Disclaimer: Same old, same old: don't own nothin'. Please don't rub it in.
A/N: Voila: chapter three! I am sooooo sorry that it took so long for me to update. I guess I underestimated life… Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Please Review.
Always a Woman
Chapter Three: In Their Clutches
Alec opened the door all the way, allowing it to bang off the wall. He stood looming in the doorframe, a predatory glint in his eyes. "Hello, boys. I was wondering if you could help me. See, I've lost my cat." Alec caught Max's eye and winked at her.
Max felt so weak, she could barely move, but she succeeded in rolling her eyes at his allusion to their feline DNA.
He smirked. Surprisingly, his trademark grin made her feel safer. The four officers who had kidnapped Max stood two on either side of the door through which Alec had come, but they seemed of little consequence to him. He sauntered into the room as if he was in charge. Manticore gifted them with social presence, so it was unsurprising when the guards merely gazed in awe at his level of comfort, unhindered by their being there at all.
The guards in the room hesitated to act, seemingly waiting for an order from the doctor. The man in the lab coat turned at the interruption. Seeing his face clearly for the first time, Alec glared even harder. Oh, yeah, he recognized him.
"You!" The doctor standing over Max pointed a bony finger at Alec.
"What about me?" Alec stared at the man before him. "Man, you are a lot shorter than I remember. But that makes sense, when you tried to barbeque my DNA I was only about 10 years old."
Max's eyes narrowed. The doctor had lied to her. "So much for your claim, Mr. When-Sandeman-high-tailed-it-out-of-Manticore-I-was-on-his heels."
The doctor glanced between the two transgenics. "You probably don't remember, but Dr. Sandeman didn't leave until just before your escape. It was another year before I was able to leave the facility."
"Yeah, uh-huh. I'm believing that one. Really, I am." Alec shifted his gaze toward Max. She lay on a table, arms and legs strapped down, restricting all movement, even from an X series. He nodded toward her and asked, "You okay?"
"Do I look okay to you?" Max took a breath, trying to process what was going on. She couldn't break the straps on the table. With her X5 specificities that would be a simple task. Something was wrong. She let out the breath.
"Well, what are you waiting for!?" The doctor lost his patience with the guards in the room. They should have known to attack any intruder. They couldn't afford 452 to be taken, she could not fall into the wrong hands. His shout stunned the cops into action.
They attacked him uniformly, but as ordinaries they were nothing for his speed, agility, and skill. A blunt force blow to the nose here, a neck-shot there, an oxygen-depravation headlock there, and a syringe of God-knew what for the last one. It took mere moments for Alec to render all of the officers standing guard unconscious.
As soon as they all dropped to the ground, the doctor swallowed hard—seemingly realizing for the first time just how much trouble he was in for.
Alec noted his nervousness. "What? You think that a transgenic couldn't kick a cop's ass? Well, you guessed wrong. And for someone who used to work for the crack-institution that raised us, that's surprising."
The doctor frowned, staring evenly at Alec. This man was not a Familiar. He was a transgenic. The doctor breathed a little easier. He refocused, glancing once at Max before beginning. "I never worked for Manticore," he responded coldly. "And Lydecker was a pawn for the Committee—until he learned better."
"Oh, please don't try to tell me that Lydecker was one of the good guys." Max strained against the restraints, wanting desperately to get the tight bindings away from her skin—she felt like she was on fire, literally. But, it was to no avail. Even with the tremendous effort she exerted, her arms barely moved.
The doctor looked at Max again. "No. Not at first. When he was hunting the rogue unit…he only considered serving Manticore, an organization that he believed so much in. They gave him a purpose again, after all. Especially after the death of his wife, Donald seemed so lost. Manticore allowed him to serve in a way that could only be beneficial to all involved in the program. It was his duty to supervise the development of the X5s—from their conception, through infancy, and into adolescence and adulthood. He made it his personal agenda to see that they grew up properly. That's why he was always so hard on all of you. He considered you his responsibility. He actually thought of you his children. Like flesh and blood."
"That's a load of bull. And I hear a lot of it in my line of work, so—trust me—I know what it sounds like." Alec crossed his arms over his chest. Why was he even letting this screwy old man speak anyway? Oh, right…intel.
"It's not." He tried to defend himself as quickly as he could. He knew he didn't have much time in which to do so, though. He could see the predatorial light glinting in Alec's eyes again. Donald was a good friend, until I left. That was probably just after the X5s entered their twelfth year."
"And why was that, my good doctor?" Max asked sarcastically.
"When Sandeman left, he was the only one who posed a conceivable threat to the Committee. He knew it too. That's why he left. The rest of the initial medical and developmental staff were of little consequence, so long as we followed orders and didn't question operation."
"Lemme guess. You questioned it, didn't you?" This explanation was actually turning out to be very well detailed, an obvious sign that it was true. Alec uncrossed his arms and stepped closer to the table where Max still lay bound. If they were just going to chat, he might as well make Max a little more comfortable.
"By the time I left, jurisdiction had shifted." The doctor moved to the other side of the table and undid the bindings on Max's left while Alec released the straps from her right side, all the while continuing his explanation. "The program was no longer government funded—black books or no black books. It had switched to private ownership and shareholdings. Despite the speculation that this was largely due to the government's loss of money when the Pulse hit, a majority of the staff knew that it was because somebody in the Committee got greedy.
"Wait. So, you tailed it out because someone's pockets were being lined and you had what—moral objections?" Alec couldn't believe it. He didn't even settle that low. "There were people under your care. Transgenics, given, but we were still people."
"I did not leave because of moral objections. Trust me. After Sandeman, I was the only remaining of the original three which designed the first stages of transgenics." The doctor helped Max sit up on the table. "You should be able to move of your own accord in a few hours," he said gently as she leaned forward against Alec's arm.
Alec rested a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Then the doctor's words registered. "What? Max can't move? You bastard, what the hell did you do to her?"
"The only thing I did was stabilize her DNA."
"What?" Alec looked to Max, hoping she knew what was going on.
She merely raised her eyebrows. "Don't look at me. I was unconscious the whole time."
"452—"
Max cut him off, "the name's Max."
"Max," the doctor conceded, "wasn't built like any other transgenic. She has specially coded DNA. Part of that coding was the initialization of mutation—spontaneous rapid change. I never saw the blueprint, so I couldn't tell you what the mutations are. I just know when they should take place. I knew one was coming up soon. So, I made it my goal to find Max, and ensure that she would live through the mutating of her genetic construct. It could have killed her."
Alec looked at Max, examining every inch of her face trying to identify a change.
Max observed his perusal. "I'm ok. Really. But, I have to believe what he says." Max told him what she felt before she noticed the sector cops had taken interest in her. "I couldn't get away from the sector cops, and ended up passing out in the alley. If they had just left me there, no one would have seen or heard me. If anything had gone wrong, I could have died in that dirty street and no one would've known."
Alec considered her statement. No one but me. He thought back to when he had been arguing with Logan on his way out the door.
"How do you know it's her?"
"I just do. Now leave it alone."
"No. I'm not finished yet."
Alec turned around just about ready to pummel the older man. Instead, he stepped close to his face and said quietly, "I said drop it."
Logan looked terrified, like he thought Alec would snap and ring his neck, so he didn't make a sound. He just nodded.
Alec took a step back and flinched. All of a sudden he was having difficulty breathing. It felt almost like he had been stabbed through a lung. It was a physical sensation he was familiar with, given some of his away missions with Manticore. But in this case, there was no puncture. He simply couldn't breathe.
The sensation that hit him was so like how she described it, he knew he couldn't deny the connection. But, he kept it to himself for the time being. "So, you're open to what this guy has to say?"
"Yeah." She attempted a shrug. "I guess I have to be. It may be the only way that we can learn about the complications surrounding the reversal of Manticore. You said it yourself, Alec. After I left, things got a whole lot worse. Let's find out why."
"Alright. But since sector cops are such pricks, let's get out of here for the debrief, preferably before these guys wake up."
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it!! Please review and let me know.
A/N2: I am still at school, so the next update might take me some time. But, I promise, I will get it out!