Life been tearing anybody else a new one recently? Cuz Tyler has been chained to a hot stove for the past couple months and is NOT feeling the love. At all. So much for volunteer work. I'm studying professional writing at the moment as our projects here in Veracruz have stagnated due to personnel changes that have YET TO OCCUR. Real savvy, innit. Don't get me started. Plus my power cord gave up the ghost. Anyhooo...this should be wrapped up in a couple chapter and I shall be out of your hair...for a while :P
(PS: Thanks to the reviewer who made the suggestion regarding 'than' and 'then'. Guess my GED and give'em hell attitude didn't quite do for me what it did for Dean Winchester :P.)
- Tyler
"Brother White, with all respect…"
"Respect?" White choked on the word, the vein in his temple throbbing an angry blue out of his forehead as he charged determinedly through the tin corridor, "What respect is there in allowing those filth to fester in their victory?"
The thin, gaunt-faced man in a white lab coat hurried to keep step with the enraged Familiar as they came upon a set of sealed doors which White opened with a stab of his thumb on the panel beside it.
"Allowing them to force-start our plan for world dominance is foolhardy – we haven't completed the final testing…"
"What better way to test it then to unleash it?" White snapped, nodding briefly at the myriad of doctors in white scrubs and hairnets glancing up from their various tubes, syringes and telescopes, "It's had a one hundred percent success rate so far, am I right?" He paused mid-step to grace the man with a hard glare, and his inferior faltered in his dogmatism.
"Well yes, but…"
"Well then get it out there."
"But we still need to adapt it! There are alterations to be made…the transgenics…"
"Just get the humans out of the way for me and watch as the transgenics follow suit." White cocked his head with a heavy narrowing of his eyes, "Is that respectable enough for you, Brother?"
"Max, you need to take it easy…" Logan's cautions fell on deaf ears as Max unwired herself from the various tubes, drips and monitors attached to her and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her face was still as pale as her lips and the circles under her eyes gave good credence to Logan's concern.
But she was determined.
"There's no time to take it easy. If I don't get out there now, every person in Seattle not carrying transgenic antibodies in their blood is gonna die in the next two days." Max stated matter-of-factly, reaching for her clothes which were folded by her bed, only to have Alec's hand slam down on top of hers.
"What are you talking about?" He queried in a low, gravelly tone, eyes narrowed skeptically but not wholly unconvinced.
"The Conclave – they're gonna poison the entire city with that snake virus of theirs, and our blood's the only cure." Max met his eyes tightly, her jaw grit with a grim sort of pain that seemed only to fuel her desperation, "White's made it airborne somehow. They're gonna shoot it out any minute."
"Where? We'll stop him." Alec insisted, and Max's eyes widened.
"We can't stop him, Alec; there's no time…"
"Alright so what do you wanna do?" The X5 raised his voice slightly – apparently Max's agitation was catching.
"Blood – we have the antibodies." Max's mind was racing a mile a minute, her eyes rushing to and fro ever so slightly as she stood up from the bed.
"What, like one massive transfusion-fest?" Alec's forehead crinkled incredulously, and behind him Dr Johnston shook his head.
"I don't know what's going on here, but…"
"Then can it!" Alec snapped, and the doctor glared.
"…But there's no way you'd be able to get everybody in Seattle vaccinated against some airborne virus within two days' time!"
"Well thank you, Mr Optimism!" Alec growled in a low, frustrated tone as he rubbed his hand across his jaw and turned away in an effort to muddle through his thoughts.
"I could do an Eyes Only hack." Logan offered, "Get the truth out there and hope I have enough believers or at least scared mothers to show up at the hospitals."
"Even if they come, how exactly are you going to get enough blood to boost their systems?" Johnston demanded, and Max snatched up her clothes.
"Leave that to me."
"This is ridiculous." Alec finally remarked, his senses having returned to full coherence once more as any panic fled from his eyes and replaced itself with calm, "We can immunize as many people as will come but it won't be enough. We need time to convince the public and two days isn't gonna come close to cutting it."
"Just how are we supposed to buy time?" Max demanded, and Alec turned to her matter-of-factly.
"We don't need to buy time. We just need to stop White from shootin' the damn stuff out."
"And how exactly are we gonna do that?" Logan pressed with an eyebrow raise.
Max didn't much care for the direction of the conversation as Alec smirked at Logan reassuringly.
"Leave that to me."
He hadn't made it further then the corridor when she caught up to him, her stride labored but determined and her voice boasting a matching temperament.
"Alec, hold up."
Alec turned in surprise to see Max, fully dressed and looking considerably improved despite her still-pallid appearance. Her face was soft and urgent – and very un-Max-like.
"Huh." He prompted casually, a slight and ever-present grin tugging at his lips as he paused in his step and glanced down at the slight wisp of a girl beside him.
"I got a bad feeling about you going after White." Max moved to stand in front of him, her almond eyes locking with Alec's, "I'll do it."
"Whoa, whoa, wait a second." Alec crinkled up his eyebrows as his head titled down to maintain eye contact with his fellow X5. He had never really realized how short and waif-like Max actually appeared…
Must be the 20-foot giant of bravado towering in her shadow…
"I mean, no disrespect to your newly-acquired mojo, but you're not looking too hot…"
"Alec." She actually sounded like she was attempting patience.
Well, fuck that. Max might finally be putting out, but Alec was freshly run dry when it came to that particular virtue.
"This isn't a negotiation." He snapped, leaning in and over her to fully utilize the several heads of height he had on Max to his advantage, "You're so eager to get yourself killed? Eat a bullet – I'm not lettin' you blame your suicidal tendencies on the greater freaking good anymore!"
"I'm not after anybody getting wasted, White included!" Max insisted in that same calm, persuading tenor, "I just can't shake this feeling that something majorly bad is waiting for whoever goes to take him down."
"Right, so naturally," Alec flashed an acid smile her way that didn't even come close to reaching his dark green eyes, "you figure it should be you." Her lips parted to protest but he shut her down with a harsh command, "Go back to bed, Max."
He turned to continue purposefully down the hall, but she was in front of him before he'd taken more then a solid step, eyes wide and pleading.
"Look, we know Sandeman juiced me up for a reason. He made me different, Alec, he knew I had to be stronger."
"Yeah? Than what?" He queried flatly.
"Than you." Max forced out the last word softly and with sincere apology in her caramel eyes.
Alec flinched back briefly, blinked at her as if in disbelief and mild amusement. Then he quirked an eyebrow and cracked a lopsided (and ice-cold) grin before leaning forward over the small woman.
"Prove it."
With the last sentence, all mirth left his handsome features, overshadowed by the ruthless challenge. 494 had been stirred from dormancy yet again.
Max's lips pressed together in frustration, but before they opened to unleash it, Alec's hand was around her bicep and he was tugging her unceremoniously down the hall, ignoring the stares and muffled whispers of the hospital staff as they traipsed to the staircase.
Logan and Johnston had worked together to pull some major strings within the factions of government sympathetic or at least indifferent to the transgenic nation and had managed to obtain temporary Diplomatic Immunity for Max and Alec for the duration of the former's treatment at Seattle's finest (and most secure) hospital. All the same, Max and Alec still had to watch their backs. Immunity or no, they had been denied any form of transgenic back-up…
Not that they had been given cause to need it up until the decision to poke a dangerous proverbial bear by going fists-up-front against each other.
A decision made entirely by Alec, naturally.
Stupid men and their stupid egos. Max grit her teeth as Alec kept up his grip on her arm and led her down several flights of stairs to what she assumed was the parking lot or basement of the hospital.
"Alec, just listen to me. We don't have time for this."
"I'm sure you'll have me flat on my back in plenty o' time to go give White a second helping." Alec sounded plain ornery now, pushing open a side door with Personnel Only signposted on the whitewashed paneling, "In you go."
Max clutched his arm with enough force to crush and twisted him to face her, "Look would you just stop being such a child about this, Alec? People are gonna die here – do you even get that?"
"Oh I get it." He smiled at her mordantly, "I get that you're damn eager to be the first one to go."
"So what, slugging it out is somehow going to make things better? I fail to grasp the logic." Max was beginning to snap now.
"Yeah well how about you grasp this instead?"
Alec had barely gotten out the words before, in a lightening movement almost faster then the eye could follow, he had pulled a syringe from the sleeve of his jacket and swung it towards Max's arm. Of course. There has never been an intention of a fight. He had always been fast – 494, the exemplary soldier, the Alpha gene-bearer.
But Max, for some inexplicable reason, was his equal. Her hand clutched his own and stopped it in its tracks barely a hairsbreadth from her skin. Muscles quivered with the strain of bear-like strengths colliding, and Alec's jaw locked as Max's eyes flared.
"You don't understand what's going on, I get that." She whispered, "But I have to do this. It's what I was made for."
Alec retracted his hand with the necessary force to convey his unbridled disapproval, "Why's it gotta be you?" He muttered between clenched teeth, but his eyes were no longer dark and scorching – instead they were pleading.
Max stammered out a breath before she reached out a hand – slowly, as though waving a flag of truce – and placed her fingertips softly against the X5's stubble-ridden jaw.
Alec swallowed heavily but his eyes remained desperate and even fearful. He closed them and blew out a breath.
"Max, please don't do this."
"I have to." She whispered, and the flickering embers that had been glowing unnervingly inside of her were now ignited – as if a giant heap of logs had been fed it.
"No you don't." Alec repeated in a gravelly murmur, his eyes opening to reveal a fine sheen of glimmer over the brilliant green, "Max, come on, m'beggin' you here."
"I'm sorry." Max forced the words out from a face full of regret, "This is just how it's meant to be – there's no other way around…"
"You're pregnant." The words sliced through the air like a knife, "Okay, Max?" Alec gripped her shoulders and gave them a slight shake, "You're pregnant."
Max felt her entire world falling in shambles about her head and she would have taken a step backwards had Alec's hands around her biceps been preventing her from doing so.
"What?"
"The doctor found something. I have no idea how, okay, but he found something and you're pregnant and you're gonna have a baby." Alec rushed the declaration in a shaky voice, "And you can't just do this, alright? You can't just throw it away…"
"It's impossible." Max breathed, her previous bravado leaving her as Alec's grip involuntarily relaxed and she sank onto the nearby stairwell before looking up at him with wide, desperate eyes, "There's no way. I mean, it has to be a mistake. You're the only…"
"You're damn right it was a mistake." Alec's words and the calm fury behind them hit Max hard enough to bring irrational (at least in her mind) tears to well in her eyelids, "We screwed around and we screwed up, but that doesn't mean some innocent kid has to take the consequences of our stupidity!"
Max rose to her feet, angry, incredulous defiance pumping through her veins. She didn't have to take this from him of all people. "Who the hell do you think you are to…"
"Who the hell am I? The goddamn father!" Alec yelled with enough force to cause Max to flinch in shock at the completely uncharacteristic reaction to her demand, "You can say whatever you want about me worrying over you, but like it or not, things are different this time, Max – this is my baby too!"
Max was lost for words. She knew her face was a mirror of the overwhelming distress and confusion flooding her senses, and judging by the dark and dangerous scowl Alec was wearing and the ever-so-slight heaving of his tensed shoulders, Max was pretty certain he was feeling similar emotions to her own – although anger was clearly still prevalent.
Max sank back, deflated and defeated, against the cold cement of the wall behind her.
"If there was ever an option to begin with, it's just gone out the window, Alec." She finally offered in a weak and frightened whisper, finally lifting her eyes to meet his own, "Like you said – things are different now."
"What do you mean?" He took a step forward, eyes still hard and unfriendly and matching the calloused walls he wore so well. Max forced herself to keep her gaze steady and her voice benign.
"If the Conclave gets their way in Seattle, the rest of the world can't be that far down on the agenda. And who knows what that's gonna mean for us?" She reached out and, ignoring the layer of frost that had settled on the normally indifferent body shield her fellow X5 was sporting, took his hand in her own, eyes pinned to his, "It's my baby too."
Alec's lips parted at that statement, but Max placed a finger against them with a sorrowful expression.
"This is the way it's gotta be."
"Max, don't…"
"I'm sorry." She finally allowed a tear to slip out of her eyes as she released his hand and hurried past him, trying her best to block out the hitch in Alec's breathing that sounded far too worrisome as she did so.
Only one thought pervaded Max's mind as she took the staircase to the parking lot where her Ninja lay in wait (courtesy of Gem who had risen instantly to the occasion when Max had called in a favor over the cell in the ladies' room).
Why'd I ever let Rait talk me into attending that stupid party?
"Progress?" White snapped as he stalked into the harshly-lit lair where scrub-clad doctors wearing surgical masks and rigid white gloves were busy at work.
"We've managed to stabilize the formula in its gaseous state, but the risk of toxins mutating as a result of the state change is…"
"I didn't ask for a risk assessment." White turned a deadpan glare on the wrinkled doctor who had offered said statement, "I just want to know when it's going to be ready." He emphasized every word with stridence, and the doctor shrank back ever so slightly at the tone.
"Soon. Tomorrow, if you can provide us with immunity from the government." The man handed White a clipboard with a shaky raise of his eyebrows, "This formula is very volatile. My team and I would prefer to avoid becoming scapegoats should things go awry. You understand, of course."
"Of course." White resisted the urge to sneer contemptuously at what he deemed the cowardly undercurrent of the man's proposal as he accepted the clipboard, scrawled his signature and nodded, "Just get it done. Call me when we're ready to launch."
The doctor nodded politely as White whirled on his heels and exited the sliding doors. He didn't witness the disgusted manner in which White tore the immunity appeal from its lodging in the clipboard and crumpled it in his fist, dropping it into the nearest waste bin as he stalked determinedly down the hallway of the mucky underground facility.
The moment White had rounded a corner and was out of sight, a black-clad, graceful form dropped silently from the roof, chestnut hair flopping down her back. Max glanced quickly from side to side to ensure her privacy before reaching into the garbage bin and seizing the document in her gloved hands. She raised an eyebrow at the form before stashing it away under the folds of her catsuit. It was ample enough evidence to put White and co. away from life should she ever get the chance.
Max headed towards the lab with caution, eyes ever wary of potential danger lurking on all sides, but the facility seemed, for the most part, to only maintain strong security at the entrance points. Max had already taken out the guards posted at the hatch to which the strange, paranormal urge inside of her had led. It had seemed for all intents and purposes to be nothing but a crumbling bomb shelter shrouded in vines in the corner of a local park. The three Familiars had been no match for Max's newfound strength and speed.
Ducking into a storage room with a metallic, glass-paneled door, Max shut it behind her and glanced around at the rows of cold steel shelving before selecting a set of white scrubs, surgical mask and gloves. She paused at the pile of hairnets and sighed.
"The things I do for my country."
An orderly nodded briefly at the young woman with soft brown eyes as she carried an array of clinical hodgepodge through the hissing glass doors and into the lab. Max did her best to nod back and remain focused at the same time. She had once told Logan that she could parallel-process and multi-task like there was no tomorrow. Max wished that were the case at present, but whatever force had overtaken her body had left her powerlessly compelled by one single frame of consciousness.
Destroy the virus.
She took a silent head count. Four men, two women. A relatively small team considering the monumental task they had been assigned. Max guessed there had been more of them at one point or another – if the neatly scrubbed and faded bloodstains on the corner of the floor were anything to go by. Working with White had always been its own occupational hazard.
Everywhere Max looked, she saw nothing but endless rows of tubes and wires, bottles and canisters, syringes and containers. Each doctor seemed intent on their work as though their life depended on it. Max was pretty damn sure it did. Not that she cared – but these Familiars seemed different to her. They seemed frightened. Almost reluctant as well.
Max stood in confusion for a brief moment, attempting to conclude exactly where the focus of her attack ought to be directed, when she felt the room quiet noticeably. The soft whispers fluttered into her ears once again – the walls seemed to shift and move, sliding backwards and out of focus as Max's vision captured a single, non-threatening silver cylinder that sat nonchalantly in the corner of a lab desk.
No labels. No yellow warnings plastered to its sides. But Max knew – she just somehow knew – that this was the one.
Her heart pounded in her chest as her surroundings returned to normal, and Max's mind raced as she set down the items in her hands and began to inch slowly towards the cylinder. What the hell was she supposed to do with it? It was cumbersome and looked as though it weighed at least fifteen to twenty kilos. While carrying it would pose as no challenge to Max, removing it undetected from the facility would be more difficult. It was hardly user-friendly in that regard. And even if she did manage to get it out into open ground, how was she mean to destroy it? Drop it into a sink hole somewhere? Into a lake? The ocean, maybe? The risk of it being either found or damaged or both was not one Max was sure she was willing to take.
One step at a time. Max informed herself.