Chapter Seven

We will either find a way or make one.

-- Hannibal

Denise interrupted our planning session, "I'm going with you!"

"NO!" I shouted at her, "you don't have the training!"

"No," Max agreed, "you'd just slow us down."

"No," Alec said regretfully, "you wouldn't add anything to the mission profile."

Denise looked immovable, "You're all wrong, I'm an actor, remember?"

"I forgot, but I don't see..."

"I'll be your officer, you guys do what I say and I'll terrorize those SOB's with words. I can do it, I've done it before after all."

"When did you do it before?" I wondered out loud.

"In a play, you know, that Gilbert and Sullivan ..." she was drowned out by our laughter.

"ATTEN HUT! FORWARD HARCH! ABOUT FACE! FORM RANKS ASTERN!" Denise ordered in a surprisingly commanding voice. Commanding or not, Alex, Max and I were rolling on the floor clutching ourselves in fits of laughter.

"Form ranks astern?" Alec burst out, "what the hell does that mean?" Denise's anger was palpable as we burst out into another spasm of helpless laughter.

"No, look!" Denise was shouting at us forcefully, "I'll be your civilian boss, who's that woman you hated so much, Renfroo, Renfur, Renfro, that's it, Renfro. I can do that, walk in all commanding and looking down my nose, with you guys doing your thing with occasional acerbic comments from me. After all, this isn't a raid, we're just going to put the fear of Manticore into these people."

We looked each other speculatively. The thought was crossing all our military minds at the same time. 'That might work.'

"That might might not be such a bad idea," Alec said out loud, "especially if we could get at least one more X-5 in our group."

"But why you Denise?" I asked.

"Because if you were all back at Manticore, isn't that how your Colonel Lydecker, or Ms. Renfro, would've done it? Walk in with troops behind her, laying down the law in no uncertain terms?"

"Well, perhaps," I agreed, "that's one way Renfro would do it. In fact, she enjoyed throwing her weight around. Lydecker was more likely to stay in the command post and direct troops from afar, but even he would occasionally stride into a situation with a few troops on either side to enforce his word, if the situation wasn't completely dire. Of course they usually used normal soldiers for that kind of op, generally whenever X-5's or 6's got sent it was to face serious opposition or assassination. Luckily, all of us escaped before being tapped for such a mission, but we heard about them and spent quite a lot of time studying missions."

Alec said, "Not all of us escaped soon enough."

"Oh, sorry Alec. But Denise, why do you want to do this? And if this is a good idea, you might not be the best person for the job. Your mother might be able to do it better."

Denise shot me a murderous glare, and her mom echoed that sentiment. Perhaps I've had better ideas.

"First of all," she said, "I am a pretty good actress, just because I haven't done anything famous doesn't mean I can't do it. Secondly, because of that, I know how to age myself a few years and I know how to act a little more mature than I am. Thirdly, I want to do this, I need to do something to get back at these people. Mom wants that too, but she has other skills, lawyer skills, which I think she is planning on using right now, right mom?"

"Right, while I am not worrying about my daughter walking into a gunfight, I'll be laying the groundwork for a legal strategy. My weekend is going to be full."

I just had to speak up, "Aren't you worried about me walking into a gunfight?"

"No," Denise and her mom chorused at me.

"OK, let's get back to the plan, whatever that may be," said Logan, "if you waltz in as if you own the place you still have to be careful. Suppose their security team is unimpressed and tries to start something? I know the three of you can dodge bullets and jump off tall buildings in a single bound, but Denise could end up arrested or worse, shot."

Max looked at Logan and said, "First, can you break into their system and research them, let's find out what we can," she phrased it as a question, but it was really a command, "and perhaps one of us can reconnoiter, check out the lay of the land."

Eventually, Logan went to his computers and the rest of us went to sleep. A soldier always catches Z's whenever possible.

-- --

Max managed to conjure up Zack, who of course objected to our whole plan and tried to hijack the operation. Max dragged him outside and we could see them arguing ferociously through the patio doors. A few minutes later they came back in, Zack subdued and cooperative but still mighty pissed. I got the impression that was his usual state of mind when it came to Max.

-- --

Max was wearing a SWAT team uniform, she looked every inch the active X-5. Denise wore a black power suit, somehow or other she managed to look like someone who commanded serious forces. The rest of us were dressed in fatigues that Max managed to dredge up from somewhere. We looked a little sloppier than her, with different weapons and accouterments. The effect was a detachment of solders commanded by an X-5, all to protect as well as amplify the words of an executive who was there to lay down the law. We borrowed Mr. Fisher's Hummer, added fake license plates and attached some military looking antennas and with multitudinous weapons we looked the very image of a Manticore op. I hung a tarp over the tailgate to hide the word "Hummer", which one didn't find on military vehicles. We were in a warehouse down by the waterfront, Logan looked us over and and said, "You guy's look alright, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were Manticore."

We had bags of explosives and computer equipment. Somehow, during the planning of this little op, our mission parameters got extended. Not only were we going to paralyze them with fear, we were going to take out their gene banks and computers.

Five of us and weapons were a tight fit in the Hummer, so Max found a nice government looking sedan (more stolen or fake plates, tsk, tsk, Max) and Zack somehow found yet another X-5, this one named Syl, who acted as Denise's driver. I was satisfied, we looked official and tough, and were actually far tougher than we looked. This should go well.

-- --