DISCLAIMER: All hail the powerful Cameron, Eglee, & 20th Century Fox, who gave birth to most of these folks–heck, they can even have the two of my own I'm throwing in.
THIS ONE WAS tough–I had to make with the plot, not just play with the characters, and probably grew too impatient to get moving. This is why I prefer the one-shots! Ah well, 'qua nocent, docent...' (Suppose Logan took Latin???)
MY THANKS, once again, not only for the kind and helpful responses, but for the gracious way none of you have pointed out my rather glaring inability to get right with the chapter numbers & labels... by the time I had it figured out, I was committed to the existing set-up. Maybe next time, huh? Til then...
CHAPTER 4
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT: present, 10:00 P.M.
Logan drove slowly along Ellis Street, the part of the address he knew he'd seen on the paper from Max's package. He remembered that the number had to be either 1010, 1001 or 1101...hell, maybe even 1011. At least he remembered that it was 4 digits, all ones and zeros, because his otherwise useless brain had noted the binary aspect of it. 'Some genius,' he muttered, peering at each of the buildings along the street.
He allowed himself a slight break in the internal castigation he was inflicting upon himself to be thankful he remembered that much, and that the address was distinctive in that way. The problem was that each could be the address he wanted, each was a large, all but deserted building probably containing multiple rooms or offices. Each appeared dark and lifeless.
Sitting outside the 1100 block of Ellis, he wondered if it was too late, if she'd met someone here and moved on. How could he ever know if someone was hidden deep within the walls of one of the buildings? How could he find her? Did he dare call Matt for police assistance? Was there any way to know if Manticore or the feds generally had an eye in the local police, and bringing them close to Max would just be handing her over? Who did he know with the skills he needed whom he could he get embroiled in this and be trusted not to talk? How could he, alone, take on the government, if that was who this was? How could one man take on Manticore?
If he could only be certain that just waltzing in wouldn't endanger Max, or make whatever was happening much worse... and even if he could "waltz," was there any way in hell he could do anything with as little information as he had? If he could just find a way to see inside without anyone being the wiser...
...and suddenly grabbed his phone to punch in the speed-dial to one of his newer–and more resourceful –contacts...a man he knew only as Sebastian...
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT: thirteen hours earlier, 9:00 A.M.
A nondescript sedan pulled up to an abandoned building in the warehouse district and parked near the old loading dock area. The driver, a man of maybe thirty or so, got out to come around to the trunk, pulled out a cumbersome, "medical" wheelchair, and went to the passenger side of the car where he gently lifted a frail looking woman into its seat. Covering her with a light blanket that he explained would keep her warm and dry, as he knew it would shield her from seeing the place he'd taken her, the man quickly and carefully pushed her in and bore her down a dim corridor to its end. Fumbling with the lock, he managed to open the inner door and pushed the chair into a room that was surprisingly clean, warm...even inviting. The furnishings were spare but attractive: a bed, two side chairs, a bureau and bed stand...there was a small CD player but no radio or TV, nothing to permit news of the outside to come in...
"Mom, how you doing? Are you alright?" The man came around to kneel in front of her, looking up to the greyish pallor and sunken eyes. "It won't be too much longer, I'm sure."
The eyes opened and they managed to focus on the face before her, full of loving concern. She tried for a smile and a nod, but the pain wracked her so completely, and what medications she had been given so blurred her thoughts, that she barely managed either. She could not be much longer for the world, but her son was trying so hard to hold back the inevitable...
"Let's get you in bed..." The man said, tenderly lifting the woman, weighing nothing in his arms, and setting her down into a patient-care bed. He pulled fresh-smelling sheets and a light blanket up over the skeletal form and murmured, "there...how's that?"
He stood beside her, looking down to the woman, semi-conscious again, and his brows knit, slightly. He wished he could have trusted someone to help him with this, but he just didn't know for certain that anyone he'd want to ask would go along with this. However, he had the advantage of his mother's years of research notes, her stories, the materials he'd found in her records that she'd managed to keep... and the element of surprise. His one chance at this was a fast and early capture, and he believed he had everything ready for that. Once 452 was here and contained, the rest should be fairly simple. He even hoped that it all could be done within the two weeks vacation he just arranged from work. If not...well, he'd deal with that when the time came.
He walked over to the bureau where he switched on the small baby monitor he'd gotten at a local discount store, and lifted an earpiece to his ear, adapted to the baby monitor's output. The same set-up had worked well at home: his mother knew she could call for him as he went about his chores, and she was familiar with the routine. He looked down at the sleeping woman one more time and sighed, hoping this would work, trusting it would. It wasn't fair, his mother a doctor herself who helped so many patients over the years, to be devastated by this wasting leukemia, something for which she had treated others– successfully. How unfair that she should get sick herself, now, when medical treatment was so compromised, medications hard to come by... Well, maybe now their miracle had come along, and she could be cured. No, not maybe; it had. All in a chance encounter at the market.
Dimming the lamp in the corner of the windowless room, the man double checked the reception on the newly installed monitor and, satisfied that he would hear his mother if she called, slipped out into the hall, locking the door behind him, both as a protection for his mother from anyone getting to her, as well as from the nearly impossible chance that she was able to get to the door–he wouldn't want her lost or confused. Satisfied his mother was safe for the moment, he turned to return down the hall and lock the corridor entrance near the entry, making the only easy path from the outside a direct one to the large, open room that used to be a warehouse.
The building was perfect for his needs; it was three stories high but open from floor to ceiling, so anyone entering from the roof would ultimately have to land on floor level. The side corridor where his mother lay was cut into the floor space here, so there was no external access by roof; the walkway above that corridor allowed for a protected, partly hidden view of the entire space, top to bottom – a place he could wait and watch, and, he steeled himself to believe, have at least 30 seconds or so before 452 could react and reach him, no matter her method of entry. And that would be all the time he needed.
He went up to the walkway and into the office there, once more went to test the one mechanical device he'd needed to add, to ensure success. He'd rather have not had to bother but he needed to have a way to stop her from just running out the door, if she had a chance to try before she was neutralized. He peered again through the narrow observation windows, thanking his lucky stars again that he'd found a place so perfect it had an office built above the floor so the boss could watch over his shop, and windows arranged so that they afforded both protection and a view. For his purposes, he'd removed the glass so he lost some soundproofing and shield, but still he had the walls to protect him. And time. And surprise...
At the wall with the observation windows, he surveyed the scene–nothing in the large, empty space on the floor or above it to serve as shield or barrier for anyone there...and with him in place, in hiding, before she arrived, and staying perfectly quiet, even heightened hearing wouldn't let her discover him until he had a chance for the first shot. And then...
His hand moved to the release button, and he heard the immediate metal clang as the heavy steel gate dropped to bar the one exit on the floor. That would do to keep her from leaving that way. As to the roof, well, if she came in from above, he just had to take on faith that she wouldn't be able to make it back up before losing consciousness....he just prayed that she wouldn't get so high that a fall would hurt her.
He flipped the toggle to watch the gate raise itself back into the frame overhead. He was satisfied with the device, and didn't begrudge its cost in material and labor to install. It was all worth it if ...no, when...this all worked and his mother was healthy again. He glanced at his watch–9:40. He felt his pulse pick up speed. It wouldn't be long now; the package would be dropped off at her job in twenty minutes. And from what his mother had said about the X5s and the rumors she'd heard over the years, he suspected that it wouldn't take any time at all for 452 to come looking for another of her kind. And he was ready.
As a final matter, he lifted the lid to the small case in which the syringes lay, lined up along a tray, and gazed at the dart gun next to them, loaded, repeatedly tested, and ready with six doses of AR-320, far more than he needed but handy in case he missed, in his nervousness. He wasn't all that happy about having the syringes up there with him so that he's have to grab them and run with them, but as he couldn't be certain where she'd come in or where she'd fall, that would have to do. Besides, these four were only a precaution; he had an ample supply or SS-112 and syringes below, so it was no loss if any were wasted.
In a sudden wave of anxiety, the man stopped to blink in thought behind his round, plastic glasses--what if the formula wasn't exactly right? After all, he hadn't really gotten to test it on a human, had he? And certainly he didn't have an X5 handy as lab rat...still, it had appeared to work on the neighbor's dog and their parakeet, and neither seemed any the worse for wear after sleeping off their small dose. He shook off the uncertainty and set himself to the plan. No, his mother's notes had been specific and made complete sense, to his own pharmaceutical training; she was right in all things so far and he would not let himself be thrown by silly fears at this point.
He owed her so much better than that...and , making a last trip to relieve himself before settling in to wait, allowed his thoughts to consider how things could be for them, once she was healthy again...
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT: ten hours earlier, 12:00 noon.
The first problem Max encountered was the quiet of the warehouse district and the volume of her Ninja– the district was a ghost town, with no city noises close enough to mask her approach. Notwithstanding how loathe she was to leave her baby unattended, she was more uncomfortable leaving it too far away, if a hasty retreat was needed. Her final compromise was to creep in the last few blocks at an snail's pace, and stash it hidden in a broken doorway across the street, behind the loose metal door that could not be lifted by anyone who wasn't revved up, too.
That left her in the open, should she just cross to 1011. Deciding against the risk, she made her way through the crumpled building to its back alley, skimmed the narrow alley to a point at the end of the block, and crossed at a place that she hoped was out of the way of anyone watching. Once accomplished, she tried to repeat the same process on the other side, but no convenient alley would allow such an approach. Instead, she came along the buildings' front side, hugging the front in a way that she hoped would not look overly suspicious to those who might be looking for her, nor to any "civilians" who happened to be in the neighborhood. She realized the likelihood of the latter being a problem was more than remote.
Once she'd given Original Cindy the note she'd left for Logan, Max had gone directly to the address left in her package, deciding that she knew too little to worry about taking any sort of equipment or gear other than her slim set of tools for making fast work of locks or other mechanical gismos. She'd managed to settle down a bit and focus on her route, her arrival, her destination, but all the while felt herself struggle with the emotional weight of her goal. Part of her knew she should have waited for Logan's back-up and let herself calm down, but maybe she'd meant what she told Zack more literally than she'd thought–that she was almost trying to forget how to handle a situation like this, one in which she was trained to excel. Maybe Zack was right too, that it was sentimentality–but she knew in her core that there was nothing phony about it. Logan had helped her see that, whether either of them would ever admit it or not. And maybe now she'd get to share that with Jondy, as well.
She came to the doorway of 1011, and slipped into the entry, the mechanical doors apparently broken in mid-way, so that they remained frozen open about two feet apart. Leaves and dirt had blown in and had been disturbed, but not cleaned; it has hard to tell if anyone had come this way recently. Listening hard, she heard only gentle wind against the building, a creak or two of the door at her side... no signs of life...
At her right was a door; before her was a large, open room. Silently she moved to the right and tried the door–locked. She'd pass that for now, not wanting to make any noise before she had a better idea of what was here. Coming forward, slowly, she wavered in the doorway, looking around. The room was empty of whatever filled the business; it was dusty but swept of debris. Odd; the building was open to the street but hadn't been taken over by those needing a dry shelter? She backed out, deciding that Logan was right; it was a trap...
But there was no one...no Lydecker, no army to trap her and take her back...no one at all, in fact... and it might just have been Jondy who opened the place, after the package was sent...
Slowly...easing sideways along the wall, Max slipped back into the main room to look around. There was a high roof, open; a second floor walkway to the right, probably over rooms behind the door in the hall. Looking along the walkway she saw no movement, heard nothing...she moved again, at a crouch, along the wall under the walk...along the back wall, a bit straighter...and then, she saw...
There was a piece of clothing, a jacket, crumpled, several feet from the wall. Cautiously, Max stole out to lift it, in question. As she crouched, she looked at the jacket in her hands then, suddenly, looked across the room, as if listening. At that, he moved only an arm...and pulled the trigger, three times, fast.
Max stood up straight, eyes wide. The reaction had to mean she'd been hit–he knew that anyone with her training would immediately go for cover at the sound, had she been able. He hit the release button and the gate slammed into place, as designed. He breathed a sigh of relief. He hard part was past and 452 was contained.
He looked at the woman who seemed to sway a bit on her feet, not yet falling. It probably meant that only one dart had made contact enough to inject her. His mother had been right, though, about the immediacy of AR-320–it made sense. There were a number of civilian medical personnel working with the project subjects and they had to have some guarantee of their safety. His mother assured him that AR-320, like its companion SS-112, was humane and had no permanent effect. Just allowed a non- enhanced person to be safe.
The man grabbed the case full of SS-112-loaded syringes and went quickly to the room. By the time he crossed the floor, 452 had sunk to her knees, swaying, fighting desperately to keep her eyes open. He came closer, slowing to peer at her, holding out his open hand as one would to a stray dog. "I'm sorry, 452, but it couldn't be helped. It's just that when we saw you..." He reached into his pocket to pull out a pair of simple hand-cuffs. "We had no idea there were any of you in the area..." Bending suddenly to grab her arm, he snapped one cuff on Max's wrist, as she barely registered that it was happening. "I'll try to be sure you're as comfortable as you can be..."
The man's voice seemed to vibrate; she was having trouble following his words, processed his actions seconds after they had occurred. With a sudden chill she remembered having this sensation once before, one time, in the infirmary, as her lesson in how dangerous it was to show upset or protest at harm being done to one of her siblings. The swift use of an injection in response to her rush to help left her immediately disoriented and helpless...
She watched the man pull out a syringe and grasp her arm as she tried to struggle, but couldn't get her limbs to respond immediately...he even swabbed her skin before poking the needle deep into her muscle. Nearly immediately, Max felt a warm, rushing sensation come over her and blackness enveloped her...
The man released her arm and straightened her on the floor, disappearing only for moments as he retrieved his mother's wheelchair and carefully lay 452 in its seat. Wheeling her to the same hall that led to his mother's room, he opened a door much closer to the front and wheeled her over to the metal gurney, next to an IV stand. Lifting her onto the pallet he'd laid thoughtfully over the cold, hard surface, he strapped her down safely so she'd not fall or struggle, and watched for signs of waking, noting that she seemed to fight the drugs effects and even seemed to tremble a bit. Ignoring the signs, he worked quickly to insert the cannula of the IV line into a vein in her right arm, and hooked up the IV at the bedside. With that, he breathed a sigh of relief–not only contained, but neutralized now, 452 would receive a steady flow of SS-112 that would keep her in a twilight sleep, barely conscious, that would allow for adjustments so she might take food and water on occasion. This level of the tranquilizer would certainly taint her blood, but would not harm his mother; as she would be able to clear its effects between transfusions mother would have an "enhanced" rest, and wake, refreshed. 452, on the other hand, would stay semi-conscious until they were finished...
Now that all was in place, he could wait no longer. Even before 452 was completely settled, he brought out the splint and box frame he'd constructed to hold her arm in fixed position. Lifting her left arm, he first braced it against his side to wrap rubber tubing above her elbow, snugly. He then moved her arm to strap it in the frame, her elbow braced and open. She was still struggling a tiny bit, and her body jerking a little with some sort of tremors. He frowned momentarily at that, remembering some notes about defective X5s who demonstrated seizure disorder- -but he also recalled that the strain had been eradicated, so she couldn't have that problem. Plus, she didn't seem too affected, and he could feel her slipping further under as the drugs took hold.
"Look, 452, just...relax." He tore the paper off a syringe and deftly attached it to a length of tubing that disappeared into a large pouch at the bedside. "I won't hurt you. Just...don't fight me...and I promise you'll be here only for a little while..."
...to be continued...