"I swear to god if you lay one finger on her or make one inappropriate comment while Alec is MIA and I'll shove your head so far up your cloaca you'll be able to give yourself a prostate exam." The odd lizard man that came to rescue us doesn't seem to like my fellow prisoner very much at all. He gives me a reassuring, uhm, smile though as I walk out of the room so maybe he isn't so mean.
We walk down three narrow halls into a large cafeteria room and I halt at the site that greets me. I'm not so easily frightened but the idea of walking into a room filled with people that could snap my neck with two fingers is daunting to say the least. I catch the eyes of a boy about my age and he flushes a deep shade of red and looks down at the floor, his body held at perfect military ease.
"Well that wasn't so hard a rescue job. Anything else you want done fearless leader?" The lizard man addresses a stunning young woman with deeply tanned skin and dark hair, this must be their leader, the one that works for my mother. I imagine her together with Alec, they must look quite pretty together.
Harker chooses this moment to remind us of her presence with a small whimper. I give her a deeply withering look and step towards the leader with my hand extended. "Elizabeth Burnhart, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance Ms. Guevera." She stares at my hand speechlessly for a moment before giving it a small squeeze.
"So you take after your mom huh?" Did she ever show you how to wire C-4?" My eyes light up like a Christmas tree, I love chemistry almost as much as computers. The lizard man gives me a full out grin and the shy kid walks over and hands me a fistful of wires.
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"And so if you add a little tri-nitro glycerine to the mix you can triple your load." The first daughter, as I've come to think of her, is sitting in the middle of the cafeteria floor surrounded by neatly packaged bombs talking animatedly to the only X-6 on the mission. The boy, whose name Dix tells me is Jack, is staring at her with a dazed kind of wonderment that looks like it will clearly lead to infatuation.
On the other side of the room Naia and another of the X-5's are staring at me darkly, shaking their heads. They've been nominated to set the charges in the ventilation ducts and they don't look happy with their assignment.
In the meantime everyone else is looking at me like I've gone around the bend just because I want them to climb out a window and climb down the building. Some people just have no respect. Obviously they don't remember the fabulous flaming chicken rescue me and Alec had performed for Joshua last year. Sometimes you need a flashy distraction.
Blowing up half of the building should be plenty distracting, enough for all of us to escape. Then half of us can get the hostages to safety and the other half can go beat the bushes for Alec, Kate, and that other girl. Poor blond girl, no one hear even knows what her name is, or even if she got around to picking one instead of a number.
My leg is twitching angrily, my foot jumping spasmodically against the floor. This is taking too long and my nerves were shot to begin with. The reedy first daughter looks up at me from the floor, her face flushed with animation from her conversation with Jack. She holds up a compact little bundle of wires and putty and gives me a crooked half smile.
Naia retrieves them with a no nonsense grimace and she heads resolutely for the east side of the building. "You guys ready to do this?" They stare back at me silent as crickets, obviously not thrilled with my plan. "We have three of our people lost out there, three of our own, I asked if you're all ready to do this." Looking chastened they all jump to their feet and start filing ahead of me, out of the door.
Now comes the hard part, motivating all nineteen transgenics, an elderly pilot, and two teenaged girls to climb out of a window, possibly into a spray of bullets, and then cling spider-like to the wall while the other half of the building explodes.
Joshua gives me a brave smile before becoming the first to take the plunge. There isn't any sound of bullets zinging through the air so I take it as a positive sign and motion Dix to follow him. The rest of the transgenics file out after them into the pre-dawn air. Jack carefully assists a suddenly dainty Elizabeth to step up and over the sill, and a reluctant Mole manhandles a wistful looking Logan over the edge.
Taking a deep breath I follow the troops out onto the ledge and wait impatiently for the explosion. When the fire and debris do come shooting out at us we all execute a spectacular arial dive and a brief and awkward landing. Awkward mostly because Josh and Mole really weren't jacked up with any of the cat DNA, and those of us who were felined out are doing our best to keep the four normals from becoming ground pancakes.
Unsorting the ungainly mess of tangled limbs and sending a small prayer skyward that the explosion drew everyone's attention to the other side of the building, we take off running for the forest's edge.
We're halfway to freedom when I hear a scream from the front of the column. "Max!" My stomach plummets to my toes, for someone to risk exposure by screaming it must be really important.
My heart jumps a little as I see Kate kneeling on the ground, very much alive and alert, but the ground around her is thick with blood and the expression on her face makes my body go numb.
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AN:
Mwahahahahahahahaha! I am evil incarnate oh yes I am. Only one chapter left for this story and then on to the final installment, which will hopefully be much much shorter, but who am I kidding I like writing novel length fics. Then? I might go back to the end of the show and start something on cannon again.