Timebomb Central

Chapter 8: Tomorrow

Thank you to Roon and the others at TER for the support.

They had seen more than their fair share of seedy dives. They had encountered more than they had ever wanted to of the even seedier inhabitants, scumbags and low lives. Unfortunately they were yet to find those they were searching for. They had started with Seattle. A few tenuous leads had given them some starting points but all of them appeared to have been useless. These people didn't want to be found.

Alec leaned back against the bar as he looked around the latest sleazy bar they had entered. Mia was causing a stir, but he didn't care. She was well and truly able to take care of her own self and his presence seemed to be deterring any real effort to attract her attention. He ordered himself a drink and turned to his companion for her order. She smiled grimly and declined the offer.

Watching the other occupants of the bar kept him amused for a short while. There was only so much he needed to know about the sick and twisted behaviour of these sparkling examples of humanity. His nose had told him all he needed to know the second they had walked through the door. He was now just trying to ignore it and focus his senses on the drink in front of him. He had never been patient, especially not about something this important. And after all the red herrings and false leads they had followed so far, this could be just another giant waste of their precious time.

The moment she tensed, his eyes were on the door. Her body language was screaming at him that finally they were making some progress. The sight that greeted him seemed totally wrong. A little weedy guy wearing glasses shuffled down the stairs. The slumped shoulders and defensive body language didn't say to Alec" superior genetic specimen"- not by any stretch of the imagination. Yet still Mia elbowed him. It was that action that caused a transformation in the approaching fellow. The man's body stretched up and the droopy shoulders squared up. The eyes that had been carefully studying the floor lifted and focused unerringly on the two at the bar. The penetrating gaze that hit Alec knocked him from his seat. He heard Mia gasp in pain as he pulled himself to his feet. He looked back to where their target had been standing only a second before to see only an empty space. Helping up Mia, who was obviously groggy, he tried to see where the little bastard had gone.

Drip, Drip, Drip....

The cotton wool in her head was all black and was starting to suffocate her. The hands she could feel around her throat were constricting tighter and tighter. And somewhere there was this infernal dripping tap. It was starting to drive her insane. If she could just reach forward and turn it off. She tried to reach out her hands but they wouldn't move...she was too tired.

Sleep. That would be good. The blackness was beginning to swallow her now.

In the distance she could hear frantic shouting and the high pitched bleeping of a machine. All she wanted to do was sleep...couldn't they stop that racket? She just wanted a few moments of peace and quiet.

Then white light. It blinded her, it hurt her. She felt her body rise and fall. Tingles reached to the ends of her limbs. The darkness receded for the moment. Yet it was still there. Coming ever closer....

Angel put the paddles back on the electrocardiogram machine. They had done this several times already. She wasn't sure how much more Max's body would be able to withstand. Each session she seemed to slip further away. Looking at the peaceful serenity on the girl's face, it was hard to believe that death stalked her. It was damn lucky Max was a fighter or they would have lost her long before now. Alec's recovery had bolstered their hopes. Mia had made a miraculous difference. Yet, there were still a lot of the sufferers that Angel feared she wouldn't be able to save if Mia and Alec didn't get back soon. Max, so far, had survived the harsh attempts to keep her alive, others had slipped into oblivion.

Joshua stood at the back of the room, his face looked grey under the stress of watching his 'L'il Fella' slipping away. He was scared and it was written plainly on his face. Mole had been trying to keep him busy, to distract the big canine from his friend's life threatening situation. The fact that Joshua was so totally oblivious to everything around him was not a good sign. He was regressing to an introverted puppy, one so afraid to move in case it would get into trouble or cause something to happen. He wouldn't leave Max's side, no matter what efforts they made. Mole was giving his best but trying to run T.C. and keep Joshua from becoming a basket case, in sympathy with Max, was a big task. The place had slowly returned to something resembling normal. Well as normal as it could be with Max still unconscious and Alec off on a mission. The renewed hope was doing wonders for moral. Alec's return to sanity had made more impact on them than the sight of Mia's arrival. One of their driving forces was back in action and doing something to make things right. Action was something that everyone in T.C. appreciated. It was a welcome change after the sitting around in fear and paranoia that they had all been doing.

Angel crossed across the room and closed the door again. She needed a breather. The stress of trying to keep cheery in the face of these circumstances was beginning to wear on her. Sometimes she just needed to escape outside. To see how the others were living again. The mood was still somber but unlike the infirmary, death was no longer hanging over these transgens. A smile. She swore she saw a smile creep across the face of one of the kids throwing a ball to his mates. It was infectious. Her own face could feel muscles that seem to have become atrophied through long-term underuse. A glimmer of sun hit her on the face as she moved out of the shadow of the building. It was welcomingly warm and comforting. She let the warm rays play over her smiling face and let the worries that confronted her drift for the moment.

The moment wasn't long and was broken by an urgent beeping at her waist. The smile fell away and was once again replaced by a serious expression. Things didn't stand still for anyone. Not even an exhausted transgen doctor who was in desperate need of some help.

Another dead end. Endless chasing down a maze of laneways and derelict housing estates had lead them here. Alec was glad for the stamina his genetics gave him, 'cause otherwise he would have called this a lost cause a while back. If it wasn't so damn important he might still have put this in the too hard basket. Chasing all over Seattle was starting to get wearing.

They had gotten close a couple of times. The problem was they had no defense for the guy's "whammy look" as Alec had called it. Mia was getting hit far worse than he was. Her sensitivity meant that the mental interference sort of short circuited her abilities and senses each time it hit. It had taken her a few minutes to recover the first time but now she seemed to be able to shake it off faster and they were gaining on him. For such a dorky looking guy he was still pretty damn agile, unlike Alec and the X5s, he obviously wasn't made to look pretty but more to camouflage his talents and blend in. His 'talents' were the only reason they were playing cat and mouse in the first place.

The sound of feet traveling up inside the next building sent them running in that direction. Mia was doing well to keep up, she wasn't as used to the physical activity as he was. They reached the doorway and saw their quarry a long way up the stair case and heading out a door onto the roof.

"Man, we just need to talk to you." The look of fear on the telepath was clear. He feared them. There was a moment of indecision and then her turned and ran. It took a second before Alec could see what the guy's target was. The distant building. A distance that Alec would hesitate to attempt to reach even with his greater strength.

The idiot leapt. His heart in his mouth, Alec saw the moment it dawned on the guy that he wasn't going to make it. The flurry of arms and the desperate attempt to gain more distance were to no avail. The plummeting to the ground took mere seconds, but the bone crunching impact made even Alec wince. He'd seen some not so pretty things but seeing someone become a pavement pancake was fairly high up the list. Mia sighed next to him and he turned to see her shrug her shoulders and head back towards the stair case. He followed her down to the street level. They needed to cover their tracks, it was a grim reality.

Alec looked down at the battered body at his feet. A sense of despair fought its way to the surface and he firmly pushed it back down deep. He couldn't let his doubts get the better of him. Not if he was going to have keep going. Mia knelt down and started going through the guys pockets. She looked up at Alec with something resembling a guilty smile and Pulling the list out of his jacket, he moved passed onto the next lead. No point in putting it off. Time wasn't something they had to spare. Even lingering over the lost opportunities such as this one.

Dix transmitted the new information to Alec. The more people they tracked down the better chance they had of getting a successful candidate. They had stretched the net further but the more distance they covered the longer it would take to get back to Max. Alec had told him that it was already starting to take its toll on Mia. The telepathic abilities she had weren't that strong so she had been stretching herself beyond her limits. For a psyops stooge she was being kinda helpful. It wasn't what he had expected. His interactions with psyops had never been pleasant. He knew there were others that it had been worse for though, Alec included. This woman was making him reassess his initial reaction.

The profiles on his screen showed a diverse bunch. The psyops division had been as big a mish mash of talents and types as had all the other transgenics. One of the biggest problems would be locating someone skillful enough to penetrate the block that had been created in Max's mind. Bigger problem was getting past the fear these people had of being found. Alec had relayed to him the result of one of their pursuits. These people were scared, and it was just making Alec and Mia's job all the harder.

A face flipped onto screen as he scrolled through his search results. The startling green eyes that stared back at him from the screen penetrated into his mind. He scrolled down the page to find her last known location. She had been spotted in Seattle not more than a month before. A smile broke across Dix's face. This sounded promising. He looked at the assessment records she had. Powerful, hopefully more than powerful enough to succeed where Mia had failed. He flipped the phone open and transmitted to Alec the coordinates and the picture of the girl.

Hope. Dix labelled the girl in his head, Hope. Funny, he didn't normally get a feeling like this but there was something about this girl. It told him she was the one.

Alec looked at the pics. The last one Dix had sent him was the one closest to their position. She would be their next target. The picture that stared out at him was of a tiny little girl. It reminded him just how dangerously deceptive Manticore could be. This girl was so small and frail to look at but if the information Dix had on her was correct, she could be very, very hard to deal with. He showed Mia the photo and he saw a small look of fear cross her face. She obviously knew this girl, and was scared of her. This wasn't going to be easy.

She could sense them coming. They didn't know she was there. Hiding was the best option. Nothing ever good came out of Manticore. She should know, she came out of there and she was never good. She shifted back in the shadows and slipped back into the doorway before they turned the corner. She was never here. She sent out a mental expulsion to all those who she had encountered. It was the only way. She could feel their desperation. Desperate people were dangerous, desperate transgenics were deadly.

Mia sniffed the air like a nervous deer. Alec gave her a a strange look. He had keener sense of smell than her, yet he couldn't scent anything. She had become agitated again. Some sort of radar that she seemed to have was alerting her on a level he didn't have access to. A small nod let him know they were in the right place. They were going to need to be more careful this time. Transgenics were already a dying breed, he didn't want to accelerate their extinction, he wanted to stop it.