I have no excuse. I know it's been a completely intolerable hiatus. BUT...(and I'll say this really quickly) mysisterisvisitingfromItalyandthusthedemandonmytimetoplayhostesshasresultedintheviledelayofthischapter....*takes breath*....
My apologies to you all. Accept this humble token of apology...and tell my muse it's grounded! :P (after you review, naturally)...
-- Tyler
Alec sat across from Max, tapping the bottle of Tryptophan against the cold metallic fold-out table the woman had adorning her kitchen.
"I already told you, Alec, I'm fine…"
"Would you drink up?" He motioned with a blank expression towards the tall glass of milk sitting untouched in front of her.
Max scrunched up her face, "I really don't wanna know where you scored this stuff." She eyed the somewhat lumpy liquid dubiously.
"Milked a cow." Alec replied ruthlessly, and she grimaced at him in response before chugging back a large gulp.
"Happy?"
"No." He stated tersely, slamming the bottle of pills down and folding his arms over the table as he leant forward to glare at Max, "Not really."
Max rolled her eyes, "Look, it's not like I had any idea my seizures were gonna start up again. They told me they'd fixed that last time I was at Manticore…"
"Yeah and you told me you were 'fine'." Alec's voice rose to a whiny pitch as he parroted Max's staple, multi-purpose word.
"I was!" Max insisted, slapping at the table for emphasis as she leant forward to meet Alec's scowl with her own, "…Am…I dunno."
"You been havin' any more of these?" Alec demanded with a raise of his eyebrows which suggested he would really prefer it if she didn't lie to him.
Max didn't need to.
"Not that it's any of your business, but no."
"You can tell me it's not my business when I have to liquidate another favor owed to score you more of this shit." Alec waved the Tryptophan at his compadre judiciously and Max grudgingly bit back the rest of her token 'stay out of my life' spiel.
"This wasn't a normal seizure, Alec." She pushed off from the table and strode slowly to the filthy kitchen window overlooking an abandoned parking lot.
"You're telling me." He agreed as he twirled the bottle back and forth against the table's surface and kept his eyes on Max's back. Her shoulders were clenched tightly together and her stance was rigid, creating small, shadowed hollows in the skin exposed by her tank top.
Max was scared. He could sense it.
"It was worse then anything I've ever had before." Max finally admitted in a quiet voice she was perfectly confident Alec could hear from across the room as she hugged herself and watched the pre-dawn rain batter her windowpane, "To be honest, I don't even know if it had anything to do with a lack of Tryptophan."
"What do you mean?"
Max could picture Alec's expression – it would match the cautious, slightly confused tone in his voice perfectly. Narrowed eyebrows, eyes half-lidded in a tentative squint, lips pursed and ever so slightly open.
Alec was scared. Max could sense it.
"I don't know." She sighed, raising her eyebrows at the floor briefly before bunching her hair over her shoulder and turning around, "One thing's for sure though…"
"If you say 'we don't have time for this'…" Alec's glare returned, the glint in his green eyes changing from a dull gleam to a floodlight.
"Look, I'll get a check-up, okay?" Max conceded as she pulled on her biker gloves and checked her pager, "I promise, just not right now. We're about to get our asses nuked off the map in case you hadn't noticed."
"Whatever." Alec scoffed as he rose to his feet, jaw set stonily, and Max was tempted to demand what exactly he was still being bitchy about. She'd given him more ground in the stand-off then she'd given anybody in a good long while.
"Logan called for you about an hour or two ago." Alec stated before Max had even scrolled down her missed calls on the pager in her hand as he held out his cell phone with one eyebrow raised, "You left your phone in the basement back at Central."
"Thanks." Max hit the speed dial and held the phone to her ear while glancing at Alec, "Any updates on the sniffers?"
"They left." Alec stated tersely, pilfering a bag of Doritos from a cupboard which Max was sure had been empty last time she laid eyes on it, "At four in the morning. Naturally they didn't say goodbye either."
"I'm hurt." Max muttered disconsolately as the buzz of Logan's line grated in her ears. It wasn't long before his voice – strong yet lacking its usual caliber – sounded down the receiver.
"Alec…I got that information you wanted."
"It's me." Max stated, wincing at the moment of awkward silence that followed.
"Oh…Max. How are you? Alec mentioned something happened…"
"I'm fine." She reassured him with a glare for her tattling fellow X5 as he munched on his chips, "Just haven't been getting much sleep."
"Since when is that new for you?" Logan sounded irked, and Max wished cell phones transmitted automatic visuals so she could roll her eyes at him.
"It's not. Like I said, I'm fine. So what's the deal?"
"Pulled up a lead on those runes." The sound of fingers hitting keys clacked in the background, "One of my contacts who works in genetics says his cousin was involved with White a couple years back. How deep the ties go he wouldn't say, but I did some digging, and it turns out this guy was a full-fledged member of the Conclave for fifteen years till he ducked their radar inexplicably. No one's been able to find him since."
"Peachy." Max responded, before a wry question broke surface, "Lemme guess – you got a pinpoint?"
"Actually, the S1-W landed some scoop." Logan stated, and Max fought the inexplicable tremor in her solar plexus at the mental image of Asha cropping up in her head. She'd been getting that a lot recently – it was unnerving. Max wasn't jealous. She wasn't.
"Turns out Reese Molko now streams a live feed to underground conspiracy-theorist groups." Logan somehow made the less-rounded version of his own line of work sound as though the two weren't even in the same ZIP code, "He's got a lot of blockades up but I managed to trace his IP."
"Don't tell me," Max squinted and waved Alec's hand away as he offered her the bag of Doritos, "Canada."
"Surprisingly enough, New York."
Max raised her eyebrows, "Someone's got a cushy bomb shelter."
"Or a lot of nerve." Logan added in hindsight, "I'd set up a meeting with the guy, but from what I hear, he's a paranoid genius. Best if you and Alec go and gatecrash."
'You and Alec'. Why is everyone pairing us together these days? Max huffed inwardly, Oh yeah – it's cuz we're allegedly an item. Part and freaking parcel, I guess.
"'Case you hadn't noticed, we're kinda tied up here at the moment." Max's voice grew colder as she mused over their current litany of predicaments, "TC can afford to lose one of us but not both."
"You guys don't have underlings to hold fort while you make time for this?' Logan's sarcasm was rare in surfacing, but more or less bone dry when it finally chose to do so, "Cuz it's important, Max. Could be the whole key to unraveling this thing."
"Maybe another time," Max stated shortly, "You know, like when they're not about to blast us into the next century…or out of it, as the case may be…"
"You know something?" The cyber hero's tone grew low and developed a slight hiss as he responded, "I don't know when you got this reckless with your life, Max, but if you don't start realizing that you're most likely the key to the future of the world…"
"What?" Max demanded acidly, "I'll trigger Armageddon? I doubt that, Logan."
"Yeah, which is sort of the root of the problem at the moment." He replied flatly, and Max ground her jaw together to bite back a string of vicious retorts to the statement. Alec was looking at her intently, eyes full of scrutiny. She couldn't afford to slip on this one.
"Call you later." Max forced thick syrup into the words before terminating the conversation with a flick of her thumb.
She raised her eyebrows at Alec while fumbling into her jacket, "Let's go."
He shrugged, tossing the empty chip packet into Max's overflowing trash can before heading out after her.
Max didn't catch the sly smirk and brief shake of Alec's head as he shut the door behind them.
The trip to Central was brief and awkward. Max was still weak and a little shaky on her feet from the after-effects of the seizure (the Tryptophan Alec had given her didn't appear to be working its usual wonders). Still though, however genuinely disturbed she was by the notion, Max kept up a stalwart display of health, throwing in a slight swagger to her usual brisk stride (more to convince herself then Alec, who, even though his eyes were plastered causally to the space in front of him, seemed to be wearing a knowing smirk).
Max was surprised to see that the usual beehive of activity that Central had become was apparently stifled. Only the core team (or the transgenic hierarchy, as the government was calling it) were present.
Dix and Luke were holed up behind computer screens, clacking furiously and muttering in hushed voices as they did so.
Mole and Joshua were in the process of cleaning several of the rifles in stock, exchanging sharp looks and the occasional loaded phrase. Those two spoke their own freaking language, Max had come to ascertain.
Tanker and Mia were cross-legged on the floor, conversing in low tones and both wearing sober expressions. Kid was curled up on a pile of blankets next to one of the tables, his eyelids droopy and face flushed, taking in the scene around him through the haze of semi-sleep.
"What's up?" Max greeted Joshua, who was the first to notice her and Alec's presence as he stood up from his chair.
"Lil' Fella not doin' so hot?" He eyed her warily, concern and weariness vying for center stage in his voice. Max blew him off with a wave of her hand and a reassuring smile,
"I'm fine. Just needed some Tryptophan. So what've I missed?" She raised her eyebrows expectantly at the gang surrounding her as they each simultaneously turned their gaze toward her.
"Well, your boss' statement's gone live, for one thing." Luke called out from his elevated position as he swiveled in his chair and poked a thumb at his computer screen, "Been the headline of every news channel I've come across since its release this morning."
"Well that's just fucking great." Alec sighed and carded a hand through his hair. Max eyed him skeptically.
"You didn't know about this?"
"He's been at yours all night." Luke informed her briefly before turning back to his computer, "Rest of us have been manning the fort since your seizure, but I gotta say it's been a craphole of a morning."
Max sighed heavily as she placed her palms on the table behind her and pushed into a sitting position, "We need to issue a retaliatory statement as soon as we can cough one up."
"Do we?" Alec queried with a raise of his eyebrows from his position beside Mole as he absently dismantled one of the guns, "People don't wanna hear the other side with cases like these, Maxie. Their minds are made up for'em."
"We have to try." She responded as she met his eyes with her own and held them, "Normal was blackmailed into making that statement and if we go talk with the Jam Pony guys, I'm sure at least one of them can prove it."
"White's not stupid, Max. He'll have tagged on a major threat for breach of silence before he let anybody go…"
"I know that." Max interrupted Alec's flow of words determinedly, "All the same, we have to try."
"Not that this is any of my business," Mia's voice piped up as the woman rose from the floor and flashed Max and Alec an expression of true concern, "But…Kid says White is holding other transgenic children somewhere. If you're planning on rescuing them, it might not be the best idea to attack White from this angle right now."
"Actually it's the perfect idea." Alec responded staunchly as he fully dismantled the large rifle he'd been disassembling with a quick flick of his wrist, "White's not tight with every faction of the government – there's a swelling majority of senators in favor of transgenic legislation who would pull every trick up their sleeve to get him off our backs if we could dish out some solid dirt on the man."
"If we were to find those kids and combine that evidence with the Jam Pony team's kidnapping," Max nodded to herself as she followed Alec's train of thought to its inevitable conclusion, "we'd take him down."
"M'not gonna tell."
All adult faces trained their gazes on the huddled child in the corner as he shuffled into a sitting position against the wall and crossed his arms defiantly.
"Tell what?" Max queried, standing once again and making her way cautiously to the young boy's side as he sniffled and dragged his sleeve across his nose while glaring at her insolently.
"Where he keeps us." Kid rubbed the sleep from his eyes, clearly shaking all drowsiness from himself, "You don't know what you're getting yourselves into."
Max restrained a smile at that one as she crouched down beside him, "Trust me, you don't need to worry about us."
"It's not you I'm worried about!" Kid snapped, "Even if you find where he's hiding them, you'll only make it worse!"
"Try to explain it for me." Max attempted to coax, but her patience was running dry – she could feel it. They had so little time before everything around them exploded in a supernova of catastrophe, and every waking moment was of the essence. If Kid wasn't going to volunteer any further information on White's latest attempt at infiltrating their ranks, that would leave yet another transparent dagger hanging over their heads.
Which they so didn't have time for.
"Why? It won't change anything." Kid huffed as his jaw began tighten in clenched refusal, "You guys're gonna get blown up anyway."
"It's rude to eavesdrop." Tank informed the boy curtly from across the room, not caring at all for the snide insinuation that TC's destruction was inevitable.
"Then butt out." Kid retorted crisply prompting Max to roll her eyes and grip one of his small, rounded shoulders in her palm.
"Look," Max heard the crack of a whip in her tone and almost regretted it as she spoke, "if you wanna just…"
"Mole!"
The young voice carried quickly through Central's upper floor as none other then Dalton, bleach blonde hair running amuck atop his head and almond-shaped eyes wide with alarm, careened into the building.
"Easy, kid, you'll bust a lung with all that puffing!" Mole chided wryly as he placed his rifle down and edged around the table just as Dalton skidded to a halt, "What's the deal?"
"You guys gotta come to the main gate." Dalton appeared unusually out of breath for a hale young transgenic as he rested a hand on his knee while several of the room's occupants cast him glances of concern, "Somethin' major's goin' on."
"What do you mean?" Max and Alec in unison before purposefully avoiding each other's eyes at the uncomfortable occurrence.
Dalton shook his head, holding up a finger briefly and inhaling several times before he forced out the words, "They're evacuating the sector."
Max felt her spine tingle with a bizarre sensation at the words, and as she digested them the world suddenly seemed to freeze around her in a haze of solidarity. Voices muted and clarity faded – the consciousness left to Max became the overwhelming knowledge that something compellingly dreadful was about to happen.
An overhead whirring met her ears, followed by a puff of noxious-smelling smoke, and then – as suddenly as it had left it – reality returned in full swing. The room and all its occupants remained intact…although severely pissed off.
"Well that can't be good." Mole turned to Tanker and Alec, "They didn't even issue a warning or anythin'!"
"What, and give us time to prepare for the attack?" Tank scoffed morbidly, "Now why would they do that?"
"Clear the building."
"What?" Alec raised his eyebrows at her and Max's veered sharply downwards in response.
"They're gonna gas it somehow, GO!" She didn't leave room for argument as she gripped Kid and Dalton by the collars and hauled them alongside her towards the back exit door, "Everyone beat it, now!"
"What the hell, man!" Tank barked at Alec, looking around in complete confusion, "They've only just started the evacuation, like hell they'd strike already!"
"I'm not arguing with'er." Alec waved his hands with the resigned air of one who had attempted and failed at a task one too many times, "Just clear the building and make her happy. Sometimes she's right."
"Ugh." Tanker growled in flagrant opposition but acknowledged the futility of resistance by grabbing Mia's hand and tugging her towards the exit door just as Joshua, Dix and Luke shoved through it all at once, "Come on then."
"I'm tellin' you, Alec, the woman's finally cracked." Mole informed his X5 compadre judiciously as he stubbornly propped a boot up on the counter and refused to budge an inch.
"Yeah well, you just stick around and prove her wrong then, will ya?' Alec patted the nomalie on the shoulder before tossing him a wry grin and ducking through the exit door.
Mole shook his head in complete disbelief as he watched Alec disappear through the doorway, "Bunch o' whipped dogs." He scoffed and wiped at the muzzle of his rifle, when the sudden tinkling of metal hitting metal caught his ears.
Mole narrowed his brow and turned toward the sound, gun cocking as he whirled only to watch the small, circular object roll to a compliant halt as it struck against his boot.
"Shit." Mole didn't need to glance twice at the gas grenade to make a beeline for the door as a smattering of the deadly objects hailed through Central's air vents. The lizard-like transgenic barely managed to tear through the exit door and slam it shut behind him when the dramatic snaps of the bombs exploding filled the entire Central building with a noxious cloud of smoke.
Alec glanced sideways at Max from the safety of their retreat – a broken-down Mustang sitting rusted and totaled a good few feet away from the building.
"Don't ask me." Max warned him, rising to a crouch as wisps of acidic smoke coiled from the open windows of Central, "I haven't got a clue in hell."
"They were in the vents." Mole knelt down beside the rest of the gang huddled behind the car as he eyed the building critically, "Means one thing."
"You think they managed to get somebody inside that quickly?" Mia sounded skeptical, though marginally frightened by the concept, and Max barely had a moment to intercept Alec's hand before it swung it and gripped Kid's upper arm tightly.
"Alec!" Max tried, but he yanked his arm out of her grasp as he stood up and hauled a truly mortified Kid to his feet along with him.
"Right, you," Alec stated flatly, "and I are gonna have a little chat about the other people White's got in here."
"But it wasn't…I…I mean I don't…" Kid stammered, glancing to Max and Mia for support under the condemning glares of Tank and Mole.
"Enough bullshit, okay?" Alec snapped as he shook the boy a little, "People are gonna die, innocent people, hell, your people – unless you tell us what you know. Now SPILL!"
"He said he wasn't gonna hurt anybody!" Kid insisted through fresh tears welling up in his large eyes, "They were just a recon team!"
"Who?" Alec persisted, and Max fought the urge to wrench him away from the lad on grounds that apparent progress was finally being made.
"They're just X6s." Kid whispered as tears began to slide down his pale cheeks and he gazed up at Alec mournfully, "We were a unit. They were experimenting a crossbreed between the X series and the Psy- Opsers. Trained f…for combat and the paranormal at the same time."
"In Manticore?"
"Yes, sir." Kid sniffed and glanced at his tattered boots, shuffling from one foot to the other as he muttered the rest of his sentence, "and after…we were the only ones who got caught as a division. Stupid for sticking together, I guess."
"How many of you are there?" Max stepped forward cautiously, hesitant to infringe upon what was clearly Alec's territory at that precise moment – though he didn't seem to mind (and did the same thing to her frequently).
"Six." The boy blew out the word, "Four of us boys and two girls. They split us up, told us our mission was to infiltrate Terminal City. Most of us've been inside for a couple of weeks, taking out powerlines, jinxing ammo set-ups…" Here he cringed visibly and attempted to scoot away from Alec as the man let out a huff of indignation, "My call was divide and conquer. I was supposed to keep you guys distracted till the others got a chance to plant those gas bombs."
"This is unbelievable." Tanker laughed bitterly as he scraped a hand through his hair and shook his head at the toxic fumes still emanating from the Central building.
"I don't get it." Mole chewed at the stub of his cigar, turning to Alec, "Why just go after Central? Why not take the whole of it down in an air strike?"
"Oh they're going to." Alec nodded with a smile that was less then promising, "After they've taken out the head gang and left TC without a control base."
"Makes sense to me." Mia shrugged morosely before turning her dewy eyes to Kid, "What I don't understand is those were Anthrax bombs. If you knew they were gonna blow, why didn't you make a run for it?"
"They were supposed to be Ether." Kid was trembling now, Alec noted, and he subsequently eased up his grip on the boy's shoulders, "I…I didn't know they were gonna…" Here he trailed off into a stunned, heartbroken silence which, though it didn't turn the tide in his favor, sufficiently convinced the group he'd had enough for the moment.
Almost.
"Any other surprises we should know about?" Tanker queried turgidly, "You know, like Sarin canisters or uh genetically-targeted landmines?"
"No." Kid mumbled before turning away and bowing his head of filthy hair, "That's all I know."
"Well this is great." Alec sighed heavily and cast Max a weary glance of helplessness she couldn't prevent herself from mirroring.
They were royally fucked.