Title: Serum (tentative title)
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Fandoms: Dark Angel/Roswell crossover
Homepage: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or settings from either show
Spoilers: Up to 'Heart of mine' for Roswell and 'Art attack' for DA
"Hey, Max!!" Sketchy called as Max (sometimes aka Max Guerro, sometimes aka X5 332960073452,) closed her locker at Jam Pony. "We're heading over to Crash. You wanna come??"
Max thought a second. She'd promised Logan Cale that she'd go snooping around on his injustice of the week, but that wouldn't be until twilight fell. "Yeah, I'm up for a pitcher or so. Gotta bounce early, though."
"Cool," Sketchy observed. "We can bet on whether Original Cindy's new girl toy actually shows up before you have to jet."
"Say what??" Max turned and shot a stare at her best friend. "Homegirl, did you actually invite 'Monique' over to meet us??"
"It was my sweet baby's call, yo," Original Cindy replied. "Original Cindy's still worried that my cutey's gonna take one look at you lot and vacate the scene. But sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, y'know what I'm saying??"
"'Tink I do, mah sistah," Herbal Thought said, draping a friendly arm around Original Cindy's shoulders as they left the building. "'Tis in the fashion of...."
* * * * *
"How much longer is this going to take??" the young teenage boy called from the back of a car, waiting its place in queue outside the Seattle city limits.
"Could you settle down, Andrew," Michael Guerin asked from the driver's seat. "It'll take as long as it takes. There's no rushing checkpoint police." As if to deny his very words, the queue ahead of them moved forward a car length, and Michael pulled up by a similar amount.
Andrew sighed loudly and returned to staring out of the window. "You know, if I shot an energy pulse at somebody's tires, it's not like they'd ever figure out it wasn't an accident."
"No!" Michael groaned. "Come on, I promised your mom that we wouldn't get thrown into a lockup."
"No you didn't," Andrew shot back. "You didn't even tell her that we were *going* to Seattle."
"Well, I'm sure that Caryn's parents promised her that for me by now," Michael countered, gesturing to the young woman in the passenger seat next to him
"And what about uncle Max and aunt Lizzie," Caryn chimed in. "Do you think my parents have told *them* where we went??"
"Wouldn't surpise me," Michael sighed.
"They're gonna be *pissed.*"
"Caryn, you ASKED to come with us," Andrew chimed in.
"Yeah, well... someone had to come along and keep an eye on you two boys."
"Who are you calling a..."
"SSshh!!" Michael hissed. The line had moved again, more than a car length this time, maybe two or three, and a uniformed officer was waiting for him to pull up. He did so as quickly and smoothly as he could, rolling down the window. "Evening, officer." The sun had set while they were waiting in line, he noticed.
"Your pass, sir?" the cop asked without, as far as Michael could tell, the slightest inflection or tone in his voice. Michael pulled out the paperwork and handed it over. The cop looked at it. "Coming to seattle for business or pleasure??"
For a second Michael was intensely irritated, because that information was right there on the pass. Then he realized that this was a perfunctory spot check, to see if he actually even knew what was on the pass. "Business." But not the kind of business that his identification indicated.
"A produce sales broker from Lowden??" The cop read, smiling a little. "Gotta admit, I love those strawberries you guys grow up there. Got any coming in soon??"
"Will take a few months more," Michael told him with a mock trace of sadness. "They won't be ripe 'til the summer, you know."
"Ahh, too bad." The guard handed back the pass, with a small red mark stamped onto it now, and waved them in.
"It's only quarter to seven," Caryn announced. "And our meeting with the guy isn't until ten. Why did you have to hurry us off this morning, Mister Guerin??"
"Had to be ready in case of longer delays," Michael said with a bit of a sigh. "Come on, we'll find someplace to get something to eat."
He looked around as he drove slowly, taking in the graffitied streets and the teeming throngs of sidewalkers with the aid of the dimming twilight. "You're a long way from Roswell, buddy," he whispered silently to himself.
He wasn't even sure how he got onto that street... a passage between two buildings, it would be just barely wide enough for two cars to pass in opposite directions - if all the pedestrians got out of the way to facilitate such a maneuver. Michael looked up ahead and he groaned - a car had obviously gotten into some kind of accident, its body angled sideways relative to the alleyway.
"Sorry, buddy," a slightly short man with a trim black beard called out to him. "Unless you want to wait three quarters of an hour, you'd better turn around and back up."
Hmmm. Michael took a look behind him - he hadn't noticed it, but he'd come far enough since the last intersection that reversing all the way would be a royal pain. Groaning, he swung the steering wheel around to attempt a three-point turn... or more likely a five. Whatever would get him out of here.
He only vaguely noticed the series of clicks.
* * * * *
Max jogged across the building roof, wondering if she'd find what she was looking for. Look down to check in a street below, nothing of interest, she she flipped off and landed on another roof, across the way, and two stories down. Head to the right, why not, and... "Well, looky what we got here."
One car was angled across the street, supposedly from an accident but to Max's trained eye, definitely an intentional blockage. Another car, nice quality sedan, looked to be from out of the city, was stopped in the process of turning around. Three locals were pointing rifles at the windows. "Come on out, don't make any sudden moves," one of them called out loudly.
"Now, how much fun would that be??" Max called out as she let herself drop. The spokes-carjacker went down like he was paper-mache under the impact of her landing. One of his cronies swung his gun towards her, while the other instinctively fired at the intended victims, but something seemed to jerk the gun upwards and to the side at the last moment and the bullet went wide, into a building wall.
And then Max was in motion, grabbing the rifle from carjacker number two, the one that had been aimed at her, and drove it through the right collarbone of carjacker number three. Then her foot came out, crashing into number two's shin and cracking it in two. For a second she paused, surprised herself at the ferocity of those attacks. And then she shrugged.
"What the hell... not like you slimeballs didn't have it comin' to ya." Turning to the original spokeman, she considered a moment, and then dislocated his shoulder. As he howled in pain, she vaulted up a fire escape and into the night. The sedan had finished turning around and was booting it out of there too, she noticed.
Max didn't feel too sorry for the carjackers. They'd manage to do a little first aid on each other, hobble off to a gang doctor and get patched up. If anything, what was buggin' on her was that there was no way that she could ever beat up the scum of Seattle enough.
"Too little time, too many wastes of DNA." She took her bearings and headed off for where she'd left her baby, her motorbike. Logan would want to hear about this.
* * * * *
"What did you do to them, Max??" Logan Cale asked Max after she'd told him that she'd come upon a carjacking in progress.
"It's called negative reinforcement. Gave them a reason to think twice before they pull that on another nice family." She waited, wondering if he'd raise an objection, but he didn't. Logan was principled, but it was hard to get too upset at vigilante justice these days, as long as it got the justice part more or less right. Wasn't too much integrity in the city courts these days, that was for sure.
"Anyway, the point is you were right. The Wolfhounds gang is planning these carjackings in half-decent neighborhoods, looks like, where people wouldn't be too suspicious, and vamoosing before anyone knows what's going on."
"Hmmm." Logan considered this. "Well, 'Eyes only' may send a word of warning out to the public, but there's only so much I can do about something like this. Might be a good idea to apply a little more 'negative reinforcement', come to think of that." Logan still looked undecided on that score as he spun his wheelchair away.
"On another note, I've found something that might interest you." He wheeled off to a nearby table and picked up a small notepad, and turned back around to hand it to her. "Do you remember that genetic research conference you went to about a month back??"
"Not likely to forget."
"Before everything started going wrong... did you happen to hear about something called the Laurentian Serum??"
Max screwed up her face and thought. "Naw, don't think it came up. Why??"
"The guy who perfected it was one of the B-list guests at that conference. It's a benevolent viroid... designed to spread from cell to cell throughout a body and repair chromosome and RNA incompatibilities stemming from genetic hybridization. It doesn't have the kind of sweeping possibilities that Doctor Tanaka's research did, but I thought that possibly..."
"...It might be able to help me with my seizures," Max finished.
"Or any issues that haven't even developed yet from your heritage as a Manticore X-5," Logan added.
"As long as they're because the different types of DNA they threw into me are incompatible," Max qualified, "and not that they left something out or what have you. Still, it's a good lead. Did you just come across it, or have you been sitting on this one?"
"I've known about the serum for a while, but the problem was actually getting it," Logan explained. "Fyodor Lanstein: fence, deals mostly in medical supplies, including some pretty obscure stuff. Word is that he has a dose of the Laurentian Serum, and that he's hoping to make a sale, ten PM tonight."
"Not if I can help it." Max grinned. Robbing thieves was always fun, especially when she could give the riches to herself. "You got an address for me?" Belatedly, she took the notepad, and nodded. "There it is."
"Good luck," Logan told her.
* * * * *
The address Logan had given her was a house in one of the nicer parts of town. Not a huge mansion, but definitely bigger and nicer than most people could keep up these days. It was the windows that struck Max... lots of big windows, and no curtains or blinds. Seemed a bit of an odd choice for a location to be selling stolen merchandise, but it's not like anyone was really paying attention, after all, was it??
Except for Max herself. She was *definitely* paying attention.
She'd shown up a few minutes early, just to get a feel for the sitch. Big guy in dressy clothes, walked around like he thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread... that would be the fence who was making the sale. Something Lanstein, Logan had said, right?? He was a little taller, slightly more muscular, and a fair bit fatter than average... very short black hair, starting to go away to wherever it is guy hair went. Something about the shape of his face and color of his skin made him look about as eastern-european-Jew as his strange and incongrous name had sounded. (Not that different nationalities and religions meant that much to Max, growing up where she had, but she'd picked up the broad strokes somewhere along the way.)
There was no sign of the buyers when Max first got to the address, but they arrived within a few minutes... and Max recognized them. The car was what caught her attention first... this was the family that she had saved from the carjackers earlier that night. Or... well, she wasn't quite sure if that was the right thing to call what she'd done, but never mind. She had only caught very brief glances of the actual people inside the car - tough, determined guy in his late thirties, two teenagers... a young boy, looked like an energetic scrapper, and a pretty blonde girl. She seemed... well, there was something weird about her that Max couldn't pin down just at the moment.
The three of them went inside the house, and Max climbed up a tree to get a better view without any chance of being seen herself. Usual pleasantries... fence offers him a brandy, no thanks, I'm driving... little tour of the house, prattle on about the expensive paintings, and then -- to business.
Max was a little surprised when he brought out the serum... she's expected something... um, well something thicker and syrupy, or colored, or something like that. It looked like a very tiny test tube full of water. But no matter how good Max's vision was, she couldn't see benevolent viroids, she supposed. Whatever they were.
And then... something went wrong. Max didn't catch exactly what it was, but... ahhh. The price has gone up, and the buyer wasn't ready for that. He bargains, he stalls for time... while the blonde girl turned away, unnoticed by the fence or any of his muscle. Max leaned over, focusing her enhanced sight on what was happening there.
She pulled something out of her pocket... looked like loose change and a few little rocks, or something like that. Girl concentrated... and they SHIFTED, glowing slightly. The shape of the seperate objects changed and began to come together as one outline... a ring. A golden ring with a brilliant sparkling red stone. What the hell was that?? How did she do that?
She turned and offered the ring as part of the payment. Max caught her breath, wondering what would happen next.
* * * * *
"Please, sir." Andrew watched as Caryn made her pitch, fighting off a suicidal impulse to chuckle. "We need that medicine... for my best friend. She's dying, Mister Lanstein."
"Well, let's see what you've got there," Lanstein said, taking the ring for inspection.
"It was my grandma Evans'," Caryn said, the hint of a tear welling up in her eye. Andrew had to admit she was a great actress. "She died right after the pulse, but she gave that ring to my momma, and momma gave it to me for good luck. I don' know how I'll explain trading it to her, but if we get the serum for Kayla I know she'll forgive me."
Unfortunately, the glurge pitch didn't seem to do anything for Lanstein. "Gold's not real," he muttered. "Which means the quote unquote ruby is probably crap as well. Sorry, no sale." And he tossed the ring back at her.
Knowing that this might be their only chance, Andrew dived for the fat guy, hoping to have the element of surprise on his side. He did, but not quite enough. He turned and backed away. "What the hell, you mental, kid??"
A bodyguard grabbed Andrew's arm, but he didn't stop. He concentrated, focusing his powers on the vial of serum. He managed to slide it out of Lanstein's pocket, but the fence yelped and grabbed it in mid-air with both hands. "What the hell is going on here??" Andrew concentrated harder, and managed to lift Lanstein off the floor entirely for a second.
"Let go of my son," his father hissed, his eyes narrowing. Suddenly there was a bang and he staggered back. One of the other guards had shot him.
"Something really strange is going on," Lanstein noticed. He gave some kind of a signal and then something hard knocked into Andrew's head... that would be the bodyguard, he knew. Between the slight pain and confusion, he felt his grasp of the power slip away. "Don't let any of them go." He walked over to a bookcase and locked the serum in a small wooden compartment built into the case.
Suddenly there was a huge crash as one of the windows shattered and fell apart. This total babe, dark hair, maybe twenty-something, wearing leather, swung inside. She looked just like the one who'd saved their butts out in the street. Was Seattle crawling with dozens of them, all identical, or did I have my own guardian angel, Andrew wondered.
"Come on," Caryn said, grabbing Dad and Andrew and helping them both towards the door. "Freeze!!" One of the bodyguards said, pulling a gun. Caryn only looked at him and he went sprawling on the floor, leaving Andrew to wonder why he hadn't thought of something like that.
"Don't let them get away!!" Lanstein yelled... he had to suspect they were aliens or something, because to the casual observer he had bigger problems on his hands. Andrew concentrated on fooling the senses of the other bodyguards, so that they saw the three of them doubling back instead of continuing towards the door.
They made it. Andrew just managed to see the brunette girl shatter the wooden compartment without spilling the serum, and backhanding Lanstein across the room. "Cool."
* * * * *
"So, you grabbed it, just like that??" Logan asked her.
"Wasn't too hard," Max muttered, holding the little test tube and looking through it, still trying to catch a glimpse of whatever the hell a viroid was. "I just wonder who those buyers were. Not your usual kind of sleazeball, that's for sure. There... there was something about them."
"What kind of some..."
"I don't know, alright??" She put the serum down carefully and paced a bit. "What if I told you I wanted to find them??"
"Max!" Logan was startled for a second. Then, "We don't know anything about..."
"License number JV, three four, K one."
Logan considered that. "I can try the DMV database for an address, not that that's too reliable lately."
"The whole city's on a class two," Max mentioned, thinking of something. "And these peeps didn't look like locals. If they had passes, to get through the city checkpoints into Seattle, would their license be on them??"
"Not on the passes," Logan said. "But... wait a second, when they use the passes, there's a checkpoint report that includes the plate number and the pass code ID."
"So we can trace back, find out who that pass was issued to."
Logan looked at her for a long moment. "And what about the serum?? Are you going to take it??"
Max shrugged, embarrassed. "Not yet. That's why I want to find these people."
He didn't say anything.
"Alright, look, I can't explain it, okay??" Max burst out. "Look, I can't tell you why, but I want to find out who these people really are." She didn't mention the bit with making the gold ring or that something weird seemed to have been going on with the boy just before Max made her entrance... or how they'd gotten out of the building so quickly when Lanstein seemed more interested in them than in Max in the serum. "And until I know whether they need this stuff more than I do, I'm keeping it safe. Alright??"
"Of course," Logan agreed too quickly, and something flashed in his eyes that Max couldn't identify, but suspected she liked. Respect, pride even?? "Okay, let's see what I can find out about that license number."
* * * * *
Andrew looked over from Caryn to his father's still face and back again. "It's now or never, Car."
"And what if it's never??" she asked in an abstracted way. Andrew shot her a dirty look. "Okay, okay... ready as I'll ever be."
She frowned, concentrated, and put her hand near Michael Guerin's gunshot wound. For a long second, nothing seemed to be happening. Then there was a soft, slithering movement... the bullet eased itself out, and Caryn handed it to Andrew, who reduced it into metallic dust with an irritated gesture.
"Sssh," Caryn warned him. Andrew knew that this was the tricky part. She concentrated, and slowly... ever so slowly, the wound sealed itself up. Michael's color improved, and he began to breathe a little more easily. She stayed focused on him for a long time... but eventually relaxed and looked over at Andrew.
"Went well, I take it??"
"Not perfectly," Caryn disclaimed, "but not too bad either. I want to get him back home as soon as possible so Max can take a look at him... and I don't think he should drive or exert himself any more than he has to until then."
"Hmmm..." Michael thought about that. "Guess you should take the wheel then -- you're closer to being sixteen than I am. Not that that's really going to impress the checkpoint guards, I don't think."
"We can wait until he wakes up and see if he's comfortable driving out of town... I guess." Caryn didn't sound like she was wild about that plan.
"Once he realizes that it would be awkward for either one of us, he'll insist on it," Andrew pointed out. "I know my dad."
"And you're not a bit, like him, are you??" Caryn teased.
"C'mon, dad'll be fine," Andrew decided suddenly. "You'll make sure of that... your majesty."
"Cut it out!! I know my powers are strong, but I've never been able to get the hang of healing. Not like Max, saving the bird when he was like seven, and everything else."
"You can do anything," Andrew whispered. She looked at him for a moment... there had been no sarcasm or teasing in his tone of voice. She blinked, slowly.
"Hey, what happened??" Michael's voice groaned.
Andrew looked over at his father... his eyes were open, and he looked pretty coherent.
"You got shot," Andrew reminded him. "Keeping me out of trouble that I should have stayed out of on my own."
"What about the serum??"
"Somebody broke in just as we were breaking out... I think she may have got the serum."
"Come on," Caryn said, fixing Michael with her resolve face in advance. "We're going back to Lowden. Now."
"But..."
"Caryn isn't sure that she got your insides put back together right," Andrew chimed in supportively. "Wants to make sure that Max looks you over and gives you a clean bill of health. And I agree. One way or another, we're taking you out of Seattle before the morning twilight."
Michael groaned. "Okay. I'll drive until we're past the checkpoints ten miles outside the city limits."
* * * * *
"Max!!"
Where was she?? With a start of embarrassment, Max realized that she had fallen asleep sprawled out on Logan's elegant dining room table. She didn't even need to sleep, hardly... come to think of it, she hadn't really bothered for the past few nights, had she?? And it had been a busy night, followed up by some really boring stuff...
"Did you find something??" she blurted out. They had been going over checkpoint reports... which were never punched into the computer, so they'd been paging through the handwritten log books.
"Matt just called - he put a quiet watch on that license number, and it left the city half an hour ago," Logan explained. Matt Sung was Logan's best contact in the Seattle police department. "Checkpoint pass, class B-1, was issued to a Michael Guerin by the town council in Lowden, Washington... which matches up to the DMV registry. I'd say it looks like that's your buyer."
"Hmmm." Max weighed that as her brain revved up to speed. "Lowden. It seems familiar... but since when do small town councils get the authority to issue class B1 passes??"
Logan's face creased up. "I hadn't thought of that... you'r right, it doesn't make much sense."
"Wait a second!!" Max got up, noticing that the sun was threatening to come up soon, and hurried over to her bag. She kept a few emergency supplies here... like the fixings for Kendra's recipe - emergency toothpaste. Baking soda and -- peppermint oil.
She looked at the label on the small bottle. A PROUD PRODUCT OF LOWDEN, WASHINGTON.
To be continued...
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Fandoms: Dark Angel/Roswell crossover
Homepage: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or settings from either show
Spoilers: Up to 'Heart of mine' for Roswell and 'Art attack' for DA
"Hey, Max!!" Sketchy called as Max (sometimes aka Max Guerro, sometimes aka X5 332960073452,) closed her locker at Jam Pony. "We're heading over to Crash. You wanna come??"
Max thought a second. She'd promised Logan Cale that she'd go snooping around on his injustice of the week, but that wouldn't be until twilight fell. "Yeah, I'm up for a pitcher or so. Gotta bounce early, though."
"Cool," Sketchy observed. "We can bet on whether Original Cindy's new girl toy actually shows up before you have to jet."
"Say what??" Max turned and shot a stare at her best friend. "Homegirl, did you actually invite 'Monique' over to meet us??"
"It was my sweet baby's call, yo," Original Cindy replied. "Original Cindy's still worried that my cutey's gonna take one look at you lot and vacate the scene. But sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, y'know what I'm saying??"
"'Tink I do, mah sistah," Herbal Thought said, draping a friendly arm around Original Cindy's shoulders as they left the building. "'Tis in the fashion of...."
* * * * *
"How much longer is this going to take??" the young teenage boy called from the back of a car, waiting its place in queue outside the Seattle city limits.
"Could you settle down, Andrew," Michael Guerin asked from the driver's seat. "It'll take as long as it takes. There's no rushing checkpoint police." As if to deny his very words, the queue ahead of them moved forward a car length, and Michael pulled up by a similar amount.
Andrew sighed loudly and returned to staring out of the window. "You know, if I shot an energy pulse at somebody's tires, it's not like they'd ever figure out it wasn't an accident."
"No!" Michael groaned. "Come on, I promised your mom that we wouldn't get thrown into a lockup."
"No you didn't," Andrew shot back. "You didn't even tell her that we were *going* to Seattle."
"Well, I'm sure that Caryn's parents promised her that for me by now," Michael countered, gesturing to the young woman in the passenger seat next to him
"And what about uncle Max and aunt Lizzie," Caryn chimed in. "Do you think my parents have told *them* where we went??"
"Wouldn't surpise me," Michael sighed.
"They're gonna be *pissed.*"
"Caryn, you ASKED to come with us," Andrew chimed in.
"Yeah, well... someone had to come along and keep an eye on you two boys."
"Who are you calling a..."
"SSshh!!" Michael hissed. The line had moved again, more than a car length this time, maybe two or three, and a uniformed officer was waiting for him to pull up. He did so as quickly and smoothly as he could, rolling down the window. "Evening, officer." The sun had set while they were waiting in line, he noticed.
"Your pass, sir?" the cop asked without, as far as Michael could tell, the slightest inflection or tone in his voice. Michael pulled out the paperwork and handed it over. The cop looked at it. "Coming to seattle for business or pleasure??"
For a second Michael was intensely irritated, because that information was right there on the pass. Then he realized that this was a perfunctory spot check, to see if he actually even knew what was on the pass. "Business." But not the kind of business that his identification indicated.
"A produce sales broker from Lowden??" The cop read, smiling a little. "Gotta admit, I love those strawberries you guys grow up there. Got any coming in soon??"
"Will take a few months more," Michael told him with a mock trace of sadness. "They won't be ripe 'til the summer, you know."
"Ahh, too bad." The guard handed back the pass, with a small red mark stamped onto it now, and waved them in.
"It's only quarter to seven," Caryn announced. "And our meeting with the guy isn't until ten. Why did you have to hurry us off this morning, Mister Guerin??"
"Had to be ready in case of longer delays," Michael said with a bit of a sigh. "Come on, we'll find someplace to get something to eat."
He looked around as he drove slowly, taking in the graffitied streets and the teeming throngs of sidewalkers with the aid of the dimming twilight. "You're a long way from Roswell, buddy," he whispered silently to himself.
He wasn't even sure how he got onto that street... a passage between two buildings, it would be just barely wide enough for two cars to pass in opposite directions - if all the pedestrians got out of the way to facilitate such a maneuver. Michael looked up ahead and he groaned - a car had obviously gotten into some kind of accident, its body angled sideways relative to the alleyway.
"Sorry, buddy," a slightly short man with a trim black beard called out to him. "Unless you want to wait three quarters of an hour, you'd better turn around and back up."
Hmmm. Michael took a look behind him - he hadn't noticed it, but he'd come far enough since the last intersection that reversing all the way would be a royal pain. Groaning, he swung the steering wheel around to attempt a three-point turn... or more likely a five. Whatever would get him out of here.
He only vaguely noticed the series of clicks.
* * * * *
Max jogged across the building roof, wondering if she'd find what she was looking for. Look down to check in a street below, nothing of interest, she she flipped off and landed on another roof, across the way, and two stories down. Head to the right, why not, and... "Well, looky what we got here."
One car was angled across the street, supposedly from an accident but to Max's trained eye, definitely an intentional blockage. Another car, nice quality sedan, looked to be from out of the city, was stopped in the process of turning around. Three locals were pointing rifles at the windows. "Come on out, don't make any sudden moves," one of them called out loudly.
"Now, how much fun would that be??" Max called out as she let herself drop. The spokes-carjacker went down like he was paper-mache under the impact of her landing. One of his cronies swung his gun towards her, while the other instinctively fired at the intended victims, but something seemed to jerk the gun upwards and to the side at the last moment and the bullet went wide, into a building wall.
And then Max was in motion, grabbing the rifle from carjacker number two, the one that had been aimed at her, and drove it through the right collarbone of carjacker number three. Then her foot came out, crashing into number two's shin and cracking it in two. For a second she paused, surprised herself at the ferocity of those attacks. And then she shrugged.
"What the hell... not like you slimeballs didn't have it comin' to ya." Turning to the original spokeman, she considered a moment, and then dislocated his shoulder. As he howled in pain, she vaulted up a fire escape and into the night. The sedan had finished turning around and was booting it out of there too, she noticed.
Max didn't feel too sorry for the carjackers. They'd manage to do a little first aid on each other, hobble off to a gang doctor and get patched up. If anything, what was buggin' on her was that there was no way that she could ever beat up the scum of Seattle enough.
"Too little time, too many wastes of DNA." She took her bearings and headed off for where she'd left her baby, her motorbike. Logan would want to hear about this.
* * * * *
"What did you do to them, Max??" Logan Cale asked Max after she'd told him that she'd come upon a carjacking in progress.
"It's called negative reinforcement. Gave them a reason to think twice before they pull that on another nice family." She waited, wondering if he'd raise an objection, but he didn't. Logan was principled, but it was hard to get too upset at vigilante justice these days, as long as it got the justice part more or less right. Wasn't too much integrity in the city courts these days, that was for sure.
"Anyway, the point is you were right. The Wolfhounds gang is planning these carjackings in half-decent neighborhoods, looks like, where people wouldn't be too suspicious, and vamoosing before anyone knows what's going on."
"Hmmm." Logan considered this. "Well, 'Eyes only' may send a word of warning out to the public, but there's only so much I can do about something like this. Might be a good idea to apply a little more 'negative reinforcement', come to think of that." Logan still looked undecided on that score as he spun his wheelchair away.
"On another note, I've found something that might interest you." He wheeled off to a nearby table and picked up a small notepad, and turned back around to hand it to her. "Do you remember that genetic research conference you went to about a month back??"
"Not likely to forget."
"Before everything started going wrong... did you happen to hear about something called the Laurentian Serum??"
Max screwed up her face and thought. "Naw, don't think it came up. Why??"
"The guy who perfected it was one of the B-list guests at that conference. It's a benevolent viroid... designed to spread from cell to cell throughout a body and repair chromosome and RNA incompatibilities stemming from genetic hybridization. It doesn't have the kind of sweeping possibilities that Doctor Tanaka's research did, but I thought that possibly..."
"...It might be able to help me with my seizures," Max finished.
"Or any issues that haven't even developed yet from your heritage as a Manticore X-5," Logan added.
"As long as they're because the different types of DNA they threw into me are incompatible," Max qualified, "and not that they left something out or what have you. Still, it's a good lead. Did you just come across it, or have you been sitting on this one?"
"I've known about the serum for a while, but the problem was actually getting it," Logan explained. "Fyodor Lanstein: fence, deals mostly in medical supplies, including some pretty obscure stuff. Word is that he has a dose of the Laurentian Serum, and that he's hoping to make a sale, ten PM tonight."
"Not if I can help it." Max grinned. Robbing thieves was always fun, especially when she could give the riches to herself. "You got an address for me?" Belatedly, she took the notepad, and nodded. "There it is."
"Good luck," Logan told her.
* * * * *
The address Logan had given her was a house in one of the nicer parts of town. Not a huge mansion, but definitely bigger and nicer than most people could keep up these days. It was the windows that struck Max... lots of big windows, and no curtains or blinds. Seemed a bit of an odd choice for a location to be selling stolen merchandise, but it's not like anyone was really paying attention, after all, was it??
Except for Max herself. She was *definitely* paying attention.
She'd shown up a few minutes early, just to get a feel for the sitch. Big guy in dressy clothes, walked around like he thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread... that would be the fence who was making the sale. Something Lanstein, Logan had said, right?? He was a little taller, slightly more muscular, and a fair bit fatter than average... very short black hair, starting to go away to wherever it is guy hair went. Something about the shape of his face and color of his skin made him look about as eastern-european-Jew as his strange and incongrous name had sounded. (Not that different nationalities and religions meant that much to Max, growing up where she had, but she'd picked up the broad strokes somewhere along the way.)
There was no sign of the buyers when Max first got to the address, but they arrived within a few minutes... and Max recognized them. The car was what caught her attention first... this was the family that she had saved from the carjackers earlier that night. Or... well, she wasn't quite sure if that was the right thing to call what she'd done, but never mind. She had only caught very brief glances of the actual people inside the car - tough, determined guy in his late thirties, two teenagers... a young boy, looked like an energetic scrapper, and a pretty blonde girl. She seemed... well, there was something weird about her that Max couldn't pin down just at the moment.
The three of them went inside the house, and Max climbed up a tree to get a better view without any chance of being seen herself. Usual pleasantries... fence offers him a brandy, no thanks, I'm driving... little tour of the house, prattle on about the expensive paintings, and then -- to business.
Max was a little surprised when he brought out the serum... she's expected something... um, well something thicker and syrupy, or colored, or something like that. It looked like a very tiny test tube full of water. But no matter how good Max's vision was, she couldn't see benevolent viroids, she supposed. Whatever they were.
And then... something went wrong. Max didn't catch exactly what it was, but... ahhh. The price has gone up, and the buyer wasn't ready for that. He bargains, he stalls for time... while the blonde girl turned away, unnoticed by the fence or any of his muscle. Max leaned over, focusing her enhanced sight on what was happening there.
She pulled something out of her pocket... looked like loose change and a few little rocks, or something like that. Girl concentrated... and they SHIFTED, glowing slightly. The shape of the seperate objects changed and began to come together as one outline... a ring. A golden ring with a brilliant sparkling red stone. What the hell was that?? How did she do that?
She turned and offered the ring as part of the payment. Max caught her breath, wondering what would happen next.
* * * * *
"Please, sir." Andrew watched as Caryn made her pitch, fighting off a suicidal impulse to chuckle. "We need that medicine... for my best friend. She's dying, Mister Lanstein."
"Well, let's see what you've got there," Lanstein said, taking the ring for inspection.
"It was my grandma Evans'," Caryn said, the hint of a tear welling up in her eye. Andrew had to admit she was a great actress. "She died right after the pulse, but she gave that ring to my momma, and momma gave it to me for good luck. I don' know how I'll explain trading it to her, but if we get the serum for Kayla I know she'll forgive me."
Unfortunately, the glurge pitch didn't seem to do anything for Lanstein. "Gold's not real," he muttered. "Which means the quote unquote ruby is probably crap as well. Sorry, no sale." And he tossed the ring back at her.
Knowing that this might be their only chance, Andrew dived for the fat guy, hoping to have the element of surprise on his side. He did, but not quite enough. He turned and backed away. "What the hell, you mental, kid??"
A bodyguard grabbed Andrew's arm, but he didn't stop. He concentrated, focusing his powers on the vial of serum. He managed to slide it out of Lanstein's pocket, but the fence yelped and grabbed it in mid-air with both hands. "What the hell is going on here??" Andrew concentrated harder, and managed to lift Lanstein off the floor entirely for a second.
"Let go of my son," his father hissed, his eyes narrowing. Suddenly there was a bang and he staggered back. One of the other guards had shot him.
"Something really strange is going on," Lanstein noticed. He gave some kind of a signal and then something hard knocked into Andrew's head... that would be the bodyguard, he knew. Between the slight pain and confusion, he felt his grasp of the power slip away. "Don't let any of them go." He walked over to a bookcase and locked the serum in a small wooden compartment built into the case.
Suddenly there was a huge crash as one of the windows shattered and fell apart. This total babe, dark hair, maybe twenty-something, wearing leather, swung inside. She looked just like the one who'd saved their butts out in the street. Was Seattle crawling with dozens of them, all identical, or did I have my own guardian angel, Andrew wondered.
"Come on," Caryn said, grabbing Dad and Andrew and helping them both towards the door. "Freeze!!" One of the bodyguards said, pulling a gun. Caryn only looked at him and he went sprawling on the floor, leaving Andrew to wonder why he hadn't thought of something like that.
"Don't let them get away!!" Lanstein yelled... he had to suspect they were aliens or something, because to the casual observer he had bigger problems on his hands. Andrew concentrated on fooling the senses of the other bodyguards, so that they saw the three of them doubling back instead of continuing towards the door.
They made it. Andrew just managed to see the brunette girl shatter the wooden compartment without spilling the serum, and backhanding Lanstein across the room. "Cool."
* * * * *
"So, you grabbed it, just like that??" Logan asked her.
"Wasn't too hard," Max muttered, holding the little test tube and looking through it, still trying to catch a glimpse of whatever the hell a viroid was. "I just wonder who those buyers were. Not your usual kind of sleazeball, that's for sure. There... there was something about them."
"What kind of some..."
"I don't know, alright??" She put the serum down carefully and paced a bit. "What if I told you I wanted to find them??"
"Max!" Logan was startled for a second. Then, "We don't know anything about..."
"License number JV, three four, K one."
Logan considered that. "I can try the DMV database for an address, not that that's too reliable lately."
"The whole city's on a class two," Max mentioned, thinking of something. "And these peeps didn't look like locals. If they had passes, to get through the city checkpoints into Seattle, would their license be on them??"
"Not on the passes," Logan said. "But... wait a second, when they use the passes, there's a checkpoint report that includes the plate number and the pass code ID."
"So we can trace back, find out who that pass was issued to."
Logan looked at her for a long moment. "And what about the serum?? Are you going to take it??"
Max shrugged, embarrassed. "Not yet. That's why I want to find these people."
He didn't say anything.
"Alright, look, I can't explain it, okay??" Max burst out. "Look, I can't tell you why, but I want to find out who these people really are." She didn't mention the bit with making the gold ring or that something weird seemed to have been going on with the boy just before Max made her entrance... or how they'd gotten out of the building so quickly when Lanstein seemed more interested in them than in Max in the serum. "And until I know whether they need this stuff more than I do, I'm keeping it safe. Alright??"
"Of course," Logan agreed too quickly, and something flashed in his eyes that Max couldn't identify, but suspected she liked. Respect, pride even?? "Okay, let's see what I can find out about that license number."
* * * * *
Andrew looked over from Caryn to his father's still face and back again. "It's now or never, Car."
"And what if it's never??" she asked in an abstracted way. Andrew shot her a dirty look. "Okay, okay... ready as I'll ever be."
She frowned, concentrated, and put her hand near Michael Guerin's gunshot wound. For a long second, nothing seemed to be happening. Then there was a soft, slithering movement... the bullet eased itself out, and Caryn handed it to Andrew, who reduced it into metallic dust with an irritated gesture.
"Sssh," Caryn warned him. Andrew knew that this was the tricky part. She concentrated, and slowly... ever so slowly, the wound sealed itself up. Michael's color improved, and he began to breathe a little more easily. She stayed focused on him for a long time... but eventually relaxed and looked over at Andrew.
"Went well, I take it??"
"Not perfectly," Caryn disclaimed, "but not too bad either. I want to get him back home as soon as possible so Max can take a look at him... and I don't think he should drive or exert himself any more than he has to until then."
"Hmmm..." Michael thought about that. "Guess you should take the wheel then -- you're closer to being sixteen than I am. Not that that's really going to impress the checkpoint guards, I don't think."
"We can wait until he wakes up and see if he's comfortable driving out of town... I guess." Caryn didn't sound like she was wild about that plan.
"Once he realizes that it would be awkward for either one of us, he'll insist on it," Andrew pointed out. "I know my dad."
"And you're not a bit, like him, are you??" Caryn teased.
"C'mon, dad'll be fine," Andrew decided suddenly. "You'll make sure of that... your majesty."
"Cut it out!! I know my powers are strong, but I've never been able to get the hang of healing. Not like Max, saving the bird when he was like seven, and everything else."
"You can do anything," Andrew whispered. She looked at him for a moment... there had been no sarcasm or teasing in his tone of voice. She blinked, slowly.
"Hey, what happened??" Michael's voice groaned.
Andrew looked over at his father... his eyes were open, and he looked pretty coherent.
"You got shot," Andrew reminded him. "Keeping me out of trouble that I should have stayed out of on my own."
"What about the serum??"
"Somebody broke in just as we were breaking out... I think she may have got the serum."
"Come on," Caryn said, fixing Michael with her resolve face in advance. "We're going back to Lowden. Now."
"But..."
"Caryn isn't sure that she got your insides put back together right," Andrew chimed in supportively. "Wants to make sure that Max looks you over and gives you a clean bill of health. And I agree. One way or another, we're taking you out of Seattle before the morning twilight."
Michael groaned. "Okay. I'll drive until we're past the checkpoints ten miles outside the city limits."
* * * * *
"Max!!"
Where was she?? With a start of embarrassment, Max realized that she had fallen asleep sprawled out on Logan's elegant dining room table. She didn't even need to sleep, hardly... come to think of it, she hadn't really bothered for the past few nights, had she?? And it had been a busy night, followed up by some really boring stuff...
"Did you find something??" she blurted out. They had been going over checkpoint reports... which were never punched into the computer, so they'd been paging through the handwritten log books.
"Matt just called - he put a quiet watch on that license number, and it left the city half an hour ago," Logan explained. Matt Sung was Logan's best contact in the Seattle police department. "Checkpoint pass, class B-1, was issued to a Michael Guerin by the town council in Lowden, Washington... which matches up to the DMV registry. I'd say it looks like that's your buyer."
"Hmmm." Max weighed that as her brain revved up to speed. "Lowden. It seems familiar... but since when do small town councils get the authority to issue class B1 passes??"
Logan's face creased up. "I hadn't thought of that... you'r right, it doesn't make much sense."
"Wait a second!!" Max got up, noticing that the sun was threatening to come up soon, and hurried over to her bag. She kept a few emergency supplies here... like the fixings for Kendra's recipe - emergency toothpaste. Baking soda and -- peppermint oil.
She looked at the label on the small bottle. A PROUD PRODUCT OF LOWDEN, WASHINGTON.
To be continued...