A/N: Sorry for the extremely long delay – I had a ton of assignments and exams, and to top it all off, writers block. But thanks for waiting, I hope you like it! And thank you to all who reviewed – you're the greatest.

Chapter Three

For the first time, Manticore was afraid – their soldiers had turned against them. The ones that had been left behind were now being punished for what the escapees had done. Life at Manticore was worse than ever before.

Julia knew that the other X5s hated her brothers and sisters. At first she didn't share that hatred – they would come back and get her when it was safe. She knew they'd never forget about her.

No, she was glad they had escaped. But then Manticore started calling them up, one by one, into Psy-Ops. They were tortured, mentally and physically, for information.

How did the rogue X5s escape?

Did they plan their escape?

Who's idea was it?

Some broke under the pressure. And some refused to talk. But Manticore didn't give up, not even when a few of the X5s died from the damage Manticore was inflicting on their bodies. Julia was afraid – she didn't want to betray her brothers and sisters, but she didn't want to die.

She kept reminding herself that they would come and free her. But months went by and they never came. More X5s suffered, including herself. That was when doubt slowly descended upon her, then a realization that they weren't coming back at all – they were free from the horrors of Manticore. Why would they want to come back? Why would they care about what was happening to the rest their family? They were a distant memory, nothing the escapees were going to worry too much about.

Resentment built up inside of her. Was all their pain worth the freedom of twelve X5s?

He decided to wait for her. Something told him she'd come back. Either that or he was too egotistical to admit that he shouldn't have left her alone. Most likely the latter.

Fifteen minutes later she slipped silently through the window and landed gracefully on her feet, stopping short when she saw him sitting on the bed.

"Where have you been?" he said tersely.

As soon as the words left his mouth, Sark asked himself why he had even bothered. She wasn't going to answer him.

He sighed, irritated. They didn't have time for this. "I advise you not to do that again. I can't afford to have you disappearing like that, do you understand? I don't want to have to resort to chaining you to something."

Predictably, he got no response. Not a flicker of emotion on her face. She seemed to have frozen in her spot by the window, her expression hardened and cold. Sark was unable to decide whether she was embarrassed at being caught out or whether she was angry, again.

Assuming that she had understood, Sark got up to leave. "We'll be going soon. Don't go anywhere." He fixed her with a warning glance and turned around.

"Is this a trick?"

Sark halted.

"It's a trick, isn't it," the voice came again from behind him.

This time Sark turned back to the X5. "Did you say something?" he asked uncertainly.

She took a bold step towards him. "What's going on?"

The slightest bit of surprise flickered across his features. So now she decided to talk – what had changed? "I said that we'd be leaving soon, just as I finish up some business with my associate."

"No, no, that's not what I meant," she snapped. "I'm not exactly used to getting shipped away from Manticore by some rich British jerk who carts me around and locks me in a room for hours on end with nothing to do. What am I doing here? Where are we going? And why the hell are you being so nice to me?"

Sark opened his mouth to protest. Rich British jerk?

Ok, maybe it was true.

She still hadn't finished. She began to pace a little, confusion and anger starting to break through her calm façade. "It's a trick. It must be a new Psy-Op to see how disciplined we are on missions. Why else would you ask me if I wanted to be called Julia and not punish me when I didn't obey your instructions? Or maybe you're just trying to get me to trust you and put my guard down, is that it? Huh?" she demanded.

So she'd finally cracked. Unfortunately Sark had no idea what she was talking about, though, and despite the fact he had bled all of his sources for any information about Manticore, he had discovered nothing. Not even a rumour. One thing was sure – Manticore had done an exceptional job in making sure no one knew they existed.

He had, however, gotten hold of some of the information on X5-475 from the disks that Agents Vaughn and Bristow had stolen from Manticore. Ah, so CIA agents were good for something after all. Sark made a mental note to look at those files later.

Back to the task at hand – he'd better calm this woman down before she did something insane.

Of course, he had no idea how to do that. He was an expert at manipulating, blackmailing and negotiating with people ( skills he'd learnt during his time with Irina Derevko ) but he couldn't deal with this.

"I'd love to be able to answer your questions," Sark began slowly. "But I'm afraid I don't have a clue what's going on either."

Did he just say that? What happened to the Sark who was always in control?

"Sure you don't," came the sarcastic reply. She immediately shut her eyes and drew in a composing breath. "Sorry," she muttered, her usual stoic expression settling back onto her face. "It's just – this is weird. You won't shoot me if I sit down, will you?"

Sark was taken aback. Sure, he was a total prick sometimes – he briefly remembered back to the time he had doused Sydney Bristow in flesh eating acid – but he certainly wouldn't shoot someone for sitting down.

Well, maybe if the situation called for it.

"No."

"Ok." She tentatively made her way to sit on the bed, as if she honestly thought he was going to shoot her anyway. She tensed ever so slightly when Sark sat next to her.

"Look, I don't know how much you know about –"

"Absolutely nothing," she cut in curtly, staring at the wall.

Right. Start again, then. "Fair enough. I was told to take you into custody. I don't know why and I don't know what's going to happen to you." He couldn't believe he was telling her this. "But I assure you this is not a trick."

She nodded, not looking at him. "I guess I believe you. But what are we supposed to do in the mean time?"

"I don't know. It's a rather odd situation, really."

Sark caught her stifling a laugh. "What?" he demanded with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity.

She bit her lip, controlling herself. After vacillating over whether or not to say anything, she declared, "You speak like an 80 year old. 'It's a rather odd situation, really,'" she said, imitating his British accent perfectly.

Sark glared at her. "At least the extent of my vocabulary doesn't only consist of the words 'dude' and 'mate', like you Americans."

"'Mate' is an Australian word, actually," she pointed out evenly, and Sark could've sworn he had seen a mischievous glint in her eye.

Before Sark could think of another retort, Lauren interrupted at the doorway.

"You found her." Lauren glanced warily at the X5.

"Actually, she found me," Sark corrected.

"Right. Well, I have to go back to LA. My plane's waiting for me. See you," Lauren said to Sark, sending a seductive smile his way.

"Not if I see you first, love." He stood up and watched her leave.

"Girlfriend?" There was a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Not exactly." Sark turned back to her. "She's married."

"To you?"

"No."

She raised her eyebrows. "That's dangerous ground you're stepping on there."

"I know." He quickly decided to change the subject. "You never answered my question before."

"Which question?"

"What do you want me to call you – Julia or 475?"

The friendliness drained out of her. "I'd prefer it if you'd call me 475," she said tightly after a moments pause.

Sark immediately regretted bringing that up again. She seemed to withdraw every time he asked and he couldn't quite figure out why.

"So what have we got, Marshall?" Dixon asked, looking at him from across the debriefing room.

Grinning broadly, Marshall jumped out of his seat to address the group of CIA agents. "Well guys, the files that Sydney and Vaughn stole from Manticore proved to be very useful. By the way, uh, job well done guys," he faltered, nodding towards Sydney and Vaughn.

Sydney smiled warmly at him.

Marshall beamed at her acknowledgment and then quickly refocused his attention back to Dixon's question. "What I found on the Manticore files pretty much consisted of some profiles of twelve X5s and some footage of them training."

"Twelve?" Vaughn echoed incredulously. "You mean, there are more of them? We only saw two."

"Oh yes," Marshall nodded. "There's definitely more than two. There's more than twelve, even."

"How many are we talking about here?" Jack asked edgily.

Marshall silently switched on the screen at the front of the room and some video footage appeared. Thirty or so children donning what seemed like light blue hospital gowns stood in pairs in a large room covered with blue mats. They were all sparring with their partners – but not the clumsy, playful sparring one would expect from a child. These kids knew what they were doing. Each one fought just as well, or even better, than the best agent in the CIA. Their movements were sharp, fast and used with deadly accuracy and their defence moves were just as effective.

"Wow," Weiss commented after a moment's silence. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm a little scared here."

"Marshall, are you sure these are X5s?" Sydney asked, ignoring Weiss. "The X5s we saw had to be at least twenty years old."

"That's because," Marshall paused as he picked up a remote control. "These are the X5s when they were, say, ten years old. See?" An X5 profile appeared on the computers screens on their desks. A mug shot of an unsmiling X5 with an extremely harsh buzz cut. "This particular X5, X5- 599," he read off the top of the profile, "Is right.......here."

Marshall pointed to a boy in the video that was still playing at the front of the room – it was undoubtedly the same kid, delivering a perfectly executed round house kick to his opponent's head, who managed to dodge it just in time.

"If that's what they could do when they were ten years old, can you imagine what they can do now?" Marshall marveled, like a child who'd just met Barney. "It's amazing, isn't it? It's just like something out of a science fiction movie. But it's bad, very bad," he added hastily once he saw the appalled look on Sydney's face. "Horrible thing to do to children."

Vaughn, who had been reading over the file more thoroughly, spoke up. "Hey, it says here that X5-599 escaped from Manticore."

Marshall's eyes lit up as if remembering something important. "Ah, yes! There is more to this story. Why, may you ask, are there only twelve profiles when there are over thirty X5s? Well these twelve X5s managed to escape from Manticore thirteen years ago."

"What?!" Weiss exclaimed. "So you're telling me there have been twelve genetically modified super soldiers running around? Should we be worried?"

"No, no, no, this is good," Sydney interrupted slowly.

"What are you talking about?" Weiss said, unable to comprehend how this situation was good.

"This could be a lead. For all we know, these X5s are still out there. Maybe we can find them," Sydney explained. "I know it's a long shot because these photos are thirteen years old, but let's face it – the information we've got doesn't reveal much about the Covenant. If we find even one X5 and take them into custody, maybe they could give us something we need."

Jack nodded. "I agree. We assume that the Covenant is using Manticore and the X5s but we still don't know why or how. This would offer us a once if a lifetime opportunity. Otherwise it's a dead end – we've got nothing else."

"I don't disagree with you but if we do manage to find one of these X5s, there's no guarantee that they'll talk," Dixon pointed out.

"Well, they can't be loyal to Manticore, considering they escaped. We've got that working to our advantage," Lauren said.

"Exactly. Who knows – maybe they'll want to bring Manticore down," Sydney agreed.

"Right." Dixon stood up. "It looks like we have no choice. We'll use all our resources to find these X5s. You're all dismissed."

As everyone stood to leave, Sydney hung back.

"Are you coming, Sydney?" her father asked from the doorway.

"Yeah, just a second," she replied distractedly, pretending to be preoccupied with the papers on her desk. As Jack left she stood up to inspect something she'd spotted in the video footage a few minutes earlier. She rewound it to the spot she wanted and peered at one particular X5, who was flipping another over her shoulder. The X5 whooped triumphantly before noticing the presence of the camera, and hastily muted her excitement.

There was nothing particularly special about this X5, but Sydney couldn't help but notice an uncanny resemblance – to her. She looked just like Sydney when she had been eight years old. Minus the shaved head, of course.

Sydney stared at the screen for a few more minutes and then shook her head, telling herself that she was being ridiculous.