PART TWENTY-ONE : " Empiricism "
Logan woke again to Legion entering the room.
"Visiting hours open again, eh?" Logan stated, dryly.
Legion pulled a chair out of the darkness and sat in front of him. "Why not? An interesting fellow like yourself must be bored silly."
"Suits me. What do you want to talk about?"
"I'm curious as to what you might have learned about your good friend Max, and Manticore, in the time you've known her. That shouldn't reveal any secrets you might have, should it?" he smiled.
Logan shrugged. "I don't have any secrets. She was a result of a secret project that was designed to take you people out. But that's not a secret to you, is it?"
Legion laughed. "No, I'm just curious what you've learned. It really doesn't matter. Passing time, so to speak."
The man clamped to the chair nodded. "How about a sharing of info. I tell you something, and you tell me something."
"A game! Splendid!" The older man exclaimed. "By all means, but let's make some rules before we proceed. First, questions can only deal with the Conclave, Manticore, yourself or the transgenics. Second, no lying; the answer given must be truth. Third, no question can be repeated. Fourth, questions are put forth in single sentence format and each person asks one single question followed by the answer and the next person asking a question. And finally, if any of the rules are broken, the questions come to an end. Ask your question."
Logan, surprised at the openness of the man before him and the sudden rules to his spontaneous suggestion, almost drew a blank. Then the questions came to mind.
OK. I can live with that. It'll pass the time, at least.
Legion smiled. "Games are what makes the world go round..."
Logan pondered that momentarily, then jumped in. "Did you kidnap me to lure Max here?" he inquired.
"No."
Logan waited, but it didn't appear the man was going to explain further.
Legion cocked his head, then asked "What happened to the hidden genetic material at Manticore in Lydecker's secret room?"
Surprised again, this time by the complete unexpectedness of the topic change, he looked blankly at Legion for a couple of seconds before answering. "I didn't know he had a secret room, or hidden genetic material. So I'd have to answer that I don't know what happened to it. Why am I being held here against my will?"
"So you won't escape."
Logan frowned. The answer, though certainly true, wasn't exactly what he wanted to know. He would have to phrase his questions more carefully.
* * * * *
Joshua and Max made their way to where Alec was concluding the debriefing of the transgenics who were going on the mission. Alex noticed them enter and nodded to them. "That's it, boys and girls. Unless the boss-girl knows when departure time is, you'll be on standby for the next 24 hours."
Max noticed Lydecker and White on Alec's sidelines. She signaled to Lydecker with hand signals. "We move out as soon as I check with Beck."
Lydecker noticed her, and signaled back. "Wait for the final briefing."
Joshua heard Max grumble unintelligibly, then she signaled again. "We'll brief on the way."
Lydecker frowned and signed back, "We need to take time to go through any new information."
"We're leaving in one hour. Deal with it." She concluded the silent conversation by turning and walking out of the room, Joshua hot on her heels. "That man is going to end up a casualty before we leave if he doesn't get with the program of who's in charge here." she said to no one in particular.
They walked to the infirmary where Cindy and Beck were discussing mental disciplines. The conversation stopped when Max walked in. Beck called her over, excitedly. "Max! Come over here... this is fascinating!"
She walked over and sat by the monitor. "What am I looking at?"
"A genetic scan composite. basically it gathers sort of a DNA x-ray and turns it into raw data. I've been running it through the medical computer hardware Logan set up for us and it's producing some phenomenal results." She explained.
'OK," Max said. "So what do we have on him?"
"Him?" Beck asked, confused.
"Legion? What do you have on him that's so exciting?"
"Oh! No, it came up with practically nothing about him except for what I told you at the briefing."
Max began to feel her stress headache get worse as she tried to work this out in her head. "Fine, let's start again from the beginning. What am I looking at?"
"This was compiled from your scan, Max. The composite of your DNA."
Her confusion cleared immediately. "Anything I can use against him? Or them?"
Original Cindy and Beck glanced in each other's direction. After a pause, Cindy spoke. "Nothin' much that can be done soon, Boo. Beck tells me the scans show that you probably could do some kick-ass paranormal stunts, but you'd need a lot of mental training to figure out how. Months maybe, heck even years isn't unlikely. A lot of your DNA seems to be geared to your brain activity... which may have something to do with your premonitions; so chances are that you could eventually control some of it. Could be that mongrel, White, could give you some pointers since they're into that self-genetic breeding thing. They must have learned somethin', being as whacked as they are."
Max considered this. "You might have a point there. I'll pull him aside and ask him before we take off."
Beck hesitated, "So you're going to do this." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah, it has to be done. We need to make a dent in their armor and we need Logan back. I need him back." she admitted.
Original Cindy hugged her. "Then you best be careful. Don't make me come after you, Boo."
Max grinned, which felt kinda good for once. "I'll expect you."
Beck squeezed her hand. "Keep my friends safe."
She smiled. "When I can." Joshua followed her out.
She saw Lydecker, White and Alec exiting the briefing compound, and she whistled loudly. They saw her, and headed in her direction.
"Joshua, could you go to my room and grab my duffel bag? I left it on the couch. Be careful, it's got explosives in it."
He grunted and wandered off in the direction of the building her room was in.
Lydecker was the first to speak as they approached. "They're ready, but I still advise against going until we've worked out the rest of the details."
She shook her head. "We'll work them out on the way. It's a simple operation; there are only going to be two details, demolitions and retrieval. One group sets the explosives while the rest of us go in after Logan. We get him, head out, first team blows the place to keep them from following. What could be easier?"
Lydecker grimaced, "All we have is his..." he pointed at White, "...word for what passes as a layout of the place."
"It'll have to be good enough, and his breathing future rides on it being accurate so I wouldn't worry a great deal about it. I've got a few people who're gonna punch his ticket if things go sour." She glanced at White meaningfully.
She looked at Alec. "Take Lydecker and finish loading the vehicles. I want a word with White alone."
Lydecker looked somewhat satisfied, believing Max was going to give White a personal warning, but left them with a warning glance at Ames.
White looked at her in his typical, smug way. "Yes, 452?"
Her look could have burned wood. "Stop calling me that before I change my mind and throw you back in that cell. I have a name... and you'll use it or you'll be uninvited. For good. Do you understand me?"
"The question stands." he replied, unperturbed. "What did you want?"
"What do you know about mental disciplines regarding paranormal ability? Our intern tells me my DNA seems to deal somewhat with intentional activity that's guided mentally, like psionics. How do I use that, or how can I find out?"
White briefly sized up her current attitude and decided she was serious. "You don't have much time to take this in, are you sure you want to get into this?"
"Yeah, I've got at least until the vehicles are packed up for the mission." she replied.
White began telling her what he knew regarding psionics, a subject the Conclave knew due to anomalies that would crop up from generation to generation. For some time they tried breeding to enhance those abilities, but determined after a relatively short time that whatever factors seemed to produce psychic or psionic abilities weren't determinable by their methods.
He told her that the individuals who seemed to develop those abilities relayed a common method of engaging their capabilities. "Concentrate on the essence of what you want to accomplish. See it in your mind and feel it in your soul. It seems to be as much an experience of existentialism as it is a manipulation of your environment. You've probably received flashes of insight, think of that as a sort of backfire when your motorcycle isn't tuned right... you have to focus and concentrate to do what you may be capable of. That's all I can really tell you for now."
"Abilities such as?"
"How would I know? I only had the blueprints to your genetics in my hands for a short time before Lydecker stole them originally." he answered.
She looked exasperated at him. "You must have some idea..."
"Well, without having access to the diagrams and prints in your lab, or the information Lydecker took, all I can give you is a general idea of what it could entail. You might be able to supercharge your already enhanced abilities, you might have a controllable combination of telekinesis, pyrokenesis, telepathy, premonition, precognition, locational viewing... the list goes on." White began to look as if this conversation was amusing him, much to Max's annoyance.
Ames relented. "Why don't you try something small." He took a pen from his pocket, and laid it on a bench. "Telekinesis is not a terribly common psionistic ability, but if you have that ability it should be fairly easy to determine and use. Focus only on the pen. See it with your eyes, and feel it with your thoughts. Mentally reach out and touch it."
Max looked at the pen, saw it and focused her attention on it completely.
She could almost feel the pen in her mind, contoured and solid. She closed her eyes and almost felt as if she could touch it.
White didn't notice anything at first, but after several seconds he thought he saw the pen quiver slightly. Then without notice it took off like a rocket in his direction, causing him to dive out of the way as it imbedded in the wall of the building behind him.
"All right, I think we can classify that as a technical failure." he chastised, as he stood up and brushed himself off.
"Are you high?" she replied, astonished. "I just made the damn thing fly through the air!"
She concentrated on a small rock, which after a few seconds shot into the air diagonally and through a window. She grimaced as faces appeared in the window shortly after.
Ames took hold of the pen, which was halfway buried in the wall and yanked, unsuccessfully.
"Perhaps, but you didn't control the pen, or that rock." he said simply. He had known from the brief review of the information that had been on Renfro's briefcase that she might possess such abilities. This exercise had not surprised him in the least.
She looked at him, unable to comprehend his sarcasm in the face of this new enlightenment. "Whatever. Thanks for your help, I'll see what I can figure out on my own time."
He watched as she walked off. Amused, he switched his radio to a private channel and paged Lydecker.
"Lydecker." the voice answered.
Ames watched Max depart out of sight. "This is White. In spite of our differences, I think you should know something."
He briefed Lydecker on what had happened.
The radio was silent as the ex-Manticore leader absorbed the information.
"Thanks." He said coldly but acknowledging the effort. "Incidentally, we head out in five. Out."
White switched back to normal channels, and began walking in the direction Max had left, towards the vehicles.
Five minutes later, on the dot, they were in the TC vehicles and on their way.