Happy 2010, all y'all! Holidays more or less blew this end of the globe (spent the New Year countdown trapped in a frigging restaurant bathroom) but at least IT'S ALL OVER :D. Anyhow, here's more eye-chow for you. Review and l8ers.
-- Tyler
"Answer's no." Tank stated flatly, arms crossed defiantly over his chest, "Not a snowball's chance in hell."
"Well we have to do something!" Mia protested, apparently immune to the X5's disdain for her new cause, "I mean maybe you don't think that it's important…"
"Maybe I don't think it's important?" Tank scoffed in what was evidently great offence, "I know Alec better then anybody, alright? He's the closest thing to a brother I got- you don't think I want him to be happy?"
"Well it doesn't seem that way." Mia stated condemningly, and Tanker rolled his eyes, glancing cautiously over his shoulder before leaning in closer.
"If it was anyone but Max, then trust me – I'd be all for it. But Max? Really? She and Alec are like opposite poles on a map!"
"Exactly! They meet halfway."
"You…" Tank flustered out a grunt before stabbing a finger at the befuddled psychic, "Max is not what Alec needs, okay? She's not the Juliet to his Romeo, she's not the Zeus to his Roxanne…"
"If we don't get Max and Alec's underlying tension sorted out," Mia seemed to have chosen the course of ignoring Tanker's entire spiel, "the problem's only gonna escalate."
Tank's eyebrows furrowed incredulously, "I think we got bigger fish to fry here, don't you?"
Mia sighed long-sufferingly (an emotion synonymous with 'patronizingly' in both Tank and Alec's hive mind and therefore offensive), "You really need to sort out your priorities. Max and Alec are the ruling clan members here; everybody knows it and everyone can see that they'd work better as a team."
"They are a team." Tank groused, "And as for 'everybody'?" He raised his eyebrows, "We got our own sex lives to sort out."
Mia quirked an eyebrow comically and the male X5's face crumbled into a muddle of confusion.
"Uh…I didn't mean…uh well you know you're hot 'n all that, but…"
"It's okay, I get it." Mia patted him sweetly on the shoulder, "You've got bigger fish to fry." She stalked past Tanker as he locked his jaw and cast a seething inward glare at himself.
"You just concentrate on saving our hides!" Mia called breezily over her shoulder even as he opened his mouth to speak, "I'll focus on actually keeping them in the clear."
He sucked at his cheeks and began to mutter, "Turns out Alec wasn't far wrong about…"
"I heard that!" The high-pitched, still-cheery remonstrance echoed down the staircase, and Tanker rolled his eyes.
Women.
His thoughts were interrupted by the thrum of a bike engine and tires crunching concrete just outside the building. He turned and darted outside, skidding to a halt just as Max pulled up with Alec in tow on the back of her Ninja.
"What took you so long?" Tank had all the bearing of an angry parent as he began to berate his friends, and Alec grinned at the endearing fact.
"Got rained out." Max seemed far more composed then recent days had seen the woman as she swung off her ride and Alec followed suit, "Plus someone broke up the party, so…we bailed before they called the cops."
"This isn't funny, where've you been?" Tanker demanded in a flat tone as Max pulled up her shades and Alec clapped him the shoulder.
"Relax man, we were just gettin' the calvary here off our backs." Alec motioned to the helicopters hovering over TC as they began to pull away, "Talk about constipated order enactment."
"Least it proves there's still a little uncorrupted civil authority left to call off the charge." Max smiled to herself before nodding at Alec, "You think Molko got out okay?"
"Sure, you said so yourself – Logan hooked him up with some papers and shipped him off to the frozen north." The male X5 sniffed and waved a hand at Mole, who had just emerged looking severely pissed off and rubbing his forehead, "Call'em off the walls, man. Nobody's gonna take a shot."
"Oh yeah, says who?" Mole tilted his head sardonically.
"Says Congress." Alec seemed more then a little chuffed with the whole turn-out as dusk-prompted snowflakes began to dribble gently from the sky, "See, the Jam Pony team went national with their honest account o' what happened and it turns out Normal actually had some footage going to beef up the story."
Max paused at the unfamiliar piece of information and turned to Alec skeptically, "Say what?"
His clandestine smirk appeared slowly as he responded, "Yeah, apparently Normal had some kinda security camera system tappin' out Jam Pony to uh promote vigilance or somethin', I dunno." He raised his eyebrows and his smirk widened, "Why, Maxie, you uh catch some action or something? You know, a lil' quickie under the table with that Rafer dude…"
"Shut up." Max's slug to the gut was as solid as her response as she brushed past the crowd of men surrounding her, "I'm gonna take a shower."
Tanker's hand on her shoulder halted her in her tracks, "Neither of you are going anywhere until we get a decent synopsis here. What exactly happened with Molko and the Conclave?"
"Oh I was long gone before he showed up so," Alec clapped his hands together, "Max got the edge."
"So lemme get this straight." Tanker tilted his head judiciously and stabbed an index finger skyward to enunciate his point, "Alec here got broken outta hold by a couple of those bike messengers involved in the hostage situation a month back…"
"They mean a little more then that to some of us." Max interjected stiffly, and Alec's turgid silence clearly bred consent as Tanker batted the issue aside impatiently.
"Sure. Anyway, he got busted out, but didn't bother showing his face in Terminal City because he somehow caught wind of your little exchange plan with the Conclave." The male X5 raised his eyebrows at Max, "I got it right so far?"
"Somethin' like that." She stated, arms folding and face blanking with just enough stone to put the rest of the stay-by-the-stuffers on edge.
Mole gnawed the end of his cigar, "Something you're not tellin' us here, Maxie?"
Max's eyes shifted to the ground before focusing determinedly ahead of her, "You know everything we do. Deal bounced and so did we. All there is to it."
"Yeah right." Tanker asserted with a shifting of his shoulders as Max attempted to side-step the crowd only to find them impervious to her evasive body lingo, "Max, what is going on?"
"Maybe she doesn't wanna spill, you ever stop to think that one through?" Alec's hand on Tanker's bicep had the X5 on edge at once.
"Can we talk someplace?" Tank suggested neutrally with a nod in the direction of one of TC seedy alleyways, and Alec seemed eager to comply as Max beat the scene and the two men headed a ways off from the crowd.
Tanker's hands were on his hips and hiking the edges of his jacket upwards as he and Alec stepped aside.
"So what's the deal?"
"Nothin', just uh a little showdown with White."
"With White?" Tanker raised his eyebrows and Alec nodded obligingly, "Take it that didn't end too well for him."
"Uh well yes and no – point being," Alec clapped a hand across his shoulder, "Max should fly under the radar for a while until things blow over."
"Oh, this speech again?" The second X5 scoffed, "See I thought we were done with your whole 'Max the China Doll' trip here…"
"Yeah well keep stirring up the dregs, you'll find it's a bottomless pit."
"Look, you really wanna help Max out, why don't you start with securing her a future that doesn't end in blood?"
"Whose blood are we referring to?"
"Guys!" Max's snapped interjection had both X5s jumping ever so slightly, though their eyes never left each other as she stood with folded arms at the entrance of the alleyway.
"Got somethin' you wanna say to me, just spit it out." Max was wearing a stony expression that she hoped conveyed at least a small portion of the anger she was feeling at being discussed as though she were the child of two parents quibbling over discipline issues.
"Just wondering when you're gonna start pulling your own weight again…"
"Alright, enough!" Alec snapped, so suddenly and so viciously that Max felt her own snide being dramatically overshadowed all of a sudden.
"No, let him get it out of his system and say it to my face." Didn't mean she was going to let the chance for an air-clearer slide, however. Max was about an inch off from ticking off a very long list of things she would (possibly) regret.
"No, you know what? This whole damn thing is ridiculous, okay?" Alec had a grip on her shoulder (and Tanker's, she noticed) and was steering them both further down the alley as Kid hovered anxiously at the entrance, "Now listen up, the both of you," Alec's emphasized words stifled the ones about to exit Max's lips as they parted in protest, "We just got out from under the Conclave's freaking thumb here, alright, I think it's time we goddamn celebrated instead of snapping at each other's throats!"
Max's arms remained crossed and the ice on her face spoke louder then any scathing remark she could've unleashed just then. Tank's jaw was set and his eyebrows were knit into a scowl of disapproval.
Alec let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly attempting to decide what to do with his fellow X5s', "Okay look…"
"Why don't we just forget the whole thing?" Max interrupted, the sudden weariness that weighed on Alec outranking the anger in her core, "You're right, I mean…we did just off our biggest enemy. Celebrations are in order."
"Sure." Tank's tight-lipped response suggested he was forcing out compliance but still producing it nonetheless, "Sorry, Max."
"Back at you."
It was lame and insincere, but it was the best Max and Tanker could come up with right at that moment, and much to the former's relief Alec appeared willing to roll with it.
There was a party to whip up.
"Fenestol."
The broad-backed older man let out a breath of nicotine, hunched slightly with the slim telephone pressed to his ear by an assistant.
"Brother White." The voice was sickly-sweet and insincere, almost a snarl in its own right, "How very kind of you to call. We've been worried – all these headlines are very upsetting."
"452 has temporarily shifted the limelight, we can still take them out." White snapped insistently down the line, and the second Familiar sighed heavily.
"Ames…really. I took you for a man of practicality, not impulsiveness. The girl will come to us – all we need do is spring a suitable trap with an alluring bait, and we draw the rat right out of her hole in the wall."
"452 is still our objective, then?" White seemed ruthlessly pleased with the notion.
"Of course." His fellow Familiar responded, "Why allow this minor setback in our public relations to dictate when and how we strike? Time is running out, Brother White. The Coming waits for no man. And we must be ready."
"We will be." White replied determinedly, "452 will be eliminated, along with mankind's only hope for escaping their judgment."
"And the world will be ours." Another whiff of smoke coiled from the lips of White's superior, "Keep a low profile for the time being, Brother White. You will be contacted."
The call was terminated.
White could wait.
"No, Mr Yamaguchi, I hadn't factored that into the equation…careful with that, it's Special Delivery!" Normal cupped a hand briefly over the receiver to yell out a remonstrance at Sketchy as he traipsed by with a package dangling carelessly over his shoulder, "Yes of course I'm listening to you, Sir, I just don't understand…well I don't know, Chang…can I call you 'Chang'?"
"My oh my." O.C shook her head with a rabid smirk at her flustered boss, "Never did Original Cindy think she'd see the day when Jam Pony went national. Who said bad publicity is better then none at all, cuz they was right on."
"I'm not sure if I agree." Sketchy adjusted his beanie and balanced the special delivery package with his free hand nervously, "Normal's gotten like twenty times more antsy since this whole kidnap thing. It's driving me nuts."
"You already nuts." Cindy informed him matter-of-factly, folding her arms over her chest and nodding at their employer, "Question is what's Normal think is gonna happen when Jam Pony goes national? I mean this whole thing's gonna blow over in a year's time and then what?"
"Guess he figures a year's long enough to form a base of regular customers." Sketchy shrugged, "Hey can you cover for me for an hour? Got somewhere I need to be."
"Where is that exactly?" OC demanded, twisting around to pin her compadre with an eyebrow-raise and noting the gleam in his eyes.
"That is for me to know," He thumbed her a 50 dollar bill matter-of-factly, "and you to wonder."
Cindy accepted the note with a curious smirk as Sketchy ducked out of the door, bike and 'special delivery' in tow. She raised her eyebrows at the 50 in her hand.
"Man's runnin' some serious game."
Throbbing bass vibrated the rickety walls of Max's paper-thin apartment, and she cast another glance out the windowpane at the flashing strobe light blinking knowingly at her from the building across the street.
"You gotta come, Max!"
Max sighed and turned to face the eager-eyed Rait, who was hovering in her front room, practically dancing from foot to foot.
"Thanks but no thanks. I'm already up to my neck in work. If Alec and co. want to shimmy all night, that's their deal." Max turned back to her piles of semi-clean laundry and continued to fold her sweaters in an orderly fashion, prompting Rait to roll her eyes.
"You seriously can't bail on this gig, Max – it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show the world that X5-452 can shake her booty like there's no tomorrow!" The young girl pleaded and then huffed at Max's stony eyebrow raise, "You know what, forget it. I did my duty, now I gotta jet and catch some action before Alec catches me out 'after curfew' and has a…"
"Curfew?" Max paused and raised her eyebrows at the girl, "Seriously?"
Rait nodded glumly, "Man's a tyrant. He's taken it upon himself to play surrogate brother and it's getting really…"
"Tell me about it." Max snapped in congruent irritation as she returned to forcefully folding her laundry, her expression knit into an incredulous scowl, "You know what's with his whole Mother Hen routine anyway? I mean if we wanted to be smothered we could just," She turned and spread her hands in frustration, "cocoon ourselves in a pile of blankets…"
"Whoa!" Rait cut her off with a wide-eyed wave of her hand, "No disrespect or anything but you are vibing off some major estrogen! Are you in heat?"
"No!" Max growled at the very insinuation, "Of course not!"
Rait's arching brows (and the steadily rising temperature of the supposedly chilly evening) had Max re-examining her stance on the matter.
"And even if I was," She smoothed over her ruffled countenance by tucking her hair behind her ears and attempting a composed posture, "that has nothing to do with my irritation at Alec's actions…why am I even talking to you about this, shouldn't you be in bed, it's what, eleven thirty?"
"Twelve." Rait corrected smugly as she pulled on her Che Guevara jacket, "You should take a cold shower." She winked at the open-mouthed X5 in front of her as she slipped through the doorway, "See ya."
Max shook her head in complete bewilderment at the child's nerve before turning back to the mountain of clothing on the bed in front of her. Her skin was beginning to crawl with the sensations of her heat, but Max felt more or less confident that she had a lid on the situation.
A glimmer of diamante caught her eye and she knit her eyebrows as she pulled a slinky, backless shirt out from under a pile of faded jeans. A small smile curled at the corner of her lips and Max's eyes flickered to the window before balling the item in her fist and turning sharply on her heels.
"Max…nice." The large panther-like male at the door of the basement where the transgenics' celebrations were taking place pulled his lips back over his teeth in approval as Max stalked nervously onto the staircase.
"Thanks. You seen Alec around?"
"Come again?" He yelled over the blare of the drum and bass, and she rolled her eyes.
"Never mind!" Max threw the nomalie a smile before making her way down the packed stairway, side-stepping a veritable crowd of partying transgenics as she did so. The large room was packed to the brim with merrymakers, most gyrating on the dance floor but a great number congregating around the tables lining the room which had been converted into bar counters. Flashing, multi-colored lights blinked dizzily from their position dangling from the rafters, and large sets of speakers hoisted on ancient crates surrounded the basement and completed the effect.
People were there to have a good time. And somebody, somewhere had worked very hard to ensure that they did. Max gazed in wonder at the seemingly endless supply of booze and decided to put thoughts regarding its origins out of her mind.
The collective amount of body heat humidifying the basement worked with her current state of being to bring beads of sweat to Max's hairline. She wiped at them anxiously and hurriedly worked her way through the crowd to find an unoccupied barstool. The black jeans she was sporting were hipsters, and Max was suddenly aware that the lacy hem of her underwear was on display. She rolled her eyes and pulled the bottom of her shirt further down her back.
"Can I get a beer?" Max called impatiently over the blare of the music, jumping suddenly as warm, whiskey-laden breath tickled the side of her neck and made her pores rise.
"Make that a Sunrise, Pax!" It was (of course) none other then Alec, scooting casually onto the barstool beside Max and wearing (along with a plain black T-shirt and Levis that did nothing for her self-resolve and everything for his figure) a token, though wan-looking, grin.
"No point wasting the opportunity to score a decent drink on your average lukewarm Bud." Alec slid the mixed drink he had just ordered Max towards her and raised his half-full whiskey glass, "To a free and unchained nation."
"For now." Max acknowledged the toast and clinked her glass with his before sipping it and trying to suppress the tension in her legs by crossing them with an air of resigned boredom, "Pretty impressive dig you managed to cough up here."
"Ah Tank did most of it." Alec half-turned in his seat, one elbow resting on the counter, to survey the room with a small measure of pride, "I just scored the speakers and the booze. Turns out a friend of mine who works in the freight business…"
"I don't wanna know." Max informed him indolently, taking a sip of her drink and leaning back in an effort to escape the male X5's scent. He smelled like clean clothes and hot showers and Old Spice cologne and Oh god… "So what's the deal with you and Rait? Kid seems pretty stuck under your thumb."
"Just paying respects to an old friend." Alec shrugged as he downed another swig of his whiskey and sighed in satisfaction at the aftertaste, "Kid was under one of my X5 pals back at Manticore for a year. She was riding your 'name the baby' trip as well, took Rait under her wing and was pretty tight with her."
Max frowned quizzically as the story seemed to abruptly cut with another gulp of Alec's drink, "What happened?"
"She died in the fire." He emptied his glass and set it down sharply, "So, you here to catch some action…"
"Where the hell would you get that impression?" Max snapped viciously before he'd even finished his sentence, and Alec furrowed his eyebrows in surprised reaction.
"I dunno, you just…you look good, okay? Geesh," He eyed her as though she grown a second head while waving his glass at the bartender, "didn't know they sold Compliment Deflectors."
Max sank back, deflated and annoyed with herself. Her upset must have been plainly visible, because only a moment later, Alec was slapping the counter and steering her by the shoulders.
"Hey!"
"Gem's calling you over, go on!" He was, as usual, unfazed by Max's protests as he shoved her towards Gem, who was waving exuberantly at Max from the dance floor.
"Max, you look awesome!" The X5 woman cooed, her heavily-made up features, wide smile and flushed cheeks giving credence to the notion that nine month's abstinence from all things recreational was now being swiftly made up for.
Suddenly Gem blanched, "Oh my god…"
"You as well?" Max queried desperately, and Gem nodded.
"Didn't hit me full-on until I was already here." The latter grabbed Max's hand and led her through the crowd of dancing transgenics, "We gotta get outta here."
"Wait." Max froze determinedly, a sudden stubbornness taking over her.
"What?" Gem queried, wide-eyed and anxious to beat the scene. Max understood her trepidation, but for some unknown reason, she felt like taking a random stand.
"Why should we keep letting Manticore's twisted DNA insertions ruin all our shots at having a good time?" Max demanded indignantly over the blast of the half-busted speakers, "I mean, it's just the first hour, right?"
Gem nodded slowly with all the enthusiasm of a deer in a pair of headlights.
Max shrugged with a grin, "We can keep it in check."
"What the hell is going on?"
Tanker's booming voice rang loud and clear as he shoved his way to the front of the circle that had gathered to make space for the vicious fight taking place on the dance floor.
Gem was slamming the pointed end of her stiletto heel into another X5 female who lay curled on the floor at her feet. Tank, with Alec at his back, let out a flabbergasted snort at the full-on cat fight (which, when it came to Manticore females, was far more deadly then your average girl-on-girl spat).
"Gem, chill out!" Alec was behind the woman in an instant, tucking his arms underneath her own and hauling her away, legs kicking in the air.
"You stay away from him, you bitch!" Gem screamed, and the X5 on the floor groaned and rolled onto her back, revealing a battered face and blood streaming from a badly broken nose.
"Great!" Tanker hissed in Alec's ear as he scooped the semi-conscious woman up in his arms and felt his manhood start to swell at the almost tangible pheremones emanating from the girl.
"They're in heat?" Alec glanced sharply at the crowd surrounding him, and his face became a picture of panic as he realized a truly terrifying number of the women in the basement had begun to display visible signs of heat and turn on the men closest to them – and each other.
"All of them?" Tanker's expression began to mirror Alec's own as the latter released his hold on Gem and nudged his friend's arm.
"Come on!"
"Where are you going?" Tank huffed, an armful of female in tow as he hurried through the dancing crowd and after Alec, who was already leaping over the barrier to where the techies had set up camp.
"I'm nipping it in the bud!" Alec's yell came directly before a sudden shower of ice-cold water from the dormant emergency sprinklers on the roof. A few surprised shrieks filled the air but for the most part the crowd seemed pleased enough by the addition to the rave and continued on (in relative harmony, Tank note with relief).
"That's gonna hold'em for now but we've gotta put a stopgap on this whole party thing…"
"Alec!"
Both men jumped and turned at the small crowd of X5 women purring seductively at them, bodies glittering with a fine sheen of sweet-smelling perspiration and their cheeks flushed with the pang of desire…
"Shit, make a beeline!" Alec and Tank proceeded an unceremonious dash for the exit, a rusted-over hatch of a door that had to have both sets of broad shoulders and at least one good kick leveled against it before it gave.
"Quickly!" Tanker threw his weight against the door as it began to tremble and Alec hastily wedged a discarded metal pole into the handle and clapped his friend on the shoulder.
"Let's go!"
The two X5s ran in a mad blur around the corner, blending into the night shadows and evading the few females who had followed in pursuit. Backing onto the slippery pavement and tripping over an unconscious homeless man (who, Alec noted, really shouldn't have been there), the men exchanged breaths of relief.
"Think we lost'em?" Tanker glanced around the deserted back alleyway, the flickering street light above their heads throwing his night vision off-whack, "Alec?" Turning sharply, he realized his friend was suddenly nowhere to be seen. Not even a hint of his ever having been there to begin with.
"Shit."
Alec was slammed against the freezing brick of a wall with enough force to jar his spine. Hands, slim yet ferociously strong, were pinning him in place and a mouth was sucking at his own with terrifying intensity.
Fuck. He'd been caught.
Alec tried to think, to determine a course of action, but his head was awhirl with the pheremones emanating from the female whose hands were gripping his collar and whose tongue was turning somersaults inside his mouth.
"Wait…" He croaked out the word desperately.
"Shut up." The response was snapped effortlessly, almost as though the rebuke lived almost constantly at the tip of her tongue.
Oh God…
"Max…" Alec could not believe it. The brief moment of separation that Max had used to voice her biting command left no doubt in his mind (or his sight). Brown hair tossed askew, face flushed and chest heaving. Max's eyes were that of a predator relishing its first bite of its victim, and it was all Alec could do to shove at her shoulders and send her stumbling back.
"Max, you don't know what you're doing…"
He was slammed, hard enough this time to procure a wince, back in place. She was right up in his face, all attitude and bravado and irritation.
"Do me a favor? Keep the commentary to a minimum – it's kinda throwing me off."
"Whoa!" Alec hissed out the word as Max shoved him onto the cold, snow-sprinkled ground, her legs already straddling his pelvis which evoked an involuntary arousal on Alec's part and had him struggling to sit up, to end this before it went too far and became yet another elephant in the room between him and Max.
"Max, listen to me. We can't do this…"
"I told you to shut up!" She bit out, gripping the front of his t-shirt and slamming him onto his back once more as her other hand worked his belt and zipper. Alec's head had hit the pavement along with his back and he tried to blink back the stars in his vision as he felt his jeans and boxers being slid sharply down his hips.
He had to get her off him, get out of there, salvage the situation. It was his responsibility as the more coherent of the two to take charge.
A well-timed head-butt would do the trick. Sure, it would be a bitch to pull off and Alec would feel like shit about it, but his wrists were sort of pinned under Max's knees right then.
Alec struggled to focus as his t-shirt was torn down the front and Max's mouth was closing around his nipples, licking, biting, sucking…setting his skin on fire with the kind of longing he'd never experienced.
Generally because he did his best to avoid transgenic females in heat. It was sort of a…moral no-could-do.
Max continued to assault his torso with her mouth while keeping one hand pinned against Alec's shoulder, securing him in place. As she kicked off her jeans and straddled his hips once more, Alec's nerves exploded in a supernova of desire akin to the feral instinct overpowering the X5 inside whom he had suddenly entered.
Caution – and the hand shoving forcefully against his shoulder – was thrown to the wind.