No excuses - just apologies. I still have every intention of finishing this fic. And it's not that a dozen other unfinished ones are distracting me either. That's not how the Tyler rolls. Just moved in with the boyfriend...nuff said I hope :( ? Leave me love nonethless. -- Tyler
Dawn broke over Terminal City, bringing with it the promise of heavy snow hanging thick in the dark grey clouds that shrouded the skies.
Silence – akin to that of the infamous 'morning after the night before' – buzzed louder then all the usual din and clamor that begun with the sunrise in the transgenic bio-haven.
Cold – bone-chilling and numbing – pervaded the air, piercing the paper-thin window panes and rotting wooden floorboards of the abandoned-then-reclaimed residences.
Tears – as cold and as silent as the winter's morning – streaked unobtrusively down the young transgenic's face.
Alec had left with the sun…
More like fled for his life.
Max blinked slowly and another tear slipped quietly out from her eyelid and down the bridge of her nose as she remained curled on her side. She resisted the urge to leap out of bed and make for her motorbike, to blaze as far and as fast as time would allow from the scene of her complete misery and utter disgrace.
Wouldn't make it past the gates without jumping some poor unsuspecting X5 man-flesh.
Max hurt. She knew pain – the burn of a bullet lodged in her flesh, the sharp anguish of damaged nerve endings and the dull, relentless throb of a broken, unset bone.
But this pain went deeper. The soreness ran through every muscle; the bruising, Max knew, smattered almost every inch of skin.
The ache was more psychological then anything else.
Max was wearing her trusty blue bathrobe, and her blankets were comfortably arranged over her – almost as though she had been tucked in as opposed to shoved off the chest of the friend who had made a beeline for it first chance he got.
That would just be the icing on the goddamn cake. Max shook her head and cradled her pillow as she buried her face in its warm forgetfulness, Alec making sure I was covered enough before he limped off home to nurse all the contusions he's probably covered in.
Her pillow smelled like musk cologne and whiskey.
Max groaned and rolled over onto her other side, "Damn it."
A long, hot shower and a fresh change of clothes later, and she felt closer to calm, though no less disgusted with herself. A thick black turtleneck and padded waistcoat worked their darndest to cover the smattering of hickeys, bites and bruises dotting Max's torso and neck. Transgenics were passionate creatures when it came to mating and generally had to exercise a tremendous amount of restraint when it came to intercourse with the comparatively fragile Ordinaries. But when it came to sex with fellow transgenics…
Max didn't even want to know how Alec's skin was looking right then.
The snow was billowing in the freezing breeze buffeting her window pane, and Max hastily threw on her fur-lined jean jacket, pulled on a pair of biking gloves and laced up her boots.
Her pager beeped before she even reached it, and Max squinted at the number before flipping open her phone and punching in the speed dial.
"Me hittin' you back."
"Just wanted to congratulate you. Saw the headlines last night but I didn't wanna call you in the middle of any celebrations going on." Logan swiveled in his computer chair and balanced the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he hit a few buttons on his keyboard.
"Yeah, it was a blast." Max stated quietly before hastily switching topics, "So what about you? Still lookin' for a crib?"
"Actually, the S1-W hooked me up with a bachelor pad just a block from my old penthouse. It's…not exactly the Waldof Astoria, but…"
"It's better then termites and flea-bitten flooring, I imagine." Max smiled briefly at the recollection of Joshua's less-then-pleasant former lodgings.
"Yeah, well…tell Josh thanks for letting me crash there anyhow." Logan sounded distant, reminiscent – almost sad.
"Everything alright?" Max queried.
"Yeah, it's just…Asha's mother disappeared recently and I'm trying to help turn up some leads, but so far nothing solid's showing on the radar screen."
"Is there anything I can do?" Max's heart sank as low as her tone at the despondent news. It just served as yet another reminder that bad things happened to good people.
"Was hoping you'd ask."
"What do you need?"
"Actually that was sarcasm. I was hoping you'd leave off the Caped Crusader act long enough to figure out what's going on with your seizures, if there's any connection with the runes."
"I got no idea what you're talking about." Max clamped up, her voice going stony along with her expression. She hadn't mentioned a word to Logan about seizures.
"Thing is I do." He sounded equally as tense, "They've been getting worse, haven't they, Max? The shaking, the headaches, the blurred vision."
"I'm fine."
"Notice any unusual bouts of psychosis, premonitions, anything like that?"
"Actually yeah, had this vision of you gettin' your nose broken for sticking it in places it wasn't supposed to go!" Max hoped she sounded angry. It would certainly be an accurate diagnosis of her current state of mind.
Logan certainly sounded angry, "I doubt I have to remind you you're humanity's only hope for surviving whatever White and his breeding cult have got up their sleeves for the world."
"Call me if you need any help with Asha's case." Max ended the conversation abruptly before hanging up her cell and stalking swiftly out of her apartment.
She has barely gotten to her Ninja, breath visible in the freezing air before her, then she realized she was not alone.
"Hey Max."
Max caught herself before she jumped, glancing over her shoulder and eyeing Kid up and down.
"S'up."
"Where you goin'?" He queried, and Max turned back to her bike with a smile.
"Why, you on the hustle again?"
"I was just hoping…you know, now everything's taken care of here, that maybe…" The child licked his dry, cracked lips nervously, "That maybe you would like to rescue the rest of my unit."
Max paused and narrowed her eyes at the realization that Ames White was actually, for once, the underdog in the new and unfamiliar situation. The time to strike in regards to the captured transgenic children was certainly ripe.
But she needed to be alone.
"Talk to Alec." Max kicked her bike to life and blazed a trail out of TC, ignoring the gate men's questioning expressions as she jumped the ramp that she and Alec had set up for their motorcycles when a runner needed to be pulled.
Why is everything around me just slapping me in the face with Alec, Alec…
"Alec?!"
Max swerved her bike just in time to avoid it jack-knifing on her at the sudden brake she was forced to pull as none other then X5-494 pulled briskly out in front of her.
"Gotcha!" He cackled in triumph, and Max glared so hard she attributed the violent flushing of her face to the anger she was feeling (as opposed to the embarrassment she was repressing).
"Get outta my way." She revved impatiently at her accelerator, her skin practically crawling with the conflicting desires to jump the man or to leave a tire mark across his face. The pressure was almost akin to internal combustion.
"Figured you'd be pullin' a runner first thing in the morning…" Alec began in a colder tone that in no way matched his previous (and clearly farcical) glee.
"Around you or over you, Alec, what's it gonna be?" Max snapped.
"…and I just wanted to make sure you weren't gonna bail before we got a chance to talk about what happened!" He insisted over her mordant interruption with an equal bite to his tone.
Christ he's pissed. Max didn't know why the notion made her heart sink into her gut. Perhaps it was because a small part of her had hoped that Alec would deal with the situation in the sympathetic manner he had been manifesting over the past few weeks.
"I got nothing to say to you." Max floored her engine and pulled a daring swerve, lurching her bike around Alec's and heading sharply for the side road she often took to avoid traffic (and vigilantes)…and in this case, X5-494.
Max's short moment of freedom didn't last long. As she rounded a corner and pulled into slow gear at the sight of a stop light, she narrowed her eyes from behind her yellow-tinted shades.
There, standing beside a shabby, derelict apartment building and conversing nervously with a black-suited man, was none other then Sketchy.
Max squinted and adjusted her pupils to focus closer on the exchange, "What the hell is he doing?"
She watched as Sketchy handed over a plastic yellow folder procured from his shoulder bag and accepted the hefty wad of cash the suit was handing him.
Max rolled her eyes at Sketchy's unfailing knack for trouble.
"Idiot."
"Hey so I really appreciate you doing this, man." Sketchy offered with an eager grin as he stuffed the rolled-up bills he had been given into the pocket of his padded waistcoat, "That there is a first-hand account regarding life as a hot young transgenic living on the lam."
"And you're sure this is Max Guevara's personal autobiography?" The shady-looking publisher raised his eyebrows suspiciously at the hand-written scrawl on the pages in his hand.
"Hundred percent, dude. Cross my heart." Sketchy raised a palm with all the sincerity he could muster, "Got the whole thing on Dictaphone then transcribed it all myself, and lemme tell you, that took long enough…"
"Any chance you still have the recording?" The agent queried tentatively, "It's our policy to…"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Max!" Sketchy jumped at the enranged query voiced directly behind him as Max veered around him and snatched the folder out of the agent's hand while casting wide, deadly eyes at Sketchy.
"This," She waved the file at him, "is forgery, not to mention stupid! Do you realize how badly I should kick your ass for this?"
"Okay so this is awkward." The bike messenger mumbled anxiously, beads of sweat already gathering on his hairline as he turned hastily to the publisher, "Mr Lenton, if you'd just let me ex…"
The agent's brisk jog had taken him around the corner and out of sight, apparently.
"…plain." Sketchy's mouth dropped in a crestfallen gape as he was left to face Max's wrath alone.
She wasn't gentle…or at least, she wouldn't have been if the flush hadn't crept into her cheeks and crawled under her skin again. Max found herself suddenly resisting the urge to sink her teeth into Sketchy's trembling lower lip and nearly hurled at the notion.
"Lucky for you I gotta bounce." Max managed to retain a fearsome edge as she tucked the folder her arm, "So I'll deal with you later." A sharp swat upside the head and she was on her way, heading for her bike as fast as her legs could carry her – leaving Sketchy to both curse his bad luck and praise his good luck.
After all, it could have gone a whole lot worse…
Or, unbeknownst to Sketchy, possibly a whole lot better.
The lock to Max's apartment twisted and clicked open compliantly, allowing the rotting plywood door to be pushed aside as the 6-plus foot genetically engineered soldier stalked inside, stepping over scattered clothing and a pair of ankle boots as he did so.
Alec scoured the surroundings with sharp green eyes to secure his location (force of habit) before heading straight for his target; Molko's file lying discarded on Max's rumpled bedding.
Alec paused briefly as her scent, which permeated the air around him and clung to every object in the room, assaulted his senses and brought back flashes, saturated with heat, to his mind.
Max's ankles wrapped around his neck…hands, delicate yet strong, gripping his gluts…teeth and nails and tongues and fingertips…
Alec closed his eyes tightly and shook the memories from his brain. He needed to focus. One slip-up had already cost him dearly and he had to remind himself that Max's wellbeing, not his own need to come to terms with his mistake, was the top priority right just then.
Cracking open the file, Alec's lips tightened together as he perused the scrawled translation Molko had drafted up for Max. It seemed the majority were excerpts of biblical passages (from the Book of Revelations, Alec deduced…at least he'd learned something useful from R.E 101).
The meek shall inherit the earth…
If there are any meek left around by the time God passes on the title deed. Alec shook his head and flipped the page. The tone of the passages began to change, moving from biblical to foreboding.
The suffering of one will be the salvation of many.
Alec tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as his brilliant green eyes continued to scan the page.
Her pain to stir the power.
The X5's jaw clenched tightly and his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat.
Her blood to cleanse the masses.
Max slammed against the grainy alley wall, her body trembling viciously and her eyes welling with unshed tears. Pain, searing and infinite, burned in her veins and she barely managed a fetal position as she hit the cement of the back alleyway.
"Hey." A young couple, barely out of their teens and clad in brightly-colored, ratty apparel, appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
"You need some help?" The boy, eyes bright and face flushed, bent down and put a hand on Max's shoulder. He recoiled instantly.
"What is it?" His girlfriend queried frantically as he crouched down next to Max, who was still convulsing and breaking into a sweat.
"She's burning up. Could even feel it through her clothes. Call 911!" He handed the girl a quarter and waved her anxiously towards a payphone before turning back to Max, "You're gonna be okay, lady, just hang in there."
Max was very conscious of a smarting fear that she needed to beat the scene. It wasn't safe outside TC's walls. It wasn't safe inside TC's walls.
It wasn't safe anywhere.
Logan stood by Max's bedside, as close as he could be while still maintaining a safe distance. If Max were awake, she would have told him he was already too close. Woman was just paranoid like that.
Logan glanced up at the doctor entering the room, clipboard in hand, "Dr Johnston – thank for coming."
"Don't mention it." The man smiled wanly, "Always willing to aid Dr Shankar in her efforts to fight the power."
"How's she doing?" Logan cast a worried glance in Max's direction, and Johnston shrugged.
"Perhaps you'd like to take a look at the results of her blood analysis." He handed Logan his clipboard, and the cyber hero's blue eyes tightened into slits at the file in his hand.
"The transgenic antibodies in Max's blood are mutating in some kind of supernova pattern. I've never seen anything like it." Johnston flipped a page and poked his pen at a section of the print, "See here? Whole strands of Max's DNA are basically throbbing."
"So what does it mean?" Logan glanced at the doctor and wished he hadn't sounded quiet so snappy. Johnston raised his eyebrows.
"Honestly? I have no idea – but with the temperature she's running," Here he shook his head dismally at the head of Max's hospital bed, "there's no way it can be good."
Logan's forehead creased anxiously at the sight of Max's damp, sweaty hairline, her pale skin and red, creamy eyelids.
"I think you're right." He forced out the words in a gravelly tone before lowering his eyes and waving the file at the doc, "Mind if I take a closer look at this?"
"Sure, so long as you don't take it out of the…" Johnston was cut off mid-sentence by a disgruntled security guard apparently launching threats at whoever had just shoved the door to the private hospital room open without a second thought.
"Excuse me, this is a private ward…" Johnston started forward matter-of-factlyy, but before Logan could get a word in edgewise, Alec had beat him to it.
"I'm with him." He stabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Logan, whose features tightened in displeasure but whose mouth had the good sense to refrain from voicing said sentiments. Instead he sighed and nodded grimly at Johnston's arched eyebrows, causing the doctor to wave the security guard out of the room (and harm's way, as Alec would likely have thumped the man had he continued to badger the somewhat rankled X5).
"How's she doing?" Alec turned to Logan with demand in his voice and on his features, causing a wave of something akin to anger to bristle through the Ordinary's nerves.
"Pretty good considering her DNA's mutating itself! Why the hell wasn't she already admitted?"
Alec's face hardened and he leant in to lower his voice in time Logan's, "Hey what do I look like, her father? Max isn't exactly cooperative when it comes to takin' care of herself – I mean, I had to manhandle her all the way to NYC just to get her and Molko to play ball…"
"Um excuse me," Johnston's cough filled the minute lull in retort from Logan, "Are you…X5-494?"
"Nope, I'm Alec McDowell." The transgenic grinned coldly, "X5-494 woulda knocked your lights out for callin' him by his designation…"
"Alec." Logan reproved helplessly (the man had about two inches of height and a pair of Calvin Klein glasses on Alec…not much of a plus). Still though, for whatever reason, Logan's cautioning word had Alec at least attempting to rein in the testosterone as the latter turned and focused on Max's dilemma once more.
"You hear about Molko's translations on those runes o' hers?" Alec queried with an eyebrow-raise for Logan, and the Ordinary swallowed heavily.
"Tried to fish, but…" He shrugged his broad shoulders, "She wasn't exactly forthcoming."
"What, honesty in the face of death? Totally not her style." Alec responded dourly as he handed Logan the folded page procured from his pocket, "Take a look."
Logan nodded his thanks and perused the paper before his eyes met Alec's wordlessly.
Both men's faces were set into identical, deadpan expressions.
"You thinkin' what I'm thinking?"
"This is bad." Logan agreed, and Alec scoffed.
"You're tellin' me?"
"Whatever Sandman had in mind for Max, he knew exactly what he was doing with his timetable." Logan handed Alec Max's medical clipboard and the shadows on the X5's face deepened as he scanned the results, "Max's antibodies are mutating and her DNA appears to be turning somersaults."
"Why?" Alec glanced up sharply, scowl worsening at Logan's I-have-no-idea facial grimace, "Oh c'mon, Cyber Hero, all that headstuffing can't be good for nothing!"
"The closest thing I could compare something like this to would be sudden evolution, some kind of jump in the process, very rare but not impossible." Logan tightened his eyes at Alec's snort, "What?"
"Well no offence to Darwin and his theory of monkey-itis, but I'd like to see a single shred of proof to support the insane idea that if you shake a bunch o' lego in a jar for a million years it'll one day form itself into a car."
"You got any better theories to explain what you're seeing here?" Logan didn't seem overly offended by Alec's contempt for the Big Bang theory.
"Yeah." Alec stated flatly, "Some geek on a power trip juiced Max's DNA to go haywire at a certain point in her body's development. I mean, she was designed in a lab, Logie – if they can splice her with cat genes to make her jump a hundred feet, they can certainly whip up somethin' like this!"
"But why now, at this precise point in time?" Logan badgered, and Alec huffed frustratedly.
"I dunno, maybe cuz this Sandman guy had White and his creepy little buddies all sussed out. He was part o' the Conclave, right?"
"Seem that way, yeah." Logan nodded, "But how does that explain…"
"Look I don't know, okay? What I do know is that Max needs our help. Now what can we do?" Alec let the question hang in the pregnant air like a child unclaimed in favor of adopted expressions of helplessness which both men decided to don simultaneously.
Logan was the first to break the silence, "Seems like something majorly bad was being scheduled for lift-off ASAP, courtesy of the Conclave. Finding out exactly what Max is meant to stop might be a first step."
"No argument there." Alec shrugged in acquiescence before pausing at the deepening of crow's feet at the edges of Logan's stunning blue eyes, "What?"
"There's something you should know." The extraordinary Ordinary stated, evidently doing his best to filter the bite out of his tone, "About Max's condition."
Alec tilted his head sardonically, "What, besides the fact her insides are turning themselves into Paper Mache?"
"Johnston ran a complete diagnostics scan." Logan, in his usual fashion, ignored the X5's belligerence, "There's a decent chance she may be pregnant."
Alec blanched, raised and narrowed his eyes in sequence before rubbing a hand across his jaw and swallowing a lump in his throat.
"Say what?" He forced out in gravelly tone after clearing his throat.
"You heard me." Logan responded tersely, and the remonstrance at Alec's purported carelessness rang loud and clear in both tone and facial expression.
Alec inhaled deeply, shaking his head and pinching at the bridge of his nose with closed eyes before he opened them wide and stabbed a finger at Logan while turning away, "There's gotta be some mistake."
For Christ's sake, it was the morning after the night before. There was no way any medical software, no matter how advanced, would have been able to accurately suss out Max's natal condition. Not one freaking day after she'd been inseminated.
Unless it wasn't Alec's. But the tragically close proximity of Terminal City living and working conditions would certainly have alerted the X5 to the startling occurrence of Max actually stooping from her high horse to catch some action.
In layman's terms; Alec was the only thing besides a certain cherished Ninja 650 that had been between Max's legs since that Pizza Boy Whatever-His-Name-Was.
"It's a little too early for complete certainty…"
"It's too early, period!" Alec snapped, unable to retain his cool. Logan's brow set heavily.
"Max might be carrying a child inside of her on top everything else she's got going on, so I suggest that you stop living in denial and accept the possibilities for what they are!"
"Yeah? Well I suggest that you get Max another frigging doctor who isn't gonna fabricate a bunch o' melodramatic findings just to rock the boat!"
"Johnston is one of the best medical professionals on the continent…" Logan began with a bristle in his voice.
"Um excuse me…" Johnston let out a cough to clear his throat, and Logan and Alec both responded in unison with the conventional and over-used "What?"
"In regards to Max's pregnancy, I said it was a slim chance based on findings in her ovaries and womb. All we can do is wait on that one – but that doesn't change the facts. Max's body is going haywire and if something isn't done, there's no telling what the outcome could be."
"This is all already coded into her DNA; there's no way it could be stopped without serious danger to Max's system." Logan threw the facts out, cold and hard into the otherwise heated air around them, and Alec's jaw twitched while Johnston bit his lip and appeared to sink into deep thought.
"So what do you want me to do for her then?" He finally queried as he cast befuddled eyes at his unconscious charge propped up in the hospital bed.
Alec scowled at the words, "I dunno, take care of her perhaps? You know, make sure she doesn't start growing tentacles?"
"What exactly is it that you think I can do to prevent this?" Johnston seemed to have finally had it with Alec's hyper-protectiveness, "If what Logan's saying is true, then Max is the only one that can do anything to stop or control whatever's going on inside her…"
Inside her
Inside her…
The words, ominous and foreboding, echoed dismally in the blurry swirl of Max's sub-consciousness. She could hear every word being spoken, had ingested the entire debate between the three men, could even picture the hazy outline of Alec's broad shoulders and Logan's trim torso in her peripheral vision.
Her veins burned – bubbled even. Max wanted to scream with every fibre of her being, but was unable to even part her dry, chapped lips. Pain racked her body, a rake scraped at her gut and a cleaver diced at her brain.
There was something strangely purifying about it. Max wasn't sure whether the sudden rush was pleasure or pain, but it brought with the strangest orgasm of energy coursing through her entire system. As though the puzzle had been almost complete but missing one key piece, or the machine had been fully functional but turned to a low performance level.
She sat up in bed, her eyes opening and focusing directly on the three men before falling to her lap in alarmed concentration.
"Max!" Logan burst out, running to her side along with Alec, who paused to hazard a bewildered glance at Max's monitoring machines before continuing.
"You okay?"
"We have to stop it." Max whispered through a dry, cracked throat as her eyes widened in horror and met Alec's then Logan's, "There's no time."