A/N: Hmmmm, shall there be a certain AU Max Steel fanfic coming out soon? Perhaps written by a certain British writer? Hehehe. ¿Quien sabe?

Chapter 8 (almost wrote Chapter 7)

It was Max's turn to be woken up next. Abigail flashed the lights a few times, and yelled at the sleeping lump completely under the covers. "GET UP!"

The lump moved and said "Not unless there's food."

Abigail rolled her eyes, strolled over to the bed, and tried to yank the covers off. However, the lump put up a fight, and would not relinquish said bed sheets.

Greatly angered by the lump's resistance, Abigail settled the quarrel by walking over to the bed stand and grabbing the pitcher of water on it. She calmly picked it up, walked over to the bed, and dumped its contents onto the lump.

The lump yelped, and jumped out of its now soggy bed, shedding off layers until the lump was no longer a lump, but in fact, Max Steel. Max gave Abigail a dirty look.

She shrugged. "You made me do it. Now let's go, you're leaving."

"No," Max said determinedly, "I'm not under your control. I don't have to do what you tell me to."

Melissa walked by the open door. "Not the time, Max."

"Hey, how'd you know what was-"

"NO ASKING ME QUESTIONS!"

Abigail stood for a few moments, tried to figure out this exchange, and decided she and Scientist 378 would have to spend a little quality time together later.

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Eleanor got behind the wheel of a black convertible and waited for Rachel to hesitantly get into the passenger's seat. The second Rachel was seated, Eleanor hit the gas, and the car zipped out of the underground garage.

"Eleanor, why are you in such a rush, we don't even know where we're going!"

"I do."

"Where then?" Rachel would've tapped her foot impatiently as Eleanor formed her response, but the motion didn't have the same significance when the executer was sitting down.

"We are going to meet a representative of Dread at a specified location, and will be escorted from there to his base to have a chat with him."

Rachel turned in her seat and stared at her double. "'You know, I never have suicidal tendencies."

"I'm not suicidal, I'm perfectly reasonable." Rachel turned back and stared at the road in front of her. Eleanor could barely hear her say something about exact replicas.

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Abigail walked back into the control room and caught a glimpse of a chess game on one of the monitors before it was minimized. Berto turned around in his swivel chair to face them.

"Hey, genius, if that was a chess game I just saw, you better have already done your job."

"Like it would take me that long? Finished it a few minutes after you left." He brought up the chess game again. "Now I just have two more moves to checkmate…"

"Two moves too many. It's time to go."

"But-"

"Do you want to get out of here or not!"

Berto looked sadly at the almost-complete chess game and then followed Abigail.

"Good boy. You too, Max. Either we go now, or you can go say hi to Psycho. That clever little restraining-order gadget Grandfather has is currently out of commission, so I daresay he'd like to say hello…"

Max stuck his tongue out at her behind her back, but followed her anyway.

"I saw that, you moron."

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The racket Kat and Jet were making died down just in time to hear Jefferson Smith's voice come over the loudspeaker. "Kat Ryan and…guest, please report to my office ASAP."

As they surveyed the mess they had made when left to their own devices in the cafeteria, the two did not regret being pulled away from the scene before they had a chance to clean up.

However, the tone in Smith's voice did not make them exactly rush to get to his office, either. Hopefully this was not about what had happened to the fax machine.

Upon finally arriving at the man's office, Kat knocked on the door, was buzzed in, and entered with Jet close behind her.

Noticing that they were not out of breath as usual, Jefferson rolled his eyes. "The one time you didn't race." Instead of asking his agents to sit down, as was customary for the man, he instead got right down to business. "Rachel and her clone were just seen leaving the premises in one of our cars. Black convertible, license plate BTW452."

Kat and Jet waited, wondering exactly what Smith wanted them to do with this information.

"Eleanor was driving."

"Oh," they both said. Lately all at N-Tek had observed that Eleanor had been becoming less and less Rachel-like as time went on. The day before yesterday, the clone had actually neglected to make her bed after waking up. Very weird. Dr. Yevshenko had checked for mutations in genetic structure, but had found none. She had supposed that Eleanor had just begun to develop her own personality in response to having someone so similar to her.

Jefferson looked stressed. "I want you two to follow them."

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Abigail, Max, and Berto walked quickly down the darkened hallways to the underground exit of the base, where an elevator led to a gardening shed above ground. John Dread was a fan of irony.

Berto had programmed the power settings so that all power to the base would shut off except for the power to Dread's office, so he hopefully wouldn't notice anything. Hopefully. The power was supposed to go back on in fifteen minutes, in which time the three of them should be able to take the elevator up. The cameras and security systems would turn back on in twenty-five minutes, so Berto and Max would be able to get out without being seen.

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Psycho had gotten halfway down the hallway before realizing that Dread would see a blank screen if he turned around. He'd automatically know something was wrong and ruin the whole plan. The cyborg tore off one of his boots, ran back to Dread's office, opened the door, and hurled the boot at the blank screen.

Dread didn't flinch, but stared expressionlessly at Psycho as he brushed shattered glass off the back of his shirt.

"Sorry," the cyborg said as he backed out of the office. Closing the door behind him, he walked lopsidedly down the hall (only wearing one boot, mind you) and stopped in front of another door. Finding it unlocked, he stepped into Abigail's office and shut the door behind him.

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Kat and Jet pulled up outside a French Cafè on the outskirts of town about ten minutes after Eleanor and Rachel had arrived there. For once, Kat decided to do some observation before going right into a situation, and was rewarded a few minutes later when she saw Rachel being escorted by another women to a black limousine waiting across the street.

"Where's?" Jet wondered aloud.

"I don't know. Dammit, why'd she have to go and pull a Steel move!" Kat cried exasperatedly.

"She didn't, thank you very much."

Jet and Kat turned to find either Rachel or Eleanor standing behind the car they had taken, a red sports car. Noticing this, Rachel/Eleanor smiled. "Was this the most inconspicuous car you could find to tail someone in?"

Kat pointed to Jet. "It was her idea."

Jet made a face at her.

Kat hesitated as the blonde woman got into the car. "Um, not to be rude or anything, but which one are you?"

"It's Rachel," Rachel said. "Now, are we going to follow that car or not?"

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Eleanor hoped Rachel had been right about Kat and Jet being sent to follow them. While there was no reason for her plan not to have worked, she had to admit, it was always a good feeling to know you had backup. Looking across the seat, she saw the woman who had escorted her into the car peel off her face, revealing none other than Dragonelle. (By the way, does anyone else seriously not like that name?)

"Of course," Eleanor muttered.

Dragonelle raised her eyebrows. "You were expecting anyone else?"

"Not really, no," Eleanor admitted.

"Fine then. Put this on," Dragonelle said as she tossed a blindfold at Eleanor. "I trust you won't be playing children's games and trying to peek out the sides?"

"Certainly not."

"Oh, and when we arrive, you may inform your friends that it is fine they followed us here, but they will not be accompanying you inside."

All righty, I'm trying to wrap this one up in less than 14 freaking chapters or however long the last one was, so this might seem a little rushed. If it seems TOO rushed, tell me and I'll slow down a little. I thought it was getting a little long and boring, so I'm trying to trim it down a little. Reviews appreciated, as always. Ciao!

P.S. Anybody else getting snow today?