A/N: For all my normal readers (and anyone else that happens to get this far) I mentioned Max in the summary as a test to see if that will get more people to check the story out. Don't worry! I wasn't lying. Max will be in the story later but it might be a little while yet. Tootles~~~
Chapter Eight
Jondy and Molly didn't speak for the entire time they remained in the car. After leaving the gas station Jondy drove like the devil himself was on their heels and she didn't slow down in the least until they had put at least fifty miles behind them.
Molly sat silently, pretending to watch out the side window but, in truth, she had to keep glancing back at her friend every so often. She had just witnessed a part of Joanna that she never knew existed. Just the fact that she had shown up there was enough to astound Molly but seeing Joanna fight her mysterious rescuer and win put her at a loss for words altogether. What was going on here?
Sweet, gentle, somewhat lazy Joanna had a moment ago displayed the same super-human traits that Molly had only just seen someone else do with no obvious explanation to clarify them. And then there was another thing. When Molly had saw her friend's face when Manticore was mentioned. She had seen something there that ran deeper than any emotion Molly had ever known.
Obviously that word wasn't as foreign to her and she feigned.
On the other side of the car Jondy had her own thoughts racing through her head. Who was that X5? How had he known her name? The possibility that one of the '09 escapees had been caught and re-indoctrinated had indeed crossed her mind more than once but she simply couldn't accept that conclusion. When Jondy had looked back into his eyes they'd looked so sad. Not the cold, lifeless eyes of a true Manticore assassin but eyes of a real, feeling human being. Sad but in perfect control. As if he'd planned the whole thing...
Jondy suddenly cursed herself as she began to realize it was all planned out. He'd ran into her, followed Molly, more than likely spied on both of them numerous times, and mapped at the entire extensive plan until they'd all ended up here, tonight.
Now that she thought about it, Jondy realized something else too. While fighting, she had simply thought that perhaps he wasn't the top of Manticore's game, but then again he had just taken out nearly ten armed men back at the mansion. He hadn't been fighting back on purpose. He'd wanted Jondy to win. But why?
Jondy was shaken out of her reverie by a bright light slowly coming into view a couple miles in front of them. She zoomed in on the light and saw it was the flashing sign of an old, broken down hotel. Just what she was looking for.
She didn't say anything as she parked and left the car briefly to get a room and key. Molly already was ready to go inside, holding her bag and standing soundlessly on the side of the limo.
"Here's the key," Jondy said, tossing it to Molly who caught it just barely.
"Aren't you coming in?" she asked timidly. Jondy cringed at the almost frightened tone Molly's voice.
"Yeah, I've got to do something first though. Don't let anybody in unless you're sure it's me. Alright?"
Molly nodded and started walking briskly up to the second story room. Once she was safely inside, Jondy turned her attention to the oversized car. The police would surely be searching for the vehicle so leaving it sitting here was definitely not an option.
Jondy drove another two miles down the road before she came along side a fairly good-sized ditch. She got out and, once again summoning her X5 strength, pushed the limo easily into the trench. She spent about a half an hour positioning it further in the water and wiping it down for fingerprints and other identifying articles that the policemen were bound to find. Finally satisfied, Jondy ran back to the motel.
It took some time for Jondy to thoroughly convince her friend that it was her in order to be let into the room but she was glad at the same time that Molly was finally taking all this seriously.
Jondy sank down into a chair and breathed out a sigh of exhaustion. Not from the physical activities of the evening but from the emotional toll it had taken on her. And she knew that it wasn't over yet.
"Joanna?"
Jondy looked up into Molly's questioning face. She motioned for her to sit down on the bed.
"I guess you want to know what the hell went on tonight, huh?"
Molly seemed to visibly relax as some of the usual tone returned to Jondy's voice.
"Well," she replied, "I'll have to admit it was a little strange."
Jondy smiled weakly.
"What I'm about to tell you is more than a little strange, my friend. Actually, it's a lot."
Jondy paused briefly; realizing the immense responsibility of knowing what she was about to tell Molly could change her friend's life for better or for worse. Most likely for the worse. Nevertheless, after all that had gone down tonight, she deserved to know.
Cole woke up in a small room consisting of only four blank, white walls and the examining table he was tied to. For a fleeting instant he thought he was back in Manticore but then the recollection of all of the earlier happenings of the night caught up to him and his mind turned elsewhere.
This definitely was not a typical African prison. After the Pulse, the United States had discontinued their support of the already famished third-world continent, which, in result, experienced one of the greatest food crises to have ever occurred. To sum it up, it all went to hell.
Eventually a new government had been established, which wasn't much of one to speak of, but if anything the situation had only gotten worse. The government was power-mad, cruel, and intolerant to its citizens. The death penalty was issued at the slightest infraction and there was no one that could speak up to stop it. And then there were the prisons.
Cole had gathered from his numerous intelligence classes at Manticore that the prisons here correlated greatly to those of the medieval days. There had even been an X5 a few years ago that was caught while on a mission in Africa and had only returned in several different pieces; greatly mutilated at that.
This room though spoke of something extremely dissimilar.
Trying to lift his head up Cole discovered that it too was secured tightly to the metal table. Keenly aware of the already increasing ache in his injured leg, he made sure not to pull that one but could tell that it, along with his other limbs, shared the same fate.
The bone had obviously been set some time while he was unconscious. He could no longer feel the cracked bones scraping against each other like he could immediately following the sever. That was the reason he'd passed out after all. Just sitting on the ground had been bad enough but when the policeman had started moving Cole the pain had been unbearable.
The sudden sound of footsteps brought the X5's senses back to alert mode. He knew that there wasn't really all that much he could do at the moment but the first rule of escape was to be familiar with your surroundings and all who was involved in them. And he intended to do just that.
With a swish of well-oiled hinges, the door swung open and someone walked into the room. Even though Cole couldn't see his caller he could identify by the steps that it was a man, slightly overweight, and with a minor limp in his left foot. Nothing could have prepared Cole for whose face appeared over him though.
He'd assumed by the secrecy of the meeting and the hidden house that Mr.Sakir ran a covert operation and that he'd be as far away from the authorities as humanly possible with the first indication of trouble. Apparently that wasn't the case.
"So how, pray tell, did a girl of Molly Diano's size beat an X5 and inflict this kind of damage?" Sakir started with obvious satisfaction in his voice. Cole played it cool.
"Guess I wasn't up to the fight," he replied callously, "It doesn't appear your nose was either." Cole added this last phrase with his own tone of smugness at Sakir's visibly broken nose. Sakir frowned.
"Are all of you back at Manticore this cocky?" he said as he walked out of Cole's line of vision. Cole could hear him tampering with some kind of utensils across the room. He continued, " I though you were trained to be cold-blood killers that have absolutely no emotions. What's your story?"
"I got in trouble a lot," Cole countered slowly, telling the truth for once, "So you obviously know who I am, you wouldn't mind sharing your tale would you?"
Sakir came into his view again, holding a syringe in one of his gloved hands. He thrust it in the vain in Cole's arm before answering.
"I run an organization. Our primary purpose is to help position Africa to her proper place in the world. I discovered a way to make super-soldiers, the same way Manticore did, only it's not embedded in the genes nor is it permanent," he removed the syringe, full with a sample of Cole's blood, " You see the problem I'm having is that anyone injected with the implant will die within a matter of weeks, sometimes even days. It's just too much for the human body to handle."
"So where does Manticore come into all this?" Cole asked, wondering what this man was driving at.
"About a year ago I happened to stumble across some very interesting information on the web. I knew that it would be the solution to my problem only I didn't have any specifics to base further research off. I think you know the information I found. But anyways, I dug up as much as I could until I found out about twelve rogue X5's that were living on the outside. A perfect opportunity!"
Cole's blood turned cold at the mention of the rogues but he continued to listen.
"It wasn't until two months ago that I successfully located one of the twelve living in Seattle, Washington. So I sent up two of my men, both with the implants, to retrieve her," his voice grew more chilling, "Only then did I realize the true power of your kind."
"What happened?" Cole asked, almost afraid to ask.
"The first one was killed in a automobile accident, a semi truck actually, but the second was close to bringing her down. She was no match. But then she got smart. I still am perplexed as to how, but she managed to obtain an implant. She used it and won and, somehow, managed to survive. A feat that no normal human being has yet been able to achieve. My man died of course but he was also implanted with a micro-camera that showed us everything that happened. The girl would be here now if not for her figuring out how to turn the tracer off."
"Can I see what she looked like?"
Sakir smiled a smile that sent shivers down Cole's spine. He walked away briefly and returned with a large photo in his hand. Cole's eyes grew wide as it was held over his face.
He knew instantly who it was. Max. The youngest of them all and also the one most likely to do something as stupid as inject herself with a killer implant.
The photograph, coming from Sakir's employee's line of vision, showed a girl with a mask of fury on her face, arms raised in defense, and her dark, curly hair suspended in every direction across her head. But that wasn't what made Cole cringe. Out of her bloodshot eyes were streaks of blood, streaming like tears down her cheeks and over her nose and mouth. She was truly the weapon she'd been bred to be, if not more.
Cole took a breath and breathed it out slowly.
"So what now?" he asked finally, "Stick me with one of those and make me as satanic looking as her?"
"Eventually," Sakir replied nonchalantly, "But first we have to figure out what makes you tick; just exactly how Manticore made you the way you are. Only when I understand why the implant doesn't kill your kind will you be of any use to me."
"What if I can't survive the implant?"
"I wouldn't fret. We are quite positive about the other's survival. She had been recuperated for a couple days before the tracer stopped sending its signal."
"You haven't been doing your homework very well, have you Sakir?" Cole responded, not letting the queasiness he was feeling now be heard in his voice, "All the X5s were made with different combinations of DNA. I know for a fact that she doesn't have the same cocktail as I do, or as any of the others do for that matter. Your implant might have a completely different effect on me than it did her. And since you don't know why she survived it..." he let the question drift off, hoping he'd gotten his point across.
When Sakir finally replied, his tone of voice no longer contained any of the conversationalist manners it'd had before. Now it was a cold and professional, much like Lydecker's.
"Then we'll just have to start from scratch then, won't we?"
Cole shuddered inwardly and hoped that Jondy and Molly had met a healthier fate than him.
Only a few dozen miles away, both young women were still talking. Molly had taken Jondy's story fairly well, surprisingly, and had been asking questions nonstop ever since.
Jondy, although it seemed extremely strange to be talking about this to anyone besides Zack, actually felt somewhat relieved to have finally told someone the truth about herself. It felt as if the thick, steel door that had so long separated her from the rest of the world had been opened. Perhaps this was her first true step into humanity.
"What about the guy tonight?" Molly asked carefully, knowing she was on a sensitive subject since Jondy was obviously embarrassed to have shown her hidden side to a friend.
Jondy looked down.
"I don't know," she answered softly, "He seemed to be pure Manticore but..." her voice trailed off.
"He what?" her friend prodded gently.
"You know how I told you that none of us have names there, only numbers?" Molly nodded, "Well my unit secretly gave names to each other. Mine was...is Jondy. No one but Zack, our CO, has called me that in years. I haven't even seen any of the others, actually. But the X5 tonight, he called me Jondy right as we were leaving. Yet he never turned me in. And you have to understand; the others and me have been the top of Manticore's priority list ever since we escaped. To find one of the '09ers and not bring them in would be considered treason," Jondy took a breath, "The thing I don't understand is how he knew my name. Unless he's one of my unit," her voice grew softer still, "One that didn't make it out that night. And I didn't know about it all these years..."
Jondy turned her head away as she wiped a tear from her face. She continued talking.
"You don't know what he would have had to go through all this time to be able to keep his humanity."
"What do you mean?"
Jondy closed her eyes as memories flooded her mind.
"Manticore has ways," she explained in a choked voice, " to persuade you into doing exactly what they want. They can make you forget who you are and what you are so that all you care about is getting the job done."
Jondy turned back to face Molly.
"I should have helped him, Molly. Whatever he's done was to keep you and I safe from Manticore. Now he's helpless in the hands of the enemy. And it's all my fault."
As Jondy cried softly into Molly's shoulder they both knew that they were thinking the same thing. They had to find him.
Before it was too late.
Chapter Eight
Jondy and Molly didn't speak for the entire time they remained in the car. After leaving the gas station Jondy drove like the devil himself was on their heels and she didn't slow down in the least until they had put at least fifty miles behind them.
Molly sat silently, pretending to watch out the side window but, in truth, she had to keep glancing back at her friend every so often. She had just witnessed a part of Joanna that she never knew existed. Just the fact that she had shown up there was enough to astound Molly but seeing Joanna fight her mysterious rescuer and win put her at a loss for words altogether. What was going on here?
Sweet, gentle, somewhat lazy Joanna had a moment ago displayed the same super-human traits that Molly had only just seen someone else do with no obvious explanation to clarify them. And then there was another thing. When Molly had saw her friend's face when Manticore was mentioned. She had seen something there that ran deeper than any emotion Molly had ever known.
Obviously that word wasn't as foreign to her and she feigned.
On the other side of the car Jondy had her own thoughts racing through her head. Who was that X5? How had he known her name? The possibility that one of the '09 escapees had been caught and re-indoctrinated had indeed crossed her mind more than once but she simply couldn't accept that conclusion. When Jondy had looked back into his eyes they'd looked so sad. Not the cold, lifeless eyes of a true Manticore assassin but eyes of a real, feeling human being. Sad but in perfect control. As if he'd planned the whole thing...
Jondy suddenly cursed herself as she began to realize it was all planned out. He'd ran into her, followed Molly, more than likely spied on both of them numerous times, and mapped at the entire extensive plan until they'd all ended up here, tonight.
Now that she thought about it, Jondy realized something else too. While fighting, she had simply thought that perhaps he wasn't the top of Manticore's game, but then again he had just taken out nearly ten armed men back at the mansion. He hadn't been fighting back on purpose. He'd wanted Jondy to win. But why?
Jondy was shaken out of her reverie by a bright light slowly coming into view a couple miles in front of them. She zoomed in on the light and saw it was the flashing sign of an old, broken down hotel. Just what she was looking for.
She didn't say anything as she parked and left the car briefly to get a room and key. Molly already was ready to go inside, holding her bag and standing soundlessly on the side of the limo.
"Here's the key," Jondy said, tossing it to Molly who caught it just barely.
"Aren't you coming in?" she asked timidly. Jondy cringed at the almost frightened tone Molly's voice.
"Yeah, I've got to do something first though. Don't let anybody in unless you're sure it's me. Alright?"
Molly nodded and started walking briskly up to the second story room. Once she was safely inside, Jondy turned her attention to the oversized car. The police would surely be searching for the vehicle so leaving it sitting here was definitely not an option.
Jondy drove another two miles down the road before she came along side a fairly good-sized ditch. She got out and, once again summoning her X5 strength, pushed the limo easily into the trench. She spent about a half an hour positioning it further in the water and wiping it down for fingerprints and other identifying articles that the policemen were bound to find. Finally satisfied, Jondy ran back to the motel.
It took some time for Jondy to thoroughly convince her friend that it was her in order to be let into the room but she was glad at the same time that Molly was finally taking all this seriously.
Jondy sank down into a chair and breathed out a sigh of exhaustion. Not from the physical activities of the evening but from the emotional toll it had taken on her. And she knew that it wasn't over yet.
"Joanna?"
Jondy looked up into Molly's questioning face. She motioned for her to sit down on the bed.
"I guess you want to know what the hell went on tonight, huh?"
Molly seemed to visibly relax as some of the usual tone returned to Jondy's voice.
"Well," she replied, "I'll have to admit it was a little strange."
Jondy smiled weakly.
"What I'm about to tell you is more than a little strange, my friend. Actually, it's a lot."
Jondy paused briefly; realizing the immense responsibility of knowing what she was about to tell Molly could change her friend's life for better or for worse. Most likely for the worse. Nevertheless, after all that had gone down tonight, she deserved to know.
Cole woke up in a small room consisting of only four blank, white walls and the examining table he was tied to. For a fleeting instant he thought he was back in Manticore but then the recollection of all of the earlier happenings of the night caught up to him and his mind turned elsewhere.
This definitely was not a typical African prison. After the Pulse, the United States had discontinued their support of the already famished third-world continent, which, in result, experienced one of the greatest food crises to have ever occurred. To sum it up, it all went to hell.
Eventually a new government had been established, which wasn't much of one to speak of, but if anything the situation had only gotten worse. The government was power-mad, cruel, and intolerant to its citizens. The death penalty was issued at the slightest infraction and there was no one that could speak up to stop it. And then there were the prisons.
Cole had gathered from his numerous intelligence classes at Manticore that the prisons here correlated greatly to those of the medieval days. There had even been an X5 a few years ago that was caught while on a mission in Africa and had only returned in several different pieces; greatly mutilated at that.
This room though spoke of something extremely dissimilar.
Trying to lift his head up Cole discovered that it too was secured tightly to the metal table. Keenly aware of the already increasing ache in his injured leg, he made sure not to pull that one but could tell that it, along with his other limbs, shared the same fate.
The bone had obviously been set some time while he was unconscious. He could no longer feel the cracked bones scraping against each other like he could immediately following the sever. That was the reason he'd passed out after all. Just sitting on the ground had been bad enough but when the policeman had started moving Cole the pain had been unbearable.
The sudden sound of footsteps brought the X5's senses back to alert mode. He knew that there wasn't really all that much he could do at the moment but the first rule of escape was to be familiar with your surroundings and all who was involved in them. And he intended to do just that.
With a swish of well-oiled hinges, the door swung open and someone walked into the room. Even though Cole couldn't see his caller he could identify by the steps that it was a man, slightly overweight, and with a minor limp in his left foot. Nothing could have prepared Cole for whose face appeared over him though.
He'd assumed by the secrecy of the meeting and the hidden house that Mr.Sakir ran a covert operation and that he'd be as far away from the authorities as humanly possible with the first indication of trouble. Apparently that wasn't the case.
"So how, pray tell, did a girl of Molly Diano's size beat an X5 and inflict this kind of damage?" Sakir started with obvious satisfaction in his voice. Cole played it cool.
"Guess I wasn't up to the fight," he replied callously, "It doesn't appear your nose was either." Cole added this last phrase with his own tone of smugness at Sakir's visibly broken nose. Sakir frowned.
"Are all of you back at Manticore this cocky?" he said as he walked out of Cole's line of vision. Cole could hear him tampering with some kind of utensils across the room. He continued, " I though you were trained to be cold-blood killers that have absolutely no emotions. What's your story?"
"I got in trouble a lot," Cole countered slowly, telling the truth for once, "So you obviously know who I am, you wouldn't mind sharing your tale would you?"
Sakir came into his view again, holding a syringe in one of his gloved hands. He thrust it in the vain in Cole's arm before answering.
"I run an organization. Our primary purpose is to help position Africa to her proper place in the world. I discovered a way to make super-soldiers, the same way Manticore did, only it's not embedded in the genes nor is it permanent," he removed the syringe, full with a sample of Cole's blood, " You see the problem I'm having is that anyone injected with the implant will die within a matter of weeks, sometimes even days. It's just too much for the human body to handle."
"So where does Manticore come into all this?" Cole asked, wondering what this man was driving at.
"About a year ago I happened to stumble across some very interesting information on the web. I knew that it would be the solution to my problem only I didn't have any specifics to base further research off. I think you know the information I found. But anyways, I dug up as much as I could until I found out about twelve rogue X5's that were living on the outside. A perfect opportunity!"
Cole's blood turned cold at the mention of the rogues but he continued to listen.
"It wasn't until two months ago that I successfully located one of the twelve living in Seattle, Washington. So I sent up two of my men, both with the implants, to retrieve her," his voice grew more chilling, "Only then did I realize the true power of your kind."
"What happened?" Cole asked, almost afraid to ask.
"The first one was killed in a automobile accident, a semi truck actually, but the second was close to bringing her down. She was no match. But then she got smart. I still am perplexed as to how, but she managed to obtain an implant. She used it and won and, somehow, managed to survive. A feat that no normal human being has yet been able to achieve. My man died of course but he was also implanted with a micro-camera that showed us everything that happened. The girl would be here now if not for her figuring out how to turn the tracer off."
"Can I see what she looked like?"
Sakir smiled a smile that sent shivers down Cole's spine. He walked away briefly and returned with a large photo in his hand. Cole's eyes grew wide as it was held over his face.
He knew instantly who it was. Max. The youngest of them all and also the one most likely to do something as stupid as inject herself with a killer implant.
The photograph, coming from Sakir's employee's line of vision, showed a girl with a mask of fury on her face, arms raised in defense, and her dark, curly hair suspended in every direction across her head. But that wasn't what made Cole cringe. Out of her bloodshot eyes were streaks of blood, streaming like tears down her cheeks and over her nose and mouth. She was truly the weapon she'd been bred to be, if not more.
Cole took a breath and breathed it out slowly.
"So what now?" he asked finally, "Stick me with one of those and make me as satanic looking as her?"
"Eventually," Sakir replied nonchalantly, "But first we have to figure out what makes you tick; just exactly how Manticore made you the way you are. Only when I understand why the implant doesn't kill your kind will you be of any use to me."
"What if I can't survive the implant?"
"I wouldn't fret. We are quite positive about the other's survival. She had been recuperated for a couple days before the tracer stopped sending its signal."
"You haven't been doing your homework very well, have you Sakir?" Cole responded, not letting the queasiness he was feeling now be heard in his voice, "All the X5s were made with different combinations of DNA. I know for a fact that she doesn't have the same cocktail as I do, or as any of the others do for that matter. Your implant might have a completely different effect on me than it did her. And since you don't know why she survived it..." he let the question drift off, hoping he'd gotten his point across.
When Sakir finally replied, his tone of voice no longer contained any of the conversationalist manners it'd had before. Now it was a cold and professional, much like Lydecker's.
"Then we'll just have to start from scratch then, won't we?"
Cole shuddered inwardly and hoped that Jondy and Molly had met a healthier fate than him.
Only a few dozen miles away, both young women were still talking. Molly had taken Jondy's story fairly well, surprisingly, and had been asking questions nonstop ever since.
Jondy, although it seemed extremely strange to be talking about this to anyone besides Zack, actually felt somewhat relieved to have finally told someone the truth about herself. It felt as if the thick, steel door that had so long separated her from the rest of the world had been opened. Perhaps this was her first true step into humanity.
"What about the guy tonight?" Molly asked carefully, knowing she was on a sensitive subject since Jondy was obviously embarrassed to have shown her hidden side to a friend.
Jondy looked down.
"I don't know," she answered softly, "He seemed to be pure Manticore but..." her voice trailed off.
"He what?" her friend prodded gently.
"You know how I told you that none of us have names there, only numbers?" Molly nodded, "Well my unit secretly gave names to each other. Mine was...is Jondy. No one but Zack, our CO, has called me that in years. I haven't even seen any of the others, actually. But the X5 tonight, he called me Jondy right as we were leaving. Yet he never turned me in. And you have to understand; the others and me have been the top of Manticore's priority list ever since we escaped. To find one of the '09ers and not bring them in would be considered treason," Jondy took a breath, "The thing I don't understand is how he knew my name. Unless he's one of my unit," her voice grew softer still, "One that didn't make it out that night. And I didn't know about it all these years..."
Jondy turned her head away as she wiped a tear from her face. She continued talking.
"You don't know what he would have had to go through all this time to be able to keep his humanity."
"What do you mean?"
Jondy closed her eyes as memories flooded her mind.
"Manticore has ways," she explained in a choked voice, " to persuade you into doing exactly what they want. They can make you forget who you are and what you are so that all you care about is getting the job done."
Jondy turned back to face Molly.
"I should have helped him, Molly. Whatever he's done was to keep you and I safe from Manticore. Now he's helpless in the hands of the enemy. And it's all my fault."
As Jondy cried softly into Molly's shoulder they both knew that they were thinking the same thing. They had to find him.
Before it was too late.