A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed with suggestions, please don't stop, I need all the help I can get. Thank you especially to acb (whoever you are); I used one of your suggestions to write this chapter, and I'm using another to write the next. Kala: I love you dearly, but seriously, watch your spelling or I will be forced to look over your shoulder while you review and correct you.
It's been a week since her run in with White, and Max is slowly going crazy. Trying to focus on enough things at once to forget White is proving to be more difficult everyday. Max ran out of things to keep her busy at her own job a long time ago, at the moment she's sitting in on a perimeter security meeting led by Mole.
"Alright," he says, authoritatively, "what else is there? Jazz?"
Jazz is the X-6 who was guarding White the day Max went to see him. He's just recently been promoted to perimeter sentry.
"Nothing really to report, sir." His voice is brisk and businesslike; he must have been very happy as a soldier, Max thinks idly. "The familiars seem to be maintaining minimum surveillance from the abandoned factory across from the western post. We know they're there, and we're pretty sure they're aware of our knowledge."
Mole nods agreement, "Yes, the general consensus is that they're just keeping an eye on us. We're aware of their presence; keep a close watch on that post just in case."
Watching. Familiars. And it all comes back to Ames White. She can't escape him; he's everywhere. Haunting her thoughts every moment of every day. She slipped once, a couple days ago, she mentioned in an argument with the quartermaster that she was thinking of White all the time. The other woman assumed she meant as a threat to be protected against, a logical assumption, but Max knows she's getting close to the edge. Because there's nothing logical about the way she thinks about Ames White.
At her daily security briefing Max is having trouble concentrating on what Fil, today's presenter, is saying about a new anti-transgenic group. She shoves White away into the back of her thoughts and tries vainly to focus.
"They're a quasi-religious group," Fil is saying, "They take their inspiration from a passage in the bible." He reaches behind him and comes up with a battered and ancient copy of the Holy Bible. He reads aloud from a previously marked passage. "Matthew 5.5: Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Fil puts the bible aside, Max wonders where the hell he found one in this dump, and returns to his briefing. "They believe that the genetically superior plan to dupe the rightful masters of the earth, themselves, of course, into destroying themselves before taking over the planet and multiplying, spreading our unholy genes to the entire world population.
"Wow," says Al, another of Mole's lieutenants, "our own Holy War, complete with psychos. Aren't we special."
"Actually," says Fil, "they hate the Familiars too. They're not anti-transgenic, they're anti-genetic superiority. If that makes any sense."
Max wants to slam her head into the table, why does everything have to come back to White? What the hell is wrong with this world?
"Alright," Mole says, "we'll keep an eye on any Meek activity." Everyone, except Max who is still internally berating herself, laughs at the name. "In the mean time," Mole continues, "try to ascertain whether the Familiars know anything. If they hate us both maybe we'll be able to work out an information sharing principle, if the Meek appear to pose a serious threat." He turns to his commander, "Max, any questions?"
Max looks up sharply, startled. "Uhh, yeah." Max hits herself upside the head a couple of times to clear her thoughts, "Yeah. What, if anything, is the assumed strength of these 'Meek' people?"
Fil nods at her, "Good question, ma'am. Rudimentary intelligence places their strength at around 500 members here in Seattle, only personal handguns that we're aware of so far, no heavy weaponry."
Max nods back, distractedly, "Well, that's good, at least." She stares off into space for a minute, it looks like she's putting the information together, trying to see if she has anymore questions, but actually her brain has been hijacked by the thought of making a deal with Familiars and she's currently lost in a fairly explicit daydream involving White and a locked storage closet. She comes quickly back to herself when Fil clears his throat. "Uhh, yes, that will be it, thank you all."
As the meeting breaks up, people give her odd, sidelong looks. Max doesn't notice them; she's too busy being disgusted with herself over White to pay any attention to her surroundings.
Three days later, and Max is running from White. At least she's lost the four other men he had with him; being only human they were left behind long ago. She hadn't planned on this little confrontation; she was only going to be outside the walls of Terminal City for an hour or so. She's been going stir crazy. But she took a fall when someone cut her off, and one of the annoyingly numerous bystanders tipped to her barcode. White was on her in under ten minutes.
He'll be on her again very soon if she doesn't lose him; as much as she hates to admit it, White is faster than she is, mostly due to his longer stride rather than his genes, but the result is the same. Not that his genes are passive; Max leaps across a street, two stories up, onto the roof of a neighboring building and White is right behind her. Unfortunately, their actions do not go unobserved.
"This is getting a little boring, 452." He shouts, he's not even breathing hard.
Max jumps over a ledge and swings down to the next floor, finding herself in a parking garage. White has followed.
"Come on," he shouts again, "mix it up a little." They're playing a high stakes game of tag in the dark, among the cars. He hasn't tried to get a shot off the entire time, probably because there's no challenge in it.
Max dodges around someone's SUV, wondering idly where the hell they get the gas to run it, and runs straight into the business end of an aluminum baseball bat.
White is close enough behind her that he sees her go down. "Hey," he shouts, "you are interfering in an FBI investi-" he cuts off, suddenly, because the friends of the man with the baseball bat step out from the surrounding cars and open fire on him. He gets lucky; they're no marksmen, and White ducks back behind the hood of a nearby vehicle to return fire.
Max, meanwhile, is slowly dragging herself upright. That bastard had a really powerful swing. Her actions are noticed and one of the attackers, whom Max has guessed are a bunch of anti-transgenics, shoves a foot into her stomach to pin her back to the ground.
"Transgenic scum," he snarls at her, "lay still and maybe we'll make it painless."
Max grabs his foot, throws him off, and jumps to her feet only to be accosted by several others. How many of these fruitcakes are there?
White is still attempting, in the middle of a firefight, to convince the attackers that, as a federal agent, they really shouldn't be fucking with him.
"You are all gonna be up against the fucking death penalty!" He shouts, ejecting the empty clip from his Glock nine and replacing it with a fresh one.
"Even the arm of man's law harbors evil, you genetic freak!" One of the opposing gunmen takes the time to shout back, before rejoining the fray.
"You got it all wrong!" White is adamant. "I'm just as human as you are."
"Really?" One of them calls back, "Because I've never been able to leap tall buildings, you wanna explain that, freak?"
Max, still struggling with her own attackers, swears viciously. 'Meek' people. Haters of all genetically superior beings. They must have seen part of the chase; White won't be able to talk his way out of this one.
He doesn't try. He fires twice into the open space between banks of cars, Max can't see anyone there, but apparently he's a pretty good shot because she hears two answering screams. White breaks free from the pinned position and advances fast on the cadre of shooters, still firing. His luck runs out just about then because one of the biggest men Max has ever seen throws himself on top of White. The Familiar doesn't go down, but in the handful of seconds it takes him to dispatch the man, Max hears the revving of a car engine. White throws the man off him just in time to get hit with half a ton of Ford Explorer, doing about 50 milesan hour. He's thrown off into the sidelines, unmoving.
Max doesn't think he's dead; she's seen White get run over before, he was up and fighting a good fifteen seconds later. She uses the momentary distraction as the Meekers all peer at White apprehensively to jump over a car and make a run for the emergency stairs. At that, she almost makes it. The majority of the Meekers have gone to the other side of the garage to deal with something, maybe the cops, and Max's break goes unnoticed long enough to let her get within five feet of the stairwell.
"Freeze, freak." It's one of the Meekers, a handgun trained steadily on her. "Now," he says, a little shakily, "you will reap your eternal reward."
In the barest instant before he pulls the trigger, Max hears two gunshots. The man, boy really, slumps to the ground, revealing White. He's leaning against the nearest car, his handgun still trained on the would-be shooter, breathing hard. He may not feel pain, but his body has limits.
They stare at each other for a suspended moment, and then the sound of returning Meekers breaks the tension. White half turns, looking over his shoulder at the running figures. Max looks too, there's about ten of them. Reacting purely on instinct, and maybe a little subconscious lust, Max reaches out, grabs White by the arm and pulls him into the stairwell with her. They slam the door and lean against it briefly, staring at each other.
Then, as one, they turn and hurry down the stairs. White has to shoot three more Meekers and a sector cop, but they make it into the nearest abandoned building without much trouble. When Max hears the pounding of footsteps behind them she drags White further into the building until she finds a door.
"In here!" She hisses to him, and when he hangs back, resisting, she tugs impatiently on the arm she still holds. Too far gone to argue, Ames White steps into the room with her, and pulls the door shut behind him with his good arm. Only then does Max turn to examine their surroundings. The room is only about eight feet by five, and the shelves on the walls hold rusted out cans of paint and cleaning supplies. In the corner where White has slumped onto a box are a ragged mop and a broom with only half a handle.
Outside, the haphazard search of the building is still on. Max can hear them calling to each other, very unprofessional, but effective enough that she can't sneak out.
'Great,' she thinks, 'trapped in a locked storage closet with Ames White. My dream come true.'
A/N: I have an idea for a next chapter, but that's about it. If you'd like to see this continued farther than that please let me know. And keep the suggestions coming, they're always appreciated.