Title: Total Recall, Chapter 19
Author: CSIphile/redwing
AN: Heeee! Almost to the end, about 7 chapters left. Its kinda sad really. Again, thank you all for the many kind reviews; they make my day.and make me contemplate writing a sequel.maybe. If not a sequel, at least another story, so please.you keep writing and so will I. Deal?
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Chapter 19: Welcome to Detroit
Of course, when two days later they are dragged to Olivet's office again, Max is sure Alec has something to do with it. They are both supposed to be in classes on biology and genetics for an upcoming deep cover mission.
Standing outside his office, she merely stares at her partner in crime. She is sure this it has to do with that disk from the AmGem job - she can't seem to call them missions. Alec's face, however, gives nothing up; he has that 'dutiful soldier' expression that scares her sometimes.
Finally tiring of attempting to stare him into looking at her, Max starts going through potential Manticore destruction plans. Since the two days in her cell during heat, they had managed to discuss and dismiss several ideas. Their main problem was they were in here and their help.wasn't. The second problem was that even if they managed to expose this site, Max was SURE there were more, in addition to wherever the HQ was. Everything needed to be exposed at once -- to the nation, to the government at its highest level. They needed to bring on the kind of heat that would destroy Manticore and ensure that it couldn't rise from the ashes again.
Max hates making these kinds of unilateral decisions for those soldiers who know nothing but the stability of Manticore, but she has heard from most of the residents of TC that they couldn't be happier out from under their former ruler. Apparently being free trumps being secure.
Lost in thought, she doesn't even hear the director's door open until his assistant, the one whose windpipe she had nearly crushed, calls their designations. She follows Alec in and stands at attention; she doesn't have to wait long for Olivet to get to the point.
"While you and 452 did an excellent job recovering the information from AmGen, there appears to be a section of text that is encoded. It's an old pre-pulse system that we simply do not have access to -- it's so old that no one uses it anymore. We are going to copy the section onto a disk for you and you will take it to the Enviro HQ outside Detroit to decode; they should have a copy of the program on their servers, even though it isn't used anymore. You have a cover as contractors working on their mainframe. That should get you access, if not, do what you have to. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." They respond in unison.
"Good, you'll be on a commercial flight tomorrow morning. IDs and wardrobe will be ready for you then."
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed, back to classes."
They turn and leave, as a small grin cracks over Alec's face.
Alec leans back in his cot later that night, supremely pleased with himself. He smiles to himself for what has to be the eighth time that day: it couldn't have worked out better if he tried.
"Lets just hope my luck holds," he mutters into the empty room. They had recently been transferred out of the barracks and into individual cells. Once your "retraining" is over, and you've successfully completed a mission, you get a raise of sorts -- your own room. Plus, then they can cycle the newest recruits into the open area sleeping arrangements.
Resting his head on his pillow and closing his eyes, Alec is just about asleep when a swishing sound from his door gets his attention. Not someone opening it, but sliding something under it. Sitting up slowly, he stares at the floor -- at a small object that had slid to just this side of the foot of his bed. Somewhere in his head he is waiting for it to explode, taking him out for good, but when after several minutes nothing happens, he slowly gets up and picks up the object.
It's a mini-disk, similar to the one that he used to collect the Am-Gen information. But...it can't be the same one -- they are only getting a copy.tomorrow. Not one slid under his door in the middle of the night.
Turning it over in his hand, he notices a small note taped to the back.
List of all Manticore locations, and then some. Do with it what you will.
"What the hell?" he says aloud, quickly ripping off the note and shoving the disk into his pants pocket. They have someone on the inside. Maybe.
Maybe this will turn out ok.
He closes his eyes again for the second time and drifts into sleep.
He's standing anxiously in the briefing room, waiting for Max to appear so they can get the hell out of here for a while. He had already debated the wisdom of just disappearing on this little trip, but the disk in his inside jacket pocket changed his mind. With someone on the inside here, they could do far more damage than attempting to hack into Manticore from Terminal City. Plus, if they do just disappear into the night, Olivet will know that they were playing him, and will most likely take it out on TC, so he isn't willing to take that chance. He and Max had already debated the pros (if there really are any) and cons of Olivet being X series. The only pro he can come up with is that the man is X3, never a very mentally stable bunch. The best he can hope for now is to transmit whatever is on that disk to Dix and see what the transhuman can do. Of course, provided the information isn't bogus.
So I've got a disk that may or may not contain a list of traitors and a potentially psychotic director on my ass. It just doesn't get any better than this..
For a moment, he allows his mind to wander back to his friends in Seattle. He wonders if they are worried about them, if they think he and Max are dead. If they did, they don't anymore.probably. He misses being home --although Alec can't exactly pinpoint when Seattle had become home for him. He just knows that being there gives him a sense of family; he feels complete there. It doesn't matter that they are wanted, hunted because they were created in a lab instead of by conventional methods. Doesn't matter that every day is a struggle for water, food, shelter --he wouldn't have it any other way. Alec can't imagine life without Dix, Luke, Mole, Joshua and her.Max. His existence, his true existence started with one word, a name that she had given him. She..oh my god..
She walks into the room, and all thoughts in his head come to a dead stop. She looks.gorgeous, drop dead at that. Alec stands up straight, pulling at the tie around his neck.
She is wearing a sleek black suit, with a rather short skirt that clings to her curves. The blazer is open and her burgundy blouse under it is open practically to her navel. He isn't really sure how she keeps from exposing herself, not that that would be a problem - for him, anyway. He follows the long lines of her legs down to.oh god help me.black four-inch stiletto shoes, the kind with straps crossing her feet, exposing her lovely, and now painted, toes to him. Wandering back up her body, he takes note that they cut a few inches off her hair and highlighted it with auburn, which only serves to accent her exotic looks.
She wiggles her eyebrows at him as she approaches slowly, swinging her hips slightly, intoxicating him. When she gets close enough to touch, she spins easily on one heel, facing the handler who brought her in.
Alec is only half-listening as they get the final mission details, and before he knows it, they are en route to the airport.
That's it.one more guy stares at her like that and someone's getting punched. Alec sends a warning glace to another fellow traveler as he walks slightly behind Max, letting her lead the way to the plane.
"Nice outfit," he finally says to her, as they hand their tickets to the boarding agent. They already determined Manticore hadn't bugged them; they couldn't with the new scanning machines at the airport because it would get found and raise unneeded questions.
"Thanks." She smiles at him.
"I wasn't aware that prostitution was part of the mission." He does little to hide the annoyance in his voice.
"Why, Alec, are you jealous that you didn't get the short skirt and painful shoes?"
"What? No!" he protests, perhaps a bit too much as they find their seats. Hmmm, first class.nice.
Alec had originally planned on scamming her out of the window seat, but after catching a glimpse of the expression on the man's face across the aisle, he changes his mind.
"You take the window," he says and guides her into the seat.
She adjusts her skirt before sitting, and looks at him strangely. "What is your problem?"
"Nothing." He sits next to her, smiling at her.
"Uh huh.I think you don't like other men looking at me." She nods her head in agreement with her own assessment. "When did you get to be a Neanderthal?"
"I'm not.forget it." He waves a hand dismissively at her and puts his head back on the seat.
"Fine. It wasn't my idea anyway, moron. Someone decided that if we get in a jam, I can always try to." She pauses and struggles for the word she wants.
"Seduce our way out of it?"
"Well.yeah. Besides you don't look half bad yourself in that fancy suit. Blue really is your color -- brings out those green eyes."
He opens one eye and looks at her. She's got that look on her face -- the one that's says she's about to do something.probably to him. He isn't disappointed when she leans across the seat and captures his lips with hers. He was expecting physical contact, just not this.
He can feel one of her warm hands on his thigh, slowly making circles on his pant leg. Without even thinking of the spectacle they probably are causing by now, he brings his hands up and cups her cheeks, holding her in place. Her lips on his feel so good, soft and feminine and.strawberry. The kiss is tender, loving, a mere promise of the future -- a future outside Manticore, nothing more. He feels her pull away, and opens his eyes just as she wipes her thumb along his lips, removing the dark red lipstick she left behind.
"I, uh, I don't suppose we have time for a 'special mission'? There are plenty of hotels in Detroit," he asks with a smirk, and observes that they are now on the runway, quickly accelerating for take off.
She sighs slightly. "No, we don't and you know it. We have to be on the six o'clock flight back."
He touches her cheek lightly, running the tips of his fingers across her smooth skin. "I know.I just wish. OH!"
She jumps slightly at his exclamation. "What?"
Again he smirks. "We do have a 'special misson'," he says and pulls the disk out of his pocket, showing her the note.
"Where the hell did you get that?"
Looking around the cabin he leans into her, his lips brushing her ear. "Depends.You wanna join the mile high club?"
That earns him a light cuff over the head, and he quickly divulges how he found it, and the real reason they were on a flight to Michigan. They debated courses of action for the remainder of the flight, now taking into account their 'man' on the inside.
Mole walks into command and sighs at his co-leader. The smaller transhuman is passed out on his terminal, his head resting neatly on folded arms. Dix hadn't moved for the past two days, waiting for Alec's next message and communicating with Logan about possible Manticore sites. They already identified the Boise site that Max and Alec are being held at. The Boise Center for Troubled Youth was its name on the tax roles and their accounting wasn't terribly suspicious: funding coming from the government, expenditures on clothing, food, computers, the like. But after much digging by Logan, they had noticed something odd. Despite fronting as a not-for-profit organization, it had never filed with local or national government that way. They actually paid all their taxes, on time even. Currently the cyber hacker was attempting to find other not-for-profits also inexplicably paying their taxes.
In addition to that, he had been trying to figure a way to blow the whole thing up in Manticore's faces, but that would require finding the initial source of funding, and finding the guys in charge, who were most likely buried in the government rolls as something else. Of course once they had all the information, it was a matter of figuring out the best way to get the information to the right people. Otherwise they would have another Seattle on their hands. As soon as Manticore was made, they would attempt to cauterize their sites, regardless of the loss of money and lives. They needed to figure a way to stop that from happening, but they weren't sure how.
"Dix." The lizard calls. "Dix.hey, man."
"Sleeping."
"I can see that, man, but I doubt the keyboard appreciates the drool bath."
Slowly, Dix raises his head and regards Mole with a foul expression. "I do not drool."
Mole ignores the protest. "Go get some sleep, man -- you need it."
"Nuh huh. Someone needs to monitor for Alec; should be today if he is on target."
"And what if he's not? What if something happened and he can't get to a computer yet? You can't sit here 24/7, Dix -- I'll watch."
"Gimme another couple hours, ok? I got a nap in, I'm good."
Mole sighs again and nods, heading off to check on the food inventory; it's starting to get tight, and they need another shipment, but some of the contacts are hesitant about working with anyone but Alec. They need him back. They need them both back.
"Ready?"
"I'm always ready." He clips on his ID and they approach the front desk.
"Jack Ryter and Leighanne Murphy from ComCo -- we are here to do the yearly maintenance on the servers," he says and gives the woman behind the counter his best smile.
"Oh, of course, we've been waiting for you. Let me call Bob Neuhouse."
Again, he smiles at her. "Thank you."
As they step away from the desk, she leans over in his ear. "Whore."
"Hey, if you can use your body, I can do the same."
She eyes him appreciably, if quickly. "And a nice body it is." And winks at him.
Any retort is cut off by a large man approaching them. "Mr. Ryter, Miss Murphy. this way, please. We have a secure area all set up for you."
"Thank you, we'll do our best to get in and out."
tbc..........