We walk into the courtyard slowly, being certain they can see that we're unarmed.

"Your kind are gathering on Oak Street." A deep voice calls from the shadows, and I zero in on it, taking in the tall desert ops transhuman.

"We're here to talk to you." I tell him. "We've decided we don't want to play escape and evade anymore. It's always been a pretty boring game."

The tall man walks out. "And you need someone to do your grunt work? Thanks, but no thanks. We don't do that anymore."

I notice Max nod. "Plus, we couldn't really use you for grunt work anyways. You stick out like a sore thumb."

I see his eyes narrow, and nearly groan until I feel her fingers trace a message on my hand. Shut up. "You'd better not be talking about my skin princess." The transhuman clips.

She shakes her head. "Nope. But the fact that you're like, eight feet tall? Sort of hard to miss."

It's all I can do not to laugh. I'd forgotten how good at subtle the female alphas can be.

"You'd think you were kidding, but something in your eyes tells me you're not." He mutters.

Max shrugs. "I'm strange that way." She glances at an alley across the street and I smile when Joshua steps out. "Hey big fella'." She calls.

"Hey little fella'." He waves back.

"You're the pair of alphas that want to start a country." The desert ops transhuman offers. "XT-

"I don't want your designation." Max cuts him off. "Designations are cold. Do you have a name?"

He seems surprised. "The others have taken to calling me Mole."

"Nice to meet you Mole. I'm Max, and this is Alec."

He glances between us. "If you don't want us to do grunt work, why do you want us?"

I shrug. "Your tactical is probably a hell of a lot more organized than the X5 tactical will be, you have a better location for getting in and out of the main city, most of you are probably better suited to run surveillance. We X5s are a little moody."

"You're talking like you haven't gone to Oak Street yet."

I meet his eyes. "We haven't. We need you first. Not just because of what I've already told you, but because when we go over there, a lot of things are going to happen very quickly. Things that you need to know about first."

"Such as?"

"One of the things Alec and I have been considering pretty heavily is not stopping our feline instincts. In some ways, that's a huge step forward. We'll be able to react a lot more quickly to emergencies."

"But then there are the problems associated with it." Mole offers. "Like heats."

Max nods. "And mating. It's not going to be easy to get the X5s in line until some of the other alphas come out of hiding. Our SICs will help, but you need to realize that we're going to lean towards favoring our own units above others. It's going to be up to you to remind us if there's a unit more suited to a task."

"You're kidding about the units, right? Because we don't have them over here."

I shake my head. "We'll probably always have units. It has to do with our pack instincts. A lot of us won't have problems adapting to the idea of a herd, but our loyalties to our packs, our units, won't just go away."

"You're talking about yourselves like animals."

"There's a reason most of the feline DNA is dormant in the X6s, and that the X7s and X8s are closer to hives than units. We're loyal – sometimes to a fault. Without alphas, the X5s will have very distinct lines drawn over there. We're going to get a large crowd of SICs, many of whom don't like each other much." Max offers. "When we go over there, you can't have that gun with you."

"See now that's just stupid. I'm not walking over there unarmed."

"If you go over there with a gun, they're going to think you're threatening their alphas, because believe me, they'll know fast who we are. We emit different pheromones." I tell him calmly.

"You're serious."

"Deadly." I admit.

He nods, and hands the gun to Joshua. "Let's go."