing on the small plastic footstool that they found the day that the four of them moved in. Melfina walked over to the counter and pulled up a well-worn wooden stool that looked like it had seen better days and sat down.

"Jim, how do you feel about Norms?" Melfina said looking him in the eye. Melfina took a hard look at what Jim would say.

"In light of our current situation Mel, I feel that we should just try to blend in. Norms will attack anything they see as a threat to them. So try not to be a threat." Jim said to Melfina, then with a grin he added, "Hey you had your ass saved by a Nomilie, and you were probably more afraid of him than he was of you."

"Yeah, I guess your right. I'm just still rattled from the attack on command." Melfina said as she hugged herself and rubbed her bare arms from her orange button up undershirt and blue nightgown she wore attempting to take away the chill that was crossing over her. The concept flooded over her, She had to bite the preferable bullet and stay close to Aspen when she went with her to this delivery job. Mel and Aspen had their resumes set and ready from typing them up on a computer at the local library.

They had to set up and forge some previous references for their jobs. Some of which were done with some embellishments of what they could do. Basic field navigation, good personal skills, computer skills, and some previous references taken out of the local phone book and from the identity brokers handbook. And poof, you have enough background for a job.

Melfina who was a bio-cyber-data infiltration unit, had used her interface abilities to jack into several systems and solidified their identities more completely. All this was being done within a period of twenty-four hours after Aspen had found the Ad in the local paper. Now all they had to do was to do the interview.

Melfina could hear the shower running and could tell it was Aspen finishing up and soon it would be her turn, Melfina prayed that there would be at least some warm water left in the compressor system. Melfina hated when Aspen go in the shower first, she had this bad tendency to run the compressor hard and use up all the warm water in the progress. Afterwards the head from the compressor would be almost scalding hot from the head. It got to points where Melfina would take a small bucket into the shower and just fill it up with cold water from the faucet into it so she could take a halfway decent bath.

When Melfina saw Aspen's X5 feline towel wrapped figure come out of the bathroom. Melfina hopped off the stool she was sitting on and marched on into the bathroom, saying "I hope that you didn't leave the water scalding hot, because I hate it." Then Melfina marched on in, dropping her nightgown to the floor as she shut the door with her foot. Melfina turned around to the mirror as she unbuttoned her undershirt collar so she could pull it over her head.

Melfina stood there for a moment looking at her naked self in the mirror and examining her flawless frame. No scars, no burn marks, no deformities. She was perfect, too perfect and she was afraid of going into heat in the next month. It scared the crap out of her due to those lab techs putting that bit of electric eel DNA into her genetic cocktail. The eggheads at Manticore had thought about creating a transgenic that could jack into a communication network biologically and take over the system and feed false information into it. She and eleven other Transgenics had been chosen during the planning stages to be turned into cyber units. But when the pulse hit the United States back in Oh Nine, she and the others were dumped into other X6 units and they were always considered outsiders. She had kept hearing the words whispered behind her and the others backs, "Why is she with us." "Oh, I hear that they were too functional to dump into the Basement with the other Nomailies". Melfina was scared and afraid that the X5s she was with now would consider her another one of those freaks. But Aspen had shown her that she was not the only one with gifts and she had clung close to her out of some sort of instinct of understanding.

Melfina looked herself over and wondered if she looked more X5 like so she could at least feel normal, well at least from a Transgenic point of view. Therefore, Melfina swallowed her pride and got into the shower to bathe, and for once, the water in the shower was not scalding hot but was pleasant for at least 15 minutes.

***

Aspen looked at Melfina as she went into the bathroom and realized that if that girl could control her gift she would be more formable than Eyes Only with his hacks on the telecommunication systems he did every so often. Aspen had always herd rumors that Melfina was part of a special group of Transgenics capable of jacking into anything with a microchip in it and control it by sheer will alone. But after the fire, Melfina had become almost phobic about humans. Aspen on a few occasions had to literally drag her out of the apartment to do a simple errand such as grocery shopping. If Melfina did not find another bio-cyber soon, Aspen was worried that the girl would become more introverted and dangerous to herself. both she and Shadow knew that Melfina needed to become social to at least learn to blend in, and Aspen playing Big sister helped. Now giving Melfina a mission to locate other like her might aid in getting her moral up.

Aspen soon got out of Mel's way and went into her room to get dressed in something that would at least get them hired.

***

After the both of them got dressed and headed out to work, Aspen and Mel were heading o the business section of the city, Sector 7. The mood of the environment felt like the place had once been very prosperous in the pre-Pulse years but since the pulse had fallen on hard times. The economics of the era allowed for the businesses that survived to get creative to running their businesses. Some had to become talented in how they hired their employees and some were serious in how they sought out what they believed was right.

For Aspen, the place looked hard but decent enough to work in. The people in the area looked scruffy and wore tossed on clothing ranging from decent casual to skanky sexy. The tossed on clothes that Aspen and Melfina wore, just made the two of them blend right on in. Camouflage was important for the mission they were going on. The search for other Transgenics.

***

Once on the inside of Jam Pony, Aspen and Melfina they noticed that everyone there was dressed very practically, usually long pants or sweats, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, anything that was casual and comfortable to wear. Right now for the both of them blending into this scene would be much more easier than they thought. Now they had to pass through the interview process.

The gentleman who had a wireless telephone headset resting semi-lopsided on his head started to come over to them and gave them a stare of "I want to drop to my knees and beg for mercy as you two have hormone crazed heated sex with me." But the look on his face was of pure drooling, male sex urge, mind numb. All Aspen had to say with her subtle charm was, "Hi, me and my friend here are looking for a job an heard that you were hiring, so could you give us an interview?" The charm that Aspen was giving off was starting to concern Mel, X series pheromones should only be used for emergency purposes only, and not for making the future employer almost want to have sex with you at that moment. Then a Latino girl walked over to the man with the headset and smacked him upside his head. The woman looked almost like an X series given her physical build, hell, she could have been an X series and no one would have known. Then the Girl looked at the both of them as if she had noticed something off about both of them as she gave them the details about the job. then Aspen made a slip by accident still going back to her Manticore training.

"So it is basically a search, locate and drop job each day." Aspen said so bluntly that Aspen could have just screamed the words, "Hi, We are unemployed Transgenic super soldiers looking for a job and trying to blend into humanity, but doing very poorly at. Mel was about to bold out the door, perform an escape, and evade getting out of the area. But Aspen stopped her from bolting out the door. Their new employer "Ronnie, Normal Regan" would be getting them sector passes before the end of the day. Then Aspen and Mel recognized that one of the guys that was attempting to get in their way by attempting to make a pass at them. Before he could speak Aspen put on her hormone charm and stupefied his mind so that he would not "spill the beans" on them. A concept that Aspen had considered almost a bad waste of food.

But when it came to the two of them splitting up Melfina got stuck with a curly haired black girl named Original Cindy, and Aspen went with Max and Alec by everyone here. Aspen was going along to make sure that she could trust Alec, but knew his reputation as being a troublemaker. Mel did not know how to behave around a civilian, but knew that this was her trial by fire after all the acting that she, Aspen and Shadow had been doing since the escape. Jim got more intense lessons to ensure that he did not reveal what he was too easily, but given his age he would be the fastest to adapt to their new lives. Mel was fearful of what was going to happen next.

As Mel and Aspen were given their bikes to ride, Mel took notice of how Max, Cindy and Alec mounted their mobile contrivances and worked their way out. All it seemed to be was a matter of balance and control to ride it. It took about 15 seconds for the both of them to get feel for riding it from them starting off and then they were on their way.

***

A few hours later as Mel and Cindy were riding around the financial district and Mel had a disturbing feeling that Cindy knew she was a Transgenic. Mel felt that she would be locked up in a cell like a Nomilie. But when Cindy said that she was a homosexual, the fear did not go down. It actually went up. She was more afraid of Cindy now than she had been of any other human before. She was counting the minutes to lunch with Aspen that she could feel safe again. In a little bit after that, Mel would discover that both she and Aspen had stumbled into another group of Transgenics running a similar search pattern for their kind. And they were a little pissed at them for Aspen pheremoneing to the gills one of them. Now they had to do some quick talking to explain what they were doing before Max sought her pet lesbian after them.

***

Sitting there before Aspen and Melfina, was a very Pissed off Transgenic who wanted some answers from them ASAP. "What is your story." Max said emphasizing each word.

Aspen and Mel were fearful

of what was going on, Aspen's plan of finding other Transgenics worked out a little too good. Now Mel had to take the initiative and explain what they were doing.

"I'm a X6" Mel said as she pointed to her self with the fingers of her right hand tapping her chest in the progress almost reactionary. "And Aspen is an X5, and we are just looking for others of our kind, so don't kill us." Mel said with the urge to almost barf her guts out.

"Ok..." Max said, to the two of them with blunt force. "Now Did the order to go to ground mean nothing to the both of you." Max continued fuming.

"Listen, Max, Me and Mel here are attempting to find others of our kind, so that we feel not alone. Hell, Max, Mel just wants to find other custom units like her self, so that knows that she is not alone. Max, she does not know if others like her survived the fire. I mean, isn't this why you took up this job. To secretly find others like yourself and Alec here." Aspen said looking into Max's eyes.

"Ya, know Boo. You always told me that you had dreams about finding other like yourself and being able to say, we are leading a normal life." Cindy said giving Max, you secretly have the same idea going through our head everyday look.

"Okay, you two, here is the deal, how many more are with you?" Max said taking in the scope of what was going on.

"Well there are two others, that are part of our "Unit" you might say. Ah, Shadow, he's an X5, that hook us all together and Jim. He's an X8, Mel found him the night of the fire." Aspen said finally realizing that her idea of finding other Transgenics just hit the wall with the idea that, some of their kind were going to stay "To ground" on a serious level.

"Aspen, here is the deal. I need you to contact, the other members of the unit you are with and I want to meet with them. Someplace that is neutral for the both of us. There are some people that I have to talk to, and I have to sort some of this out." Max said pondering what was going on. "Lets go through the rest of the day, and get you two settled into your jobs. Judging from our run in with that Steelhead earlier, you two need to learn about laying low while out in public. Mel you definitely need a scarf to cover that Barcode of yours so I'll go with you while Aspen trades off with Cindy, and if she does anything wiggly with Alec, slap her upside the head." Max pointed out to Cindy and Aspen.

***

Outside the Pizza Shack, Max and Melfina were walking next to one another with their bikes. Mel for some reason felt that Max understood her more, and somehow she felt that Max was in the same boat as she was. Outside of her immediate unit, but had an idea of what she was going through. So, Mel decided to test the water with her.

"So, ha Max, " Mel said "Tell me, how did you and Alec hook up, and how did Cindy find out about what we are?"

"Well Mel, Me and Alec were breeding partners, and trust me the idea of having sex with that jerk is very untasteful to me." Max said with the idea of keeping the true details of her life out of the mess.

"Whoa, your an X5, " Melfina said as she looked at Max. "Have you bumped into any other Transgenics other than me and Aspen?"

"Yes, I have bumped into a few. Most I told to go to ground, A groups of X6's and a X8 who I sent to Canada, A pregnant X5, which I sent to Mexico. A pair of aquatic Transgenics that I got away from a Transgenic hunting squad. And finally there is Joshua."

"Joshua? Who's he?" Melfina said with her ears perked up.

"Well Joshua is a Nomilie, Kind of large, very imposing, but once you get to know him, he kind of grows on you." Max said as she looked down into Mel's eyes still trying to figure out this girl.

"You know, I was saved by a Nomilie that had been over spiced with Canine DNA the night of the fire." Mel said looking towards Max trying to figure out some of the details that she dropped.

"Hey, tell me what the hair color of the Nomilie that saved your life was." Max said pondering if it was Joshua or Isaac.

"Well, he had dark blond hair, and for some strange reason he said. "Little Fella", and ..."

"Did you just say, he said Little Fella?"

"Yeah, why?" Mel said as Max stopped in her tracks on the sidewalk they were walking on.

"Because that is Joshua's nickname for me, he kind of gave it to me when I snuck into the basement back at Manticore." Max said remembering the trail that Joshua left in his wake when he performed his search for Sandaman. The entire fiasco had made the Transgenic community front page tabloid news. But, they had found Sandaman's old house and started go through the guy's old personal belongings trying to figure out the Origins of Manticore.

"Max..." Mel said starting to worry.

"Well, the night of the fire, Joshua ripped the bars off of the window, so that I could get out." Max paused. "I had to loop back and break into command and get everyone out by overriding the security locks on the doors."

"Max, Aspen said that she saw a Transgenic in the hallway by a group of windows that she and a few others were beating at trying to break out." there was a pause for Mel as she came to a realization. "Your her.... Your her..." Mel stopped and just stared as she slowly scuffled her way over to a wall of a storefront they were heading past and slid with her back to the wall into a crouching position. Mel just rocked back and forth, and started to chant:

"Blessed by the Blue Lady.

The one that make the seizures go away.

The one that watches over us all.

The one that makes the monsters go away.

She who makes the darkness light,

The one that gives happiness.

The one that gave birth to us all.

The one that watches over the place were no one yells at you.

She who let's us play in the fields free."

Max, just stared for the longest time. Had the Blue Lady spread among the other X-Series as it had done with her unit?

"Who told you about the Blue Lady?" Max stated as she knelt over Mel and held her.

"The ones that stayed from the twelve of those who escaped, Ma'am." Mel said with tears coming out of her eyes.

"Those who give teeth, give her strength, and she gives them hope." Max said, as Mel looked at her and just looked at her in terror.

"You, are a follower?..." Mel could not say any more than those simple words.

"I am one of the twelve that escaped." Max said looking down and gentling brushing the hair out of Melfina's eyes. The subtle movement of Mel's nose backward and forward as her head gently shook in fear.

"But, how... Your story" Mel said as she tried to digest the information given to her.

"I escaped with the Twelve back in Oh Nine, but I was later recaptured when that Bitch Renfro killed my older sister Tinga and tried to kill Lydecker." Max said as she leaned against the wall next to Mel and looked out across the street. "Years later as each one of us was living our own lives. That Bitch Renfro, tracked down Tinga, and used her child as bait by infecting him with a nano-virus. In exchange for the cure, for her son. Tinga had to with Lydecker and his goon squad. But Renfro, backstabbed Lydecker too. Instead of re-indoctrination. She took Tinga to a lab and preceded to have her lab boys take her apart." Max stopped the pain of remembering Tinga's body in that extraction tube having the very life sucked out of her one milligram at a time made her start to break down in tears. The silence between the two of them could be understood, they were emotionally scared by what had happened at Manticore.

"Myself, my older brother Zack, by kid brother Zane and by baby sister Syl. Decided that Manticore should pay for what they did. No more dead Transgenics, no more soldiers. Manticore had to die. So we got together and blew up that accursed Genetics' lab and sent it express to Hell." Max paused, gritting her teeth. "The mission went south after the lab blew up. The second part of the plan was to get everyone out and get them hidden, and Lydecker would help with that when he saw what Renfro had done to one of his kids by giving the order to go to ground. Once hidden we could not be found and Manticore would never harm anyone again. I wasn't expecting to run into a X7 clone of myself and being shot along with my brother Zack." Max paused again and Mel took a deeper look at her this time.

"They were attempting to re-indoctrinate you, when the fire broke out, didn't they, Max." Mel said realizing that Max had been responsible for a lot of things that she could not blame her for. Anyone that was pushed as she was, would do what she probably did. "So, you came here to Seattle in hope that you could locate others like you form your old unit?"

"Well that was my dream about ten years ago, but now, I feel that I am responsible for all of our kind that I let loose on the world." Max said taking a deep breath and letting it out in slow puff.

"So when you saw me and Aspen, causing trouble for Alec and the way that I was Nervous around Cindy pretty much give us away."

"Yeap. that pretty much sums it up for you Mel." Max said as she got up off of the ground and helped Mel on up. "Hey could you hold off on telling Aspen and your pals that an Oh-Nine escapee. Until I get to know Jim and Shadow. So, Tell me what they are like as we head back to Jam Pony for some more Packages."

***

The previous night's audit had gone like hell. Literally. But for Shadow coming in from the long night and wanting to have a good few hours of sleep and put off his worries till he woke up gave him a sense of peace. One of the few things he could enjoy in life. For Shadow during his entire life, the most stressful experience that he had to endure was being chased by a really pissed off group of X7's that wanted to kick his ass after he gave one of the "Black-eyes Mutes" a noogie. How the heck did he know that they had a hive mind, and the fact that little twerp shared that experience with the rest of his unit and the resulting event was him being beat up by those twelve half-pints.

The week and a half that he spent in the med ward after having both of his legs broken at the calf, a dislocated shoulder, a broken nose, and three cracked ribs. When the rumors of that an X5 got his ass kicked by a member of the new X7 series, well it was originally thought the X5 was just careless. Then it got out that the X7 series considered the X5 series the same was the X5 series treated the Nomilies, as expendable...

As Shadow walked over to the futon bed where he slept and started pulling his dress white shirt off, and his belt. Leaving the remainder of his clothes on as his field training had taught him. Be ready to move out at a moments notice. This feeling of being ready to move out at moments notice had still been with him since the night of the fire, but he had taken his time to acclimate himself to laying low and blending in with the rest of society.

As Shadow's head hit the pillow he started to remember things about his life prior to the fire, the good times that he had and the nights that he would spend with "Jade" as they hid out in the vent ducts as children and as teenagers. Jade had this beauty with her soft brown skin, silky black hair, and those Jade green eyes that could show curiosity about the simple things in life. Even the occasional cockroach that would drag itself along the vents searching for food. For Shadow, Jade -- or X5-543 as she was known -- had the loveliest smile that could bring about compassion in even the hardest day. One day when Shadow and Jade were in their teens, about 15 or 16 in age, they crawled around the vents finding their way to the other side of the compound and heard this noise that was almost rhythmic and haunting. Off and on, they heard it and it was almost musical, not like the music that the lab techs would play or some of the guards would listen too wither. It was as if the sounds had meanings underneath it, almost like a code:

Hunnnicc, hmmmmmbrrr ic, thummm, swellll,k urrmmmm, huranics, uhnnnn.

The sounds would always vary in length and in time, and strength. Off and on this sound would ways reflect a mood of someone or something making it. One night Jade and Shadow made their way towards one of the vents and saw a group of Transgenics that were in a tank swimming around, there also seemed to be a lid on it keeping them in. They seemed to be the same age as them and the sound was coming from their tank. One of them looked up and looked into the vent. She had white skin and dark hair with her dark swimsuit that she wore, and they noticed that she had two white slits by her front midriff. Shadow and Jade used their sight to look through the water, and event with the distortion from the water's surface, there looked like there were slits, gills if they were right and she just gave a shocked look at them as she brought her head to the surface and just stroked in place with her arms and legs and smiled at them she gave the symbol with her hands that meant "Friend." Jade gave the reply back "Friend" as well and gestured for more of the song she was doing. and for several minutes they just listened to her sing her song just for them, and they gently held hands. Images of the stars at night and the Moon rising high in the sky, gave them reasons to keep going even on the hardest days. That encounter was kept secret for the two times that visited her before Jade and Shadow got assigned to individual dorm units and it would be weeks till they saw each other again and that was only the training field for exercises and outdoor operations.

That night that they had found the serene in her tank put hope into them. Then after the "renegade X5s" blew up the genetics lab, would Jade and Shadow meet each other again, this time as breeding partners. During those times that they had together, weren't not so much making love with each other or exploring each others bodies with nervous fervor as learned where to touch each other where it felt soft and caring , and infinity would claim both of them and they would become a world upon them selves.

During those times, jade and Shadow would attempt to duplicate the song the girl that they saw in the tank sang to them during those nights that they spent with her. they always thought of her wondering what had happened to her.

Since the night of the fire, Shadow and Jade had gotten separated from one another once they had gotten outside and he had hoped that Jade was somewhere and that someday he would find her. In the back of his mind, he hoped that Aspen with her gift of finding people and things would guide him in him finding her.

As Shadows thoughts drifted back towards the other times at Manticore from the seven combat missions he went on, including one that he went with a smart ass Transgenic, designated X5-494 who ran the Manticore Black Market, where if you wanted it, he would get it. But on the mission that they were sent on, their job was to eliminate an arms dealer selling advanced hardware to the highest bidder. All 494 would talk about during the mission was his next coming score that he had. All Shadow wanted to do was bury his head in his copy of Medical Weekly that was talking about the new plagues of the Millennium, the Hanta Virus outbreak in Los Angeles, and the Measles epidemic in Seattle. Shadow knew that there was scum in this world and it was his job to protect the world from it. Every once in a while 494 would act strange, all he had heard that 494 had recently gotten out of psyche eval for some condition he had. Given the mission they were on, the guys in tactical thought that it was a good mission to see how 494 would behave in the field and 424 was backup in case 494 became a head case.

The mission went according to plan. The target was eliminated with a broken neck, but instead of being crates of weapons, it turned out to be medical supplies after he broke into all of creates to view the continents. Realizing what these people were spreading human misery, he asked 494 to help hide the cash in an account so he could get to it later to make donations to hospitals that needed the money to buy the medicine they needed to keep people alive. X5-494 took a commission of 15 percent and put it into an account of his own. They kept both of these accounts secret from their superiors and later after the fire he accessed the account to get his unit into hiding.

During the debriefing his commanders said it was weapons even after he even protested stating that the goods were medical supplies and that was a good four months before the fire. He had the feeling that there was something more going on and since the fire, he had the feeling that the Infiltrators had something to do with both events. He had the feeling that the subversive Eyes Only might have the answers that he sought due to the reliable information he had given on the Mutant Death squad that was searching the city for their kind. Now all Shadow had to do was wait for Aspen and Mel to get back in and give their report of what they found during their first day at work.

***

Buzz me on any questions, comments, and story ideas?

I'm currently in the progress of writing Ch 5 of the story and it is about Aspen's and Jim's past as well as some more information about the "Party of X5" gang. Joshua will be in it, the Gills, Rain & the T-Bloods and Asha. In addition, Melfina will give Eyes Only a run for his money as the Lady Chimera.