Disclaimer: No still nothing. My appeal to the UN has been rejected. Copy right wins again. But nobody can stop me here. Hehehe.
A/N: Loony, much? As I was playing around with this re-write and my problems with the end I realised that I already had it when I started. Go, me. It only took me over a year to realise. Feel so stupid. However, sadly this also means that this wip will be short. Just once I would like to write an epic. Although going by my speed would no longer exist by the time I was finished. I also have a confession to make. Let me know if this has happened to anybody else. I reread this and it did not feel as if I ever wrote it. I know I did, because I still have the notebook I started it in. (I like to write things by hand first). This sounds like I am praising myself, but I'm not, it is actually depressing. I did not know I could write that well and I am not sure that what I will hopefully write to end this thing will do the first few chapters justice, but I will do my best.
Chapter2
'Bring me all the information you can find' the little voice in his head mocked. 'Find all the weird goings-on in the entire state. No make that the Eastern seaboard' it went on. Alec really, really wished there was an off button for his own brain. "This is what happens when you take a hyper-intelligent brain away from an ordered environment." He mumbled to himself.
'And talking to yourself is the first sign of madness' the voice snidely continued, well aware that this hit very close to home. Alec forced himself to focus on his surroundings again. It would not do to get careless.
His hazel eyes scanned the room, while effortlessly logging the currents in it. Resplendant in a midnight black tuxedo, cradling a dry martini in his right hand, Alec fit seamlessly into the world her had infiltrated. In some ways he found it highly amusing. Most of the people in the room were the movers and shakers of the political world left behind by the pulse. In direct contrast to the world outside, this place was a haven for the rich, the famous and the merely powerful. Silk gleamed and diamonds glittered in the reflected light of the crystal chandeliers and there was enough gold to feed a third-world country for a week. It was practically begging to be taken to the cleaners.
'Which is no doubt why it is on the list of the mysterious benefactor.' Alec thought to himself.
"We don't have any real info." Dix admitted. Around the room eyes rolled.
"And this is different to any other day, how?" Alec asked. "For three weeks we have tried to find something. And what do we have? I'll tell you what nothing. Nada. Zilch. No big art heists. No bank robberies. No great scams to fool the world. Except three more deliveries." He sighed heavily.
"This man is mocking us. It's getting personal. And where is Max anyway? Why are you not giving her the bad news? Why me?"
An evil grin on his face, Dix answered: "Three reasons. Number One. Because she told you to get on with it. Number Two. Because she is away on some eyes only deal. Number Three. She has a thing for bashing the messenger and seeing as you're already used to that…" He let his sentence trail off.
Alec groaned. "You must have something!"
Dix frowned. "Well we did find something odd. The casinos are getting bitchy."
"Bitchy, how?"
"Well, it seems somebody has been winning a lot of money, so they are tricksing more."
"Scamming you mean." Alec said.
"Yeah. So I have the theory that mystery man is breaking the jackpot and uses the money to buy the stuff for us. Some of these places have no limits on betting. So when you break the bank you can really bring the house down."
Alec could feel the fury start. "And why did you not bring this little theory of yours up when I asked if there was anything new?" he hissed.
Again the evil smile. "Was saving it should Max come and try to bust my balls. I also think it has ot be one of us. Only sure way for the system to work, if you want to beat the house at its own game."
"You had that thought, too, then?" Alec looked at him sharply.
Dix grinned: "I'm not just a pretty face you know. Here's the thing. There is only one casino left that has not been hit, then it is hasta la vista, unless you want to get noticed in a bog way. Biggest one on the Eastern Seaboard. For the rich and the filthy rich. If you have to ask about limits you are too poor to enter. Probably left it for last."
Alec smiled a feral grin. "Well, it looks like I will be needing my tuxedo, then."
As Alec swaggered around the room, charming the ladies and chatting to the men about money - and money, his X5 brain catalogued access to the room, security and the average amount of money lost at each table. He had been here for three nights now and nothing had happened. There was not a single X5 in sight and he would have recognised one a mile away. There was only so much you could do about scent after all, even in a room drowning in floral perfume. It did not look as if mystery man was going to show, but at least he had an inkling he could pitch the idea to Max of robbing this joint properly. They could use the money after all.
Just as he was about to leave, having already planted his empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter, Alec was distracted by a tinkling laugh that sounded vaguely familiar. He was sure he had never heard it before, but there was something about it that made him think he should know it. Being made up with a large dollop of cat DNA kind of made the conclusion foregone. Curiosity and all that. He had to find out who the laugher was before leaving.
Nonchalantly leaning against a pillar of pink marble, Alec scanned the room once more. The crowd parted before his gaze like the red sea and he was intensely happy he had thought to lean against the pillar for support. For an eternity his world swung wildly and then settled, finally, on its new course. His jaw dropped right through the floor, as his famed Manticore-produced mind remained unable to form a single coherent thought much less explain what his eyes insisted he was seeing. As her head came up and around as if sensing something, Alec only just managed to melt out of sight behind the pillar.
There across the room at the roulette table stood Max.
'It can't be Max.' his mind wailed, grappling uselessly for explanations. As the crowd shifted once more however he caught sight of the final element of proof that this was indeed Maxine Guevara, Leader of the transgenic nation of Terminal City. Standing next to her was Original Cindy.
Alec slumped against the pillar at his back. 'Huh. So this is what it feels like to go insane. I've finally lost it. Too much booze. Too many late nights. Max hitting me on the head once too often. That'll be it. I am imagining the whole thing. Maybe I'm burned out - overly stressed - like the ordinaries always bang on about. Or maybe I tripped into some kind of alternate reality. Yeah, that's it. I fell through the looking glass and this is where I landed. Cloud cuckoo land.'
Noticing he was on the receiving end of some very odd looks, Alec straightened and plastered his best grin on his face, resolved to get to the bottom of this and then tease Max mercilessly. As he peeked around the pillar, Max and Cindy picked up the impressive amount of chips in front of them and left the roulette table.
Any composure Alec had managed to scrape together was blasted to smithereens when he got a good look at the pair. His higher brain functions went with it, probably glad of the company.
Max looked stunning. Not that Cindy looked bad, but Max took gorgeous to another stratosphere.
'Hubba! Where was she hiding that?' Alec felt vaguely disgusted that his inner voice was degenerating to that of a sixteen-year-old hormone driven jock from a schlocky C-movie. Although he supposed the tone was valid enough. He felt like a poor leading man who is suddenly confronted by the ugly girl newly turned into a swan. Not that he didn't know Max was gorgeous. After all Manticore made them that way. It had just never really registered.
She was wearing a two-piece dress. The skirt was barely hugging her hips, resting dangerously close to her pubic bones, teasing the men in the room with the possibility of falling now or later in a more private setting. The top clung to breasts that very, very obviously were not confined in any way, swaying gently with every breath she took. When she leaned over the table to get to a particularly far away chip, Alec was not the only one holding his breath in awe. The ensemble was a vision of shimmering gold, making her eyes sparkle and his mouth water. The most glaring difference was her hair though. For one thing it was not nearly as long or lank as he was used to seeing it. It was shorter and curly with a sexy little flip at the ends; in one word: flirty. Not something he usually associated with Max at all. A glint of light at her waist drew his eye and propelled him down the slope faster than he had ever thought possible. There at her waist glinted a gold chain, resting just below her belly button and drawing attention to the slimness and general tone of her exquisite body. It was the most girly thing he had ever had the pleasure of seeing.
With a sick feeling of dread, Alec realised the inevitable. He was falling in lust. He had been in love with Max for months now, practically from the moment he had stepped into her cell and she had kicked him across it. But that love had been pure, almost chaste. If he had only known it, Alec had lived the epitome of courtly love. The love a knight felt for an unattainable woman, precisely because she was unattainable. Placed high upon a monument of his own making, the knight wished to please only her, be worthy of some form of acknowledgement, some praise. Striving towards perfection, guided by the epitome of perfection. Sure, he had ribbed Max and made fun of her on occasion, teased her even, but never for one moment had he ever entertained the idea of loving her in the physical sense. The thought would have been somewhat obscene.
All this had changed in a split second. There she stood, in all her golden glory and all he wanted to do was tumble her into bed and strip that glory from her until she lay gasping and human before him and became his. The only consolation in this sea of lust was the knowledge that he did love her, had for months, he wasn't completely shallow. The snide voice inside him whispered that she had hidden things as well, had lied, was guilty of subterfuge. His marble statue had clay feet. And he was glad.