Caged Hearts

Part 6

          "44!"

          "45!"

          "46!"

          Max's voice shouted along with the rest as they moved as one up and down doing push-ups.  Nevertheless, her thoughts were far from the morning exercise drills.  Instead she was thinking about Alec or who used to be Alec. 

          It had been two weeks since his dismissal from Psych Ops and almost every one of those days Max had spent trying to communicate with him. 

          But Alec continued to keep his distance.  He knew who she was, and she was very relieved about that.  After that first day she had been terrified that they or he, himself, had done something to his brain to make him forget.  However when she finally was able to get a minute alone with him, he'd said "Max, not now,' proving he knew her name.  That proof did little to help with the sting of him not wanting to talk to her, unfortunately. And even more unfortunate was how that didn't seem to be an isolated incident.  He kept on avoiding her and then outright refusing to meet with her alone when she'd finally corner him. But the most hurtful was when she would chance touching him only to see him immediately flinch and pull away.

          "Your match, 452."  804 choked out.  "Come on, 452, I give."  He continued when she made no move to get off of him.

          Max shook her head and looked down to see her arm cutting off the air of one of her unit members.  She quickly pulled her hand away and stood up.

          Absently she watched as 804 staggered off the mat and 516 stepped on.  Max lashed out at her new opponent viciously even as her mind went back to thoughts of Alec's recent behavior.  But her thoughts were soon interrupted by a loud angry voice not too far away from where she sparred.

          "Are you disobeying a direct order, soldier!"  Heads swung instantly to the shouts of an enraged TAC.  Max and 516 stopped circling each other and joined the others to try and see what the commotion was. 

          She was expecting for the guards to shout for 'eyes front' any second.  But when she saw them instead running passed towards the sound of their colleague shouting at a unit, her curiosity increased. 

          "494, you will stand down immediately!"

          Max ignored the looks of her fellow section members as she broke formation and moved hurriedly towards the sounds of shouting and fighting.

          Her eyes were immediately drawn to the bloody and battered body of an X5 being helped up by members of his section.  They then snapped to the sparring mat where a group of TAC leaders and guards had their tasers and battalions drawn as they surrounded someone.  The three in front of Max crumpled to the ground when they were hit with the body of a guard that was hurled at them. 

          Max covered her mouth to stop the name that almost spilled from it when she saw who was in the center of the mat standing off against the TACs and guards.

          He was crouched low.  His split lip bled and stained the teeth that he bared as he snarled.  His maniacal eyes scanned those surrounding him and his hands looked more like claws as he waited, ready to take whoever came at him next.  

          Max was at her wits end.  Should she help him?  Should she help the guards by trying to calm him down by saying his name and going to him?  Should she really risk exposure?  As she pondered, she caught sight of a guard in the tower behind Alec taking aim.  Max knew the decision had just been made for her.  She poised to blur but suddenly Alec dropped and rolled out of the way and to Max's surprise she saw a tranquilizer dart land where he had been only seconds ago.

How had he known? She didn't get the chance to reflect on that further because Alec's display, though spectacular, gave the guards the opportunity they needed to close in on him. They all hit him at once.  Tasers volts and battalions struck his body and made him cry out in anguish. 

And Max could only watch helplessly as they gathered his unconscious body and dragged him away.

***

          "Come on, come on."  Max whispered and then took another glance behind her at the door.  When she saw that she was alone and didn't hear anyone coming she turned back to the array of computer monitors.  Her fingers resumed flying across the keyboards. 

          She wanted answers and she wanted them now.  Talking to Alec hadn't helped.  Talking to the people in charge at Manticore was not an option.  Therefore, she was left with finding the answers herself using the skills that they gave her. 

          She had excelled in communications as a child even back in the Wyoming facility.  Once she got out of psych ops that training continued.  When she mastered the ins and outs of everything from the telephone to global positioning and navigation systems they started her on computers.

          "Bingo."  Max repeated the word she often heard one of her trainers say when she found what she had been looking for.  The records on all the transgenics had to be thoroughly encoded in case any sharp hacker managed to get into their systems.  Foreign powers were enough of a threat if they learned how to create their own super soldiers.  But the domestic front would be just as threatening if they were to first discover a program that created soldiers and then coupled that with the level of genetic manipulation and physical and psychological conditioning those child soldiers underwent.

          While it was rapidly decoding, she took another look behind her, just in case.  She was taken a big risk doing this, but in the end she convinced herself that it was more of a win-win situation.  If she got caught and sent to isolation, at least she'd be near Alec. Maybe they could finally talk through Morse code since they'd have nothing better to do.  And if Psych Ops wound up being the penalty, she could at least see Jace since they carted her off to there not too long after Alec. 

But at least she knew why Jace got taken away.

          Instead of letting herself get side tracked by that, Max turned her attention once again to the computer monitor. Her finger remained pressed on the down cursor arrow as her genetically enhanced brain scanned and committed to memory all of the information pertaining to 494's recent stay in Psych Ops.

***

          Max blurred through the trails pushing herself harder and harder at each marker.  She needed the speed, the cold air whipping through her hair, and her surroundings hazy as she raced passed them.  This was the closest to flying she could get now that Alec wouldn't so much as touch her.  Plus she needed to think.  And unlike with Alec, when in his arms, all her thoughts and problems were forgotten; now she needed this different sensation of flying because it helped her mind work through everything she learned in his files.

          There were no pictures in the computer files, but the physical descriptions of the way those people had been killed and displayed left clear images in her head. 

She'd seen that before, hell she did that before.  But they had been reprimanded by Lydecker for their actions in the woods that day with the prisoner.  They had been told it was unnecessary carnage.  A kill should be quick and efficient using only one's mind and skill.  Not savage and messy for that was clearly succumbing to emotion. And he had been right.  They thought the prisoner was a nomalie, the monsters in the basement, the things they sent Jack to after they took him away. Losing Jack had been fresh in their minds and they lost control that day in the woods.  But they learned the difference. At least Max thought they did but apparently not, because Ben, sweet Ben that used to smile and make shadow puppets on the wall to make her smile, was killing…murdering people in the same way they did in the woods that day all those years ago. 

Why was he doing that?  Had Alec been right?  Was the world such a corruptive and disgusting place, so filled with the enemy, that Ben had been attacked or threatened that many times since escaping? 

But why was he taking their teeth out?  Why was he branding them with his barcode?  That's not something they were taught to do to the enemy.  That was like what the file had said repeatedly throughout the pages:  Psychotic.  Ben was 'psychotic' and because he and 494 were twins they were testing Alec for 'psychotic tendencies.'

Max's foot faltered and her pace abruptly slowed to catch herself from falling when a new question suddenly pierced her brain.

What would Manticore do to test if someone was psychotic or not?

TBC

Please Review