A/N: Thanks for the reviews, especially those of you who are following the story so patiently. Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy - feel free to leave criticisms of what you don't like, as well as what you do; criticisms help me to improve!

Chapter 5

"You might as well hand the money over now pal," Alec smirked, holding his hand out to Mole who merely grunted in reply.

"Ah come on buddy, you can't help being second best," Alec continued, his voice betraying his desire to laugh at how miserably wrong Mole had been to bet against the X6. "Who knew looks could be deceiving?" he added.

"Shut up," the reptilian transhuman growled, counting out the bills as his fellow aesthetically challenged peer limped over to a bench.

"This is what you do for fun now?" a familiar voice asked. But it was the marked tone of disapproval that gave her away.

"Hey! Max, how nice of you to join us," Alec commented, clearly having been caught off guard. Despite his heightened senses, he knew he wouldn't have heard Max coming if she didn't want to be. Didn't mean he had to like being sneaked up on.

"Wish I could say the same. Any news?"

"Dix is looking into some possible transgenic related thefts and break-ins," he told her, eyeing the next two TC residents facing off against each other.

It was good-natured tussling that served to keep them all on their toes somewhat, as well as giving them an outlet for their frustration, otherwise Max would have opposed it with more gusto. She appreciated that the waiting game did not suit their action ready ways, and couldn't bring herself to deny them this. After all, their freedom from Manticore had amounted to a daily fight for survival in a broken world that hunted them. At least at one time, they had been safe from that.

Max nodded.

"Page if you need me," she instructed, heading for the door.

"Sure," Alec murmured, watching her with a frown as she walked away.

"Twenty says Ash wipes the floor with him," Mole offered, looking at him.

Alec looked at him sadly.

"Not a chance. Lucky for you, I got enough of your money to last me a couple rounds tonight," he grinned, clapping a disgruntled Mole on the back before leaving.

Max was nowhere to be seen by the time he got outside but he had some pretty good ideas where he might find her. There were very few places for Max to go these days. Having her face plastered all over every news channel in America as the leader of a freak nation had that limiting affect on a girl's social hang outs. But even if she could, Alec doubted Max would consider taking time off for herself, just to chill with her friends, to drink cheap beer and kick everyone's ass at pool. Except his of course. For all she got on his back about his somewhat loose morals, Alec acknowledged that someone had to. And given the givens, he much preferred it to be her.

The walk to her place didn't take long. Why he thought she'd be there and not on top of the Space Needle, he didn't know. It was where she usually went when she was troubled. Something about the view, though he often sensed it was more the symbolic, though perhaps more literal in some respects, act of watching over her city.

Alec frowned as he neared her front door. The unmistakable sound of something being hit could be heard as his pace slowed, making out the environment by ear. Any other person would probably have charged into the apartment, guns ablazing in an attempt to save the day. The way Alec saw it though, it was either very good or very bad. Either the fight was so one way, Max would be getting bored soon, or she had already been beaten to a pulp. So obviously, there was no need for the blazing guns.

"I hope that's not my face you're using for visual targeting," Alec remarked dryly, leaning against the kitchen counter.

Max spun. She had been so lost in giving the punch bag hell that she had done the first thing a good transgenic never would: be caught unawares.

"What are you doing here?" she asked sharply.

Alec shrugged, taking a look in her fridge.

"No beer? What kind of a soldier are you?" he asked, clearly unimpressed.

"The good kind?" Max ventured. His random comments never ceased to catch her completely off guard. There was no such animal as a situation too inappropriate to stop Alec cracking one of his infamous lines.

He pulled a face.

"Whatever."

"So tell me again, because I missed it the first time, why are you here?" Max wanted to know as he made himself comfortable on her couch.

"What, so now I can't even pay my hard hitting leader a little friendly visit?" he asked, as if offended.

Max didn't bother with a reply.

"Okay, okay, I admit it."

Max continued to wait. She didn't like to waste her breath since Alec could quite happily talk at her for days on end if she let him. She didn't really see the point in speaking if he didn't need to be prompted.

"I think I'm sick."

Though she saw straight through him, she managed a humourless, "what?"

"I helped this little old lady across the road yesterday. And you weren't even there to make me do it," he said resignedly, as if accepting news that he had a terminal illness.

Max rolled her eyes and walked over to him. Alec watched her wearily, acutely aware of her tendency to physically attack him.

"Well, that's new," he commented, looking down at her hand on his arm.

She leaned towards him, pausing for effect.

"Out."

Alec frowned in mock disappointment as she pulled him roughly to his feet and led him firmly to the door.

Seeing he wasn't getting anywhere, Alec let out a breath as he shrugged himself free of her grip.

"Look, I need your help."

His serious tone of voice got her attention. She regarded him expectantly.

"Grab a jacket," he ordered, heading out the door.

"Where we going?" Max asked, not moving.

Alec turned to look at her.

"Do you always ask this many questions?"

Max frowned in surprise.

"One question."

He rolled his eyes before turning. Max eyed his retreating figure. She didn't have anything else planned for the evening. She might as well.

A brief bike ride later and they were face to face with the outer wall of an apartment block in sector four.

"You need help breaking into someone's apartment?" Max asked contemptuously, scaling the brickwork with all the agility of the cat she part was.

"Do you want to say that any louder?" Alec hissed back, lithely making the small jump onto the balcony.

"Well –"

But she didn't get to finish her sentence because Alec had clapped a hand over her mouth. It was more the surprise that he was so bold as to do so rather than the act itself which shut her up.

She was about to start speaking again since there was obviously no one at home right now when she saw the light blue glow behind a wall setting the dining and living area apart.

"You broke in to borrow the computer and you're not even doing anything illegal?" Alec asked, disapproval in his voice. The dark haired boy of no more than sixteen spun in the chair to find Alec standing over him, arms crossed. Max was behind him, her eyes on the screen.

The teenager jumped to his feet in salute when he caught sight of her. Max glanced at Alec before addressing the boy.

"Apparently you know who I am. Who are you?"

"My designation is X7-283 Ma'am."

"At ease soldier. What are you doing?" she asked, nodding at the various windows pulled up on the monitor. She had met enough new transgenics recently to know it was useless to attempt to modify their behaviour right away.

"Attempting to procure information concerning the location of the new Manticore facility Ma'am."

Alec cocked his head.

"Explain."

"Last week I received unconfirmed reports of a high security research laboratory forty clicks from the original site. It is registered as a nuclear waste disposal site but confidential government databases record it as continuing with work completed at a previous location. I'm still developing intelligence but so far it seems the research concerns gene splicing and DNA experimentation, Sir."

"So you've spent the last week breaking into people's homes just so you could use their internet to look this up?" Alec asked, not really believing what he was hearing.

"Yes Sir."

"Why didn't you just use an internet café?"

Max looked at him but she couldn't help but wonder the same thing.

"Following the Jam Pony incident three weeks ago I knew there was a high risk of exposure."

Alec shrugged. Smart kid.

"Why didn't you just come over to Terminal City with the rest of us?" Max asked.

The boy frowned as if she had just asked him if the earth was round.

"It's already a target. I would be walking into a dead end." He had a point.

"But it's safer. We have to stick together," Max said, the words she had spoken in the rousing speech which had dissuaded everyone from going to ground and scattering only a few weeks earlier, echoing once more.

"Yes Ma'am."

Alec frowned. He had crossed paths with a lot of transgenics since the Terminal City siege began. New ones were arriving every day, preferring to be with others of their kind and risk exposure than to hide out alone. But none had retained their soldier training as well as this kid had. The way he spoke was almost as if he had escaped from a burning Manticore yesterday. Not something more like a few months ago.

"What Unit were you in?" he asked suddenly.

"Recon and intelligence Sir."

Well that made a bit more sense. Manticore could exactly risk its sensitive information being leaked within its own officer ranks let alone among the soldiers. Recon and intelligence Units would have been as good as classified information in themselves. Knowing Manticore, it would have kept them on a very tight leash.

"And I'm sure you were pretty good at it. But this isn't Manticore. We're not gonna send you off to psy-ops if you have an attitude. Chill out," Alec advised.

"Yes Sir."

"And enough with the 'yes sir, no sir' business," Max added, seeing as how Alec had got the ball rolling anyway.

"Yes Ma'am," the X7 nodded.

Alec grinned at her.

"Technically, he didn't say anything wrong."

"Shut up."

To the boy she said, "right, from now on, we're gonna call you Gates, as in Bill, since you seem to know your way around a computer pretty well. He's Alec and I'm Max. And we're getting outta here before whoever lives here decide they want to come home."

"Are we going to the new Manticore?"

"What was that I said earlier?"

"That we have to stick together," the teenager now called Gates replied after a brief hesitation to find the right reference point.

"Right. So we're headed to Terminal City."