"Yeah, yeah, I got it the first four hundred and two times you said it." Alec made no effort to hide his annoyance as he leaned against the table where Logan was tapping on his computer. They were in the main control building at TerminalCity and Logan was pretending he was important.
"Well, it's crucial," As usual Logan was infuriatingly calm, "So listen for the four hundred and third time. Under absolutely no circumstances are the two of you to pull this job tonight. I don't care how perfect and ideal it may look. I don't care if all the guards are drunk and the front door is wide open. This is reconnaissance only. Our profit will triple if we wait until tomorrow night to do the heist…"
Alec shook his head. Listen to this guy, spewing orders as if he had some kind of authority in TerminalCity; throwing around words like 'job', 'reconnaissance', and 'heist'. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) he wanted to smack the other man upside the exoskeleton and-
A cold shiver snaked suddenly down his spine. The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose and he was immediately aware of every sound and smell in the room. Alec didn't realize he'd straightened up, body instinctively tensed for attack, until Logan pushed back from the desk, also standing. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"I don't know." Slowly Alec turned in a full circle. "Something's off." There were only a few people milling around in the room, performing odd jobs, all of whom he knew. Max had entered and was talking with one of the anomalies, gesticulating to one of the motorcycles. He let his gaze sweep over her closely, but her body language was natural, nothing appeared to be wrong.
"Huh." He rubbed the back of his neck absently and rolled his shoulders to loosen to the tense muscles. "Guess I'm just tired."
Logan was watching him closely so Alec grinned and slapped him on the shoulder, "Don't look so worried, doesn't get much safer than good old TC now does it."
"I suppose so." Logan took another look around, not quite as willing to dismiss the instincts of a genetically engineered soldier.
"Just a… whacha-ma-call-it," Alec snapped his fingers, "Ghost walking on my tombstone, or whatever."
Logan lifted an eyebrow, "Riiiight."
"Why are we talking about tombstones?" Max came and stood next to him at the table.
Alec didn't hear Logan's response, he was studying Max's face. He knew she was hot of course, they'd been designed that way – but he'd never really taken the time to look at her before. She was a little too thin these days, the stress of running TC and carrying on her "normal" life simultaneously was a bit much, even for a Manticore alumni.
"Hey." A lightning fast smack upside his head jarred him from his strangely concerned thoughts, "What's wrong with you?"
He blinked rapidly, "Dunno." He rubbed his hand briskly over his hair and shook his head as if to clear it. "I feel weird. Maybe I'm coming down with something."
Max frowned, "We don't get sick."
"Eventually we're going to, Maximillian." Alec shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced restlessly on the balls of his feet. "Viruses and bacteria evolve, Manticore couldn't make us immune to strains that haven't developed yet." He perked up, "Hey, maybe I have a rare disease from deep within the Amazon that's slowly destroying my body and infecting everyone arou-"
"You are a rare disease." Max broke in, but she still looked worried.
Alec couldn't help but grin, being sick would be worth it if Max were actually worried about him. He attempted to cough pitifully. Maybe he could even get a deathbed apology from her for being such a bitch.
"You have to be in top form for tomorrow's job," She continued severely, "It's too important for you to be barfing and sneezing all over the place."
"As touched as I am by your concern, Maxie, I probably just need some sleep." He smiled in anticipation, "Yep, a good ten hours of sleep – just what the doctor ordered."
"You don't have ten hours." Logan said absently, still typing on his computer. "You have to leave in two for the warehouse."
"Then I'll see you folks in an hour and 57 minutes." Alec stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled out of the building. He didn't really intend to sleep, he felt too keyed up, but he knew it would annoy Max
As he stepped outside he drew in a deep breath of slightly smoggy, foul scented air. Strangely, it seemed to clear his head. He felt the muscles in his back relax and a tension he hadn't realized ease in his gut.
He strolled in the general direction of his apartment. Maybe he really was coming down with something.
An hour and 56 minutes later
"Goddamn him. Goddamn him. Goddamn him." Max paced furiously around Logan's desk. "This is exactly the kind of stupid stunt he'd pull, risking messing up the timing on a job where the timing is everything. Goddamnhim."
"If you want some help expanding your vocabulary, Maxie, I'd be glad to teach you some of the more colorful phrases that they didn't teach us in Common Verbal Usage."
He walked into the main TC bunker as if he didn't have a care in the world. Max glared at him as he stopped next to the desk. Then her glare turned thoughtful as she studied him more closely. He was grinning, as usual, but there was something strained around the edges. His eyes were actually shifting around restlessly and he was back to bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
"Are you really okay?" She asked seriously.
"I'm fine." He said testily, glancing down at Logan, who was also watching him. "What's with the third degree?"
Max wasn't sure herself, she rarely paid close enough attention to Alec to actually notice stupid little things like tenseness in his eyes. For all she knew, it was always there. She shook her head in disgust, with both of them. "Nothing. Let's just go get this over with."
"Fine with me." He muttered and they left the building.
Max and Alec didn't speak as they stowed their bikes in some trees and walked the quarter-mile to the warehouse. Their silence wasn't because they needed to maintain quiet to avoid detection – they were just pissed at each other. Neither was entirely certain why they were pissed, but since it was a fairly normal state of being for them, they didn't question it.
The warehouse came into sight over a gentle sloping hill. They were on the outskirts of Seattle it could dubiously be called the country, since there wasn't much in the way of industry. Except a warehouse full of lots of guns.
"Mole really wanted to come." Alec said softly, a half smile lifting the corner of his mouth when they saw the size of the building. "He was almost whining. Gotta tell ya - seeing a grown lizard-man whine is not a pretty sight."
Max almost smiled. But she turned it into a frown – better not to encourage him.
"You take east, I'll take west." She said instead. "And nothing stupid, you hear me? We can't tip them off to the fact that we're here, they'll just increase security during Wednesday's delivery and that'll make this twice as hard."
"Okay. And Max." Alec put a hand on her shoulder, staring so deeply and intensely into her eyes that for a moment her stomach got wobbly. "Be careful." He said in a remarkable imitation of Logan
Her hiss of rage was lost to the air, because he was gone in the next second, disappearing into the dark.
O.C. and Logan were sitting at a small table in Crash later that night. Logan sipped at a beer and kept glancing impatiently at his watch; O.C. was exchanging smiles and eye contact with a tall redhead by the pool table.
"Somebody get me a beer. Now." Max slammed a chair down at their table, startling everyone.
"Somebody get her a personality. Now." Alec slammed a chair down on the opposite side of the table and straddled it. They glared at each other.
"Don't tell me," O.C. lifted her eyebrows and glanced between the two, "Boo did Alec steal your doll again?"
"So what happened?" Logan interjected, heading off the imminent name-calling. "How'd it go?"
"Fine. Peachy. Just dandy." Max downed the rest of O.C.'s beer and slammed it on the table. "The shipment arrives at the warehouse at 0200 Thursday morning. They're gonna have double the usual guard, bringing the grand total to thirty men and a shitload of arms and amo."
"Thirty seems about right." Logan mused, "Can the two of you handle them alone?"
Alec snorted into the mug of frothy beer that had suddenly appeared.
Max ignored him, "Thirty's no sweat. We have surprise on our side – to their way of thinking nobody in their right mind would rip off CassNeightly, they won't be expecting it at all."
"And you're still sure you want to go around pissing off big Mob bosses?" O.C. asked in her typical sarcastic way.
"Nothin' he can do about it." Alec shrugged, "He'll never know who did it. And on the off chance he does find out, he'll be apple pie to take out."
"And it's cocky attitudes like that that'll get us killed." Max jumped all over it, "It's when you start thinking you're invincible that you make stupid mistakes. We're not bulletproof or bombproof, Alec."
Logan frowned, "Apple pie?"
"Yeah, you know, easy as apple pie. Or something like that." Alec didn't take his gaze off Max as he answered Logan. "You know what, Maxie, I can't imagine why I came here. Being in your company the past few hours was enough to last me several lifetimes. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and drink myself into a stupor – with any luck by tomorrow I'll have forgotten today."
He stood and moved around the table. As he passed Max her hand shot out and grabbed his jacket sleeve. Her looked pointedly at his arm but she ignored him. "Be at Logan's tomorrow morning; not evening, morning. We have stuff to prepare for Wednesday."
"For someone who isn't my commanding officer, you sure give a lot of orders." He said softly, "Let go."
She held his gaze for a long, challenging moment and then rose slowly, tauntingly, and twisted the jacket tighter in her grip. "Or what, Alec, you gonna trip and fall on me?"
In half a second her arm was twisted behind her back, her body pressed flush against his. He'd moved fast for a human but slow for a transgenic, still it was enough to start drawing attention. People began to turn around and a low hum started to buzz through the building.
Logan rose quickly, "MaxAlec." He hissed. They either didn't hear him or ignored him; he was betting on the former, they appeared to be locked in their own world.
"I would have thought you'd learned your lesson the first time we tangled." Max couldn't figure out why she was breathing hard. Or why her blood was tingling up and down her body. From anger, she decided, staring into eyes that were almost black with an unnamed emotion.
"You cheated the first time," He slowly tightened his grip, bringing her face even closer to his. "This time I know the rules."
"There are no rules."
"Exactly."
Logan glanced around uneasily, the crowd was growing. O.C. was on her feet, looking pissed, but she was as helpless as he was to do anything. They absolutely couldn't fight here and to draw more people with a scene was only slightly less undesirable.
"He giving you a hard time, Miss?" A tall, burly man in corduroys and a polo shirt stepped up next to the two. He was a few inches shorter than Alec, but had a good thirty pounds on the transgenic.
Max heard the question and registered it but was having trouble concentrating. She could hear her breath, hear Alec's breath and the heat radiating off of him was distracting her. She shifted slightly, arching her back to bring her breasts into closer contact with his chest. His eyes dilated and liquid heat burned a slow trail down to her core.
"Let go of her, man, you're hurting her." Cord Man reached out and put a hand on Alec's shoulder. Logan flinched in anticipation for the strike, but it never came, in fact the contact seemed to break whatever trance had locked Max and Alec together. They both jerked, blinking rapidly and then he abruptly let go of her arm. They stepped quickly away from each other, exchanging suspicious looks. Alec shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, almost as if he was protecting himself. He glanced over at Original Cindy and Logan and they could both see the wary confusion in his eyes. "See ya." He mumbled and disappeared into the crowd that was also dispersing.
"Girl, what the hell was that about?" O.C. demanded of MaxLogan watched as she turned to them and he saw her swallow; he actually saw the effort she put into that one small motion.
"I'm gonna bounce." She said, her voice strangely rusty. "Got stuff to do."
"Max-" He began, but she was already gone, moving rapidly in the opposite direction Alec had gone.
There was silence for a moment.
"Shit." Original Cindy breathed, "Everyone around here is wound tighter than a yo-yo."
"You think they're more worried about pissing off CassNeightly than they're letting on?" Logan asked worriedly.
Before she could answer a husky, smokers voice spoke from behind them, "Interesting friends of yours."
They both turned to see the cat-eyed redhead from the pool table smiling behind them. O.C. returned smile smoothly but wondered for a worrying moment how much the girl had heard.
"Yeah, they got some issues to work out." She held out her hand, "Original Cindy. This is Logan. We're not together."
The redheads smile widened to something wicked, "I'm Sheena and I'm delighted to hear it."
Logan rolled his eyes. "I don't want to crap your style O.C., I'm gonna go get some sleep. See if you can find out what's bothering Max."
O.C. didn't discourage him from going. Sheena motioned to a table, "Let me buy you a drink – it'll take away all your problems."
O.C. laughed, "In that case sugar, I'm gonna need more than one."