Timebomb Central

Chapter 9: Faith

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

The night was getting darker and colder. Alec rubbed his hands together to keep the circulation flowing. His breath was making little puffs. Mia had little frown lines on her forehead indicating her concentration. He was having trouble keeping quiet, it was against his natural behavior, but she had already told him off for breaking her concentration more than once already tonight.

Every time they seemed to get some sort of lead the trail had been growing gradually less till it just vanished. They had moved into a junk yard now. Following the latest mental whiff of the girl's presence. The piles of scrap metal providing a huge number of darkened corners for someone to hide in. Plenty of ways to avoid being found. All along he had tried to help but Alec still couldn't get any sort of thing to let him know they were not on a wild goose chase. Instead he had needed to rely on Mia to act as a telepathic sniffer dog. He just hoped what she was picking up was accurate cause he was getting jack of this.

"Ok, I'm getting tired off this wandering around in circles. Can you at least tell me what you know, 'cause I don't want to be blindsided again?"

"She's an experimental." Mia looked around uncertainly.

"What the fuck is that?" He turned to Mia, observing that her nervousness was on the increase.

"Hang on, just how dangerous is this girl?"

"Not too much is known about them...we were never really privy to that sort of classified information. What I do know is that they can do pretty mean things without needing to lift a finger. They were to be like mental soldiers, capable of silent and deadly attacks."

"Like the last guy?"

"No," shaking her head vigorously, she attempted to make it clear to him exactly what they were up against to convince this girl to cooperate. "He was a mental lightweight compared to this. She is a psyop concentrate...everything rolled into one package. Dangerous with a capital D." She looked around again. "And deeply paranoid. There were some problems, I know." The tone of her voice spoke volumes on just how serious those problems had been.

"So why are we here again without backup?" He was looking with greater trepidation at the piles of junk sitting around them. "Shouldn't we be more prepared this time? I don't fancy getting knocked for six again."

Mia shrugged. "I'm not sure what sort of preparation would be needed. Also if we let her get away while we are getting set up then she could just disappear. Alec, this is probably our best shot. It isn't going to be easy but if you want to get Max back...".

Suddenly Mia propped directly in front him, he avoided running into her but only just. One look at his face showed she had stumbled across something new.

"What can you sense?" He whispered to her. It was such an ingrained habit that is still seemed wrong to be talking out loud in the silence while they were trying to be stealthy. If the girl was here she no doubt would hear him anyway. Transgenic hearing and all, let alone the mind reading stuff.

"Nothing!" A look of confusion passed over Mia's face.

"What, don't tell me we're in the wrong place." His exasperated barrage broke off when he saw her quickly shaking her head.

"No, I mean nothing as in someone is blocking me. She's here and she's close." She paused with an intense look of concentration on her face as stretched her mental search to its limits. "And she knows we're here." She added in a whisper.

They knew she was here. She could sense their unease. They had good reason to be worried.

There was no way she would let them take her back. The prodding and probing had be too much. The mental scars were still raw, she had salved them as best she could but she wanted no part of the experiments anymore.

She assessed her enemy. The girl she knew. She'd examined her mind and found it weak and malleable. The guy, he was a little more unpredictable. His mind had a lot of structural damage, it would be harder to work on. Apart from that he appeared to be standard issue X5, just a defective one. She slid further back into her shadowy nook.

Concentrating on a pile of piping on the opposite side of the yard she dislodged them enough to set them tumbling. The male was quick to move to intercept but the other one was smarter than she looked. Her hand reached out to still him. The woman's head turned and her eye's searched in her direction. They passed over her hiding place, before swinging back.

They knew where she was. Her first instinct was to spring to the attack. Her instincts were the only thing that had kept her alive this long so she listened to them. Taking the offensive she launched herself out of her hiding place.

Alec was caught off-guard. His usually keen senses hadn't been telling him diddly-squat. He wasn't expecting the blur that seemed to come from nowhere. Small, smaller than he would have imagined. His mind had barely gotten hold of the image when it was blasted.

White noise.

It was all his brain could do not to black out as it hit all his senses. He reeled a little his hands pressed against his ears. The blur had begun to form into a tiny person with an angelic face but he had to let go of the image as his eyes were getting cloudy. Once again Mia was on the ground beside him. He could hear footsteps, but the blackness was winning out. Slowly he slumped to the ground, out for the count, again.

They were going back to T.C. empty handed, and he felt hollow. They had been within meters of someone who could have helped and they had lost her. To be fair, he hadn't been really prepared for that sort of multiple assault and they needed to think strategy if they were going to bring the girl in. When they had both regained consciousness and his brain had managed to stop acting like mush, they had decided it was time to regroup. They were going to be smarter next time, but for now, this fish had gotten away.

The wire was welcoming but he read it as a sign of his failure. Max was still trapped. He didn't know how much more she would be able to go through before she gave up. The thought of Max giving up was not something he wanted to entertain. She was a fighter, stubborn as hell. Yet, everyone had their limits.

Looking into the room and seeing Max's still body was a shock. Physically she was deteriorating. It was becoming clear just what sort of toll this was taking on her. He moved over to her bedside quietly, not like she could hear him but the silence apart from the machine was unnerving. Along the edges of her gown he could see the bruising on her chest. Angel had told him how drastic some of the measures she had been taking were. The evidence in front of him was confronting. He brushed her hair back from her forehead. The skin was so pale. He wanted the Smart Arse Max back. Even if she was always on his case, the vitality she exuded was intoxicating. This Max had a death shroud hanging over her and it was creeping him out in a big way.

He was so intent on looking at her that he was startled when a big hand grasped his shoulder. Turning he was confronted by a hollow-faced Joshua. Given that he hadn't been stricken by this mental virus, he looked seriously ill. The sadness in his eyes tore at Alec but he knew he needed to give the big guy some hope.

"Hey there big Guy." he tried to sound cheery but it came out brittle. "How's it going?" As Joshua's eyes swung to Max and his bottom lip began to tremble Alec knew he needed to save this from deteriorating further.

"Got good news." He gave an encouraging smile when Joshua let his attention move back to Alec. "Found someone who can help us."

"Where? Need to fix Max now!" The eagerness in Joshua's voice made Alec cringe a bit internally at his slight deception.

"Well, we need to go pick her up." He thought if he was careful how he worded it he didn't have to let Joshua know how tricky this was going to be. "We met her today and she can definitely help Max."

Next thing Alec knew was that he was being shoved forcefully toward the door. "Alec go, get girl to fix Max." He gave up fighting Joshua's insistent pressure and then kept walking down the corridor under the watchful gaze of the big guy. Alec just wished things were as simple as that, finding her was near impossible, bringing her in was another thing again. He sighed heavily, he couldn't afford to fail.

Dix had dug up anything he could on the psyops experiments with concentrated powers. When he knew what he was looking for it had made his task much easier. Everything had the highest classification but he was able to bypass all the antiquated security and access the files. These kids were not your average, not even for a mutant transgen. The documented problems associated with the experiments read like a cornucopia of mental illnesses. Paranoia was probably one of the least devastating, most of them had been come suicidal and self destructed early in the testing. The fact that this girl, Dix had labeled Hope, was still alive and kicking was a good sign of some mental stability. Now they just had to work out a way to appeal to her rather than set her on the defensive.

Mia sat quietly as Angel administered the drug. She had never been big on any form of medication, usually it effected her mental control. She didn't know why but she trusted this woman. Something she had never felt for the Manticore lab guys was trust, they had always had some agenda, and drugs were used for less important and more sadistic reasons back then. Angel spoke to her soothingly, explaining over and over the plan. Her tone was reassuring, though Mia could pick up the underlying fears that Angel was trying to mask. The plan was dangerous, there were risks involved. It was better to focus on the methods rather than the possible outcomes. No need to think themselves into failure.

When Alec's face appeared in the doorway she had trouble focusing on it. She knew it was time.

Now they just needed luck, and Hope.