Title: Total Recall, Chapter 18

Author: CSIphile/redwing

AN1: I'm going to start increasing my post schedule I think. Twice a week instead of once. Y'all have been so kind I feel it's something I can do for you in response. Don't think that means you can slack on reviewing…keep in mind it does fuel the writers soul and I take great joy out of reading them. I need little just an "I liked it" is enough for me!

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Chapter 18: A Pact is Made

"Report!" The handler barks at the eight transgenics standing at attention.

Quickly the CO responds with a lengthy report before ending with a curt, "Mission successful, sir. The facility was destroyed and the data was copied by 494."

Jesus, he could have led with that and I wouldn't be missing 20 more minutes of my life to this blowhard, Alec thinks and tries not to shake his head at his CO.

"Excellent. 494?"

He snaps back to attention mentally and reaches into his pocket, pulling out the disk and handing it over. Like before, the handler, who Alec has now dubbed Jackass, cursorily checks the contents and nods. "Very nice, 494. You've got more than we expected, it seems. Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir," he responds, every inch a soldier. It kinda makes Max shiver a bit that he can turn it on and off so easily.

"You are excused for the remainder of the afternoon. Call it free time."

"Yes, sir!" They respond in unison again, and slip out of the room -- everyone heading in different directions. Even Max and Alec.

Twenty minutes into her jog around the facility, Max hears someone else's footsteps catching up to her. Not even turning around, she increases her speed slowly, just staying ahead of the person behind her. She can feel the wind whipping across her face, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, the tendrils smacking methodically on her back in time with her footfalls. It's a chilly November afternoon, but she doesn't really notice the temperature. Again, she increases her speed and she hears the other person do the same -- at least 100 yards behind her but swiftly closing the gap.

She follows a seldom-used path on the track, taking her back behind some unused buildings on the grounds. The grass is overgrown back here, coming just above her ankles; she can feel it brushing at her skin, tickling her slightly. It's beyond deserted here -- these buildings used to be classrooms when this was a juvenile detention center. Now they sit, abandoned by Manticore in favor of newly built facilities. Occasionally the trainers bring them back here for long distance target practice; she can see the bright red targets inside the tree line about 100 yards to her right.

Lost in observation, Max is reminded that someone is following her when a body slams into her from behind, sending them both hurtling onto the ground, and forcing her breath out in a big whoosh.

Lying flat on her back, she looks up at Alec, who is straddling her abdomen, a shit-eating grin on his face. Sighing, she regards him like an adult would a small child.

"What that really necessary?"

"You bet your ass." He smiles widely at her.

"Jackass."

"Oh no, I think you have me confused with our handler."

That gets an honest laugh from her.

"You see that idiot following us?" she asks. "Man, what a slow poke. I think I lost him though when we spilt off the main track."

"Yup, seems Manticore doesn't trust us." He shakes his head in mock hurt.

"Big surprise. Ugh, get off me. Jesus, you've gained some weight in here." She shoves at his chest, unbalancing him slightly, but he doesn't fall.

"I take offense to that. Have not -- anyway, it's all muscle." He flexes his arms at her.

"You're pathetic. Now GET OFF ME." Again, she shoves him, and again, he remains seated on her stomach.

"You know you like me straddling you."

Without even missing a beat, she answers, "Not the point. 'Sides, we really can't go at it here anyway. So…off."

He leans over her, placing his lips at her ear, his warm breath sending shivers through her body. His hands are on either side of her ribs, thumbs gently caressing the underside of her breasts through her thin shirt. "Why not? We ARE breeding partners, you know."

She's speechless for a moment. Did he just? But before she can answer, he brings his head back up, allowing his lips to gently slide over hers. She practically moans at him for more, but he rolls off her, lying next to Max in the grass and weeds, staring up at the gray sky. Boise in November sure is…boring.

They lie in silence for a long time, just staring at the sky, watching the clouds slide past them.

"Are we going to get out of here?" she finally asks.

"Yes."

Turning onto her side, she puts her head in one hand and looks down at him, regarding his expression carefully. "You seem awful sure of that."

He looks into her eyes and she feels like he is boring into her soul. "I have to be -- failure is not an option. I'm not spending the rest of my life here."

She nods in agreement and leans over, using her free hand to push some strands of dark blonde hair off his forehead. He stops her by lightly grasping her wrist.

"Max, if they…if they find out…I'd rather be dead than reindoctrinated or turned into a living parts bank."

She bites her lower lip and looks at him. Tears spring into her eyes, as she remembers Zack. She can't imagine life without Alec, but she can't imagine life at Manticore forever either. "I know…I know."

Their fingers entwine together and she rests her head on his shoulder. After several minutes of silence, he speaks again. "So it's all or nothing. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

He sits up at the same time she hears something in the distance.

"Damn," he mutters, and helps her up.

"Idiot found us. Let's go." She wipes some foliage off her camos and faces the direction she was originally heading, waiting for Alec before starting to jog.

"So, how exactly do you plan on getting another message to Dix?"

He smiles at her and raises his eyebrows. "Ohhhh, you'll find out."

She furrows her brows at him. "What did you do?"

He just quickens his pace, getting ahead of her. She increases her speed, easily catching up. "Seriously, what did you do?"

All she gets is a smile in response.

Drummond rounds the corner of the building. He had been following the transgenics and while he had momentarily lost them, he managed to catch back up. Keeping up with them is proving to be harder than expected. Why Jacob put him on this duty he will never know; there are guards in far better shape than him. But in his five years here, he has never questioned an order and isn't about to start.

Scanning the backside of Manticore, he spots his targets; they are jogging in the other direction. Back towards the main campus.

"Shit," he mutters and walks quickly after them.

A little more than two days later, they are in the yard training separately when one of the lab techs approaches Alec's trainer. Max watches from afar as they chat in low tones; she can't quite hear them from her location, waiting her turn at the short distance firearm range.

Finally the trainer sighs and nods, calling Alec out of the line and pointing at the lab guy. Alec nods dutifully, but as he passes her on the way back to the buildings, he gives her a quick wink.

Oh lord, what did that idiot do?

Alec follows the guy into the computer lab area; he hadn't said a word to the transgenic about what was going on. But Alec knows and smiles. They had found it a little early, but that was ok by his book.

During his little downloading adventure the other day at AmGen, he had taken some innocuous expense reports and encoded them. Serious Defense department-type encoding that Dix had taught him based on pre-pulse encoding software. He had then buried the information deep on the disk, so they wouldn't find it for a couple days. Alec knew the techs would start at the beginning and work their way through, so he had put some interesting stuff at the start, the encoded expense reports in the middle, and the information they really wanted at the end. And Alec knew no computer geek, Manticore or not, could resist something so heavily coded; it was like flies to honey. They would have to stop and decode it, figuring AmGen would only code something like this if it was important.

Suppressing a smirk, he stops at the lab guy's computer station, staring at him noncommittatlly.

"Ok, we've been going through this enormous amount of information you copied, but we ran into a…snag."

"Oh? Really? What kind of snag?" He acts bored with the whole situation, like he would rather be anywhere else than stuck in the computer lab.

"There's a significant amount of encoded information on here. Any idea what program you pulled this from? It's got us stumped."

Alec leans over the tech, purposely crowding his space and scrunches his face at the lines and lines of nonsensical numbers across the screen, pretending to think hard. He had used that old encoding system, hoping that Manticore wouldn't have the software to decode it. Finally he stands up, snapping his fingers. "Yeah, it was some old pre-pulse stuff. Envivio4Coder I think it was called."

The tech looks at him confused for a minute. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I've heard of that company. Hey…Alex! You remember Envivio4Coder stuff?"

Oh shit, they know the system, he thinks, sure that he's screwed.

"No, what the hell are you talking about?" a disembodied voice calls from the other side of the room.

"494 here says that's the company who encoded this."

"Can't help ya."

The tech turns to him. "Ok, thanks though. We'll figure it out. Why would they use pre-pulse software?"

"Maybe they didn't want anyone reading it," Alec says and shrugs.

"Yeah, probably. Thanks 494, we'll…work on it."

"Anytime," he says and walks away, unable to contain a small smile as he enters the hall.

Checking the time, he heads to the mess hall. Time for a nutritious meal of something he can't even identify. Many things may have changed about Manticore, but the crappy food certainly hadn't. Grabbing food, he easily finds her sitting at the end of a long table, ignoring those around her. Looking around the room, he spots the guard who had been following them earlier; he seems to be pretty well locked into Max's position.

Alec shakes his head and sits right in front of her, his back to the guard, partially blocking the guy's view of her. Hmmm, he needs a name too. I'll have to think on that.

She barely acknowledges his arrival, and continues to push food around her plate, making strange designs.

"So, 452, how was the rest of training?"

"Boring as ever. How was your little trip?"

"Ohhh, pretty informative. Turns out some of the information on that disk was encoded with a pre-pulse program. The tech's heads where about to spin off, but I set 'em straight."

She merely nods, but gives him a strange look, obviously wondering what he is up to, and why they hell she didn't know about it.

tbc……………………………