A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys. Hopefully I'm not keeping you all waiting too long for these chapters; have written out more than I'm letting on but am updating on the premise that I have to have at least four chapters completed ahead so I don't get myself into that situation where I don't update because I can't, as opposed to I don't. I know the chapters may all seem a little disjointed but it will make sense eventually; that's the effect I'm hoping to achieve anyway!

Chapter 3

Alec cocked an eyebrow as the property came into view. Max threw him a smirk as she walked up to the formidable looking black iron gates. She knew he'd like this one. Somehow, despite having spent the better part of his life living in a cell no bigger than his current bathroom (dank though it was), Alec had managed to acquire a taste for the finer things in life. But just as he would rather not give her reason to hit him (though she rarely needed one these days it seemed to him), Max would as sooner take another round with White before encouraging his already endless chatter, by questioning him on his past.

"And you wonder why he left Joshua's place in a hurry," he commented, almost having to force himself to compliment the founder of the Manticore project. While Max sat on the fence where Sandeman was concerned, Alec outright didn't like the guy. Which was odd given that he had nothing against Manticore, when he had plenty of reason to, and no justification at all when it came to the man Joshua fondly referred to as Father. He had never even heard of the guy until he had taken the transgenic cause up in earnest.

Alec shrugged to himself. He had never claimed to be easy to understand. Or even that he ever made much sense to anyone, let alone himself.

Max nodded in mild agreement as she let herself in through a window. Security had long stopped being an issue where this vast mansion was concerned, its owner clearly having deserted it a while ago by the looks of the unkempt lawn and on the inside, dusty furniture. For all it was fancy, it was nothing new. She had, after all, amused herself on many an occasion as a part time cat burglar.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Alec wanted to know, picking up an expensive looking painting, and admiring the artist's handiwork then wondering how much he could get for it.

"Not that," Max scolded, taking the artwork from his hands and replacing it on the wall.

"Technically, it belongs to no one. Abandonment," he added off her look.

Max wrinkled her nose.

"As if you know anything about the law," she told him, her eyes sweeping the ground floor for any rooms which might look like offering her clues.

"I know how to break it," Alec reminded her offhandedly, and Max could swear she heard a hint of pride in his voice.

"I should hope so or Manticore really did waste its time on you," she offered, her pace suddenly picking up as she noticed what appeared to be a study tucked away through a spacious office.

"Is that…was that a compliment?" Alec stumbled, feigning shock, not missing a beat despite Max's abrupt movement.

But Max was too busy rummaging through the neglected papers on the mahogany desk to provide him with a response. Scanning the documents at transgenic speed told her the information on them was useless; nothing but scribblings in a language she didn't understand and letters from various insurance agencies looking to score a quick buck post-Pulse.

"Recognise this at all?" she wondered, offering Alec a sheet from the pile while she made her way through the books. He took a closer look than she did and consequently, was able to make out a very subtle familiarity she had missed.

"You mean you don't read ancient Minoan?"

Max looked up at him.

"Nah me neither," he answered offhandedly, shaking his head.

"Ancient Minoan is what's turning me into a walking canvass. That's not it," Max said resolutely.

"It's the grand daddy," Alec replied, assuming a deliberately patronising voice that he had noticed something she hadn't.

Max rolled her eyes. It was an action she had used effectively one time but then she met Alec and its meaning had become something more redundant, it being employed several hundred times a day she was sure, because that was how often she felt like beating him to a pulp.

She chose to say, but more importantly, do nothing, as she surveyed the room with trained eyes. She was missing something, she knew it.

"We should probably take with, maybe your boyfriend can figure out what it means," Alec suggested, waiting for the 'we're not like that' line she had spun on him so often he wondered if she was ever going to make a new recording. It didn't come so he turned, only to find Max listening to the walls.

"How is a wall more interesting than me?" he almost yelped (although transgenics did not yelp so it was more of an incredulous protest), more for his own pride soothing benefit than in expectation of a reply. He rolled his eyes at himself.

"Max?"

She didn't reply as she placed a fist on the wall she had just been inspecting closely. Before he could utter another word, her fist had disappeared into the wooden oak panelling. Alec nodded as if he had conceded a point, the corners of his mouth pulling downwards in acknowledgement.

"You've got issues. Okay."

Max looked at him as if wondering why she bothered. He shot her a deliberately bright grin in return. It became a look of realisation as she pulled out a heavy looking safe. Leaning against the cold metal, Max turned the dial according to the clicks no human could possibly hear.

"Got it," she said to no one in particular as the door sounded open. She still had it.

"Well since you seem –"

Alec didn't get to finish his sentence when Max's gloved hand clamped down on his mouth. He shot her an suggestive look, purposely pushing her buttons, before his ears picked up what she had already heard.

He nodded as she went to empty the contents of the safe into her backpack whilst he went to the door of the office, trying to establish amateur from professional in the weight and pattern of movement. It seemed obvious to him that it was a someone as opposed to a random creaky floorboard. It was simply a matter of discerning whom. Of course, given a choice in the matter, he would rather it wasn't what his vision confirmed it was.

"We gotta go," Alec deadpanned, his voice so low only she would have heard. She threw him a look. How she managed to fit so many emotions into one expression he would never know. Contempt, exasperation, frustration and pure surrender, all in one.

He realised though that now was not the time to ponder the art behind such emotive eyes as she joined him at the door and considered all their escape options.

She did not want to risk the information they had just found, if at all possible. At this point, they had no idea whether it was completely useless or the key to all the locked doors. And she would be damned if she didn't find out which it was.

Visual had shown at least five Familiars in the foyer. The office was towards the back of the house but that didn't give them much time, as Max silently cursed Sandeman for not having his office at least one floor up. She could hear what sounded like two sets of footsteps approaching their direction. The window, as their luck would have it, could not face the door more if it tried which meant they would have bullets in their backs before they knew what had hit them if they were caught mid-escape.

Still, retreating back into the study would rule out even a window route since Manticore's founding father had supposedly been a little bit keen on physical security, the window a pane of reinforced bullet proof glass with no access. Meaning no crashing through it in a last ditch effort for their lives even if they wanted to.

She turned to Alec, intending to tell him that they would have to risk the window and then hope they were fast enough to beat the gunfire in the run for their bikes. Which, thanks to the property's impossibly long drive, were at least a sixty second dash and a seventeen foot iron gate leap away. Not that this was a problem but when guns were involved, Max felt about as genetically empowered as an Ordinary. Manticore had forgotten to make them bullet proof, much to her chagrin.

But Alec was already sliding the window open and casting her an impatient look. She was out in a second, not wasting time on her exasperation at his impulsiveness. Apparently she had waited a second too long in deciding how best to escape however, because bullets followed Alec out the window.

"Go!" he shouted, her only evidence of him not being hit in the process.

More shots were heard, together with angry shouts as they blurred across the front lawn. They cursed under their breaths when they had realised they would have to go back round to the front of the house and could only offer prayers to the Heavens that the Familiars had been careless enough not to leave too many people on watch.

Despite their previous lack of belief in the spiritual, their prayers seemed to be answered as Alec's fist connected with the jaw of a Familiar caught off guard at their sheer speed, it also being the force knocking him out cold rather than just knocking him over. The others had been sent into the expansive property and had ventured in far enough to buy the two transgenics a twenty second head start before they came rushing out.

Max and Alec were slowed by having to take evasive measures however, as more gunfire echoed in their inaudible footsteps. But not slow enough to stop them soaring over the mighty gate and sideways into the trees which stood as decorative guards to the estate.

"Open the gates!" they heard a familiar and angry voice scream.

But by that point, they were already speeding home. Leaving Ames White fuming and the old fir in the centre of the front lawn to bear the brunt of his anger as he tore a hole in it with a resounding thud of a punch.