Disclaimer: Not mine. Even the ones that are I don't really bother to claim. I just noticed that. Oh well.
Chapter Seven
"Have a nice nap?" White asked.
Max quickly assessed her current situation. Things didn't look good. Her hands were bound behind her back to the seat of a metal chair - reinforced steel to avoid the escape of certain transgenics no doubt - while her feet were cuffed uselessly to the legs, which were thoroughly adhered to the floor. She tried jostling slightly in her seat to test its strength without giving White the sadistic satisfaction of mistaking her experimenting for squirming. Damned thing didn't even vibrate.
Peeking across the narrow hallway-like room, she saw two guards flanking the Familiar. They were as different as night and day, one blonde and beefy while the other was leaner and darker. Judging by their less fearful - but still respectful - stance around White, she guessed that the guards were also Familiars instead of NSA agents as she had hoped.
Things really, really didn't look good.
He strode across the tile floor with even, confident strides. With a floor so clean and sparkling it could make Manticore janitors bite their nails in envy plus her archenemy's almighty appearance, it almost gave the impression of a latter-day Jesus walking on water - if it wasn't for the knock-off Armani suit and the fact that White was an inbred anti-Christ.
The even strides stopped in front of her. Now face to, well, stomach with the devil, Max could see why being talked down to by the person you were in direct confrontation with irritated Ray to no end. Thankfully though, instead of crouching down to her as if she was four years old, White pulled up a chair from thin air and sat down, crossing his legs in a masculine fashion. If it wasn't for the whole subtext of an impending torture session and Max being so tightly bound to her seat, it would look more like two friends meeting for a cup of java instead of a vampire ready to draw blood from a victim.
Max plastered a look across her face that managed to be both incredibly sarcastic and dreamy. "Did I have a nice nap?" she repeated dumbly as if pondering the question. "You know, I was in the middle of this really awesome dream where peace existed across the world," she sighed, staring sickeningly off into space. "Gentlemen opened doors for their dates and young girls didn't have to have to sell their bodies to buy drugs."
"What? Drugs suddenly dropped off the planet?" White asked dryly, for once trying on patience for size, knowing 452 was going no where and fast.
"Heck no, you could get them for free." White smirked arrogantly and leaned back against his chair, waving two fingers as if to say "Continue."
"Then I woke up and realized that I had obviously left my spray at home, because I was still attracting bugs," she finished pointedly, mustering up a confident glare at her enemy. Max glanced back toward the door, where Night and Day still stood with their eyes fixed firmly on their superior. "Hey," she called to them. "Either one of you keep a flyswatter in your jackets?" Both seemed surprised and slightly impressed by either her guts or stupidity - it was hard to tell.
The tolerant act broke pretty quickly, transforming Dr. Jekyll into the Mr. Hyde Max had grown to know and loathe. The sarcastic smile became menacing, the fingers wrapped loosely around his knees tightened in irritation, gripping in a way that clearly stated they'd be much more at home around her throat. "Let's cut through the chitchat, shall we? General conversation didn't seem to be ingrained in either one of our childhoods. How about the heart of the matter?" His coldly handsome face twisted into a disturbing grimace as he rose menacingly from his chair, towering over his captor. Max broke eye contact first, feigning boredom. From his side pocket, White withdrew a tazer.
"A tazer? Honestly Ames," Max purposefully tried to sound annoyingly friendly. "Doesn't the General Villain Coalition have more creative weapons? Or is it just customary of every major bad guy in the post-Pulse world to come off the line with a few thousand watts of electrical current stored in their pockets?" She glanced down to the front of his pants, fully knowing that - Familiar or not - every male suffered from the same insecurity. Continuing silkily, she said, "Trying to make up for something, Amy?"
White cuffed Max fully across the face, the force of his hate causing her head to snap back violently. A sadistic smile slithered across his lips. Self-control was something White had always prided himself on, as if it made up for his innate impatience. But the transgenic filth in front of him always managed to push his buttons, so for a split second he let his - emotions? - run loose. It felt even better than he thought it would.
Shaking her head away from the stars swirling in her vision, Max faced White boldly. Because doing so would only make her broken lip more irritated, she fought a smile. If she could just get him to lose his temper and kill her outright, things might never get back to the heart of the matter: Ray.
But Max also knew her adversary would never let things get out of control, not for too long anyway. Either way, she quickly resigned herself to a slow and agonizing death. Assuming the motorcyclist that picked her up for this date was one of White's goons, Alec would still be scouring the city for her. He'd eventually give up, thinking she'd taken another "vacation." It wouldn't occur to him until days later that Max would never skip town without Ray. By then Max would be dead, if the fates were kind.
There was no C.J. to unlock her handcuffs at that perfect last-possible-second-pre-Pulse-Hollywood-type moment. Alec wasn't going to sweep in like a knight in leather armor; he'd probably never even know she'd died.
It was just her and White. All they needed was some tumbleweed and a few Western clichés and they'd have themselves a good old-fashioned showdown.
Trained to be self-reliant to the last, Max found the situation hopeful, lucky even. At this point in time, White was convinced that only herself and ever-elusive Eyes Only were privy to the whereabouts of his son. Logan was safe, probably even better at covering his tracks than Max was with her own - she being so cocky and all. So if could Max find a way to die without spilling the beans, she could manage to die a happy person.
Because Ray would be safe.
Stalling seemed to be the best idea for the time being. If Max could get White to torture her beyond all hope of being sanity and coherence without having to worry about betraying the one she'd come to love as her own son, then he'd have no choice to kill her out of her sheer uselessness.
And Ray would be safe.
But she was going to die.
A life flashed before her eyes, time slowing down and lingering over her stolen moments with her pseudo-nephew. A blond head rested against her breast, legs crossed over her lap, and fingers idly wrapped across her sides in sleep. The sweet perfume of his neck when he worked up a decent sweat. Tinkling laughter. A little boy's fingers. Instead of weakening, the memories and her love for Ray only strengthened her resolve to save him from the fear of living with his psychopathic father.
Shockingly enough, the only thing that came even remotely close to weakening her resolve was White himself. Through another's eyes - a mother's eyes - Max stared at her enemy blatantly. The suit, although impeccably clean, was slightly wrinkled and showed signs of wear and tear. New wrinkles lined his mouth that read more as signs of sadness and worry and loss than a sign of anger. Bags weighed down on his eyes from physical and emotional exhaustion. The most striking were the eyes themselves though. Deeply hidden behind a hatred of transgenics, Max saw a trace of real emotion, the start of the fatherly love that drove White beyond even Familiar limitations. Underneath the hatred, the sense of loss was so poignant that it almost caused Max to falter very faintly in sympathy.
But because Max knew what White would someday want his son to become, she hardened her heart. It was true, Ray bared a lot of resemblance to his father. The apple never fell too far from the tree. At the core of their beings though, where it really counted, they were like the guards at the door, different as night and day. White's evil force was a black hole, ready to suck out the brilliant light that was essential to Ray's very being.
But Ray was young and impressionable, at the brink of two distinctive paths: clay shifting back and forth between Max and Ames' hands. Both Potters wanted to mold and construct a strong base in him; one using force and manipulation, the other utilizing the importance of spirit and vigor. Once Ray was thrown into the kiln's compressing flames, the form that they had thrown in - good or bad, for better or worse - would be permanent. The race was to see what kind of shape would go into the flames, and whether or not Ray's form would break.
Her love for Ray and the desire to shield him overrode any and all of the survival instincts Manticore had spent a decade trying to ingrain in her. Maybe love and loyalty would be enough to keep her silent. Yet the gnawing fear of slipping-up under torture drove Max to do something she'd only done one other time in her life: pray for a loved one's safety, bartering for his life.
"How'd you find me?" Max asked emotionlessly as she started to shut her awareness down, trying to prepare her body for the beating it was about to undergo.
"494 was followed on a motorcycle to an abandoned warehouse, carrying you. After giving you enough time to get cozy, a team infiltrated the perimeter and dragged your unconscious body out, 494 had obviously left you there. He was no where to be found, not that we did a real in depth check or anything," White said emotionlessly, circling around Max like a vulture around road kill. Inwardly, Max breathed a huge sigh of relief, dying was bad enough without knowing you were responsible for leaving the transgenic leader's corpse in your wake. Alec was safe too. "You were the only one that mattered, your 'summer fling', as he called himself, would have been killed on sight. He is no use to me. Now it's my turn to ask the questions.
"First and foremost," he stopped his circling directly in front of her. Yanking her swelling chin to his face - either to intimidate her with his evil stare or the tazer laying almost passively across his shoulder - White asked slowly and succinctly, "Where did you and that red, white, and blue freak stash my son?"
"Oh, he's back in Terminal City," Max replied with her usual wise guy tone, knowing the truth was far stranger than any lie she could come up with, save flying saucer's - although it wouldn't be too surprising to find that White had relations on far away planets. "Yeah, he's probably painting with Joshua right now - that's the wonder dog that almost broke your back at that whole Jam Pony incident - or reading Shakespearian plays with Dix or..."
Max never got to finish. Infuriated at her insolence, White began the electrical path to pain a little early. The tazer snapped and crackled with malevolent glee as it attacked her body with wave after wave of lightning agony.
Max's last coherent thought before surrendering to the calm blackness beckoning her was "I love you." But instead of envisioning just one tiny blond cherubic form, she also saw a lean, anonymous figure watching sadly from the distance. But before she was even granted the chance to wonder who - and more importantly, why - the figure was, the darkness claimed her.
*****
"What do you think, Keith?" his portly partner asked, tipping his half done Marlboro towards the rusted gates separating themselves from the toxins and Manticorians that had made the brittle streets on the other side home. It was a still night, a bad omen slipping down his back causing his wide belly to shiver in anticipation. The Sector police, although supposedly cracking down on security surrounding the foxhole, were in all actuality thinly dispersed tonight. Food riots on the other side of town took precedence. Him and Keith were practically alone tonight; the nearest backup was several blocks down the border. He didn't like it at all; it made him even more nervous than usual.
Keith - not exactly a tiny man himself, his seven-foot three-inch stature intimidating more than one would-be patriotic moron from bad-mouthing the transgenic population to the point of bloodshed - scanned the perimeter, his jade green eyes loitering over all possible entrances and exits of the freaks' refuge.
According to the news reports, the transgenics were crafty by nature, not to mention DNA. The uncanny ability to hide in the shadow of a noon sun had been deeply rooted in them since birth, or so the rumors said. Keith held no small reverence for that ability, especially when he was on perimeter watch. Normally his finally tuned sixth sense twitched in his gut as if in silent alarm when their own guards' eyes fell upon him. Tonight though, he felt no twitching, it was as if the freak show had drawn into itself before busting out with their grand finale. Knowing his less poetic partner wouldn't appreciate the subtleties, he simply said, "It's quiet, Bruce. Too quiet."
All in all, Keith considered himself a man fairly sympathetic to the transgenic plight. He'd never made an outright stand in their favor of course; it could cost him his job and he had a wife and a bustling baby boy to feed.
Bruce puffed on his cigarette pensively before grinding it into the ground with the heel of his government-issued boot. As a man very prone to overreaction and worrying, he'd always joked that "Sector Policeman" wasn't exactly the ideal job for his already overworked heart. But it was a steady paycheck, not to mention any "tips" he "came across" in between. He peered out into the dark alleys through the plastic guard hinged to his helmet, supposedly to shield his face from any flying shrapnel. Being nervous as he was, all it did was provide the sauna effect, his cigarette-tainted breath making small billowing clouds of nicotine against his faceguard.
Keith laughed at him. "I don't even know why you bother leaving the guard down, you nervous fool. All you're doing is killing yourself twice as quickly, first from the cigarette and then the second hand smoke filming..." He stopped mid-sentence, the angry roar of a motorcycle engine reverberating off the buildings of the alley. The rider - early twenties, male, Caucasian, lean, short dark hair, wearing a dark leather jacket and sunglasses - drew up within a few feet of the awestruck pair.
Before Keith or Bruce could bat an eyelid, the mystery rider was off of his bike, two Chrome 45's adorning his hands - more like extensions of his body than accessories - and pointed straight at their heads. "Your guns," he said calmly. "Please drop them." Bruce looked to Keith for confirmation, who nodded. Two guns clanged against the ground. Their captor signaled to the tazers on their belts. "Those too." Tazers bounced off the cement. "Kick 'em over there," he said, nodding over his shoulder towards the buildings on the other side of the alley. Four metallic objects clanged against the far building. A smile flirted with the young man's face, making him infinitely more friendly, charming even. "Thank you, ladies." Keith felt himself smiling in response to the jibe.
Turning on one foot, the young man hopped over the fence, obviously a transgenic. "What about your bike?" Keith couldn't help calling after the retreating form, much to the dismay of his partner. "Stolen!" the nameless figure quipped, running for the heart of Terminal City.
"Cocky little bastard," Keith muttered to himself. For some reason, it only made him like the guy all the more.
*****
Alec blasted through the doors of the command center, knocking a very shocked Dalton flat on his back. Before the boy even worked up a decent grunt protesting the abuse of his derrière, Alec hauled him to his feet, absentmindedly straightening his jacket with a rushed apology. When he turned to find Mole and Dix's face among the sea of freaks milling about the room, he found instead several dozen pairs of eyes boring into him, betraying a hint of anticipation and fear. Seeing their leader who was normally on top of things so disorderly made the entire room hush, fearing the "things" had fallen out from underneath him, and something had gone terribly wrong.
He waved his hands through the air carelessly in a shrug to say "whoops!" all the while praying no one would notice his trembling fingers. He had to find Max, quick. "Sorry folks, nothin' to see. Slipped on a banana peel. In punishment, every monkey-lookin' transgen has toilet duty for a week," he said, earning some chuckles. "Feel free to get back to work." Taking him on his word, the motley crew returned to their day-to-day tasks. Not even bothering to look, Alec's hand snapped behind him, deftly taking Dalton by the shoulder and discreetly whipping him around. "Except you," Alec said softly, finally letting his inner anxieties lace his voice. "I need your help."
Sensing the urgency of the situation, Dalton nodded, ready to help his hero in anyway necessary. "Find Joshua, Dix, Mole, and Luke. You five meet me in the back room in two minutes, and be discreet," Alec ordered. Resisting the urge to salute, the teenager turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.
The back room was Alec's informal office, not that he'd ever really considered it such, partly for fear that he'd slip into the nine-to-five mode which would be so unlike the prowling tomcat that he was. Overtime he'd come to leave his stuff in the back room, and the other transgenics for the most part respected his privacy. The room was a perfect balance of domesticity and authority, with a few of Alec's own decorative touches so it wouldn't fall into a pre-Pulse Martha Stewart or the opposing Donald Lydecker category. A hooded sweatshirt strung over a chair, a swimsuit calendar on the far wall: home sweet home. Some of Sandeman's books - late night entertainment to keep his mind off of things - were strewn haphazardly around the mahogany desk next to the focal point of Alec's attention at the moment: the telephone.
He pushed the receiver next to his ear, carefully listening for the telltale beeps and undercurrent hums of a tapped line. He sighed in relief to hear it was clear, hastily dialing a number. "Logan, we have a problem. It's them pesky Familiars again." After hastily explaining the situation to the older man and Logan began a cross-sector search on any black op movements, Alec sat the phone back in its cradle bleakly. Things didn't look good. The sound of obvious attempts at throat clearing pulled his attention toward the door. Dalton and Company had gathered at the entryway, every one of them - even Mole - seeming cagey.
The X5 jerked his head toward the door, which Dalton took as a sign to shut it. Alec began when he heard the doorknob click shut. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Since about, 'Logan, we have a problem,'" Luke supplied, his enthusiastic voice edging on nervousness. Alec glanced over towards Dalton in praise at his swiftness, causing the younger boy to go red.
"Little fella in trouble?" Joshua asked, crossing to where the X5 stood, his breath seesawing out in anxious pants.
Alec nodded, placing his hand on the dogman's burly upper arm in sympathy. "White."
"Joshua help," he growled, his lips curling back over a fierce set of teeth.
"You all help," he responded in half-statement, half-question. Without even glancing at their compatriots for support, each nodded grimly. Mole nudged Dalton lightly in the shoulder with his rifle butt. "You sure you want him?" he asked. "He's just a kid."
"He's also one of the most attentive and best trained stealth ops in his entire class," Alec replied casually, falling into the folding chair behind his desk. "He stays."
Alec quickly filled them in on what had happened, beginning at Crash. For the next half-hour the group threw ideas back and forth on Max's possible whereabouts and how to retrieve her, anxiously awaiting a telephone call. When the phone did ring Alec slammed it to his ear before it even finished its first buzz. "What do you have?" he asked, putting him on speakerphone, knowing the boys - particularly Mole and Joshua - would want to hear it firsthand.
"Possible lead," Logan replied, the distinct clatter of a tapping keyboard in the background. "Multiple actually. The same caravan has moved a couple of times. Good old fashioned black humvees, four or five. Probably a Christmas gift to White from the NSA. One of my sources has confirmed White's appearance with the convoy while passing into Sector 7."
"Max?"
"Another source said he did see the form of a brunette in her late teens/early twenties. The guy mostly saw her from behind, no skin tone or facial features available, but judging from the rest of the description..."
"Was she alive?" Mole chimed in, ever the optimist. Both Joshua and Alec shot him a dark look. The lizard-man mouthed an apology, shrugging his broad shoulders in defeat.
"Whatever she was, she wasn't conscious," Logan said solemnly, almost feeling the six individual winces on the other end of the line. "They're on the outskirts of town, holed up in some old mansion, supposedly haunted or something."
"Security?" Alec asked, doing his best to keep the worry from his voice.
"From the looks of it, pretty low key." Logan paused. "I think it's a trap, Alec."
"Of course it's a trap, Logan," Alec said dryly. "Every major player always sets a trap. Although I must admit, it's getting to be a bit self-defeating when everyone realizes there's always a trap..."
"That's not what I meant, Alec," replied Logan tersely. "I think it's a trap...for you."
Alec's brow pursed in confusion. "Why me?"
"You ascended to power very quickly the moment Max went on the lam. Then you dropped off of the charts the same couple of weeks Eyes Only did before Max came back to town. Maybe White figures if both you and I brought Max back to town then..."
"Maybe I also know Ray's location," Alec finished gravely.
There was a pregnant pause on both ends of the line, the full weight sinking into both parties. Logan began again slowly, "If you would trek across country to bring her back once, he knows for sure you'd go across town to fetch her back again. If Max proves useless, he'd have you. It's a trap."
"He's a smart man," the X5 lazily replied, feigning the relaxation he was anywhere but feeling.
The older man also knew the transgenic's tenacity and - come fire and brimstone - he'd go after her either way. Logan filled him in on the rest of the details - complete security rundown, general layout, and of course location - before filling the X5 in on his worst fear. "Alec?"
"Yeah, Logan."
Logan typed madly on the keyboard in front of him as if using it to block a horrific thought trying its hardest to come to mind. "Max loves Ray very much, both you and I know that. She would die - will die - before ever letting White have his hands on him again."
Alec closed his eyes, resting his head against his palms and blocking out the world. He let his humanity fall from him in crumbling bricks, building a new wall of discipline and duty to shield him. This was a very precarious dilemma and any ounce of humanity, any room he left for fear, would bring about his worst fears. Under strict control of his emotions, he stood from the chair and leaned close to the speaker. "Then I guess we'd better hurry," he said softly, gently pressing the "off" button before turning to face his unit.
He motioned to the duo in the corner. "Dix, you run the communications links. Luke, you'll help him, but first quietly round up every decent firearm that can pack a killer punch and some radios. Heavy emphasis on the 'quietly.' Go, now." Both transgens barely resisted the urge to salute in the face of such stern authority, ducking out the door swiftly.
Alec turned to the three left in the dark room. "Joshua. Mole. Dalton." He addressed each soldier by name, looking as meaningfully into each pair of eyes as he could in his near Manticorian state. "While we may not be the easiest foursome to sneak out of this godforsaken place, you are probably also the only three I could trust with some risky business. I'll be upfront with you guys: this is a pretty suicidal mission. Logan's informants say we're looking at maybe a dozen guards tops. But given that we are working with White and the trusty calling card he left us, we can probably guess that the little security we're looking at are all of White's nearest and dearest: Familiars, plus whatever extra "brothers" of his that start magically appearing out of God knows where. We are working with at least a couple dozen Familiars against four of us. The odds aren't exactly in our favor. And for the most part, Max isn't exactly the character we'd like to risk our necks for. This is strictly on voluntary basis. If you don't wish to come along, don't. No one will look down on you."
No one moved or spoke as the air seemed to hum with anticipation of their reply. Mole and Joshua glanced at each other before turning their eyes to Dalton. All eyes mirrored the same thing, a die-hard resolve. They turned back to their leader, their response written plainly on their faces.
Alec clapped his hands together, a grim smile peeking at the corners of his otherwise solemn mouth. "Alright then, we move out."
*****
Leonard Fredrickson moved down the hallway with slow steps, purposefully ignoring the portraits' unblinking stares following him across the floor. He stifled a shiver as another wave of guilty superstition splashed across him. He was born and bred Familiar, weaned on hate for the weak and the motto "no pain is more gain." The descendant of a notable cult, his ancient bloodline of brute force and dominance should also rule over such childish superstitions as haunted houses. But even as he cursed himself for such frailty, he felt the distinctive sensation as a pair of eyes boring into his back. Fredrickson turned around as slowly as possible so he wouldn't shame himself if there was in fact one of his brother Familiars trailing him down the incredibly eerie hallway. As he expected, there was nothing save both the darkness his eyes had grown accustomed to and the venerable mug shots glaring disdainfully down at him.
Sighing in relief, he wheeled around again, nearly tripping over someone. Fredrickson grasped the upper arms of his shadow while it took him by the shoulders firmly. "Still afraid of ghosts, I see," the voice rasped, friendly but not quite pleasant.
"Brother White," Fredrickson gasped, straightening himself. "Here I was worried I had tripped over a phantom of some sort, but I see I've only found the Devil." He heard his kin's chuckle, a few shades darker than the night surrounding them. Fredrickson had been only half-joking. Ames White had always been an enigma - even to the cult that schooled him - and a man of ruthless ambition. But lately even the Conclave had seen him slip further and further from their realm and more towards the shadows of a man possessed. Normally having another person with him in a haunting hallway would let Leonard breathe a little easier, but this man's menacing presence seemed only to suffocate him further.
Unaware of the other man's discomfort, Ames led his long-time acquaintance - he'd never been the kind to make friends - down the rest of the hallway, strolling into the last door on the right. He flipped the switch on the far wall and the lights flickered on over head. Fredrickson surmised he'd been led into a billiard room of some sort; a moth eaten pool table offset the maroon couches on the far side of the room, both covered in a visibly thick sheet of dust.
Ames swiped a forgotten rag down the edge of the pool table, slumping into the now clean corner. He let his eyes sweep over his colleague. Leonard Johannes Fredrickson was more than fifteen years his senior, his approach towards the ripe age of fifty made evident by the strands of gray swirling around the temples of his black hair. He had a darker complexion than most Familiars' was, the black of his hair only matched by the pigment of his eyes. Despite the wrinkles slowly eating into his face, Fredrickson was still a handsome man. And a worthy opponent.
The Conclave had sent him, Ames could feel it.
In the silence Fredrickson had also been sizing up his associate, taking in the haggard but ever arrogant air, ready to screw over the authorities at any moment. The Conclave had never mastered Ames' rebellious streak, just like they'd never dominated his father - and Leonard's mentor - Sandeman. The frenetic dedication that had flooded Sandeman had also been inherited by his offspring like fuel pouring from one bucket to the next. All either needed was a match. Sandeman had found his - which led to complete blasphemy - and it was Fredrickson's job to make sure the prodigal son never lit his own. But judging by the red staining Ames White's hands and his own sleeves where the younger man had grabbed him several moments ago, the older man sensed he might have been a little too late.
Fredrickson got right down to the point, knowing White's temper didn't appreciate having to beat around the bush with small talk. "You were to contact us anytime you had so much as a credible lead on her, much less the time - or in your case, many times - you got a hold of her. I had to hear of your catch through the proverbial grapevine." The younger associate was silent, crossing his arms across his chest in an immature sulk at the mention of his past errors. "Her blood, I assume?" he asked, pointing to the crimson smudges staining the white of his button-down shirt where his hands grasped his upper arms.
White glanced down at his hands in something that could almost be misconstrued as surprise. Using the same rag as he had earlier, he meticulously wiped off the red gloves. "You assume correctly," he replied coldly, but no less hateful than his usual tone concerning "her."
"Is she dead?"
"Not yet. You can go back to the Conclave and tell them they can have 452 when I'm finished with her," White replied deliberately and with a heavy tinge of insolence, calculating the infamous Conclave's disposition through the temperament of their messenger.
"By quoting such a statement back to them it will be justly read as you telling them to go straight to Hell." The older man understood White's defiance, but such impertinence, such brazen disrespect, was suicide.
"You can tell them that as well for all I care."
"Ames, this is madness," Fredrickson pleaded, slowly stepping toward the stranger before him. "Give 452 to them. It's all they want from you." White remained unmoved, calmly examining his nails against the inadequate light and scraping the blood out from underneath them. It was like trying to convince an oak tree to uproot itself and fall over, even in the face of a chainsaw or bulldozer. "It's your one true chance at becoming a hero, the only chance of ridding yourself fully of your past mistakes and your father's."
Losing patience, the younger man stormed out of the room in angry strides. "It is also my only chance at finding my son!"
Fredrickson stalked in the angry man's footsteps. They marched through an underground labyrinth of hidden tunnels, which - given the other man's rage reverberating off of the congesting walls and his superstitious nature - seemed to ring with the distinct hum of a very bad omen. The dusk and shadows were overpowering, making it impossible to follow White if it hadn't been for the pounding of his angry feet. Finally, after what seemed like hours on the dime tour of Hell itself, Ames made a sharp turn into room of some sort. Long and white and clean with the exception of a puddle of blood, the room bore one lone occupant, hidden from Fredrickson's view by White's broad shoulders. When White crossed the room towards her though, Leonard wished dearly that he hadn't.
Even after nearly a lifetime of transgenic hatred, the sight before him nearly caused the older man to stumble in horror at the atrocity against life - human, Familiar, or transgenic. "My God," Fredrickson said, unwillingly taking in the scene. The proportions of White's obsession and hatred and blown apart further than anyone could have predicted. Despite Ames' assertion of the opposite, he wasn't even sure she was still alive until the other Familiar began screaming in her face for the location of his son, threatening her with the life of - 494?
Ames White had become a monster of mythical proportions. Such damage done in so little time was absolutely mind-boggling.
He looked again to the woman. She was broken in body, but obviously she hadn't broken in spirit. From deep inside the bottom of his heart, Fredrickson almost felt a small twinge of admiration, if it hadn't been completely overridden by the fear of White's rage, awesome to behold.
The Conclave longed to have her alive, but they'd also accept her corpse. Moved by a small pang of pity, Leonard Fredrickson withdrew a small handgun from his pocket, aimed for the middle of 452's nearly comatose head, and fired.
*****
In the middle of Terminal City, Mole checked his signature piece of military hardware for any kinks that could prove fatal on the battlefield. The cigar seemed fine. Tucking it and a spare in his front pocket, he felt ready for battle. There was only one small hitch. "Uh, Alec?"
"Yeah, Mole?" he asked, tucking two extra handguns and a rather large knife into his cargo pants. He ran a mental checklist, making sure he wasn't missing any major details. Everyone seemed suited up and ready for action. There had only been two bulletproof vests available, so they were given to Dalton - because he was the youngest and everyone felt a bit responsible for him - and Mole - because next to Alec, he was the most likely to shoot his mouth off or become otherwise reckless and need it. Mole had argued against it at first, but Alec exercised his authority. "What am I forgetting?" he asked himself, scratching the back of his head - it had always been a nervous habit of his, even back at Manticore.
"How about a way out of here?" Mole supplied, waving around their homey cage. That little stunt Alec had pulled with those two sector cops had grabbed a lot more publicity, the border of Terminal City now decorated with red and blue flashes like Christmas lights wrapped around the fence. The foursome were too far inside the compound to be caught on camera at this point, but eventually they ran the risk of being caught breaking out.
"Sewers? Joshua know way." Joshua said, eying his gun a tad bit warily. After attaching the silencer, he pointed it at a can across the alley, frowning when the gun refused to fire. Dalton reached up behind the dogboy and pulled the gun closer to his level. "Remember," the young blond advised, flicking a switch. "Safety off." Joshua let out a sheepish bark at his mistake, but felt redeemed for his inexperience when he knocked the soup can off it's perch on a crate with his second try.
"It's a bit overdone," Mole said thoughtfully, caressing the cigars safely buried in his jacket pocket. "But you're sure you know a way?" he asked. Joshua glanced at Alec and nodded.
"Then out the sewers is the way we go," the X5 said, turning toward the nearest manhole cover and ducking down into the shield of darkness.
*****
The plan was simple: get out of Terminal City, get to the estate, recover Max, and get back home. At least it was simple until one considered that the retrieving group had done almost no recon - save Logan's blueprints, dictated over the phone - and the supposedly lax security were in all likelihood White's personal brat pack.
After sneaking through sewers and gutters for a few hours, the night clubs' alcohol intake skyrocketed, leaving several Seattle citizens too smashed to drive and several open cars for any random party of transgenics to pilfer without a hitch. They happened upon a turn-of-the-century Dodge minivan and the small band removed the backseats quietly. Mole and Joshua laid down in the back - the dogman quietly, Mole not so much - and hid themselves with a tattered quilt Dalton had found in the gutter.
"This is suicide," Mole grumbled from under the blanket. Joshua grunted in response, although it was hard to tell if it was from agreement or if the lizardman's favorite shotgun had connected with his gut. Dalton rolled his eyes, thoroughly acquainted with Mole's typical outlook on life. The X5 behind the wheel glanced unsympathetically in the back mirror before flicking the windshield wipers to full power. It was raining cats and dogs again, creating both an advantage and disadvantage: it was harder to see and maneuver but also harder to be seen and outmaneuvered.
"You knew it was suicide from the beginning," the X5 said dryly. He jerked the wheel suddenly to the left, flying around some large debris dotting the otherwise lonely two-way highway. Mole's comical, frustrated grunt at the manhandling caused Alec to bite back the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. Dalton wasn't so subtle. "I know you're not laughing up there, rug rat," the cranky transgen warned, the unfinished threat losing its effectiveness when he was covered with pinkish, cloud covered quilt.
"I knew it was suicide," Mole continued. "But I thought I'd at least go down with some dignity. Gunshot to the head, torture," he listed hopefully. "Anything but going down buried ass-up in marshmallow clouds and pink fluff. What are we going to do when we hit a checkpoint, huh?"
"Well I guess we'll find out now," Dalton whispered as the minivan pulled up in front of one of the infamous checkpoints, regulated by a man who looked to have seen too many doughnuts and not enough treadmills. Alec rolled down his window and squinted both against the pouring rain and the flashlight shining in his eyes.
"Jam Pony messenger," he said, whipping out the I.D. from his side pocket. Clucking, the blonde officer switched the flashlight over to the teenage youth beside him but quickly dismissed the boy as underfed and a weak threat. "Isn't it a little after hours for you boys?" the officer snipped, one hand resting "commandingly" on his nightstick.
"Special delivery," Alec said calmly, even as the flashlight's beam began to peer through the back window, sliding over the barely covered form of two grotesque transgenics. The cop whipped his flashlight back to Alec's face like a child pretending to be the head of an interrogation, his dark eyes narrowing in suspicion. The X5 wouldn't have been too shocked if the next words the he dropped were, "Where were on the night of May 25th?" Instead he merely nodded his head towards the cargo. "Is that the special delivery?"
Alec nodded slowly, his eyes faking a glimmer of respect for the officer's intuitiveness when in all reality he was calculating just how many more precious minutes he had to wait on this idiot with a badge when they could be rescuing Max. To keep things moving, Alec leaned out the window and carried on a short conversation with the lard in a blue jumpsuit. Within moments, the cop nodded in understanding and let the minivan through in a flash, not even giving them a backward glance.
"What did you tell him?" the blond in the front asked, which strangely echoed in their cargo bay exactly twice.
"Either I told him I had two 'mis-creations of science' stashed in the back or I was supplying some big-boned hookers to a generous client of mine, take your pick." The entire van silenced for a few moments until Joshua asked, "Is there a choice C?"
*****
"Logan! Logan!" The little boy waved wildly to catch his attention and his tiny face positively beamed in happiness, eager to greet his long-gone friend. The lulling drone of an exoskeleton neared Ray until two toned arms wrapped around his body, the soft scratch of a short beard tickling the boy's cheek.
"Hey, Ray! It's late, why aren't you in bed yet?" Logan asked, glancing down at his watch that read 11:30. The child seemed ready for bed. He was wearing pajamas - or they could be dress clothes, for all of what T.C. had to offer - and he seemed clean enough for a boy of his age. Butter curls smelled of shampoo and breath of toothpaste.
"Aunt Max always sings me to sleep but I can't find her," the kid responded, looking like he just realized he'd lost his mother's hand in the middle of an overcrowded supermarket.
"Well, I'm sure she's around here somewhere," Logan said too brightly. The words rang false even to his own ears; nothing hurt his idealistic outlook like lying to a kid. It was like destroying a future before it even had a chance to grow.
Gem's cheery face popped out of nowhere. "I have an idea," she said, taking the small boy's hand. "Why don't I sing you to sleep like I did once when you were too sick to see Aunt Max? When Logan finds her, he'll send her straight to your room okay?" Over the tiny blond head nodding in front over her, she sent Logan a mournful look. She knew. The ordinary glanced down meaningfully to the boy's turned back, pasting a bright - albeit fake - smile on his face, which Gem reciprocated. And once again, for a few more cherished moments, nothing was wrong in the twisted little world Ray lived in.
Watching the two trot off to bed, Logan glanced up towards the perch the communications experts sat. Alec must have kept the ordeal very hush-hush, no one even seemed to notice their leader's sudden disappearance or the dread painted on Dix and Luke's faces. As if sensing his presence, Luke turned slowly in his chair. Seeing the norm among the masses, he shook his head slowly. Logan cursed under his breath; he'd come to T.C. to be there whenever any news came in, maybe even to make himself useful instead of sitting at home alone with only his fears to keep him company, waiting for a thumbs down.
Across the hullabaloo of the command center, Ray wheeled around suddenly, eyes bright and naive. "Goodnight, Logan!"
Looking at the sweet eagerness on Ray's face, Logan knew Max had to make it home alive. There was no room for error, no other possible ending. Whether she knew it or not, whether she acknowledged it or not, too many depended on her.
A swift kick of jealousy hit Logan in the gut. Ray didn't know that right across town his favorite "aunt" was dying, might already be dead, all in an attempt to save his life. He was so green and innocent.
Ignorance was bliss.
"Goodnight Ray!"
*****
Given the fact that they had packed more ammo than Rambo had, the foursome swept through the first two waves of Familiar counterattack pretty easily, leaving at least a dozen dead. They gained access to the mansion within minutes, pushing their element of surprise to its bursting point. But by then, the alarm had gone up, causing another dozen or so Familiars to collapse on the transgenics, ready to push back the intruders. They squared off in a wide hallway with old portraits adorning either wall. But the angry glower of those painted faces had nothing on those of the tight ring of Familiars surrounding them.
It was a stand off with either side reluctant to start the next stage of the skirmish. "Remind me again, why didn't I opt to bring more guys?" Alec asked, directing the question at no one inparticular.
"Because," Dalton replied, crouching into his favorite fighting stance. "You said this was a voluntary basis. Not too many care for Max or these odds. Who would volunteer?"
Alec thought for a moment, circling and sizing up each of their foe. "Gem."
"Doesn't count. You wouldn't let her come when she has a baby," Dalton replied.
"Oh yeah."
Impatient to get some real fighting started, Mole was the first to rush into a fray. He threw down the now empty guns, opting for the uncharacteristic knife. "This hallway isn't big enough for the two of us," he growled, swinging at one anonymous face.
Early on Dalton was wounded by a heavy blow to his ribcage, but was quickly avenged by the sweet crunch of a broken neck courtesy of Joshua. Another blow to the head had the younger X out like a light. Yet both Mole and Joshua held their own very well, surprisingly short of battle wounds. The dogman seemed to gain momentum as he went, his punches growing faster and fiercer as the fight dragged on. Mole was just too happy to have someone to wail on for a change.
After quickly shuffling the teenager's unconscious form off into a safer corner, Alec resumed his tirade of blurred punches and rapid fire kicks, taking out two whole cult loonies on his own. Knowing he couldn't afford to lose another man, he made sure to keep his ears preened for those little hints that his friends were still alive and kicking: Joshua's occasional grunts and guttural yowls of triumph whenever he knocked an adversary down, and Mole's constant stream of swear words and general insults of the adversaries threatening to flood him.
Despite their valiant effort, the small group was overrun within moments of their first exchanging blows. Twelve Familiars on four transgenics - one unconscious - wasn't even close to a fair fight. Swinging Dalton into his arms, Alec called out, "Fall back!"
The group tore down a random hallway, six or seven Familiars hot on their trail. They didn't run at full speed, making sure to keep their feet quiet. Familiars couldn't see in the darkness or follow footsteps they couldn't hear. Alec knew his feline DNA would keep him from running blind, and what the other two lacked in night vision they more than compensated for in their other senses. They wouldn't lose him. As long as they kept quiet and no one found a light switch, they would be safe. Within minutes, the sound of trailing footsteps dropped slowly until the runaways were fleeing in silence, only the splatter of leaking pipes accompanying their journey.
The dark corridors twisted and turned. "I'm looking for the light at the end of the tunnel," Mole quipped. "I sure ain't seeing it."
"At this point, I figure we'd be more likely to catch the flames of Hell," Alec retorted. His ears pricked up and he came to a dead halt in the passageway, two solid bodies bouncing off of his back and crashing to the floor. "Fix your break lights. You're supposed to come to a gradual stop, especially in less than ideal conditions. Did you even pass Driver's Ed?" Mole hissed, standing up and wiping the sludge normally coating the floor off of his backside. Turning slightly, he grunted as he hoisted the dogman to his feet. "Why stop?" Joshua asked.
Alec hushed them both, lifting a finger to his lips before he even realized they wouldn't see it. "Just listen." Joshua's head cocked to one side, catching the hum reverberating around on the underground brick slime-slick walls. "People?" he asked, sniffing the air for a clue but only finding a sensory overload of stink.
"Given the givens, I think we might be more likely to find Familiars than 'people'." Alec paused in thought. "Or transgenics." After glancing over his shoulder for the millionth time to make sure they still weren't being followed, he tapped the radio on his shoulder. "Dix, Luke. The tunnels of love down here are jam-packed with turnoffs, but are there any actual rooms? Over."
"Affirmative," a voice crackled back over the intercom, sounding suspiciously like Logan. "First lady of the house went mad; husband locked her up in the basement. Typical white room, padded walls, small. Almost impossible to find. Why?"
"I think we might have found it," Alec replied. There was an insightful pause on the other end. "It be a perfect place to store a defiant transgenic," Logan said.
"Just what I was thinking." Alec switched the radio off and turned towards his compatriots, handing off Dalton's waking body to whom he assumed to be Joshua, judging by the hairy arms. "Let's go."
They slipped down the hallway slow and stealthily, their breath thinning in a mixture of anticipation and slight fear. Within a hundred feet, Alec identified the angry voice echoing down the walls. If the growl behind him was any judge, so had Joshua. Fear caused the X5 to quicken his pace, instinctively knowing Max was in that room. Several hours had elapsed since White had stolen Max from him, and the Familiar had lost his temper. Things could not be good.
Breaching the entryway into the room, the foursome paused in shock. Alec had imagined worse scenarios yes, but seeing one of the more horrific ones come to life made even the nastiest pale in comparison. Alec almost hoped Max wasn't alive until he realized that White was a little too sane to yell at a dead body.
It took a moment for Alec's vision to take in more than Max's dance with the Devil, namely the man not ten feet in front of him. His dark eyes were wide and jaw dropped in the horror that the X5 knew must be mirrored on his own face. Alec watched the other man slowly draw a gun from his pocket, aiming it at Max's bloody face.
The gun fired. Without even thinking, the X5 blurred around the nameless man. He covered Max's body with his own, the full impact of the bullet smacking him in the chest.
For several seconds everyone - including White - was too stunned to move. "Joshua," Alec wheezed around the bullet. "Whatever happens, save Max." Then mercifully, all went black.
*****
A/N: Whew, I'm so glad that's over. I'll tell ya, I don't think I really cared for this chapter all that much. It's rushed - especially at the end - but I'm going to be leaving for vacation soon, and I wanted to be sure to get this out before I leave. Yes, there are a lot of mistakes - grammar and otherwise. There probably won't be another update for a few weeks. Any and all patience is appreciated. You could feel free to boost my ego and tell me it didn't suck. ; )
Chapter Seven
"Have a nice nap?" White asked.
Max quickly assessed her current situation. Things didn't look good. Her hands were bound behind her back to the seat of a metal chair - reinforced steel to avoid the escape of certain transgenics no doubt - while her feet were cuffed uselessly to the legs, which were thoroughly adhered to the floor. She tried jostling slightly in her seat to test its strength without giving White the sadistic satisfaction of mistaking her experimenting for squirming. Damned thing didn't even vibrate.
Peeking across the narrow hallway-like room, she saw two guards flanking the Familiar. They were as different as night and day, one blonde and beefy while the other was leaner and darker. Judging by their less fearful - but still respectful - stance around White, she guessed that the guards were also Familiars instead of NSA agents as she had hoped.
Things really, really didn't look good.
He strode across the tile floor with even, confident strides. With a floor so clean and sparkling it could make Manticore janitors bite their nails in envy plus her archenemy's almighty appearance, it almost gave the impression of a latter-day Jesus walking on water - if it wasn't for the knock-off Armani suit and the fact that White was an inbred anti-Christ.
The even strides stopped in front of her. Now face to, well, stomach with the devil, Max could see why being talked down to by the person you were in direct confrontation with irritated Ray to no end. Thankfully though, instead of crouching down to her as if she was four years old, White pulled up a chair from thin air and sat down, crossing his legs in a masculine fashion. If it wasn't for the whole subtext of an impending torture session and Max being so tightly bound to her seat, it would look more like two friends meeting for a cup of java instead of a vampire ready to draw blood from a victim.
Max plastered a look across her face that managed to be both incredibly sarcastic and dreamy. "Did I have a nice nap?" she repeated dumbly as if pondering the question. "You know, I was in the middle of this really awesome dream where peace existed across the world," she sighed, staring sickeningly off into space. "Gentlemen opened doors for their dates and young girls didn't have to have to sell their bodies to buy drugs."
"What? Drugs suddenly dropped off the planet?" White asked dryly, for once trying on patience for size, knowing 452 was going no where and fast.
"Heck no, you could get them for free." White smirked arrogantly and leaned back against his chair, waving two fingers as if to say "Continue."
"Then I woke up and realized that I had obviously left my spray at home, because I was still attracting bugs," she finished pointedly, mustering up a confident glare at her enemy. Max glanced back toward the door, where Night and Day still stood with their eyes fixed firmly on their superior. "Hey," she called to them. "Either one of you keep a flyswatter in your jackets?" Both seemed surprised and slightly impressed by either her guts or stupidity - it was hard to tell.
The tolerant act broke pretty quickly, transforming Dr. Jekyll into the Mr. Hyde Max had grown to know and loathe. The sarcastic smile became menacing, the fingers wrapped loosely around his knees tightened in irritation, gripping in a way that clearly stated they'd be much more at home around her throat. "Let's cut through the chitchat, shall we? General conversation didn't seem to be ingrained in either one of our childhoods. How about the heart of the matter?" His coldly handsome face twisted into a disturbing grimace as he rose menacingly from his chair, towering over his captor. Max broke eye contact first, feigning boredom. From his side pocket, White withdrew a tazer.
"A tazer? Honestly Ames," Max purposefully tried to sound annoyingly friendly. "Doesn't the General Villain Coalition have more creative weapons? Or is it just customary of every major bad guy in the post-Pulse world to come off the line with a few thousand watts of electrical current stored in their pockets?" She glanced down to the front of his pants, fully knowing that - Familiar or not - every male suffered from the same insecurity. Continuing silkily, she said, "Trying to make up for something, Amy?"
White cuffed Max fully across the face, the force of his hate causing her head to snap back violently. A sadistic smile slithered across his lips. Self-control was something White had always prided himself on, as if it made up for his innate impatience. But the transgenic filth in front of him always managed to push his buttons, so for a split second he let his - emotions? - run loose. It felt even better than he thought it would.
Shaking her head away from the stars swirling in her vision, Max faced White boldly. Because doing so would only make her broken lip more irritated, she fought a smile. If she could just get him to lose his temper and kill her outright, things might never get back to the heart of the matter: Ray.
But Max also knew her adversary would never let things get out of control, not for too long anyway. Either way, she quickly resigned herself to a slow and agonizing death. Assuming the motorcyclist that picked her up for this date was one of White's goons, Alec would still be scouring the city for her. He'd eventually give up, thinking she'd taken another "vacation." It wouldn't occur to him until days later that Max would never skip town without Ray. By then Max would be dead, if the fates were kind.
There was no C.J. to unlock her handcuffs at that perfect last-possible-second-pre-Pulse-Hollywood-type moment. Alec wasn't going to sweep in like a knight in leather armor; he'd probably never even know she'd died.
It was just her and White. All they needed was some tumbleweed and a few Western clichés and they'd have themselves a good old-fashioned showdown.
Trained to be self-reliant to the last, Max found the situation hopeful, lucky even. At this point in time, White was convinced that only herself and ever-elusive Eyes Only were privy to the whereabouts of his son. Logan was safe, probably even better at covering his tracks than Max was with her own - she being so cocky and all. So if could Max find a way to die without spilling the beans, she could manage to die a happy person.
Because Ray would be safe.
Stalling seemed to be the best idea for the time being. If Max could get White to torture her beyond all hope of being sanity and coherence without having to worry about betraying the one she'd come to love as her own son, then he'd have no choice to kill her out of her sheer uselessness.
And Ray would be safe.
But she was going to die.
A life flashed before her eyes, time slowing down and lingering over her stolen moments with her pseudo-nephew. A blond head rested against her breast, legs crossed over her lap, and fingers idly wrapped across her sides in sleep. The sweet perfume of his neck when he worked up a decent sweat. Tinkling laughter. A little boy's fingers. Instead of weakening, the memories and her love for Ray only strengthened her resolve to save him from the fear of living with his psychopathic father.
Shockingly enough, the only thing that came even remotely close to weakening her resolve was White himself. Through another's eyes - a mother's eyes - Max stared at her enemy blatantly. The suit, although impeccably clean, was slightly wrinkled and showed signs of wear and tear. New wrinkles lined his mouth that read more as signs of sadness and worry and loss than a sign of anger. Bags weighed down on his eyes from physical and emotional exhaustion. The most striking were the eyes themselves though. Deeply hidden behind a hatred of transgenics, Max saw a trace of real emotion, the start of the fatherly love that drove White beyond even Familiar limitations. Underneath the hatred, the sense of loss was so poignant that it almost caused Max to falter very faintly in sympathy.
But because Max knew what White would someday want his son to become, she hardened her heart. It was true, Ray bared a lot of resemblance to his father. The apple never fell too far from the tree. At the core of their beings though, where it really counted, they were like the guards at the door, different as night and day. White's evil force was a black hole, ready to suck out the brilliant light that was essential to Ray's very being.
But Ray was young and impressionable, at the brink of two distinctive paths: clay shifting back and forth between Max and Ames' hands. Both Potters wanted to mold and construct a strong base in him; one using force and manipulation, the other utilizing the importance of spirit and vigor. Once Ray was thrown into the kiln's compressing flames, the form that they had thrown in - good or bad, for better or worse - would be permanent. The race was to see what kind of shape would go into the flames, and whether or not Ray's form would break.
Her love for Ray and the desire to shield him overrode any and all of the survival instincts Manticore had spent a decade trying to ingrain in her. Maybe love and loyalty would be enough to keep her silent. Yet the gnawing fear of slipping-up under torture drove Max to do something she'd only done one other time in her life: pray for a loved one's safety, bartering for his life.
"How'd you find me?" Max asked emotionlessly as she started to shut her awareness down, trying to prepare her body for the beating it was about to undergo.
"494 was followed on a motorcycle to an abandoned warehouse, carrying you. After giving you enough time to get cozy, a team infiltrated the perimeter and dragged your unconscious body out, 494 had obviously left you there. He was no where to be found, not that we did a real in depth check or anything," White said emotionlessly, circling around Max like a vulture around road kill. Inwardly, Max breathed a huge sigh of relief, dying was bad enough without knowing you were responsible for leaving the transgenic leader's corpse in your wake. Alec was safe too. "You were the only one that mattered, your 'summer fling', as he called himself, would have been killed on sight. He is no use to me. Now it's my turn to ask the questions.
"First and foremost," he stopped his circling directly in front of her. Yanking her swelling chin to his face - either to intimidate her with his evil stare or the tazer laying almost passively across his shoulder - White asked slowly and succinctly, "Where did you and that red, white, and blue freak stash my son?"
"Oh, he's back in Terminal City," Max replied with her usual wise guy tone, knowing the truth was far stranger than any lie she could come up with, save flying saucer's - although it wouldn't be too surprising to find that White had relations on far away planets. "Yeah, he's probably painting with Joshua right now - that's the wonder dog that almost broke your back at that whole Jam Pony incident - or reading Shakespearian plays with Dix or..."
Max never got to finish. Infuriated at her insolence, White began the electrical path to pain a little early. The tazer snapped and crackled with malevolent glee as it attacked her body with wave after wave of lightning agony.
Max's last coherent thought before surrendering to the calm blackness beckoning her was "I love you." But instead of envisioning just one tiny blond cherubic form, she also saw a lean, anonymous figure watching sadly from the distance. But before she was even granted the chance to wonder who - and more importantly, why - the figure was, the darkness claimed her.
*****
"What do you think, Keith?" his portly partner asked, tipping his half done Marlboro towards the rusted gates separating themselves from the toxins and Manticorians that had made the brittle streets on the other side home. It was a still night, a bad omen slipping down his back causing his wide belly to shiver in anticipation. The Sector police, although supposedly cracking down on security surrounding the foxhole, were in all actuality thinly dispersed tonight. Food riots on the other side of town took precedence. Him and Keith were practically alone tonight; the nearest backup was several blocks down the border. He didn't like it at all; it made him even more nervous than usual.
Keith - not exactly a tiny man himself, his seven-foot three-inch stature intimidating more than one would-be patriotic moron from bad-mouthing the transgenic population to the point of bloodshed - scanned the perimeter, his jade green eyes loitering over all possible entrances and exits of the freaks' refuge.
According to the news reports, the transgenics were crafty by nature, not to mention DNA. The uncanny ability to hide in the shadow of a noon sun had been deeply rooted in them since birth, or so the rumors said. Keith held no small reverence for that ability, especially when he was on perimeter watch. Normally his finally tuned sixth sense twitched in his gut as if in silent alarm when their own guards' eyes fell upon him. Tonight though, he felt no twitching, it was as if the freak show had drawn into itself before busting out with their grand finale. Knowing his less poetic partner wouldn't appreciate the subtleties, he simply said, "It's quiet, Bruce. Too quiet."
All in all, Keith considered himself a man fairly sympathetic to the transgenic plight. He'd never made an outright stand in their favor of course; it could cost him his job and he had a wife and a bustling baby boy to feed.
Bruce puffed on his cigarette pensively before grinding it into the ground with the heel of his government-issued boot. As a man very prone to overreaction and worrying, he'd always joked that "Sector Policeman" wasn't exactly the ideal job for his already overworked heart. But it was a steady paycheck, not to mention any "tips" he "came across" in between. He peered out into the dark alleys through the plastic guard hinged to his helmet, supposedly to shield his face from any flying shrapnel. Being nervous as he was, all it did was provide the sauna effect, his cigarette-tainted breath making small billowing clouds of nicotine against his faceguard.
Keith laughed at him. "I don't even know why you bother leaving the guard down, you nervous fool. All you're doing is killing yourself twice as quickly, first from the cigarette and then the second hand smoke filming..." He stopped mid-sentence, the angry roar of a motorcycle engine reverberating off the buildings of the alley. The rider - early twenties, male, Caucasian, lean, short dark hair, wearing a dark leather jacket and sunglasses - drew up within a few feet of the awestruck pair.
Before Keith or Bruce could bat an eyelid, the mystery rider was off of his bike, two Chrome 45's adorning his hands - more like extensions of his body than accessories - and pointed straight at their heads. "Your guns," he said calmly. "Please drop them." Bruce looked to Keith for confirmation, who nodded. Two guns clanged against the ground. Their captor signaled to the tazers on their belts. "Those too." Tazers bounced off the cement. "Kick 'em over there," he said, nodding over his shoulder towards the buildings on the other side of the alley. Four metallic objects clanged against the far building. A smile flirted with the young man's face, making him infinitely more friendly, charming even. "Thank you, ladies." Keith felt himself smiling in response to the jibe.
Turning on one foot, the young man hopped over the fence, obviously a transgenic. "What about your bike?" Keith couldn't help calling after the retreating form, much to the dismay of his partner. "Stolen!" the nameless figure quipped, running for the heart of Terminal City.
"Cocky little bastard," Keith muttered to himself. For some reason, it only made him like the guy all the more.
*****
Alec blasted through the doors of the command center, knocking a very shocked Dalton flat on his back. Before the boy even worked up a decent grunt protesting the abuse of his derrière, Alec hauled him to his feet, absentmindedly straightening his jacket with a rushed apology. When he turned to find Mole and Dix's face among the sea of freaks milling about the room, he found instead several dozen pairs of eyes boring into him, betraying a hint of anticipation and fear. Seeing their leader who was normally on top of things so disorderly made the entire room hush, fearing the "things" had fallen out from underneath him, and something had gone terribly wrong.
He waved his hands through the air carelessly in a shrug to say "whoops!" all the while praying no one would notice his trembling fingers. He had to find Max, quick. "Sorry folks, nothin' to see. Slipped on a banana peel. In punishment, every monkey-lookin' transgen has toilet duty for a week," he said, earning some chuckles. "Feel free to get back to work." Taking him on his word, the motley crew returned to their day-to-day tasks. Not even bothering to look, Alec's hand snapped behind him, deftly taking Dalton by the shoulder and discreetly whipping him around. "Except you," Alec said softly, finally letting his inner anxieties lace his voice. "I need your help."
Sensing the urgency of the situation, Dalton nodded, ready to help his hero in anyway necessary. "Find Joshua, Dix, Mole, and Luke. You five meet me in the back room in two minutes, and be discreet," Alec ordered. Resisting the urge to salute, the teenager turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.
The back room was Alec's informal office, not that he'd ever really considered it such, partly for fear that he'd slip into the nine-to-five mode which would be so unlike the prowling tomcat that he was. Overtime he'd come to leave his stuff in the back room, and the other transgenics for the most part respected his privacy. The room was a perfect balance of domesticity and authority, with a few of Alec's own decorative touches so it wouldn't fall into a pre-Pulse Martha Stewart or the opposing Donald Lydecker category. A hooded sweatshirt strung over a chair, a swimsuit calendar on the far wall: home sweet home. Some of Sandeman's books - late night entertainment to keep his mind off of things - were strewn haphazardly around the mahogany desk next to the focal point of Alec's attention at the moment: the telephone.
He pushed the receiver next to his ear, carefully listening for the telltale beeps and undercurrent hums of a tapped line. He sighed in relief to hear it was clear, hastily dialing a number. "Logan, we have a problem. It's them pesky Familiars again." After hastily explaining the situation to the older man and Logan began a cross-sector search on any black op movements, Alec sat the phone back in its cradle bleakly. Things didn't look good. The sound of obvious attempts at throat clearing pulled his attention toward the door. Dalton and Company had gathered at the entryway, every one of them - even Mole - seeming cagey.
The X5 jerked his head toward the door, which Dalton took as a sign to shut it. Alec began when he heard the doorknob click shut. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Since about, 'Logan, we have a problem,'" Luke supplied, his enthusiastic voice edging on nervousness. Alec glanced over towards Dalton in praise at his swiftness, causing the younger boy to go red.
"Little fella in trouble?" Joshua asked, crossing to where the X5 stood, his breath seesawing out in anxious pants.
Alec nodded, placing his hand on the dogman's burly upper arm in sympathy. "White."
"Joshua help," he growled, his lips curling back over a fierce set of teeth.
"You all help," he responded in half-statement, half-question. Without even glancing at their compatriots for support, each nodded grimly. Mole nudged Dalton lightly in the shoulder with his rifle butt. "You sure you want him?" he asked. "He's just a kid."
"He's also one of the most attentive and best trained stealth ops in his entire class," Alec replied casually, falling into the folding chair behind his desk. "He stays."
Alec quickly filled them in on what had happened, beginning at Crash. For the next half-hour the group threw ideas back and forth on Max's possible whereabouts and how to retrieve her, anxiously awaiting a telephone call. When the phone did ring Alec slammed it to his ear before it even finished its first buzz. "What do you have?" he asked, putting him on speakerphone, knowing the boys - particularly Mole and Joshua - would want to hear it firsthand.
"Possible lead," Logan replied, the distinct clatter of a tapping keyboard in the background. "Multiple actually. The same caravan has moved a couple of times. Good old fashioned black humvees, four or five. Probably a Christmas gift to White from the NSA. One of my sources has confirmed White's appearance with the convoy while passing into Sector 7."
"Max?"
"Another source said he did see the form of a brunette in her late teens/early twenties. The guy mostly saw her from behind, no skin tone or facial features available, but judging from the rest of the description..."
"Was she alive?" Mole chimed in, ever the optimist. Both Joshua and Alec shot him a dark look. The lizard-man mouthed an apology, shrugging his broad shoulders in defeat.
"Whatever she was, she wasn't conscious," Logan said solemnly, almost feeling the six individual winces on the other end of the line. "They're on the outskirts of town, holed up in some old mansion, supposedly haunted or something."
"Security?" Alec asked, doing his best to keep the worry from his voice.
"From the looks of it, pretty low key." Logan paused. "I think it's a trap, Alec."
"Of course it's a trap, Logan," Alec said dryly. "Every major player always sets a trap. Although I must admit, it's getting to be a bit self-defeating when everyone realizes there's always a trap..."
"That's not what I meant, Alec," replied Logan tersely. "I think it's a trap...for you."
Alec's brow pursed in confusion. "Why me?"
"You ascended to power very quickly the moment Max went on the lam. Then you dropped off of the charts the same couple of weeks Eyes Only did before Max came back to town. Maybe White figures if both you and I brought Max back to town then..."
"Maybe I also know Ray's location," Alec finished gravely.
There was a pregnant pause on both ends of the line, the full weight sinking into both parties. Logan began again slowly, "If you would trek across country to bring her back once, he knows for sure you'd go across town to fetch her back again. If Max proves useless, he'd have you. It's a trap."
"He's a smart man," the X5 lazily replied, feigning the relaxation he was anywhere but feeling.
The older man also knew the transgenic's tenacity and - come fire and brimstone - he'd go after her either way. Logan filled him in on the rest of the details - complete security rundown, general layout, and of course location - before filling the X5 in on his worst fear. "Alec?"
"Yeah, Logan."
Logan typed madly on the keyboard in front of him as if using it to block a horrific thought trying its hardest to come to mind. "Max loves Ray very much, both you and I know that. She would die - will die - before ever letting White have his hands on him again."
Alec closed his eyes, resting his head against his palms and blocking out the world. He let his humanity fall from him in crumbling bricks, building a new wall of discipline and duty to shield him. This was a very precarious dilemma and any ounce of humanity, any room he left for fear, would bring about his worst fears. Under strict control of his emotions, he stood from the chair and leaned close to the speaker. "Then I guess we'd better hurry," he said softly, gently pressing the "off" button before turning to face his unit.
He motioned to the duo in the corner. "Dix, you run the communications links. Luke, you'll help him, but first quietly round up every decent firearm that can pack a killer punch and some radios. Heavy emphasis on the 'quietly.' Go, now." Both transgens barely resisted the urge to salute in the face of such stern authority, ducking out the door swiftly.
Alec turned to the three left in the dark room. "Joshua. Mole. Dalton." He addressed each soldier by name, looking as meaningfully into each pair of eyes as he could in his near Manticorian state. "While we may not be the easiest foursome to sneak out of this godforsaken place, you are probably also the only three I could trust with some risky business. I'll be upfront with you guys: this is a pretty suicidal mission. Logan's informants say we're looking at maybe a dozen guards tops. But given that we are working with White and the trusty calling card he left us, we can probably guess that the little security we're looking at are all of White's nearest and dearest: Familiars, plus whatever extra "brothers" of his that start magically appearing out of God knows where. We are working with at least a couple dozen Familiars against four of us. The odds aren't exactly in our favor. And for the most part, Max isn't exactly the character we'd like to risk our necks for. This is strictly on voluntary basis. If you don't wish to come along, don't. No one will look down on you."
No one moved or spoke as the air seemed to hum with anticipation of their reply. Mole and Joshua glanced at each other before turning their eyes to Dalton. All eyes mirrored the same thing, a die-hard resolve. They turned back to their leader, their response written plainly on their faces.
Alec clapped his hands together, a grim smile peeking at the corners of his otherwise solemn mouth. "Alright then, we move out."
*****
Leonard Fredrickson moved down the hallway with slow steps, purposefully ignoring the portraits' unblinking stares following him across the floor. He stifled a shiver as another wave of guilty superstition splashed across him. He was born and bred Familiar, weaned on hate for the weak and the motto "no pain is more gain." The descendant of a notable cult, his ancient bloodline of brute force and dominance should also rule over such childish superstitions as haunted houses. But even as he cursed himself for such frailty, he felt the distinctive sensation as a pair of eyes boring into his back. Fredrickson turned around as slowly as possible so he wouldn't shame himself if there was in fact one of his brother Familiars trailing him down the incredibly eerie hallway. As he expected, there was nothing save both the darkness his eyes had grown accustomed to and the venerable mug shots glaring disdainfully down at him.
Sighing in relief, he wheeled around again, nearly tripping over someone. Fredrickson grasped the upper arms of his shadow while it took him by the shoulders firmly. "Still afraid of ghosts, I see," the voice rasped, friendly but not quite pleasant.
"Brother White," Fredrickson gasped, straightening himself. "Here I was worried I had tripped over a phantom of some sort, but I see I've only found the Devil." He heard his kin's chuckle, a few shades darker than the night surrounding them. Fredrickson had been only half-joking. Ames White had always been an enigma - even to the cult that schooled him - and a man of ruthless ambition. But lately even the Conclave had seen him slip further and further from their realm and more towards the shadows of a man possessed. Normally having another person with him in a haunting hallway would let Leonard breathe a little easier, but this man's menacing presence seemed only to suffocate him further.
Unaware of the other man's discomfort, Ames led his long-time acquaintance - he'd never been the kind to make friends - down the rest of the hallway, strolling into the last door on the right. He flipped the switch on the far wall and the lights flickered on over head. Fredrickson surmised he'd been led into a billiard room of some sort; a moth eaten pool table offset the maroon couches on the far side of the room, both covered in a visibly thick sheet of dust.
Ames swiped a forgotten rag down the edge of the pool table, slumping into the now clean corner. He let his eyes sweep over his colleague. Leonard Johannes Fredrickson was more than fifteen years his senior, his approach towards the ripe age of fifty made evident by the strands of gray swirling around the temples of his black hair. He had a darker complexion than most Familiars' was, the black of his hair only matched by the pigment of his eyes. Despite the wrinkles slowly eating into his face, Fredrickson was still a handsome man. And a worthy opponent.
The Conclave had sent him, Ames could feel it.
In the silence Fredrickson had also been sizing up his associate, taking in the haggard but ever arrogant air, ready to screw over the authorities at any moment. The Conclave had never mastered Ames' rebellious streak, just like they'd never dominated his father - and Leonard's mentor - Sandeman. The frenetic dedication that had flooded Sandeman had also been inherited by his offspring like fuel pouring from one bucket to the next. All either needed was a match. Sandeman had found his - which led to complete blasphemy - and it was Fredrickson's job to make sure the prodigal son never lit his own. But judging by the red staining Ames White's hands and his own sleeves where the younger man had grabbed him several moments ago, the older man sensed he might have been a little too late.
Fredrickson got right down to the point, knowing White's temper didn't appreciate having to beat around the bush with small talk. "You were to contact us anytime you had so much as a credible lead on her, much less the time - or in your case, many times - you got a hold of her. I had to hear of your catch through the proverbial grapevine." The younger associate was silent, crossing his arms across his chest in an immature sulk at the mention of his past errors. "Her blood, I assume?" he asked, pointing to the crimson smudges staining the white of his button-down shirt where his hands grasped his upper arms.
White glanced down at his hands in something that could almost be misconstrued as surprise. Using the same rag as he had earlier, he meticulously wiped off the red gloves. "You assume correctly," he replied coldly, but no less hateful than his usual tone concerning "her."
"Is she dead?"
"Not yet. You can go back to the Conclave and tell them they can have 452 when I'm finished with her," White replied deliberately and with a heavy tinge of insolence, calculating the infamous Conclave's disposition through the temperament of their messenger.
"By quoting such a statement back to them it will be justly read as you telling them to go straight to Hell." The older man understood White's defiance, but such impertinence, such brazen disrespect, was suicide.
"You can tell them that as well for all I care."
"Ames, this is madness," Fredrickson pleaded, slowly stepping toward the stranger before him. "Give 452 to them. It's all they want from you." White remained unmoved, calmly examining his nails against the inadequate light and scraping the blood out from underneath them. It was like trying to convince an oak tree to uproot itself and fall over, even in the face of a chainsaw or bulldozer. "It's your one true chance at becoming a hero, the only chance of ridding yourself fully of your past mistakes and your father's."
Losing patience, the younger man stormed out of the room in angry strides. "It is also my only chance at finding my son!"
Fredrickson stalked in the angry man's footsteps. They marched through an underground labyrinth of hidden tunnels, which - given the other man's rage reverberating off of the congesting walls and his superstitious nature - seemed to ring with the distinct hum of a very bad omen. The dusk and shadows were overpowering, making it impossible to follow White if it hadn't been for the pounding of his angry feet. Finally, after what seemed like hours on the dime tour of Hell itself, Ames made a sharp turn into room of some sort. Long and white and clean with the exception of a puddle of blood, the room bore one lone occupant, hidden from Fredrickson's view by White's broad shoulders. When White crossed the room towards her though, Leonard wished dearly that he hadn't.
Even after nearly a lifetime of transgenic hatred, the sight before him nearly caused the older man to stumble in horror at the atrocity against life - human, Familiar, or transgenic. "My God," Fredrickson said, unwillingly taking in the scene. The proportions of White's obsession and hatred and blown apart further than anyone could have predicted. Despite Ames' assertion of the opposite, he wasn't even sure she was still alive until the other Familiar began screaming in her face for the location of his son, threatening her with the life of - 494?
Ames White had become a monster of mythical proportions. Such damage done in so little time was absolutely mind-boggling.
He looked again to the woman. She was broken in body, but obviously she hadn't broken in spirit. From deep inside the bottom of his heart, Fredrickson almost felt a small twinge of admiration, if it hadn't been completely overridden by the fear of White's rage, awesome to behold.
The Conclave longed to have her alive, but they'd also accept her corpse. Moved by a small pang of pity, Leonard Fredrickson withdrew a small handgun from his pocket, aimed for the middle of 452's nearly comatose head, and fired.
*****
In the middle of Terminal City, Mole checked his signature piece of military hardware for any kinks that could prove fatal on the battlefield. The cigar seemed fine. Tucking it and a spare in his front pocket, he felt ready for battle. There was only one small hitch. "Uh, Alec?"
"Yeah, Mole?" he asked, tucking two extra handguns and a rather large knife into his cargo pants. He ran a mental checklist, making sure he wasn't missing any major details. Everyone seemed suited up and ready for action. There had only been two bulletproof vests available, so they were given to Dalton - because he was the youngest and everyone felt a bit responsible for him - and Mole - because next to Alec, he was the most likely to shoot his mouth off or become otherwise reckless and need it. Mole had argued against it at first, but Alec exercised his authority. "What am I forgetting?" he asked himself, scratching the back of his head - it had always been a nervous habit of his, even back at Manticore.
"How about a way out of here?" Mole supplied, waving around their homey cage. That little stunt Alec had pulled with those two sector cops had grabbed a lot more publicity, the border of Terminal City now decorated with red and blue flashes like Christmas lights wrapped around the fence. The foursome were too far inside the compound to be caught on camera at this point, but eventually they ran the risk of being caught breaking out.
"Sewers? Joshua know way." Joshua said, eying his gun a tad bit warily. After attaching the silencer, he pointed it at a can across the alley, frowning when the gun refused to fire. Dalton reached up behind the dogboy and pulled the gun closer to his level. "Remember," the young blond advised, flicking a switch. "Safety off." Joshua let out a sheepish bark at his mistake, but felt redeemed for his inexperience when he knocked the soup can off it's perch on a crate with his second try.
"It's a bit overdone," Mole said thoughtfully, caressing the cigars safely buried in his jacket pocket. "But you're sure you know a way?" he asked. Joshua glanced at Alec and nodded.
"Then out the sewers is the way we go," the X5 said, turning toward the nearest manhole cover and ducking down into the shield of darkness.
*****
The plan was simple: get out of Terminal City, get to the estate, recover Max, and get back home. At least it was simple until one considered that the retrieving group had done almost no recon - save Logan's blueprints, dictated over the phone - and the supposedly lax security were in all likelihood White's personal brat pack.
After sneaking through sewers and gutters for a few hours, the night clubs' alcohol intake skyrocketed, leaving several Seattle citizens too smashed to drive and several open cars for any random party of transgenics to pilfer without a hitch. They happened upon a turn-of-the-century Dodge minivan and the small band removed the backseats quietly. Mole and Joshua laid down in the back - the dogman quietly, Mole not so much - and hid themselves with a tattered quilt Dalton had found in the gutter.
"This is suicide," Mole grumbled from under the blanket. Joshua grunted in response, although it was hard to tell if it was from agreement or if the lizardman's favorite shotgun had connected with his gut. Dalton rolled his eyes, thoroughly acquainted with Mole's typical outlook on life. The X5 behind the wheel glanced unsympathetically in the back mirror before flicking the windshield wipers to full power. It was raining cats and dogs again, creating both an advantage and disadvantage: it was harder to see and maneuver but also harder to be seen and outmaneuvered.
"You knew it was suicide from the beginning," the X5 said dryly. He jerked the wheel suddenly to the left, flying around some large debris dotting the otherwise lonely two-way highway. Mole's comical, frustrated grunt at the manhandling caused Alec to bite back the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. Dalton wasn't so subtle. "I know you're not laughing up there, rug rat," the cranky transgen warned, the unfinished threat losing its effectiveness when he was covered with pinkish, cloud covered quilt.
"I knew it was suicide," Mole continued. "But I thought I'd at least go down with some dignity. Gunshot to the head, torture," he listed hopefully. "Anything but going down buried ass-up in marshmallow clouds and pink fluff. What are we going to do when we hit a checkpoint, huh?"
"Well I guess we'll find out now," Dalton whispered as the minivan pulled up in front of one of the infamous checkpoints, regulated by a man who looked to have seen too many doughnuts and not enough treadmills. Alec rolled down his window and squinted both against the pouring rain and the flashlight shining in his eyes.
"Jam Pony messenger," he said, whipping out the I.D. from his side pocket. Clucking, the blonde officer switched the flashlight over to the teenage youth beside him but quickly dismissed the boy as underfed and a weak threat. "Isn't it a little after hours for you boys?" the officer snipped, one hand resting "commandingly" on his nightstick.
"Special delivery," Alec said calmly, even as the flashlight's beam began to peer through the back window, sliding over the barely covered form of two grotesque transgenics. The cop whipped his flashlight back to Alec's face like a child pretending to be the head of an interrogation, his dark eyes narrowing in suspicion. The X5 wouldn't have been too shocked if the next words the he dropped were, "Where were on the night of May 25th?" Instead he merely nodded his head towards the cargo. "Is that the special delivery?"
Alec nodded slowly, his eyes faking a glimmer of respect for the officer's intuitiveness when in all reality he was calculating just how many more precious minutes he had to wait on this idiot with a badge when they could be rescuing Max. To keep things moving, Alec leaned out the window and carried on a short conversation with the lard in a blue jumpsuit. Within moments, the cop nodded in understanding and let the minivan through in a flash, not even giving them a backward glance.
"What did you tell him?" the blond in the front asked, which strangely echoed in their cargo bay exactly twice.
"Either I told him I had two 'mis-creations of science' stashed in the back or I was supplying some big-boned hookers to a generous client of mine, take your pick." The entire van silenced for a few moments until Joshua asked, "Is there a choice C?"
*****
"Logan! Logan!" The little boy waved wildly to catch his attention and his tiny face positively beamed in happiness, eager to greet his long-gone friend. The lulling drone of an exoskeleton neared Ray until two toned arms wrapped around his body, the soft scratch of a short beard tickling the boy's cheek.
"Hey, Ray! It's late, why aren't you in bed yet?" Logan asked, glancing down at his watch that read 11:30. The child seemed ready for bed. He was wearing pajamas - or they could be dress clothes, for all of what T.C. had to offer - and he seemed clean enough for a boy of his age. Butter curls smelled of shampoo and breath of toothpaste.
"Aunt Max always sings me to sleep but I can't find her," the kid responded, looking like he just realized he'd lost his mother's hand in the middle of an overcrowded supermarket.
"Well, I'm sure she's around here somewhere," Logan said too brightly. The words rang false even to his own ears; nothing hurt his idealistic outlook like lying to a kid. It was like destroying a future before it even had a chance to grow.
Gem's cheery face popped out of nowhere. "I have an idea," she said, taking the small boy's hand. "Why don't I sing you to sleep like I did once when you were too sick to see Aunt Max? When Logan finds her, he'll send her straight to your room okay?" Over the tiny blond head nodding in front over her, she sent Logan a mournful look. She knew. The ordinary glanced down meaningfully to the boy's turned back, pasting a bright - albeit fake - smile on his face, which Gem reciprocated. And once again, for a few more cherished moments, nothing was wrong in the twisted little world Ray lived in.
Watching the two trot off to bed, Logan glanced up towards the perch the communications experts sat. Alec must have kept the ordeal very hush-hush, no one even seemed to notice their leader's sudden disappearance or the dread painted on Dix and Luke's faces. As if sensing his presence, Luke turned slowly in his chair. Seeing the norm among the masses, he shook his head slowly. Logan cursed under his breath; he'd come to T.C. to be there whenever any news came in, maybe even to make himself useful instead of sitting at home alone with only his fears to keep him company, waiting for a thumbs down.
Across the hullabaloo of the command center, Ray wheeled around suddenly, eyes bright and naive. "Goodnight, Logan!"
Looking at the sweet eagerness on Ray's face, Logan knew Max had to make it home alive. There was no room for error, no other possible ending. Whether she knew it or not, whether she acknowledged it or not, too many depended on her.
A swift kick of jealousy hit Logan in the gut. Ray didn't know that right across town his favorite "aunt" was dying, might already be dead, all in an attempt to save his life. He was so green and innocent.
Ignorance was bliss.
"Goodnight Ray!"
*****
Given the fact that they had packed more ammo than Rambo had, the foursome swept through the first two waves of Familiar counterattack pretty easily, leaving at least a dozen dead. They gained access to the mansion within minutes, pushing their element of surprise to its bursting point. But by then, the alarm had gone up, causing another dozen or so Familiars to collapse on the transgenics, ready to push back the intruders. They squared off in a wide hallway with old portraits adorning either wall. But the angry glower of those painted faces had nothing on those of the tight ring of Familiars surrounding them.
It was a stand off with either side reluctant to start the next stage of the skirmish. "Remind me again, why didn't I opt to bring more guys?" Alec asked, directing the question at no one inparticular.
"Because," Dalton replied, crouching into his favorite fighting stance. "You said this was a voluntary basis. Not too many care for Max or these odds. Who would volunteer?"
Alec thought for a moment, circling and sizing up each of their foe. "Gem."
"Doesn't count. You wouldn't let her come when she has a baby," Dalton replied.
"Oh yeah."
Impatient to get some real fighting started, Mole was the first to rush into a fray. He threw down the now empty guns, opting for the uncharacteristic knife. "This hallway isn't big enough for the two of us," he growled, swinging at one anonymous face.
Early on Dalton was wounded by a heavy blow to his ribcage, but was quickly avenged by the sweet crunch of a broken neck courtesy of Joshua. Another blow to the head had the younger X out like a light. Yet both Mole and Joshua held their own very well, surprisingly short of battle wounds. The dogman seemed to gain momentum as he went, his punches growing faster and fiercer as the fight dragged on. Mole was just too happy to have someone to wail on for a change.
After quickly shuffling the teenager's unconscious form off into a safer corner, Alec resumed his tirade of blurred punches and rapid fire kicks, taking out two whole cult loonies on his own. Knowing he couldn't afford to lose another man, he made sure to keep his ears preened for those little hints that his friends were still alive and kicking: Joshua's occasional grunts and guttural yowls of triumph whenever he knocked an adversary down, and Mole's constant stream of swear words and general insults of the adversaries threatening to flood him.
Despite their valiant effort, the small group was overrun within moments of their first exchanging blows. Twelve Familiars on four transgenics - one unconscious - wasn't even close to a fair fight. Swinging Dalton into his arms, Alec called out, "Fall back!"
The group tore down a random hallway, six or seven Familiars hot on their trail. They didn't run at full speed, making sure to keep their feet quiet. Familiars couldn't see in the darkness or follow footsteps they couldn't hear. Alec knew his feline DNA would keep him from running blind, and what the other two lacked in night vision they more than compensated for in their other senses. They wouldn't lose him. As long as they kept quiet and no one found a light switch, they would be safe. Within minutes, the sound of trailing footsteps dropped slowly until the runaways were fleeing in silence, only the splatter of leaking pipes accompanying their journey.
The dark corridors twisted and turned. "I'm looking for the light at the end of the tunnel," Mole quipped. "I sure ain't seeing it."
"At this point, I figure we'd be more likely to catch the flames of Hell," Alec retorted. His ears pricked up and he came to a dead halt in the passageway, two solid bodies bouncing off of his back and crashing to the floor. "Fix your break lights. You're supposed to come to a gradual stop, especially in less than ideal conditions. Did you even pass Driver's Ed?" Mole hissed, standing up and wiping the sludge normally coating the floor off of his backside. Turning slightly, he grunted as he hoisted the dogman to his feet. "Why stop?" Joshua asked.
Alec hushed them both, lifting a finger to his lips before he even realized they wouldn't see it. "Just listen." Joshua's head cocked to one side, catching the hum reverberating around on the underground brick slime-slick walls. "People?" he asked, sniffing the air for a clue but only finding a sensory overload of stink.
"Given the givens, I think we might be more likely to find Familiars than 'people'." Alec paused in thought. "Or transgenics." After glancing over his shoulder for the millionth time to make sure they still weren't being followed, he tapped the radio on his shoulder. "Dix, Luke. The tunnels of love down here are jam-packed with turnoffs, but are there any actual rooms? Over."
"Affirmative," a voice crackled back over the intercom, sounding suspiciously like Logan. "First lady of the house went mad; husband locked her up in the basement. Typical white room, padded walls, small. Almost impossible to find. Why?"
"I think we might have found it," Alec replied. There was an insightful pause on the other end. "It be a perfect place to store a defiant transgenic," Logan said.
"Just what I was thinking." Alec switched the radio off and turned towards his compatriots, handing off Dalton's waking body to whom he assumed to be Joshua, judging by the hairy arms. "Let's go."
They slipped down the hallway slow and stealthily, their breath thinning in a mixture of anticipation and slight fear. Within a hundred feet, Alec identified the angry voice echoing down the walls. If the growl behind him was any judge, so had Joshua. Fear caused the X5 to quicken his pace, instinctively knowing Max was in that room. Several hours had elapsed since White had stolen Max from him, and the Familiar had lost his temper. Things could not be good.
Breaching the entryway into the room, the foursome paused in shock. Alec had imagined worse scenarios yes, but seeing one of the more horrific ones come to life made even the nastiest pale in comparison. Alec almost hoped Max wasn't alive until he realized that White was a little too sane to yell at a dead body.
It took a moment for Alec's vision to take in more than Max's dance with the Devil, namely the man not ten feet in front of him. His dark eyes were wide and jaw dropped in the horror that the X5 knew must be mirrored on his own face. Alec watched the other man slowly draw a gun from his pocket, aiming it at Max's bloody face.
The gun fired. Without even thinking, the X5 blurred around the nameless man. He covered Max's body with his own, the full impact of the bullet smacking him in the chest.
For several seconds everyone - including White - was too stunned to move. "Joshua," Alec wheezed around the bullet. "Whatever happens, save Max." Then mercifully, all went black.
*****
A/N: Whew, I'm so glad that's over. I'll tell ya, I don't think I really cared for this chapter all that much. It's rushed - especially at the end - but I'm going to be leaving for vacation soon, and I wanted to be sure to get this out before I leave. Yes, there are a lot of mistakes - grammar and otherwise. There probably won't be another update for a few weeks. Any and all patience is appreciated. You could feel free to boost my ego and tell me it didn't suck. ; )