Choices 16: "The Lemons You Presented Me"
AUTHOR: Mystic25
EMAIL: yellowrubberduck31@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Something happened to Max and Zack eleven years ago. Something they tried to forget. But now it is about to be reborn, into something they never expected.
RATING: PG14
A/N: If that summary is confusing the plot is this: That interbred XX5 baby created out of Max and Zack's DNA that I mentioned in the first chapter of this series is still alive..(ooh..)
A/N #2: You're probably confused as hell about the title. It was taken from the age-old line that Deck dropped on Jace in "Female Trouble" when he learned of her pregnancy. Went like this:
DECK: "You have any objections with me making lemonade out of the lemons you presented me soldier?"
JACE: "No Sir"
Since this story deals with the issue I brought up of Max and Zack having to interbreed back at Manticore (artificially, thank god) I thought it would fit, and would be more unique then "That's Life, Manticore Style" or "Completely and Totally F*cked Up Way of Dealing With Medicine According to the Manticore Handbook"
SIDE NOTE: Thanks to Lexa who helped get the confusion about Asha's last name cleared up. I kept thinking it was Moore, but then I realized **I** have a friend named Auzia Moore, they kinda sound the same..so my bad.
OTHER SIDE NOTE: I brought back Jacinda (the chick from "Female Trouble" helping Max, Herbal, Cindy and Sketchy move the water heater) In "Flushed" Theo's wife, had NO name, she was only referred to as "Theo's wife" I don't know if Jacinda is his wife, but I made it so that her son is Omar. If this is wrong, sorry, but Jacinda did say she had a little boy too, so it could still work.
*****
MAX (V.O): "We escaped that night because we wanted out so bad that we were willing to risk our lives to have lives..."
/FLASH: Breaking glass is heard as children, the X5's of 599 (Zack's) unit bust through the glass into the snowy night. The scatter, running barefoot into the surrounding Gillette woods/
MAX (V.O) "I lived for years on my own, wanting nothing more then to have that ideal..
/FLASH: Max breaking through Logan's skyline. He interrogates her. Shot switches to the scene of him and her standing in front of his mirror/
MAX (V.O): "And I'm glad that fate finally stopped bitchin' at me and gave me the things I never thought I'd have..
/FLASH: Max and Logan lip locking on his floor in "Meow"/
/FLASH: Max faces Logan on a sandy beach, dressed in a purple silk slip dress. Close up shot of Logan sliding a ring on her finger. Pan up to his eyes, minister goes on in the background with the marriage ceremony/
/FLASH: Sounds of a baby crying. A doctor in a surgical gown and mask lifts up a squalling baby for Max to see. She is lying on an OR table, undergoing a C-Section
"Got a boy here guys!"
Beside Max is Logan who leans close to her face and kisses her while the doctors close off her incision/
/FLASH: "It's a girl!" A female doctor, Anna Janston lays the crying newborn little girl on Max's chest, wiping her down with a towel. Max is in a regular birthing room, having just been through a normal v-back vaginal birth
Logan looks over at his new daughter, his head close to Max "God, more?" his voice is joking. He kisses her long and hard before she can say anything.
"Okay guys" Janston is heard to say beside Max's bed "Remember that's what got you here in the first place"/
MAX (V.O.) "But my life has never had the appeal I dreamt of as the nine year old soldier in 09-"
/FLASH: Max and Zack tearfully say goodbye to Brin as they leave her on the bench, the swirl and noise of helicopter blades above them/
/FLASH: Max hears gunfire, and is down a few seconds later. Zack is beside her carrying an unconscious Tinga in his arms, but he is brought down moments after by another shot./
MAX (V.O) "Because there was something they never told us back at Manticore..
(V.O cont. as scene unfolds) "As hard as we try to escape our lab rat, science experiment created past.."
CUT TO: Present day 2021. Max sits on the sands of the Waterfront with Jess and Lexi beside her playing in the sand. Tinga sits next to Max, her arms drawn around her son Case sitting in the fold of her body./
MAX (V.O): "It can still come back to bite us in the ass."
Same scene, but on a close up of Zack, skipping a rock into the water. Cut to shot of Max. She looks at him Cut to shot of Zack looking back.
*****
here's where the theme song would fit in..MC Lyte and them breakin' it down.
Fade out into commercials..(in Florida the FOX announcer is now talking, theme music starts up again, but softer..FOX GUY: "Dark Angel is brought to you by Christler and your neighborhood Christler dealer.." )
*****
after millions of ads have gone by we now continue with tonight's episode of Dark Angel.
*****
CITY LIGHTS CLINIC
SEATTLE
JANUARY 12, 2021
7:55 AM
"Mommy, please don't make me-" Jess whined to Max whose hand she was holding
She looked down to her son, "Baby, there's nothing to be scared of, it's just a check-up" she opened the door to the medical clinic and all but dragged him inside. She stepped through the doors beside him pushing Lexi through in a toddler's stroller. "Lexi's in for the same thing as you, and she's not upset"
She steered her children towards two empty chairs.
"That's cause she can't talk real well yet," Jess argued
"Can so!" Lexi argued back
"Nu-uh!" Jess returned, "You're bad"
This exchange would make any other little two year old girl cry, but not Lexi, who had her mother's genes in her. "Not bad. Girl's are better, beat up boy's-"
"Alexis Marie!" Max broke in, not believing what her baby was about to say, "You kiss your mama with that dirty mouth?" she looked at her guilty daughter
"You're mama" Lexi argued, a bit confused
"That's what I mean kiddo" Max informed, "I don't want you to use that word again kay?" she looked at her a bit harder when she didn't say anything "Okay?"
"Kay" Lexi said this time, a little apprehensive, she had never had Max talk to her like that.
Max could feel the eyes of the others in the clinic on her. Nosey sons-of-bitches, even in a post-Pulse world, waiting to see how she as a mother "handled" this situation. She was willing to bet that only a handful of them HAD kids, but they were still ready to step in and tell her how to raise hers.
"Good" Max replied to her two year old, seeing Lexi's eyes filled with nervousness, and not because of the impending doctor visit. "Wanna sit up here by me baby?" this time her voice was softer. That was something they didn't know about her, how her mistreatment as a child in a sterile, uncaring military environment made her promise to displine her kids but NEVER make them feel like they had to keep up with her rules in order for her to love them.
Lexi broke into her famous puddle making smile that Max gave her. Max unclipped her stroller harness and Lexi all but ran to her mom climbing in the seat next to her.
Max grabbed the girl and pulled her into her lap "This seat's better hun" she gave a kiss/raspberry on the back of her small neck.
The crowd seemed 'satisfied' by this scene, and went back to their own business. But personally Max didn't give a flying fuck about what other people thought of her as a mom. She loved her children far beyond the limit of love she received as a child.
Lexi giggled, now letting the earlier incident go.
Max smiled at her before looking back at Jess who was still standing in front of her "Come sit by us baby"
"Will I still have to go?" Jess asked
"Still do sweetie" she told him apologetically "Sorry" she patted the seat next to her "Come and sit anyway?" her eyes shifted to that look that she gave to Lexi, only much more perfected. "Please?"
Jess came over in the end, pulling himself into the adult size chair beside his mom and little sister.
"Max, Max Guevara-"
Max turned at the voice.
Jacinda, one of Max's old neighbors when she still crashed with Cindy was stepping over to her. Jacinda had moved out two weeks before Logan had proposed to her. She had found a better paying job then the one she had in Bonney Lake, a district city twenty miles out of Seattle.
"Jacinda" Max stood up, her face breaking out into a smile.
Jacinda smiled back "Girl I thought that was you when I came through the door" her voice was warm and cheery as she gave Max a hug. "I haven't seen you in forever, and you still look just as good as when I left"
"So do you" Max agreed
Jacinda caught sight of something on Max's hand, the anniversary band Logan had given her. "Now I know why you're radiating girl. Finally made yourself happy."
Max looked at her ring too "The plunge didn't hurt as bad as I thought"
Jacinda smiled at this "So what did the sassy Max Guevara get her name changed to?"
"Cale" Max looked at her when she said this
"Cale? As in Logan Cale, that cyber-journalist that Cindy was trying to get you to hold onto enough to get some consummation?" Jacinda said this all in one breath, laughing at the end of her remark "Glad you finally got some sense knocked into you" she looked over Max's shoulder "And a mommy too, damn Max you HAVE been busy while I was gone." She turned and called back "Omar! Baby come see who I found!"
Jacinda turned back to Max, holding onto her hands at arms length and checking out her figure "Two babies and you still got the physique of the cat walk" she smiled again.
Omar, Jacinda's son now stood beside his mother. He had been five the last time Max had seen him. Now at eight years old, he had grown a few inches, his hair still in a bald buzzed cut.
"This can't be Omar" Max said in disbelief to the boy "Boy you're growin' up so nice" she looked at Omar
"I know" Jacinda's voice was proud "He's gonna outgrow mama at this pace"
"Hi Max" this time Omar spoke up, looking to the woman he use to be neighbors with.
"Hey kiddo, get over here it's been a while-" she hugged the boy when he got to her.
"You helpin' out your mama?"
"Yes ma'am"
"Ma'am" Max repeated "Hear that Jacinda-"
"Hey I didn't instigate that," Jacinda argued, holding up her hands "He learned it from his teacher. But I'm not complaining" she looked to her son "Omar, you know Max is a mama now too?"
Omar looked at Max "Really?"
"Yeah really" Max returned with a smile, turning to face her children "Guys come meet some friends of mine"
Lexi was the first one, running directly towards Max, who bent down to pick her up "Like to introduce my littlest diva, Alexis Marie"
"Hey hun" Jacinda greeted the child "I like your name." She turned to Max "Girl it's a good thing her eyes are blue, cause she's all mini you"
"I also have a son around here somewhere-" Max turned to see Jess lagging behind "C'mon baby, don't be a stranger" she coaxed, holding out her hand to him "Little bit on the wiggy side cause he has to have a needle prick today" Max told Jacinda.
"Your son I presume?" Jacinda asked
"Yep, my man. Jesse Trevon"
"And how old is he?"
"Three and a half" Jess answered for himself
Jacinda laughed, and bent closer to him "Almost four huh? You're a big leaguer"
"I have to have a shot today" he opened up to Jacinda
Jacinda made a concerned face, for his benefit "I'm sorry little man, but it's not that bad.."
= = =
"See?" Max looked at her son "What I've been telling you the whole time" Max gave him a kiss, after the pediatrician finished administering the vaccination.
"Brave boy you have there Max" Dr. Michelle James, an associate of Sam Carr who recommended her to them applied a Band-Aid to the injection site. She smiled at the child "What'll it be today kiddo, red or green?" she held up the choices of two colored lollypops.
Jess grabbed the green one, saying a muffled "thank you" after the candy was already stuck in his mouth
The doctor smiled again "You're very welcome" she wrote down the MMMR(Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine, tagged with the new Meningitis series started after it was discovered that the terrorists who set off the Pulse stock piled the disease to use as bio-warfare. No traces were ever found in 09 or there after, but it was a risk they weren't messing with) on the vaccination record attached to her clipboard.
"After this he's got only one more series of the MMMR" James noted to Max "But that's not until he's nine"
"Somebody should have told them that back where I grew up" Max grabbed Jess's jacket and helped him slid it on his small body. "When I was nine I was a walking anti-virus machine"
"Yeah but Manticore didn't have the luxury of having sick prototypes." Michelle had been Sam's intern for a while, mostly during Max's second pregnancy (she saw Sam outside of her normal OB/GYN). She had sensed a difference in Max from the start with how her pregnancy was progressing. The DNA of the baby taken for an ammio was almost perfection. Every chromosome set in almost perfect alignment, almost evenly matched. No junk DNA in the lot of it. And EVERY person, regardless of who they were never had such a perfect set of chromosomes as this child. When Michelle inquired about it, of course Max didn't tell her, until one emergency visit where her seizures had caused her to start contracting in her sixth month. Michelle had been at the Cale house to assist Sam. With a full dose of liquid Tryptophane her seizures had stopped and with enough meds in a portable IV drip her contractions had ceased.
Max had been placed on complete bed rest for two weeks and Michelle had checked in on her from time to time, and had asked (but didn't pry) again about her patient's medical history so she could help her completely. Finally the truth came out. Michelle was sworn to secrecy, an oath she still kept, because she knew she would want the same if the roll were reversed. In the end the bed rest, the restrictions and the visitations paid off. Max delivered a healthy baby girl three months later by one of Michelle's old attendings on her OB rotation, Dr. Janston. Michelle completed her internship and now was a peds resident at the clinic. She was very happy to see her old patient come regularly with her kids.
"Go scan this" Michelle took the vaccination record over to her office and scanned the record on her personal scanner, the one hidden behind the bookcase because scanning vaccination records without direct authorization from an attending physician was illegal. So far she hadn't be caught, and she was prepared to hand over her career and work on back alley black market clinics if she had too.
"Send these over to Sam" Michelle indicated the still hot photocopies of the records. She handed Max the original copy that she had brought. This was illegal too, but Max's kids were at a high risk of being ratted out to anyone and everyone if their medical records ever fell into the wrong hands.
"Thanks" Max took the papers from her, tucking them into her pocket, the one that she could easily reach to break people's hands if they tried to take it from her "So I guess I'll see you in five years?"
Michelle laughed, "Yeah something like that" she looked to the kids "Bye guys, see ya next time" she waved to them as they went out the door to her office.
"Have you even thought this through?" there was a woman in the corner, talking to a girl, presumably her daughter "You can't take it back-"
"I KNOW mother" the teenager spat back "But how the hell can I have a baby?"
"You should've thought about that before you screwed around-"
"Fuck you!" the brunette teenager spat "I didn't ask you to come down here and lecture me-"
"Then why am I here Breeana?"
This was met by silence. Max didn't stop to stare at them, she knew how rude that could be. Walking past them, her children in tow she saw the older woman stop to look at her. "I could've helped you out-" she didn't say it but she looked at Max like the representation of something her daughter could have achieved if she would just work on it.
"Forget it mom, you already signed the consent." Bree snapped angrily at her mother "It's better for me now, it's my body. I should be able to make my own decisions on what the hell happens to it-"
/MAX FLASHBACK: Invitro lab at Manticore. Base doctor stands masked and gowned over a girl, X5-452 lying on the hospital gurney. Her legs are raised above her in stirrups, and her lower body is shrouded in a blue cotton sheet. The doctor comes over to 452 with a long tube like medical instrument and inserts in under the sheet. 452's expression changes to one of pain and her arms jerk.
"Suck it up 452 or I'll restrain you!" the doctor yells at the girl. After that 452 "Max" is still, her face still contorted with pain.
After the process was done the doctor simply left the girl on the gurney, ignoring her as he went into the next room to clean his instruments. Soon he emerges, and orders her to get up and go get dressed in the next room.
Max pulls on her camo in the small closet of a room next door. She looks up at the sound of the motion sensitive camera above her head recording her movements. Privacy was not a luxury they had on base.
A pop was heard a few seconds later, and when she looked back she saw Jondy with wire cutters in her hand, having just snipped the camera's wall cable.
"Does it burn Maxie?" Jondy lowered the clippers, stepping over to Max. Her voice held some experience; she had just been through it three weeks before.
"A little" Max admitted "What will happen to us now?" she turned to face her sister
Jondy shook her head "Nothing yet. We are not far along enough in the program. There's talk that Jesse is going to the surrogate ward next month-" Max looked at her sharply at this remark. That meant that Jess would begin the high dose gene drugs and constant check-ups of all pregnant females at Manticore.
"Why do they need us if they have the lab?" Max asked a tough question
"I don't know Maxie" Jondy answered honestly "The Cornel told me we were his 'special bunch'-" she stopped there, like she wanted to go on, but the sounds of approaching guards silenced her./
"Mommy?"
Max looked down. Mommy, she was a mother, now. But back there, back then. What was it?
"Just thinkin' for a second baby" she reassured her son. "Let's go"
*****
UNKNOWN AREA
WASHINGTON
White slammed through the navy blue double doors, his coat tails flapping from his movement.
"Sir!" a tech in a lab coat stopped him, but White held up his badge "NSC" ("National Sterile Control" the underground organization Manticore created to find the transgenics that escaped after Manticore burned)
"Special Agent Ames White" White barked at the man "I came here to-"
"You want to see it?" the tech broke in
"Well I didn't come here to admire the décor" White snapped, "No one's told me much over the damn phone-"
"Sorry Sir" the tech apologized, he started walking down a long corridor and White followed "Some of the operators here received a call when they found him-"
"Found him where?" White asked
"Just outside the main compound"
"And who is 'he' exactly?"
"You should see for yourself Sir" the tech opened another navy blue door and came into a single room with a double-sided mirror. In the other room there was a single table and chair. Sitting in the chair was a boy, around the age of 11 or 12, sitting perfectly still, hands folded under the table
"It's a boy" White didn't sound all that impressed.
"Not just any boy Sir" the tech interjected "We picked him up in the woods in Gillette"
White's attention became more rapt "So this is another one of those freaks?"
"It would appear so Sir. Though apparently not just another freak. His barcode is different then the others"
"How?"
"It starts with the double X sequence. He was part of the Manticore interbreed program. It was designed to take the sperm from Alpha males in the series and combine them with as many X series females as they could shove a tube up in. But up until now we didn't think there was any successful project from that series. All of the X series females involved never carried to full term. So they switched strictly to the genetics lab"
"So how is it that this kid is sitting here?"
"His DNA was most likely re-used and planted in a surrogate. As hard as Manticore tried to make the perfect creations they could never work out a way for X series to breed successfully. It'd be like interfamily births. The cross breeding would create weaker genes. After the first batch went bad though they corrected it. Needed it after the gene lab was blown up by the renegade X5 series-"
"So enough with the history lesson" White spat back, staring at the boy through the glass "What's his barcode string?"
"First let me explain how it works Sir. Normally the barcodes start off with the designation class then the regular sting of numbers but with interbreeds it starts with the double X to identify them with the program, then their numbers are merely a combination of their parents designation with the father's last for sperm documentation. Only three or four X series males were ever used, but a ton of females were inseminated. It made the count easier to follow."
"So what's junior's here?"
In answer the tech handed White the clipboard he was holding. White looked down at the paper and read it to himself.
"Subject was found outside former Manticore compound in Gillette, Wyoming. Caucasian male. Sandy brown hair, brown eyes. Age: 11 yrs. Barcode Designation: XX5-5452599. Product of Manticore Operation B3-0248 "Selective Interbreeding Unit" Disbanded in 2011 after repeated failure to complete any of the goals it was assigned to.
Conception Date: March 5, 2009 0930:015 HOURS
Genealogy:
X5 Alpha (Male) Designation: X5-599
X5 Surrogate (Female) Designation: X5-452*
*X5-452 suffered a miscarriage during the first trimester (approx. seventh week) of pregnancy. Embryonic cells were subsequently found from miscarriage that was still viable. Cells were placed via invitro methods into the normal class surrogate C-0359 on April 25, 2009 2312 0:15 HOURS.
C-0359 sustained the pregnancy through full term and was delivered via C-Section November 9, 2009 0638 0:18 HOURS
"452, and 599" White read off the numbers
"Like I said Sir the designation-"
"Shut up" White interrupted to the tech. "I want you to go to your little archives and bring back some slides for me on those two designations-" he slapped at the form with his finger. "In the mean time I'll have a talk with junior here-" he opened the door to the holding cell where the kid was and stepped inside.
Immediately upon White's entering the room the boy snapped to attention that only those trained in the codes of soldiers could. "What is it you request of me Sir?" he barked this in the typical "hu-ah" fashion of the soldier, eyes straight forward in a stance of attention.
"To sit down back down and shut up until I deem it necessary for you to talk again."
"Yes Sir!" the boy answered back, pulling back his chair and sitting in it like it was a planned battle tactic.
"No Thank You Sir?" White called him on his sloppy military tone. The kid obviously regarded him as a superior, and there was something lacking in his return.
"I don't see it as a necessity to thank a man who could very well have a double sided ass Sir" the boy's tone was slightly corrupt. He was talking crisply enough, but his voice spoke of the same thing as the others. Though they were soldiers, by the book was not always followed. Street tone and cockiness always was in the mix of any unit, be they U.S. Navy Seals or Manticore enhanced X5 combat units. He now sat a little laid back, his arms crossed over his chest, where the beginning of a bicep muscle was forming, still giving White respect, but defying it a little with the 'want a piece of this, bring it on' look behind his brown eyes.
"Then I'll cut through the crap kid" White leaned over the boy, getting as close to his face as the table in front of him would physically allow. "Let's go through the typical Manticore tampered BS before I bring out the harder part of the quiz." He leaned closer, if that were even possible "State your designation"
"Double X 55452599 Sir" a pause, his eyes never moved from White's "State your business" If all boys didn't hit puberty and the aggressor factors that come with it until at least 13, then this kid was now taking every pimply faced, voice changing preteen for a fly by the seat of their ass ride.
Despite the burn, White had to smile at this. "I assume you never knew your mother or who shot her up with the good stuff?"
"Small price to pay to come out on top"
"You never were the least bit curious?"
"For what? Which solider cocked a gun at another and hit the target?" he blew it off "Parents are for the weak who want them around to wipe their asses and noses because they lack efficiency to do it themselves"
The door opened again and the tech that had first seen White appeared in the doorway. "It's all set up Sir"
White didn't turn to thank him or even acknowledge him. He stood up "You're coming with me"
The kid didn't move "For what?"
"Debriefing"
He blew off the idea
"You gonna defy me Gi-Jr.? Cause I could just as easily turn you over and have you dismantled piece by piece back at HQ."
"I guess it beats the alternative" the kid finally agreed and stood up. "Permission to ask what the debriefing is for?"
"Permission only goes as far as the respect you dish out on your superiors" White returned going first through the doorway "And as an X5 you should be aware of this"
"And how many X5's have you caged with that bull flop Sir?"
Another door is opened; this time it's steel. "One today"
The room they now stood in was lined with steel walls. There was no furniture except a long folding table and two chairs that could have very well been a set with the table. In front of the room sat a large white screen, and resting in the middle was a slide projector.
The kid turned to White "You didn't tell me it was Movie Night Sir"
White pulled out a chair, in a forceful indication that the boy needed to sit "Surprise"
White wasted no time in getting started. The second the boy sat in the chair he kicked on the slide projector. The sound of the machine's fan soon filled the room.
At the first click an image of one of the Manticore nursery units for the babies born there. But this was no regular hospital nursery. Each baby was monitored via tiny electrodes strapped to their head. Another click was heard as the shot zoomed in on a close up of one, the boy at two days old. "XX5-5452599" White's tone became slightly like that of a game show host "This is your life"
'Click'
Shot of the entire interbreed unit "You were conceived during the Manticore Operation B3-0248, Selective Interbreeding. Basically that meant an X5 Alpha males sperm was used to knock up the girls in the unit-"
"You mean those nine year olds?" the boy snorted at the idea, laughing to himself
White went on, ignoring his remark "The surrogate chosen for your conception however did not carry to full term. The unit was fairly new, and problems still hadn't been completely ironed out. Base doctors found the still viable embryo and placed it in a normal surrogate. And nine months later-"
"The miracle of life" the kid interrupted, a smug smile on his face.
White ignored him again
'Click'
Shot of barcode on back of the neck of a nameless X5 "Your barcode does more then identify you as Manticore. It traces the X5 used in the interbreeding, a combination of both parent's designation"
'Click'
Shot of black screen, except for two designations in white letters "X5-599" "X5-452"
"My parents Sir?"
White turned to him "And your mission"
'Click'
Shot of Zack at twelve, crew cut and wearing camos "X5-599"
'Click'
Shot of Max at nine dressed the same as Zack with the same short crew cut and "X5-452"
"Chosen by Manticore for this conception. They are two of the rebel 12 that escaped Manticore's compound in 2009."
'Click'
More recent head shot of Zack, taken during his re-capture to base by Lydecker "The members of this unit gave each other names outside their designations to keep track of each other in the field. X5-599 here-" White pointed to the image with his hand "Goes by the name of Zack. His age is now twenty-four years, 5'9 inches tall, between 160 and 170 lbs, blonde, brown eyed, with strong muscle definition on his upper body, particularly the arms"
'Click'
Shot taken of Max, not a head shot like Zack, one stolen from a hover cam readout of Max standing at a Sector stop by her messenger bike.
"X5-452, the original surrogate in your conception goes by the name of "Max" Her age is now twenty-one years, 5'7 inches tall, between 110-115 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair, long, like most of the other girls who escaped with her to conceal her barcode"
"Wow, base gave me a hot mom" the kid said, looking at Max's image "So I take it their my mission?"
White clicked off the last slide, the screen going black, until the next wave came in
'Click'
"Duty" appears on screen
'Click'
"Honor"
'Click'
"Mission"
"Yes they are" White watched his "pupil" watch the screen. "These are renegades who deserted the mission"
'Click'
Image of Max and Zack appear
'Click'
"Rat"
'Click'
More images of them
"Deserter"
'Click'
"Traitor"
The kid broke out of the trance to look at White "So what's the objective?"
White turned to him "They must be taken out"
"I was not trained as an assassin Sir-"
"One day with me and you will be" White reassured "You can shoot right?"
The boy scoffed, brainwashing hadn't eliminated his hard ass side "name it I can blast it Colt, Sig, Revolver, M-24, 16, Glock-"
"I get it kid" White interrupted. Then he looked to him, eyes cold and completely serious "This is the objective solider. You will only receive one day of training in marksmanship. If you fail you will be terminated, erased, like you never blipped any radar at all."
"I understand Sir"
"452 and 599 won't go easily. They have been trained in Manticore combat like you. 452 was trained as a sniper-"
"Nothing hotter then girls and guns"
"You will have an advantage over her." White cut in "Events that happened during the escape of 09 induced 452's hatred of guns, and she will not use them for defense, unless as a last resort. Also 452 is now married to a civilian-"
"Manticore contaminated itself with a civilian?" the boy's view of the world was true to his Manticore brainwashing roots.
White nodded "They both have people their close too. 452 to her husband and two children and 599 shares relations with a woman, a civilian as well-"
"That can be used to our advantage Sir" the boy smiled sinisterly
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
"I'm impressed"
Jondy turned her head, her ponytail bobbing with the movement "Impressed by what?" she was curious as to what her brother-in-law meant by that remark. All she was doing was making a Reuben for herself. She never had the chance to eat this kind of food at home, mostly due to the fact she didn't have enough money to spare on any ingredients that didn't all come in a box with three step directions.
"Seems like most of the X5's I know can kick major ass, do intensely hard equations and logarhythms but cooking is one of those things that doesn't come standard with the package"
Jondy placed the top slice of bread on her sandwich, throwing a dishtowel at Logan with her free hand. "I'm not what you call your standard package" she picked up her plate with the food on it and jumped up on the counter to eat her creation.
Logan watched her eat "Ya know I have a table-"
Jondy looked up, talking through the small bit of sandwich in her mouth "Logan. Visualize it. Thinking outside the box"
He just looked at her "So what other motives brought you out from San Francisco besides wanting to eat my food?"
"You mean I had to have another reason besides that?" Jondy argued with a smile
"Have I ever told you how much I love your cynicism?"
Jondy grinned after she swallowed "All the time baby" a pause "If you think I came out here for some deeply technical, X5 missionesque reason you would be-"
"Right" Logan broke in
"Wrong" she corrected, "Just traded my Spirit for a 2020 Honda Shadow VLX that I saved from the impound lot."
"How can you afford a new bike? I thought you were living the humble life"
"I go minimal on the groceries Logan" Jondy told him "Spares up a lot of change. Not like I need to eat that much anyways. Some guy in Chinatown couldn't make his payments so the bike got repo-ed on his ass. I swoop in, haggle for a good offer-"
"How much?"
"100 to get it out of the pound and 200 to adopt it-"
"That's it? On a motorcycle that's only a year old?"
"I do a good haggle" she set her empty plate back on the counter beside her. "Baby's chromed out with 1,100 cc's and digital ignition."
"I'm impressed," he agreed "But I thought you loved your old bike"
"It was her time to fly" Jondy spoke of her old motorcycle the way parents do about their kids. "I filled up the tank and been two days on the road breaking in the newest addition to the family. Figured the only way to get a decent meal was to drop in on my favorite brother-in-law."
"And by 'decent' you mean 'free' right?" Logan crossed his arms over his chest.
"Only way to do decency up right," she agreed hopping off the counter.
"Plate." Logan pointed to the dish with crumbs left over on it "Washed, if you don't mind."
"What happened to chivalry?"
"This is a do it yourself establishment" Logan reminded "There for you have to-"
"Do it myself" Jondy finished for him "Ya know you being more sarcastic then me doesn't make you very attractive-"
"Dish soap is by the back splash" Logan pointed out, leaving the kitchen.
"Jerk" Jondy muttered under her breath kiddingly, loud enough for Logan to hear her.
"I don't hear scrubbing" Logan threw back, adding his part to the joke.
"Bite me!" Jondy threw back good-naturedly. /Millions of civilian males in the Unites States and Maxie had to shack up with one whose just as bad as us/
"Am I interrupting something?"
Jondy turned from washing the plate when she heard her sister's voice in an indication that she had come home. "Nohtin' that you could black mail me by" she rinsed off the plate and shoved in the top rack in the dishwasher. She soon heard the sounds of smaller footsteps of her niece and nephew running towards her.
"Aunt Jondeeee!" Lexi was the first one to reach her, drawing out the ending 'y' sound of Jondy's name.
Jondy picked her up "Hey sistah girl" she kissed her, looking down at Jess who was now at her feet "Sup my man?"
Jess held out his arm showing her the Band-Aid on it "I got stuck"
"Ouch" Jondy sympathized "Sorry baby, but hey no pain no gain" she looked over to Max who was now standing beside Logan after giving him a kiss. Next to her was another woman that Jondy didn't recognize.
"Remember you alright" Jacinda hugged Logan when he offered the gesture. Omar had an afternoon date to hang with his old friends while they were still in the city that his Aunt Lydia was supervising so it was just her this time.
"You look great Jacinda" Logan complimented her
Jacinda smiled "Now I remember why Cindy liked you so much for Max" she laughed briefly "You look great yourself Logan. Can see that being married to this woman put some pleasure in your features"
Logan looked over to Max "Defiantly" he smiled and kissed her on the shoulder
Max broke from their contact a moment later to focus on her sister "Everything good?"
Jondy stepped over to them setting Lexi down on her feet "S'all good baby girl" the two women shared a short hug.
"Jacinda" Max began in an introduction "This is my sistah Jondy. Jondy, Jacinda, she use to live in my old crib"
"Nice to meet you" Jacinda spoke first
"Same girl" Jondy greeted "Well I guess I should get goin-"
Max turned to her "You leavin' already?"
"I dropped in on Tinga first. She basically sat on my chest until I told her I'd crash at her place-"
"So I'm not good enough for ya is that it?" Max started teasing Jondy the way they use to do as kids.
"Nobody likes a whiner Maxie"
"Bite me Jondy"
"See it's this kind of abuse that makes Tinga the better sister" she laughed
Max just shook her head in exasperation "Come out to Crash tonight?" she glanced over at Jacinda "You too. Know Cindy would be glad to see ya"
"I'll try Max," Jacinda told her "It all depends on if I can find a sitter for Omar."
"Me too Maxie" Jondy agreed "But it depends on if I can find a sitter for Krit"
"Thought you came out here alone" Logan questioned
"Did" Jondy stated, "Alone for the first two days then caught sight of his tail on my ass. Can't really blame him for leavin'. Montana's nuthin' but Big Sky Country. Ditched him somewhere in Sector 1. He'll figure it out eventually. My hope is that he'll go bug Zack's Seattle digs like the last time"
"You two are terrible" Logan scolded "Why do you always feel the need to ditch your brother?"
"It's fun," Max told him
"You haven't had to LIVE with Krit Logan." Jondy reminded "I love him to death but the boy keeps you up till seven o'clock in the morning tuning his bike and listening to Drowning Pool. I mean C'MON I normally knock off my bike repair by at LEAST five-" she shot Max a knowing look when she said this.
"Plus he's WAAY too over obsessive about being orderly for my taste. He organized my CD's collection once by the amount of music on each disc, took me a whole day to figure out where the hell everything was-"
The phone at Jondy's waist rang. She cringed at the ring, pretty much already knowing who it was.
"Hey-" pause "Oh, Zack-" she relaxed for a second, maybe she was wrong for once "I dodged the bullet-what? No, hey wait dammit! I said "no" Put him on but I'm already at Tinga's. The hell I will, you just gotta deal with it. Yeah? Hey Cat-Man." Pause "Ditching is such a strong word. I prefer escape and evade. You wanna settle this at Crash? You bring some thugs with you?" Jondy blew him off "Boy whatever. Can't call you what I want, the niece and nephew are in here-" she turned to Max pointing at her with one hand "7:30." She waved at her a second later, still complaining to their brother on the way out the door.
"Sorry you had to see that" Max apologized in a joke to Jacinda.
"I'm use to sibling rivalry" Jacinda acknowledged "I have two brothers of my own" she checked her watch "I have a few things I need to take care of, but I will take you up on your Crash offer. Omar should be able to stay with some friends of mine-" she looked up to Max "Who's watching yours if-"
"My mom" Max broke in.
Logan looked at her for this. This was the first time she had ever called Lucia 'mom'.
"She lives here?" Jacinda didn't understand the full extent of Max's declaration.
"About thirty minutes away" Logan confirmed
"But Max you told me you didn't know-"
"I didn't" Max finished for her "She came to me a few months back. We got to talking-"
"Did she explain why she would abandon a divine girl like you to be raised with strangers-"
"I got what I needed to know" Max calmed Jacinda's defensiveness down "Hey foster family's not all bad. Grew up with a family of eleven kids. Wasn't exactly alone."
"Long as you're okay with it" Jacinda finally agreed "I just don't get how a girl can do that kind of thing to an innocent baby. Not like they asked to be born."
/FLASH: "Max!" Zack whispered her name, catching her attention on the way out of their barracks.
Max turned to him. Despite their brainwashing to be strong and emotionless, the girl-soldier's eyes were watering slightly in the overhead light. "We'll catch hell if we're late Zack-"
Zack came closer to her. He could now see the notable difference in her appearance in any female that was pregnant. He was so close to telling her the truth about it, but something held him back. Not protection for them, but her safety. He was sworn to secrecy. The op's threatened him with locking his sisters in the VC unit if any of them found out about the origins of the babies they were carrying.
"Jess-" he couldn't get the words out past his lips
Max looked at him coldly "She's dead Zack-" she could hear the sounds of the op's shouting at them to stop the delay "We have to go"/
*****
SEATTLE
SECTOR ONE
EXACT LOCATION UNKNOWN
7:01 PM
The black Buick Skylark approached the sector stop, all the tinted windows raised. White sat opposite the boy, 599, who was sliding on black leather gloves and dropping the hood of his black cotton hoodie so the sector cop could get a clear look at his face.
The sector cop's flashlight shinned right in the boy's face as he compared it with the fake pass he was looking at. "You're nephew you say Sir?"
"Yeah" White lied. Two months after the Pulse something called Birthing Notification was passed by Congress. It forced parents to register their children with the newly created branch. It was overturned eventually by the new President in 2011 seen as a direct invasion of privacy. However it did not get removed before Ames and Wendy White registered their son Raymond Peter with the board. White as a listed government agent still was to abide by this registration. And in the ten years since, White had not notified the agency of a new child between him and Wendy. Even though now Wendy was dead, and the kid could be registered as an illegitimate, but "nephew" was a more erasable route.
The cop finally turned the beam away from the boy, handing the passes back through the window "Curfew for all non working personal is midnight"
"Got it" White didn't say anything more, nodding to his driver to continue.
The kid turned to White "So where's the pick up spot 'Uncle'?" he pulled the hoodie back over his head.
White didn't acknowledge the remark "Sector 3. Corner of Main and Fifteenth. Place that's known for it's Black Market arson."
"I thought you had covert government issue Sir"
White jerked to face him "Think what's smarter 599, handing you standard issue M-24s with the 100% follow up or having the locals pitch you one that is as easy to trace as the drugs that are smuggled into the city everyday."
"You have money for this right?" the kid didn't give in and admit his mistake. He had as much testosterone as any X5 male.
White threw a paper bag at him in answer "5 grand. Should get you the 24."
"What about a CAR?"
"These are street dealers boy, not the Army Rangers" the car came to a stop. The Black Market business was already booming, hookers, guns, drugs, everything was out.
The boy stepped out. Being 11 didn't really make him fit the scene, even in the kind of world they were living in.
White rolled down the window "Ten minutes, or your Manticore created ass is gonna be given a workout."
"So if this thing was reversed I'd be workin' your face Sir?" the sarcastic smile was back. He stepped away before White could say anything.
One of the stall owners saw the kid approaching. "Hey boy what's your name?"
599 turned to him. He had no designated alibi, but he was well equipted to handle these situations. So he played into the man's game. "Trey."
"Trey? Big name for a baby face."
599 ignored him, searching over his guns that were displayed.
"What can I help you with Trey?" the stall keeper leaned over his merchandise "Cause the lollypops are in the candy store"
XX5-599 never knew Zack, but his patience level ranked as high as his. He whipped around to the owner before he had a chance to think, chocking his neck with piano wire. "I came here for the big boy stuff. Can you wrap your head around that, or do I wrap it around this?" he let the wire fall back into its canister while the stall keeper chocked from the lack of air.
"You a little mother fuckin' bad ass white boy, can tell you that much. Fine-" he took a big, gasping breath of air feeling the blood around his neck from the piano wire slash with his free hand. "Whatcha want?"
"M-24 laser sighted automatic"
"Bad ass or not I need the green to back it up."
XX5-599 took out the wad of 100 dollar bills White shoved at him and threw it at the dealer "five g's. That enough, or do you wanna bargain some more?"
The man took the money, counting it until he was satisfied with the amount. He turned and reached for something in back of him, soon tossing the gun at 599. "You know how to work one of these kid?"
XX5-599 checked out the weapon he was just handed "You didn't think I knew how to use piano wire." that remark served as his answer.
"Don't kill anyone sport"
The boy turned to him "Now where's the fun in that?"
After the transaction was made he searched out White's car, finally finding it parked on a curb across the street.
The window rolled down after he tapped on it, and he climbed back inside.
599 looked down the barrel of his newly acquired weapon "Eleven years old and I already got somethin' cocked" he said this with smug pride.
"The word is "cocky" 599" White interrupted "But cocky is good. Cocky is what get's the job done."
"Defiantly better then a shag shoe shine J-O-B that's got as much appeal as my love for you Sir"
White ignored him again, talking to his driver "Pull it back to HQ for the night"
"Yes Sir" the driver said without taking his eyes from the road.
599 turned to White "Read me a bedtime story Sir?"
White matched his quip "Who said anything about sleep?"
*****
"Hey" Max smiled at the woman beyond the door "C'mon in"
Lucia greeted the younger woman with a kiss. "You look great" she admired Max's chosen outfit for the night, which was just a lime green long sleeve shirt with tie sleeves and flair sand blasted low riders. But she had a mother's prejudice on her side, so anything Max wore would make her fabulous.
"Thanks for doin' this" Max closed the door.
"Best way to spend my Saturday" Lucia told her
"Girl you need to get out more" Max suggested.
"Nana nana!" Jess's voice reverberated through the air, making both women turn.
Lucia smiled, as wide as she could without splitting open her jaw. This wasn't the first time Jess had called her 'nana', but each time it affected her. Max would be the only daughter she would probably ever have, and to find her and also find out she had a family that equaled grandchildren for her in all aspects of her thinking, it was incredible.
Lucia braced herself for Jess's tackle "Hey handsome" she gave him a big kiss on the cheek. "You all ready for our date?"
Jess nodded, but there was a slight weird look on his face "Can't be a date nana, Lexi is here"
Lucia tried not to laugh too hard at Jess's words, knowing he in all his almost four-year-old glory saw this as a perfectly logical way to think. "Okay hun, you're right. It's more of a group thing." She smiled at him again "But that doesn't mean we can't still have a great night." She set the boy down on his feet after seeing Lexi walk in the room, and she knew the little girl would want her equal time with 'nana'.
"Daddy hot nana" Lexi entered the room with that phrase, rushing over to hug the woman.
Lucia picked her up just like Jess, kissing her on her forehead.
"Daddy's warm?" Lucia picked at the remark in the way she thought her granddaughter meant.
Lexi shook her head "No nana" she corrected her "hot."
As if on cue Logan walked in the living room, dressed in black jeans a navy blue sweater and his leather jacket. Lucia took one look at Logan and got exactly what Lexi meant.
Her eyebrows rose as she herself gave him the once over "Where'd you hear that daddy was hot?"
"Mommy" Lexi wasn't shy about it.
Lucia's eyebrows rose at the pair in front of her who now seemed to be very interested in the patterns of wood grain on the floor.
"Ahh, did it get warmer in here all of a sudden?" Logan fanned himself by whipping his jacket back and forth.
"Just leave the room Logan if you want it to cool down." Lucia couldn't help it, this was great. There was nothing to be shy about. They were two adults, married, obviously bad for each other, why shouldn't they show it?
"Thanks for the advice Luc" Logan walked over to her and kissed the older woman. "And thanks, for commin' over. You sure you're husband won't mind us stealing you away late at night?"
"Normally he would, but he's out of town on a conference so I'll have my late night when he comes back" her voice was half reassurance, half suggestive. "Speakin' of nights, you two should get outta here or you're gonna miss the excitement." Lucia set Lexi back on her feet and took off her suede jacket revealing a burnt orange v-neck sweater over flair coffee colored flair pants. The woman had a flair for fashion.
"We can take a hint." Max told her, slipping into her jacket, that Logan was holding out for her, being a gentleman.
"Oh good" Lucia stated, taking something out of her pocket "Cause I have one more before you go" she held up the paper which had something written on it in her handwriting.
*Lifestyle*
Max looked at the brand name for the contraceptive, this time it was her turn to raise the eyebrow. She turned and walked out the door, not saying anything.
"Always respect your elders Logan."
Logan couldn't help it then, he cracked into a grin as big as hers "Yes ma'am"
*****
CRASH
"Boy you're smashed" Jondy took the pitcher away from Krit who reached for it again. "Lay off the hooch"
"Smashed is for civilians little sister" Krit told her "The way I can hold my stuff is an art form"
he looked at her over the rim of his cup, drinking the last bit of beer from it.
"Bout to decorate the table if you chug anymore" Jondy took his now empty glass away from him.
Krit laughed at her. He wasn't drunk yet, His eyes had a happy look about them like normal people who've had too much, but they weren't glazed. All X5's had the ability to drink almost twice their weight in alcohol before it took affect. And all though Krit had had seven beers straight in a row, his weight of one hundred and fifty pounds would mean that in order for him to get wasted he'd have to drink an entire fraternity under the table.
He put his head on Jondy's shoulder "You know from this angle you look really hot."
"Krit, this shirt is new. If any bit of your happy hour comes out on me I'm gonna wrap your ass around a telephone pole." She took a sip of her own drink. "And stop incesting me, you're not that great of a catch for that to work out."
Krit removed his head then "Then who floats your boat Jondy? Zack, Zane?"
"Why the hell are we even having this conversation?"
"Tinga?"
"I'm gonna get a refill" Jondy stood up and walked behind Krit to the bar, slapping him on the back of the head as she passed him. She refilled the glass pitcher with more spirits, stopping in her journey back to the table when she spotted Logan playing pool with, of all people Alec.
"Is this Warped World or something?" Jondy moved to stand beside Original Cindy when she saw her standing by the other end of the bar that was closest to the pool table.
Cindy turned at the noise "Hey sistah girl, didn't know you were in town"
"Girl's gotta have her secrets" Jondy told her.
"San Francisco's lost is our gain" Cindy told her with a smile.
"Mine too" Jondy agreed. "You know if I wasn't straight I'd be all over the brown sugah."
"Thanks boo" Cindy took it as the compliment it was meant to be. Jondy didn't swing her way, but when it came to fine women, Max's sisters ranked on the 'A List'.
Jondy turned to call out to Alec "Careful, think Max said her man went to college on a billiard scholarship"
"Careful is for whimps" Alec threw back while lining up his shot.
"Ergo-" Jondy stated.
Alec ignored her and made his shot, splitting the cluster of three balls into the left and right corner pocket.
"Impressive" Logan commented. His feelings of Alec aside, it was a good shot. He watched Alec move for the next one.
"What I do" Alec agreed lining up another ball, but this one was about one inch shy of the pocket.
"Then I suggest you don't quit you're day job" Max stepped over beside Logan.
"Hey no women" Alec informed, "It breaks the vibe"
"Alec are you forgetting who you two ARE?" Logan asked, lining up to take his shot.
"Manticore or not, a woman is very distracting" Alec leaned on his pool cue.
Logan grinned, "Wait till you're married" he took his shot.
Max smiled too, hearing the balls fall into the pockets, telling of Logan's success.
Logan smirked at Alec over setting the pool cue back on the table "Believe the bet was a free round"
"You know there's nothing free in this world any more Logan" Alec interjected.
"How bout a swift kick in the ass?" Max reminded
"Fine" Alec finally caved "But don't complain if I get the beer that tastes like cat piss" he left for the bar.
"Asha Copland comes out at night" Alec picked up the full pitcher of beer the barkeep had just refilled looking at the blonde he saw sitting in one of the stools.
"Yeah Alec it's a world gone mad" Asha tucked a loose chunk of hair behind her ears.
"Something I can help you with?" Zack's voice came up behind Alec
Alec turned to the face Zack "Last time I checked this was 'sit freely zone'"
"Maybe you need to consult the updated handbook" Zack's voice was growling.
"You ladies done bitchin'?" Asha broke in the 'I can kick your ass more' X5 battle. She liked men with testosterone, but she didn't want to swim in it. "Cause I can leave you two alone." She took a sip of her Heineken.
"Zack give Asha some sugar" Krit came over, still not hammered, but defiantly feeling the effects of the alcohol shooting through his body. "Always love seein' two women making out"
Zack forgot about Alec and jumped Krit, throwing him to the floor, pinning his arms behind his back.
"Smack me around some more Krit" his voice was threatening.
"That's enough" Jondy pulled Zack off Krit "Can't hit a squad member at a disadvantage Zack" Jondy reminded.
"He's always had only those two brain cells to rub together Jonnie D"
Jondy had to suppress a laugh then.
"Stickin' up for me, that's my girl, love ya-" Krit was a very ademate drunk.
"Baby" Jondy's fake coed "Get that sweet ass up so I can kick the shit out of it" she hauled Krit to his feet.
"You gonna be able to walk a straight line in the mornin' boo?" Cindy got in on the act, observing Krit.
"My life is always about walkin' a line Cindy" Krit threw back with a drunken smile.
"You're wasted" Zack commented to his younger brother, then looked to Jondy "You-"
"Helll no" Jondy interrupted "I don't live here remember? Make Maxie do it-"
"Make Maxie do what?" Max joined her siblings.
"Keep the smashed company tonight" Jondy looked at Krit when she said this
"Uh uh, keep me out of this guys. I have children who I would like to be able to sleep tonight"
"Yeah well Zack has Asha who he would like to be able to sleep tonight later on-" Jondy couldn't help it, she lived for moments like these.
Zack shot her a look "I already had him, someone's gotta give it up"
"Guys I'm not THAT wasted yet" Krit notified
Jondy smacked his shoulder "Shut up" she turned to her sister "Please Maxie? Just this time?"
"This time?" Krit wanted to be included in this conversation about him "How often do you think I'm gonna get hammered while I'm here?"
Max looked to Jondy, then to Krit, who was wagging his eyebrows at her. She sighed. "You owe me MAJOR Jondy" she grabbed Krit by the arm "Party's over Mr. Fun" she dug into her brother's pockets and threw the keys to Zack. "One of you has to keep his bike overnight"
"Max, you leavin' already?" Jacinda asked from the bar, her beer now half empty.
"Gettin' late" Max informed, yanking Krit to the door. "Gotta go tuck in the children" she looked at Krit when she said this.
*****
Southside Market
Black Market Auto Dealer
9:55 PM
599 moved stealthily on the sidewalk, observing the people in an abandoned garage, young men taking a break from breaking down cars to get wasted.
/Morons/ 599 listened to the sound of drunken laughter coming from them, and the sounds of blaring DMX tracks. He checked his position in relation to the street before creeping closer to the scene, the M-24 he had just purchased gripped in his hands.
He set his sights on one of them wearing a green ski cap and dark jean jacket. Richard Anderson. A prominent member of the underbelly of Seattle, who according to White possessed a map of the city's underground trail ways, and that, without knowing it had actually mapped out a portion of NSC's HQ location in Seattle.
So basically 599 was on recon to get it back.
The boy checked the sight on the gun. He used the old fashioned cross hairs on the sight instead of the laser one in order to not compromise his position.
He waited for the right moment, until Anderson was dead in his sights, before he pulled the trigger.
Anderson fell almost instantly. 599 had aimed for the cerebellum in the back of the head. His buddies became alive then.
"What the fuck happened man?" one of them leaned over the body of Anderson. "Ahh!" he became revolted at the sight of brain matter and blood sprayed on the leg of a table. He pulled out his switchblade, pointing it into the night.
599 moved undetected into the garage, once there he searched Anderson's pockets for the map. He was known to always carry it on him.
"Fucking baby prick!" A sig was balanced at the back of 599's head by one of Anderson's associates.
599 finally found what he was looking for, and rolled out of the line of fire at the last minute.
Before the guy could process this 599 knocked him in the balls with the butt of the M-24, once he was down, he knocked him out, along with the other two that were with Anderson.
Once all men were incapacitated 599 took the switchblade from the ground with gloves on, and rubbed it's owner's fingerprints all over it, then slashed at Anderson's body to mimic defensive wounds. Then he took the other man's gun and shot Anderson once in the leg to make it look like there had been a struggle before the kill shot. 599 then proceeded to wipe his prints of the M-24, and cover it in the prints of the others, laying it beside the unconscious form of Anderson's associates.
He stood up and grabbed the map and walked out like nothing happened, meeting the black Buick Skylark twenty feet down the road.
"You got it?"
The car door slammed and 599 threw the paper at White "Always make good on my promises Sir"
White pocketed the map. "Weapon disposed of?"
"Did what I was came out to do Sir" the boy taunted.
White smiled, barely there and cynically "Then maybe we should have that talk about raising your responsibility" he handed him another M-24, government issue.
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
10:18 PM
"Maxie I love ya" Krit's voice was getting slightly slurred as Max hauled him into the apartment.
"Yeah uh-huh" Max dragged him over to the couch "You better not mess up my shoes"
"Guys" Lucia came out of the back bedroom when she heard the noise in the living room. "Something wrong?" she looked at the young man she didn't know.
"Maxie, is there something you're not telling me?" Krit looked to Lucia suggestively
Max unslung his arm from her shoulder "Can it boy" she pushed him on the sofa. "You want anything, water, aspirin, knock upside the head?"
"Nah I'm good lil sister" he looked up at her with a drunken grin.
"He's-"
Max turned to Lucia when she started talking again, moving away from Krit "My older brother, one of them at least"
Lucia looked up and over at the man sprawled out on the sofa "Wild night?" she figured it was so she went on "I have this good recipie for a hangover remedy. Tomato juice, black pepper and tobassaco, probably get a fraternity up and going the next day"
"Thanks" Max told her "But I have one with a single ingredient, ice water at six o clock in the morning."
Lucia smiled in agreement. "Maybe I'll use that next time" she checked her watch "The kids have been down for about two hours now, and their still in dreamland."
"Thanks Luc" Logan spoke out. He kissed her on the cheek as she went out the door, petting the dog on the way. "Kaja" the dog looked her full in the face "Keep an eye on Max's brother tonight okay? They already have enough babies to worry about" she kissed the dog's snout, smiling when the animal returned the gesture with wet licks on her face "Aww, thank you baby girl" stood back up. "Bye sweetie" she waved at Max.
"Bye" Max called out to her, waving back.
The door closed.
"If you guys want to go rated X I wouldn't mind"
Max picked up a pillow from the chair and threw it at Krit "Shut up and go to sleep."
"Since when do I sleep?" Krit reminded
"Since you're staying in my house"
"C'mon guys it's still early"
"Goodnight Krit" this time it was Logan who said it, flipping off one of the lights in the living room.
"Oh I get it." Krit declared in the semi darkness "Just tone it down some, remember I'm suppose to be asleep."
The other two in the room didn't say anything as they retreated off to the back of the apartment.
*****
"Should be the third window over" White rolled down the window, peering up into the tall building from the road.
"So the objective is-"
White turned away from the window to look at the kid "452, and 599, they have people their close too. They are not ones to come voluntarily into a fight with me. It requires some force."
"Who is this person?"
"Asha Copland" White read the name of the file, staring at an image of the blonde in a mug shot when she had been arrested once for her involvement in the raid with the S1W. "She has been seen around with 599 when he comes into the city. My guess he's slamming her."
"You want me to kill her?"
White shook his head "Just get a message across. Civilian blood is not worth spilling, too much will be exposed" a pause "Fifth floor apartment 501"
599 climbed out of the car. He snuck around to the bushes that lined the apartment building and shot off the rope from a crossbow. The anchor wrapped around something on the roof and held.
599 released the catch and coasted up the outside of the building until the fifth floor. There he used a cat burglar's tools to cut a small circle into the widow that lead into the outside hallway of the fifth floor. He pocketed the glass piece and unlocked the window, sliding inside five seconds later.
His feet were soundless padding on the carpeted hallway floors. Soon he reached apartment 501. He could hear noises coming from inside, meaning that someone was home.
He knocked, like he wasn't Manticore, but a regular boy.
The door opened soon, revealing Asha's face.
"Yeah?" she was surprised to see a boy standing there "Something I can help you with kid?"
599 lowered the hood from his hoodie and stared at her. "Who-hoo mama" he leered "You must get slammed a lot of thank yous" he looked her up and down.
"Excuse me?" Asha did not just believe this pre-teen had just knocked on her door to hoot at her. "Kid you need to go home before your mama busts your ass, or before I do."
"Lady the only ass busting will be from me" 599 kicked the door open all the way sending Asha reeling to the floor.
Asha went for her gun laying on the coffee table. She never would shoot at a kid, but this little rat bastard was different. "Get the hell outta here!"
599 kicked the gun out of her hand, and threw her into the opposite wall before she had time to react.
Asha looked up in time to see the kid holding her Colt in her face. "599 sure the found the good kinda cookie to eat," he cocked the gun at her. "Tell Zack I stopped by" he knocked her out with a slam across her face. She slid down onto the floor. He leaned closer kissing her face "Okay sweetie?" he threw the gun on the floor and left, locking the door on the way out.
"Civilian women" he reached the spot where is rope was suspended outside "They're hot, but that's about it" he climbed back out on his rope and slid silently to the ground.
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
10: 45 PM
"We have advanced hearing, why the hell is he still blasting that?" she could hear the song from Korn that Krit managed to find on the radio blasting through the bathroom walls. She slipped off her shirt, pounding on the wall with her fist "Turn that down boy! Don't make me come out there"
"Yes mother!" Krit called back lowering the volume on the stereo system in the living room.
"You wouldn't understand baby" Logan told her in their bedroom next-door "It's a guy thing, not for the fairer sex" he was messing with her.
It got its desired result when she came out of bathroom and threw her shirt at him.
He laughed to as she retreated back into the bathroom. He looked at the shirt in his hand before setting it on top of the bed. "Max, what are you wearing in there?" there was seduction in his tone.
"I decided to go with the ball gown" she remarked "Great for shower taking-" she felt a breeze as the door opened. She was midway from taking off her jeans. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to seduce me Logan Cale"
"Yeah, but you're smarter then the average person Max" he stepped closer to her "So you know this is a seduction."
"What if I told you I wasn't in the mood?"
"Then I'd be a gentleman and wait-"
"How long?"
"Until you changed you're mind"
She smiled, full and sexy "What if I told you it's already changed?"
"Then I'd say you'd have to put that shower on hold sweetheart"
"Or we could just conserve water and crank up unisex one notch" she went and turned the showerhead on. "Krit's got his music up anyways" she started to remove her bra, dropping the bit of cloth to the ground. She felt him come up behind her, laying warm hands on her bare shoulder's
"Sounds like a plan" his voice was low, tickling her skin as he kissed the back of her shoulders.
She turned around to face him, pulling his long sleeved shirt up over his head, then his cotton undershirt
In was in this manner that he removed his other clothes and his glasses.
The hot water beat down on the pair. Max stuck her face under the spray, enjoying what use to be a rare luxury at her old apartment. The warm water and the man behind her were doing great things to her senses.
= = =
He peaked inside. All the lights were out. 599 pulled out the glasscutter, but then cursed a few seconds later after it fell to the ground. He checked around the window, seeing a tiny sensor attached to the frame, a security system that would go off it the laser was broken when the window lifted up. He took out an small flat head screwdriver and after a few seconds de-activated the laser. The alarm would not sound now, but the window was still locked. He punched through the glass with a gloved fist, sending shards flying into the room.
He miscalculated the location of the occupant in the room. The shattered glass flew out from the window landing directly over the crib where Lexi had been sleeping.
She had woken up from the noise and now scream/cried as the glass cut her on the parts of her arms that weren't covered by the blanket.
= = = =
Kaja had heard the noise of the smash and began to bark a low fierce growl. Krit turned down his music "what's up?"
He heard the baby screaming "Maxie!" he bolted off the couch
The bedroom door opened two seconds later as Max ran out, she had heard it too. She and Logan ran to their daughter's room with Krit.
Kaja was already there, barking and whining at the closed door.
Max tore into the room and flipped the light on. The first thing she saw was Lexi screaming her head off, sitting up in her crib. Max rushed over to her and picked her up, she then saw the cuts on her arms.
"The windows broken" Logan looked over the large window that stood over the crib. He looked back to his wife and baby daughter "How bad is it?"
"Just superficial cuts" Max looked Lexi over "It's okay baby" her head had a few small cuts, and one piece of glass was still sticking out of one near her hairline. There were also similar injuries on her arms and one cut on her neck.
Kaja continued to bark, scanning the room, sniffing, barking growling.
"Room's clear" Krit announced, doing a scan of his own. "Someone cut of the motion sensors" he looked down below, seeing nothing. He pulled his head back inside and bumped into the dresser that was beside the crib.
Something white fluttered to the floor, sliding under his boot. Krit picked up the small square of paper.
"Max" he turned the card around to face her.
It was a card the size of the ones in the bicycle deck, printed on it was the Manticore symbol, the monkey holding the scepter, and underneath it was a stamped mark of a barcode.
It was a marker used by Manticore snipers to identify a target in practice tactics. Max recognized it since she herself had been trained as a sniper. The barcode underneath coincided with the 'target'
And this one matched hers.
*****
Asha's head was killing her. Her eyes opened to a bleary world and the taste of blood in her mouth. She spit that out, not caring that it landed on her floor. It was then that she heard the pounding on her door.
Zack kicked open her door three seconds later when she didn't answer and found her sprawled out on the floor.
He was immediately beside her "What happened?"
"I don't know" her eyes finally adjusted better to her surroundings and she could see her boyfriends dark brown eyes looking at her in concern. "There was some kid and he was leering at me and the next thing I know BAM he's tossing me around the room like it's a sport"
"What'd he look like?" Zack pulled her to her feet and pushed her into one of her dining room chairs.
"Punkish, shaved head" Asha told him "He kicked my ass around pretty good for an eleven year old"
Zack stuck a rag on her hairline and she jumped. "Did you use you're gun?"
"Didn't have the chance." She placed her hand over the rag, taking control over holding it. "Damn!" she cursed at a new pain.
Zack took her hand down from her face "Pinky's broken" the digit was already starting to swell. He went to get some ice.
"You know how to set bones right?"
"Basic minor simple fractures" he handed her the ice.
Asha looked at her puffed up finger "looks like that to me. I've got a splint kit in the kitchen drawer under the microwave. Do it here. If I go to the ER they'll think I got mugged or abused by my boyfriend, and I don't even have a good lie to tell them."
Zack got the proper supplies and lifted the ice off her finger after he felt it was numb enough "Boy was around eleven?"
"Yeah" Asha's voice was at best a grimace when picked up her finger to set the break. "For some reason he-"Ahh!" she broke off when he re-aligned the bones in their correct order "Shit!" after she was done cursing she went on "looked like you, something in the eyes. Didn't look all that close" she felt him splint the finger and soon release her hand. "Zack I think he's from Manticore"
"I figured that already Asha with how you told me he came in here." He closed the box of splints.
"Not just that" she told him "He told me to tell 'Zack' he was there"
Zack's attention grew one notch. "Did he say anything else?"
Asha shook her head "Zack what the hell is going on?"
*****
"One more piece honey" Bling worked carefully to remove the glass fragments still stuck in Lexi's skin.
He grasped the glass embedded in her scalp with the tweezers making her cry, and bury her head in Max's body who was sitting beside her.
"Done" Bling showed the girl the glass before setting it on the cloth he had spread out on the coffee table. He smoothed out Lexi's hair "You did good sweetie" he dabbed at her cuts with peroxide before getting up to throw the glass away in the kitchen trash can.
"S'allright baby" Max comforted her scared daughter, hugging her close. She rubbed her back and wiped her tears from her cheeks.
The front door opened as Krit stepped back inside "Found it outside down around the parking garage" he showed her a silver glasscutter. "No tracks. Whoever came in descended back and landed on the sidewalk"
"You see anyone?" Logan was in one of the upholstered chairs with his IMAC in front of him.
"Nothing" Krit told him. He took a cup of coffee Bling handed him "Starting to regret my alcohol consumption"
"Regretted that already" Max spoke up from the couch.
Bling looked at the marker that Max had thrown on the coffee table "Story with this?"
"Sniper mark" Krit told him "During, training we were all given these kinds of cards in black wrapping Had to go out one mile on the training ground before opening the "package" All of the cards were plain except one-" Krit slid the card to him and picked it up. "If you got one that wasn't-" his finger traced along the edge of the barcode "This was yours and you were the target. You had to move around though, just like in a real situation. Targets aren't just gonna sit pretty watin' for ya to sneak in and blow their asses off"
"Then how come there weren't bloody heaps of soldiers?" Bling asked, "Snipers have great accuracy."
"Since it was 'practice' they only shot off blanks" Krit threw the card back down. "Good old Deck and his gang knew we were too valuable of an asset to kill us off just in a damn pseudo combat situation."
"This one belongs to Max why-" Bling stopped when he realized that Lexi was within his earshot. He leaned forward. "the hell would they break into a babies room and not do the fucked up thing they came for?"
"It's a warning." Krit looked at his little sister when he said this. "If you were the one with this card it was your notification that you were being sought out, and you had to do something about it"
"So this freako is busting in here to kill my girl?" Bling was pissed "Forget the Manticore thing on his side I'll beat his ass to the ground myself"
"Got something" Logan broke in, looking at his computer screen "Hover Cam caught the form of someone moving across the road" he ran the feed "There's not much, the camera's range didn't go far enough, but-"
"It's a kid" Krit was looking at the feed with Logan. "Barely make out a face though"
"Could be an X7" Max stood up, still holding Lexi in her arms.
"But they were never trained as snipers Maxie." Krit reminded "They were created for recon missions. Sniper training was limited to the X5's" he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye when he said this, knowing she knew all to well of this fact.
"But there weren't any X5 kids after the escape, just the teens and adults."
"Is there anyway that a baby could've been born afterwards?" Logan asked
"There could be" Max answered "But they'd all be only around one or two"
"What about-" Logan stopped in his sentence
"What about what?" Max wanted to know what he was going to say.
"The interbreeding unit" he finished "A kid from there would be about 11 now-"
"None of them survived Logan" Max spoke in a low voice, not wanting to talk about this tonight. "20 girls in the program and they all miscarried. The DNA was too screwed to create a baby between two unit members"
"But the avenues all fit together" Logan continued typing "An 11 year old kid with sniper knowledge. You said it yourself that he couldn't be X7 if he has that training." He brought up an old sealed file of Manticore's OB records. The designations of the twenty girls appeared in a list, Max's, Tinga's and Jondy's among them.
An asterisk appeared by Max's name, and referenced an end not at the bottom of the report. Logan read it in silence.
"What is it?" Max could see the look on his face
"Max, you said you miscarried the child?"
"Yeah like all the other nine year olds who got knocked up." She was getting defensive "I was there remember?"
"End remark" Logan read of the endnote on the report. "Viable embryonic material was found and placed into normal class surrogate C-0359. Pregnancy sustained successfully. Delivered November 9, 2009. Male. Designation Class: XX5-5452599"
Max's expression was one of complete shock, not believing at all what she had just heard.
*****
UNKNOWN LOCATION
"So boss how'd I do?" 599 was slinking in the chair, back in the same interrogation room he was at when he first came in contact with White
"You performed the way you were trained to do" White answered, standing in front of 599 "The Manticore sniper death card was a nice touch"
"Aww, I KNEW you cared about me" 599 leered back
"Incidentally-" White leaned over the boy "You weren't trained as a sniper, so how the hell did you wind up with these?" he held up a unused death card in 599's face.
"Well basically Sir I hawked it, and stamped on the barcodes myself" 599's tone was bragging. "The guy I got them off of was in VC for a month, left them right in the breast pocket of his flack jacket. Not like he needed them in there."
"You're a corrupt little transgenic aren't you?"
"I can't see now Sir, my eyes are tearin' up so bad-" 599 tilted back in his chair, rocking it back and forth, defying the laws of gravity by preventing the chair from crashing to the ground and landing him with it.
"So what was this recon deal for?" he kept up the movement in the chair "Why didn't I just go in and kill them straight away?"
"A good player knows not to play the trump card on the first hand." White was being elusive. "With all the renegade transgenics running around in this city it wouldn't take much for a posse to form along with "mommy" and "daddy" to so they can put you over their knee and give you a good solid kick in the balls"
"So-" 599 didn't understand the importance of this "If 452 turned around in this fight she could do what ever she wanted to my balls" a pause "Wait, you want them to riot don't you?" a smug grin came to his face "You want to have a moment of glory where I beat down these threats to YOUR balls. If I just killed them at night, it would be like any street sleaze. But we're Manticore, it's disgraceful to just shoot and run with an equal opponent"
"You're catching on-"
"I'm gonna start balling here-"
"Shut up!" White snapped "You may be a enhanced weapon, but with just one phone call I can have the boys back at HQ tearing you apart for scrap, so I suggest you watch your mouth" he turned and left.
The door slammed out, rattling the two-way mirror.
The woman waiting outside turned to White after he stood beside her "Fascinating little prick isn't he?"
Her white teeth stood out noticeably against her baldhead and multiple body tattooing
White looked to the priestess, not saying anything
"What do you want with this boy Ames? He is Manticore trash. He is not worthy to be in the group."
"I know" White agreed "But one man's trash is another man's treasure"
*****
"Guys" Jondy got right down in between Charlie and Tinga who were making out on the couch "Door"
"You could get it Jondy" Tinga broke apart
"Not in the guest handbook" Jondy threw out
Tinga growled at her and stood up, straightening out her long hair on the way.
"Tinga you home?"
Tinga growled again when she heard Krit's voice "No. Krit it's late, bug me in the morning-"
"Tinga open up it's me" Max's voice broke in.
The front door opened a few seconds later "Maxie" Tinga saw her sister there with her brother-in-law and kids in tow "What's wrong?"
"Someone broke in our apartment" Max stepped inside holding Lexi
"What?" Tinga was shocked "You guys okay?"
"Great considering the fact that the kid who did it had this with him" Max fished out the death card, showing it to her.
Tinga's eyes grew larger "But how?" she took the card from her "You guys can stay" she moved aside to let them all in "I wanna know how the hell this got there?" she looked at the card on the way to the couch.
"It's obvious girl" Krit pointed out, heading straight for the coffee pot in his sister's kitchen, not even asking, considering it his right as her brother to steal her food and drinks. "Someone has a hit out on Maxie"
"You're frankness is great in these situations Krit really" Max moved over to the couch, Charlie vacating the seat a few seconds later seeing that she wanted to sit. Lexi was still in her arms, and she cradled the little girl to her chest, pushing back bits of her growing baby hair.
"Why don't you guys go see Case in his room?" Tinga stood in the middle of her living room, talking to her niece and nephew. "He's got a lot of things to do in there-"
"Yeah c'mon Jess" Logan chimed in, sensing that his sister-in-law wanted to talk about the recent events, and it would be better to not do it in front of them, even though they were part Manticore themselves.
Max looked down to her daughter "Baby, why don't you go with your brother-"
"No mama" Lexi cut her off, hugging her impossibly tighter "I wanna stay here"
Max rubbed her back sympathetically "Me and daddy wanna talk alone with your aunts and uncles for a bit, but as soon as we're done you can come right back," she kissed her on the cheek "kay?" she wipped a tear from her face.
Logan came around and picked up their daughter "C'mon sweetie" he carried her off into the back room, with Jess following behind.
Tinga waited until they were out of earshot before turning back to her siblings "Now what the hell is going on? Who sent you this?" she addressed this question to Max.
"Manticore obviously" Max threw back
"Don't play dumb with me baby sister, there's more to it then that" she looked at Max sternly
"XX5-5452599, ring a bell?"
Tinga just stared at her, shocked "That's impossible, none of them made it out alive-"
"Guess we were wrong" Max looked at her then.
Tinga came closer and sat in front of Max on her coffee table "Were there more?"
Max shook her head "Only that one. After-" a pause "After I got rid of it, docs came along and salvaged some pieces, put it in a regular surrogate," another pause "guess they didn't want the project to go to a total waste"
"Why is he after you?" Tinga demanded.
"That I don't know. He's toying with me. Prick wants something more-"
"Can't call him that Maxie he's-"
"What?" Max cut Tinga off "my son? C'mon Tinga! You know as well as I do that's crap. Just like those damn op docs told us, we were just donors. I HAVE a real son, so do you. You think Manticore wanted us to be moms to these babies? We were just passing on alpha genes, why the hell else would they kill the faulty things that came out if it-"
"Jesse died because of premature labor complications Maxie-"
"No she died because they killed her!" Max shouted back. She got up from the couch and began to pace
"They dragged her away from me and that stupid photographer and cut her up, but it didn't work. Manticore in all its fucking glory couldn't save a nine-year-old girl. So what did they do? They took away all her dignity and made us watch while they charred her body to a damn heap of ashes!"
"We were there sis" Jondy broke in "we know."
Max whirled on her "you didn't break into an officers barracks and pill pop a whole bottle of aspirin to get rid of it-"
Jondy looked stunned, she never knew. Max had only confided in her that she miscarried the baby, not that she caused it. "Your miscarriage-"
"Self-inflicted" Max spat "Obviously I didn't do a good enough job since someone decided to pick up where I left of. Getting knocked up with my own brothers baby wasn't humiliating enough."
"Max-" Logan had come out of the back room
She pointed a finger at him "Don't you dare say one damn thing Logan Cale! You have NO idea what it's like to be an incesting whore and have this kid try to come back and shatter the ONLY stable part of your life that you have!" she slipped out the back fire escape window, standing on the landing, and climbing up to the roof.
"Max!" Logan stuck his head out and called to her, watching her climb higher and higher. Despite his fear of heights, he braved the landing and climbed up the wrought iron stairs after her.
"Max listen to me!" he caught up to her in the middle of the roof and grabbed her arm.
In a reflex move she turned and threw a punch at him before she had time to think. He ducked just in time and grabbed her arms again pinning them behind her. Where he was getting this ability to fight with his super soldier wife, he didn't know, maybe it was due to the adrenaline pumping full gush though his system.
She matched this, being the Manticore soldier she was, never mind that he was her husband. She was angry, and provoked, she was his wife, but she was a soldier first. She threw him to the ground, hearing him hit the concrete not real hard since he caught himself. Blood came from scrapes on his hands as a result of making contact with the roof. His glasses skidded across the roof a foot in front of him.
She moved, to help him up, to keep going, who knows. But he knew he had to stop her. She was in Manticore mode, and telling her to stop wouldn't do it. Hating himself and being a gentleman aside, this had to end. He tripped her, a move that caught her off guard and she hit the ground on her back.
Before she could get up he tackled her and pressed her down to the roof with his weight. "Enough!"
He pinned her arms to the ground. He was breathing hard, and she could feel the small bits of blood from his cuts on her arms. She stopped struggling, mainly because it scared her that if this kept going on she could very well kill Logan without meaning to.
"I am sick of your self blame Max!" he was shouting, despite the fact that she was six inches from his face. "You were nine years old! You did what they told you to because they brainwashed you into believing that their reasons were just. You are NOT a whore! I didn't marry a whorish, street incesting slut who liked to do it with her brother before puberty even hit. How can I blame you for something you didn't ask to be done to you?"
"That doesn't change the fact that it's true-"
"Max shut up!" he released her arms and grabbed her face he was still shouting at her "I LOVE you dammit! I would love you even if you WERE a whorish street incesting slut who ran away from that to start a new life. Because it would be YOU. Stop running for once in your life and face this! You are not a girl who takes the cowards way out. Leaving Seattle without me and the kids won't make it go away."
She never told him that, but it had been in the back of her mind. After finding out that SHE had created this thing that was after her, endangering her family. She couldn't live with that knowledge that her baby could've been killed by him to get to her. There was so much more to protect then when she tried to leave before. They did not deserve to be in the cross hairs of her shit. "It would protect you-"
"Don't even think it" Logan warned, "If you leave I would never forgive you" he meant every word of it, hating himself, but not wanting do deal with being alone because of her again.
She didn't say anything, looking up at him, knowing that he was telling the truth
His finger brushed her lip "You're bleeding"
She sucked on the cut, still not saying anything. The tension between them was thick. She didn't want it, but they were drifting. Three years of marriage, love, trust, and now /What the hell is happening to us? An hour ago we were fine/
He stood back up, wanting to stay there, to be there when she finally broke, but she would have to come to him now, that was how it was with her. She was a strong woman. And anything else would just be a lie.
She watched him go, intending to let him leave so she could think, but something ate at her stomach /Don't let him go! It's not suppose to be this way!/
"Don't" she grabbed his hand at the last minute, her eyes finally looking up into his deeply, colored in the way that made him remember that he was still deeply in love with her. "Stay with me" her fingers closed around his hand "I don't want it to end like this" she traced the scrape marks with her finger in sensual movements.
Slowly, slowly, he lowered himself back down to her, pressing his forehead against hers. Her arms came up around his neck and it was then that she allowed herself to cry.
He held her, feeling each of her sobs on that rooftop. "We're in this together okay?" he kissed her again
*****
"Why are mommy and daddy yelling?" Jess had come out of Case's room, looking completely scared. His parents had never screamed at each other like that.
"It'll be allright baby boy" Jondy picked up her nephew.
Finally, Max came back through the door, followed closely by Logan.
"You okay honey?" Jondy looked at her sister in concern. "Girl, you're bleeding" she looked warningly at Logan "Boy I love you, but if you laid one hand on Maxie I'll-"
"It's fine." Max broke in. "kay? Calm down." a pause "I'm tired. Gonna go to bed." She looked to Tinga "Okay if we crash in your room?"
"Yeah that's fine" Tinga agreed.
Max looked at her son "It's okay baby"
"Do you still love daddy?"
She kissed his forehead "We're fine hun, I promise. I love daddy, with all my heart. And I love you" she caught Logan looking at her. "See ya in the morning kay baby?" she went off into Tinga's bedroom, Logan following close behind her.
Krit strained an ear to the door to the bedroom a few seconds later, listening, smiling at what he heard "make up sex is the best"
Jondy threw a cushion at him "get away from their Cat Man and leave them alone."
*****
THE NEXT MORNING
Logan woke up with two realizations. The first one was that he wasn't in his bed, and the second that he was alone. He sat up, not bothering to flip the light on. It was only 7:30 but the sun was beginning to come out through the wooden blinds in Tinga's room.
For one insane moment he thought Max's fear had outweighed her senses and she had left him. He pushed that thought aside, knowing that Max wouldn't just leave without telling him goodbye somehow, in a note, a message, SOMETHING.
He and Max had fallen asleep on top of the bed in their clothes. Their "love making" of last night had been restricted to lustful kiss and listening to each other breathe. Their need for contact was greater then the desire for sex.
Getting up from the bed he stretched, wincing as the cut skin of his palms stretched with his movement. The marks weren't too deep; they were already beginning to scab over.
The living room was silent except for the quiet tick of an antique looking table clock on top of the TV.
Tinga and Charlie were nowhere to be found, but Krit was sacked out on a brown leather chair by the couch, his leather jacket used as a blanket.
All thoughts of Max abandoning him got shot to hell when he spotted her asleep on the couch. She had kept her promise to their daughter. Resting in the shelter of her body was Lexi, securely held to her mom by a strong arm.
He knelt next to the couch, Lexi awakening at the movement. Her crystal blue eyes looked into his matching set.
Logan smiled and kissed her, putting a finger to his lips, silently asking her not to say anything yet. The blood on Max's lip had dried in the middle of the night, and the skin was split under the redness. The adrenaline from last night was gone, and guilt was starting to set in at having to hurt her, even though he wasn't doing it TO hurt her. He kissed the spot on the side of her mouth where the blood was, then kissed her full on the lips.
She stirred at the second contact, blinking a few times before looking into his eyes. "Hey"
He smiled at her "Hey yourself" this banter felt like when they use to just be-whatever it was before they were married.
"Any of the past few hours a dream?"
He shook his head
"Damn" she whispered, turning up to look at the ceiling. Her eyes drifted back to him "You should put something on those baby" she indicated his palms with a nod.
He flipped them over and looked at them "Worse then it looks sweetheart" the "before they were married banter" just got taken up a notch.
Max grabbed one of his hands and flipped the palm up. "Kiss daddy's ow-ee's babe"
Lexi did, three times "Does that feel better daddy?"
Logan smiled softly at her "yeah much better honey." He kissed her again on the forehead "Why don't you go wake up the boys?"
Lexi broke out in a huge grin as she climbed off the couch. She loved busting in to her brother's room and jump on his chest, talk to him, give him slobbery kisses until he woke up.
"Don't beat him up to bad baby" Max called after her, watching the girl take off in a euphoric sprint to Case's room where the boys were sleeping.
"Guess she's feeling better" Logan said
"Like mother like daughter" Max shot out, sitting upright on the couch. Her sweater had gotten bunched behind her back in the middle of the night, and she straightened it out.
"You ever get in touch with Zack?"
She shook her head "he wasn't home, figured he might be at Asha's but I lost the number."
"Then let's go pay a visit" Krit had woken up and was now joining in the conversation.
"I gotta go to work" Max informed, not believing what just came out of her mouth. "Plus gotta get these guys back home today."
"Max if you're worried about him just go see him" Logan broke in "This XX5 kid might be looking for him too"
"Zack can take care of himself" Jondy came out of the kitchen with coffee in her hand. "If junior used the same tactics as he did on you then he's not going after Zack at first, he's breaking into the circle of friends, and since Zack doesn't HAVE any family or fr-"
She and Max got the same idea but Max was the one who said it "Asha"
"My bike's at Zack's" Krit notified
"Mine isn't" Max stood up "Can make it there in ten minutes if we move" she turned to Logan "Take them home?"
"I got it" Logan told her "Tell me what you find"
She nodded and kissed him, before going to retrieve her Ninja keys
"Wait now" Jondy was still absorbing this "Maxie are you telling me that the kid Manticore made you and Zack have is still alive and is running around pissing up the place?"
"Damn" Krit said "And I thought I was the pissed up one in the family" he headed over to one of the interior walls, and broke through it with his fist, unearthing the gun he knew Tinga kept inside "Just in case" he checked the ammo.
"What the hell was that?" Tinga called out from the bathroom.
"Just borrowing something sis" Krit told her "I'll return it" he and Max headed out the door just as Tinga came out, her hair halfway damp from where she had just stopped blow-drying it
"Dammit Krit!" she looked at the mess "I gotta find a better place to keep my gun."
*****
134 FENTAL AVE
Max knocked on the door "Asha?"
Krit had the gun cocked at his side, ready to use it if need be.
The door opened, Krit kept the gun down, not wanting to shoot Asha by accident by firing off blindly. Asha stood there. There was a light bruise on her hairline, and Max could see a splint on her pinky.
"What happened?"
Asha didn't answer right away. Max took something out of her pocket "It was a kid wasn't it?"
"How did-"
"Did he leave one of these?" she showed her the death card that she had gotten.
"Yeah" Asha agreed, "Right after he broke a digit" she held up her splinted hand.
"What'd he look like?" Krit asked as Asha moved aside to let them in, closing the door.
"Young, 11ish, punk ass as anything. Wearing all black."
"What'd he want?"
"He told me to tell Zack that he stopped by, among other things"
"Was Zack here?" Krit asked
"Until about three" Asha confirmed "Was sitting on my couch when I fell asleep, and I heard him leave. He kept hovering too much so I kicked him out. He didn't know the kid" she held up the card that 599 had left on her TV, she had found it an hour after Zack came by.
Max looked at it. The death card, but this time not with her barcode, with Zack's.
"Why is this kid after me?" Asha wanted to know
"He's not after you he's after Zack" Max told her.
"Then why'd he come here?"
"You were a scare tactic" Max answered "Last night someone broke into Lexi's room and left this card."
"Why?" Asha demanded
"It's a marker" Krit informed "For a Manticore sniper. Whoever hired him out wants to take down Zack, and Max" Krit looked to his sister when he said this.
"Still doesn't make any sense"
"Asha-" Krit was about to tell her, but Max cut him off.
"There was an interbreeding unit at Manticore. Two X5 males inseminated 20 girls in their units, Zack was one of the males, he was an alpha-" she watched Asha's eyes get wide "Among these girls were Tinga, Jondy, Syl and me. None of us carried to full term, we miscarried in the forth month. But somehow someone got ahold of the embryo and picked up where I left off"
"Zack-" Asha finally tried her hand at speaking again
"No" Max cut in for the second time "He's related to him biologically, that's it. None of us ever consummated in this process, it was all done in a lab"
"Where's Zack now?" Krit asked
"He left" Asha answered him
"Did he say where?"
Asha shook her head "Surprisingly yeah, he said he was going to see you" she signified Max with this remark.
"You should lay low" Max said to Asha "Think this kid's moving on to the main target, but he might decide to double back"
"Laying low isn't an option for me" Asha told her straight out "He maybe your brother Max, but he's also my boyfriend, and I don't care if this shit is from Manticore he's killing Zack without going through you guys and me first."
*****
UNKNOWN LOCATION
"Phase One is complete" White leaned over 599 "Targets has been flushed out. Now it's only a matter of time before they show themselves"
"What makes you think they will Sir?" 599 asked, this time he was sitting on the table
"Let's just say I know these two" White backed up from 599, now standing in front of him "You're a threat, a thorn in their side, and what's the Manticore protocol for thorns?"
"Break'em off." 599 replied "I know you've kinda 'taken me under your wing' Sir, but as far as things go, I may be a thorn, but you're the only prick-"
White got pissed then, and pinned 599 against the wall with one arm "You are MY tool understand kid? After this is all over you're going to be reunited with the all the other freaks back at HQ awaiting Judgment Day"
"Could be now if you don't break this off Sir" 599 warned "I have a temper too"
White leaned closer to his face "But I'm the one who'll win" he released him "Never underestimate your superiors 599"
*****
JAM PONY
"Where the firetrucks is Max?" Normal checked his watch "The weekend ended two hours ago"
"Family emergency-" Cindy stuck up for her home girl
"She ran out of sick and dead aunts" Normal told her
"One of her kids got hit by a car" Cindy got him to shut up after that with her lie
"Are they okay?" Normal actually sounded like a decent human being then.
"She called me last night from the ER. Baby's fine, a few cuts a bruises, but damn lucky."
"I got one worker with a legitimate excuse, unlike the rest of you slackers who pull the first thing out of your ass to get out of work, speaking of which, where's Alec?"
"He was driving the car" Cindy broke in again, lying came more natural as she kept going.
Normal's eyes got wider. Alec was his diamond in the ruff.
"Push those eyes back in yo' head Normal" Cindy stated "Your golden boy didn't hit and run, it was an accident. Her ball rolled into the road by that park and he didn't see her. He had to have his car repaired this morning."
"Tell him to take all the time he needs" Normal informed
"And Max?"
"Yeah her too. I'm not being accused of unethical work conditions"
"Oh damn no, that would be whack" Cindy agreed in a mocking tone. She headed over to the payphone to call Max and find out what was REALLY going on.
"Yeah?"
Cindy recognized the voice, but it wasn't who she was expecting. "Bling?"
"Cindy" Bling replied warmly enough into the phone, but there was something in his voice "Hey girl how ya been?"
"I'm great boo." Cindy told him "Love to catch up, but I wanted to talk to my girl"
"She's out right now, but I could let her know-"
"Is something wrong? I also called cause-" she lowered her voice to just above a whisper "cause Normal's about to get that stick deeper up his ass for her not clockin' in"
There was a pause on Bling's end
"This is Original Cindy you're talkin' to boy remember?" she reminded him "I will smack down your ass real bad if you don't let me know if there's bad stuff goin' down with my boo"
"Max is okay" Bling told her
"I hear a but commin'-"
"I really don't wanna do this over the phone"
"Then I'll come over there, see ya in ten" she hung up "Gonna go visit my baby boo in the hospital, so I'm takin' off early for lunch"
"Thought you said it wasn't serious?" Normal asked
"Not boy, observation, doctors like to be sure and rich" Cindy turned and left.
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
"I hate to sound like somebody's mama" Bling began from Logan's couch "But how'd you bang yourself up?" he could see the cuts on Logan's hands as he was typing on his IMAC.
"It's not a big deal" Logan didn't look at him as said this.
"Kinda thing that IS a big deal when you say it" Bling reminded "you hit the ground falling?"
"Can we drop it please?"
"You fight with Max or something?"
This was met with silence
"What happened?"
"Bling-"
"She hit you or you hit her-"
There was a look on Logan's face
"You HIT her?" Bling was shocked
"No I didn't HIT her" Logan corrected "What kinda man do you think I am? She tried to fight ME, so I had to get her to stop so-"
"So? Logan you can't end a sentence like that"
"I tripped her."
Bling's shocked look got deeper "Man you're terrible tripping your own wife"
"She's a soldier Bling, not like she couldn't handle it."
"Soldier or not you don't do that to a woman"
"Bling you're taking this out of context, you weren't even there, so can we please just drop it?"
"Fine" Bling agreed after a minute. "You guys tight again?"
"Yeah we're tight again Bling."
"Sex huh?"
The front door was heard to open.
"See who that is please" Logan told him
"I don't work here anymore man" Bling reminded
"Seems like you never left"
"Max-" the voice belonged to Zack as he came through the living room "Where's Max?"
"She's on her way" Bling said "She's a big girl Zack" he sensed what Zack was thinking.
Max arrived about ten minutes later, with Original Cindy who came there about the same time, along with Krit.
Logan stopped typing for a moment "How's Asha?"
"Broke her finger" Zack cut in "whoever he was"
"He's us" Max spoke out to her brother, she showed him both death cards. "Designation XX5-5452599"
"That's impossible" Zack said in denial
"It's true" Logan broke in "Embryo was found and placed in another surrogate, baby was born few months after that."
"So now Max and I have a freako kid running around loose?" Zack spat back. "After everything else Manticore did they had to screw us over again after they burned too?"
"It's worse then that"
Max looked at Logan when he said this "What do you mean? Cause tryin' to kill me is about as worse as it gets for me."
"You said it yourself that this kid never even knew which X5's he had been conceived from. So how could he have know to target you and Zack?" a pause "Someone tipped him off, which means somebody is working with him. He couldn't have formed a grudge against you two if he never even heard of you before."
"Question is who then?" Krit asked
"I'm wid Krit" Cindy agreed "Need names so I can bust some smack downs"
"Two days ago a report came across secure channels about a sighting of a boy near an abandoned VA hospital. Agents of the DCFS came to pick the kid up, only they weren't DCFS agents because the VA hospital was right outside some woods in Gillette, Wyoming. Apparently the boy was hiding there behind some trees."
"Who were the people then?" Cindy asked
"All I know is that he was transferred to a site where at 3:35 a.m a call was made from that location to Ames White. The feed got scrambled, but the man on the other end said he had something 'remarkable' to show him"
"599" Max said the only 'name' for the kid she knew. "Why is this kid going along with it? White's going to throw him in a cage as soon as he's done using him as a tool. We were taught better then that."
"He might have been brainwashed like you were as a kid into believing that you two were a threat that needed to be eliminated."
"As if I didn't have enough people trying to kill me, now there's one I'm related to" Max spoke out
*****
Zack raised the kickstand from his Vulcan out on the parking garage
"Why didn't you tell me the first time?" Max had followed him down there.
He looked at her solemnly "I wanted to protect you"
"I could've handled it" she spat
"Some things are easier to forget Maxie"
"How can I forget that they seeded me with my own brothers baby?"
Zack remained silent.
"Don't be so hard on yourself mom"
Max whipped around to see an eleven-year-old kid there, wearing black and white fatigue pants, with an M-24 slung over his shoulder.
"Get one thing straight kid" she approached him "You call me mom again, I'm gonna knock that smirk off your face."
"Think I'm the only one whose gonna do the knocking sugar" 599 lowered the M-24 at her.
Zack moved in front of Max, blocking her with his body "You might wanna think about that before you do it shit"
"You speak that way to a kid?" 599 leered, looking Zack over "So you and 'mom' are blood related. Isn't that outlawed?" a pause "No matter, after I'm done it'll all go away. No cop can convict two corpses." He squeezed off the gun, bullets ricochet off the concrete pillars and the ground. Both Max and Zack dodged the bullets with amazing speed.
Zack made his way over to 599 and grabbed the muzzle of the rifle but the young X5 seesawed the gun and slammed it into Zack's midsection, causing him to loose his balance.
"So" he pointed the gun barrel directly on Zack's neck "should I call you dad or uncle?"
Max threw herself on 599 then, sending the gun clattering away. 599 whipped around and nailed her in the stomach with his foot with a force that threw her into the opposite wall. The force knocked the wind out of her, and stunned her so much she couldn't recover right away.
599 then turned his attention on Zack "You are a really pathetic soldier you know that?" he corkscrewed, but this time Zack was ready for him and caught his foot throwing him down flat on his back. He then jumped on top of him and seized him by his hair "don't piss off daddy bitch!" he pounded his head on the ground.
A gun blast went off again. 599 held the M-24 still smoking in his hand.
"No!" Max saw Zack pull back in a reel, obviously hit. She pulled herself on her feet and in less then three seconds she was on 599. They fought hard for a dozen seconds before she threw a hard maneuver that shattered three of his ribs when he hit the ground.
599 lay there, gasping at the pain of broken ribs. "Impressive for a slacker"
She picked up the gun and pointed at him "I oughta kill you for what you did to my family you little bitch!"
599 looked up at her, still panting "You would kill your own son?"
Max stared him down, her face emotionless. "You go back to White now and he'll tear you apart like paper." She was still winded, running on only pure adrenaline. She fought hard to keep the gun steady, when all she wanted to do was throw it away.
"I'm not going back to White" 599 corrected, "I failed in my mission." He pulled out another gun, one he had concealed, a .22 caliber pistol and aimed it, at his own temple. "XX5-5452599 aborting the mission at 01023 hours" the gun went off and he fell back to the concrete.
Max dropped the gun and knelt next to Zack, who had his hand held over the wound in his shoulder not saying anything.
Zack leaned over and picked up the gun where it lay in a pool of blood.
"What are you doing?" Max watched him
Zack turned the body over, so that the neck was facing him, pointing the gun at the barcode. A standard procedure done by Manticore soldiers to erase any physical evidence that this kid was anything less then human.
"Zack don't-"
"I have too." Zack cocked the gun "He's still one of us" the gun went off, blowing away the skin on 599's neck.
Zack fell back down beside Max, dropping the gun. She reached her arms around his neck, pressing the side of her face against his back.
Zack grabbed one of her hands.
(SLOW PAN OUT OF SHOT. AIRAL VIEW OF MAX AND ZACK HUDDLED TOGETHER WITH 599'S BODY LAYING TURNED OVER IN A POOL OF BLOOD)
*****
(FADE IN 9:00 PM METRO HOSPITAL)
(MAX IN WAITING CHAIRS SURROUNDED WITH LOGAN AND KIDS)
Dr. Carr approached the two waiting in chairs "He's gonna be fine Max." he touched the woman's shoulder "Nothing major was damaged"
Zack came out of one of the exam rooms with his shoulder now bandaged, peaking out from under the tears in his blue shirt. Asha is right behind him.
(SLOW MOTION SHOT AS MAX WATCHES HIM)
(ZACK WATCHES HER BACK)
(MAX V.O) The life I wanted as a child was never meant to be-
Zack stops in front of her and kisses her on the forehead. She turned up to him and they shared a look before he broke away.
(MAX V.O) I will forever be the soldier who came into being by people with their own twisted agenda-
(CUT TO: SHOT OF AN OPERATING ROOM. DOCTORS ARE FLIPPING OVER A BODY. ONE DOCTOR REMOVES A BULLET FRAGMENT FROM THE NECK OF THE BODY. OUTLINES OF A BARCODE ARE STILL VISIBLE AROUND THE FOLDS OF SKIN)
(MAX V.O) People who create life, not to love, but to attack-"
(CUT TO: SAME O.R. A .22 IS DEPOSITED INTO AN BAG. THE SHOT FOCOUSES ON AN OUTSIDE BLACK WALL. WE SEE IT IS A DOUBLE SIDED MIRROR AND AMES WHITE IS OBSERVING THE PROCEDURE)
(CUT TO HOSPITAL MAX PICKS UP JESSE AND HOLDS HIM AS SHE WATCHES ZACK WALK AWAY WITH ASHA)
(MAX V.O) I was a receptacle for that kind of life. Done without my permission, without permission from any of us (HER EYES FOLLOW ZACK DISSAPPEARING DOWN THE HALLWAY) Max holds Jess closer to her body, as he snuggles to her.
(MAX V.O) I do what I have to do to protect my family. Logan and I have worked things out. I don't know what would have happened if I had left, (MAX LOOKS AT LOGAN) and I don't want to know
(LOGAN PUTS AN ARM AROUND HER, PULLING HER CLOSER)
(MAX V.O) He asked me if I would shoot my own son (LOOKS AT JESS) No I wouldn't shoot my SON. Ever
(FADE OUT)
*****
CREDITS ROLL
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: JAMES CAMERON
EXECUTIVE WRITER: MYSTIC25
****
WOOWEE!! This one was the longest one yet. Since I started this ditty with a voice over from Max I decided to end it that way too. I did the "credits" thing at the beginning at the end for something different..
599-i debated on whether or not to make him survive, but White would have him killed or torn up after he got back from the mission. Max likes to rehabilitate Manticore, but this was a touchy issue. He tried to kill her for cripes sake! And the ending is like what I think DA would do.
There wasn't much of the Jam Pony crew, and barley any of Alec in here, but I couldn't fit him into the storyline that much. He'll be back in the next chapter.
Well sorry again for the insanely long wait.
R/R please!!
Peace
mystic
AUTHOR: Mystic25
EMAIL: yellowrubberduck31@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Something happened to Max and Zack eleven years ago. Something they tried to forget. But now it is about to be reborn, into something they never expected.
RATING: PG14
A/N: If that summary is confusing the plot is this: That interbred XX5 baby created out of Max and Zack's DNA that I mentioned in the first chapter of this series is still alive..(ooh..)
A/N #2: You're probably confused as hell about the title. It was taken from the age-old line that Deck dropped on Jace in "Female Trouble" when he learned of her pregnancy. Went like this:
DECK: "You have any objections with me making lemonade out of the lemons you presented me soldier?"
JACE: "No Sir"
Since this story deals with the issue I brought up of Max and Zack having to interbreed back at Manticore (artificially, thank god) I thought it would fit, and would be more unique then "That's Life, Manticore Style" or "Completely and Totally F*cked Up Way of Dealing With Medicine According to the Manticore Handbook"
SIDE NOTE: Thanks to Lexa who helped get the confusion about Asha's last name cleared up. I kept thinking it was Moore, but then I realized **I** have a friend named Auzia Moore, they kinda sound the same..so my bad.
OTHER SIDE NOTE: I brought back Jacinda (the chick from "Female Trouble" helping Max, Herbal, Cindy and Sketchy move the water heater) In "Flushed" Theo's wife, had NO name, she was only referred to as "Theo's wife" I don't know if Jacinda is his wife, but I made it so that her son is Omar. If this is wrong, sorry, but Jacinda did say she had a little boy too, so it could still work.
*****
MAX (V.O): "We escaped that night because we wanted out so bad that we were willing to risk our lives to have lives..."
/FLASH: Breaking glass is heard as children, the X5's of 599 (Zack's) unit bust through the glass into the snowy night. The scatter, running barefoot into the surrounding Gillette woods/
MAX (V.O) "I lived for years on my own, wanting nothing more then to have that ideal..
/FLASH: Max breaking through Logan's skyline. He interrogates her. Shot switches to the scene of him and her standing in front of his mirror/
MAX (V.O): "And I'm glad that fate finally stopped bitchin' at me and gave me the things I never thought I'd have..
/FLASH: Max and Logan lip locking on his floor in "Meow"/
/FLASH: Max faces Logan on a sandy beach, dressed in a purple silk slip dress. Close up shot of Logan sliding a ring on her finger. Pan up to his eyes, minister goes on in the background with the marriage ceremony/
/FLASH: Sounds of a baby crying. A doctor in a surgical gown and mask lifts up a squalling baby for Max to see. She is lying on an OR table, undergoing a C-Section
"Got a boy here guys!"
Beside Max is Logan who leans close to her face and kisses her while the doctors close off her incision/
/FLASH: "It's a girl!" A female doctor, Anna Janston lays the crying newborn little girl on Max's chest, wiping her down with a towel. Max is in a regular birthing room, having just been through a normal v-back vaginal birth
Logan looks over at his new daughter, his head close to Max "God, more?" his voice is joking. He kisses her long and hard before she can say anything.
"Okay guys" Janston is heard to say beside Max's bed "Remember that's what got you here in the first place"/
MAX (V.O.) "But my life has never had the appeal I dreamt of as the nine year old soldier in 09-"
/FLASH: Max and Zack tearfully say goodbye to Brin as they leave her on the bench, the swirl and noise of helicopter blades above them/
/FLASH: Max hears gunfire, and is down a few seconds later. Zack is beside her carrying an unconscious Tinga in his arms, but he is brought down moments after by another shot./
MAX (V.O) "Because there was something they never told us back at Manticore..
(V.O cont. as scene unfolds) "As hard as we try to escape our lab rat, science experiment created past.."
CUT TO: Present day 2021. Max sits on the sands of the Waterfront with Jess and Lexi beside her playing in the sand. Tinga sits next to Max, her arms drawn around her son Case sitting in the fold of her body./
MAX (V.O): "It can still come back to bite us in the ass."
Same scene, but on a close up of Zack, skipping a rock into the water. Cut to shot of Max. She looks at him Cut to shot of Zack looking back.
*****
here's where the theme song would fit in..MC Lyte and them breakin' it down.
Fade out into commercials..(in Florida the FOX announcer is now talking, theme music starts up again, but softer..FOX GUY: "Dark Angel is brought to you by Christler and your neighborhood Christler dealer.." )
*****
after millions of ads have gone by we now continue with tonight's episode of Dark Angel.
*****
CITY LIGHTS CLINIC
SEATTLE
JANUARY 12, 2021
7:55 AM
"Mommy, please don't make me-" Jess whined to Max whose hand she was holding
She looked down to her son, "Baby, there's nothing to be scared of, it's just a check-up" she opened the door to the medical clinic and all but dragged him inside. She stepped through the doors beside him pushing Lexi through in a toddler's stroller. "Lexi's in for the same thing as you, and she's not upset"
She steered her children towards two empty chairs.
"That's cause she can't talk real well yet," Jess argued
"Can so!" Lexi argued back
"Nu-uh!" Jess returned, "You're bad"
This exchange would make any other little two year old girl cry, but not Lexi, who had her mother's genes in her. "Not bad. Girl's are better, beat up boy's-"
"Alexis Marie!" Max broke in, not believing what her baby was about to say, "You kiss your mama with that dirty mouth?" she looked at her guilty daughter
"You're mama" Lexi argued, a bit confused
"That's what I mean kiddo" Max informed, "I don't want you to use that word again kay?" she looked at her a bit harder when she didn't say anything "Okay?"
"Kay" Lexi said this time, a little apprehensive, she had never had Max talk to her like that.
Max could feel the eyes of the others in the clinic on her. Nosey sons-of-bitches, even in a post-Pulse world, waiting to see how she as a mother "handled" this situation. She was willing to bet that only a handful of them HAD kids, but they were still ready to step in and tell her how to raise hers.
"Good" Max replied to her two year old, seeing Lexi's eyes filled with nervousness, and not because of the impending doctor visit. "Wanna sit up here by me baby?" this time her voice was softer. That was something they didn't know about her, how her mistreatment as a child in a sterile, uncaring military environment made her promise to displine her kids but NEVER make them feel like they had to keep up with her rules in order for her to love them.
Lexi broke into her famous puddle making smile that Max gave her. Max unclipped her stroller harness and Lexi all but ran to her mom climbing in the seat next to her.
Max grabbed the girl and pulled her into her lap "This seat's better hun" she gave a kiss/raspberry on the back of her small neck.
The crowd seemed 'satisfied' by this scene, and went back to their own business. But personally Max didn't give a flying fuck about what other people thought of her as a mom. She loved her children far beyond the limit of love she received as a child.
Lexi giggled, now letting the earlier incident go.
Max smiled at her before looking back at Jess who was still standing in front of her "Come sit by us baby"
"Will I still have to go?" Jess asked
"Still do sweetie" she told him apologetically "Sorry" she patted the seat next to her "Come and sit anyway?" her eyes shifted to that look that she gave to Lexi, only much more perfected. "Please?"
Jess came over in the end, pulling himself into the adult size chair beside his mom and little sister.
"Max, Max Guevara-"
Max turned at the voice.
Jacinda, one of Max's old neighbors when she still crashed with Cindy was stepping over to her. Jacinda had moved out two weeks before Logan had proposed to her. She had found a better paying job then the one she had in Bonney Lake, a district city twenty miles out of Seattle.
"Jacinda" Max stood up, her face breaking out into a smile.
Jacinda smiled back "Girl I thought that was you when I came through the door" her voice was warm and cheery as she gave Max a hug. "I haven't seen you in forever, and you still look just as good as when I left"
"So do you" Max agreed
Jacinda caught sight of something on Max's hand, the anniversary band Logan had given her. "Now I know why you're radiating girl. Finally made yourself happy."
Max looked at her ring too "The plunge didn't hurt as bad as I thought"
Jacinda smiled at this "So what did the sassy Max Guevara get her name changed to?"
"Cale" Max looked at her when she said this
"Cale? As in Logan Cale, that cyber-journalist that Cindy was trying to get you to hold onto enough to get some consummation?" Jacinda said this all in one breath, laughing at the end of her remark "Glad you finally got some sense knocked into you" she looked over Max's shoulder "And a mommy too, damn Max you HAVE been busy while I was gone." She turned and called back "Omar! Baby come see who I found!"
Jacinda turned back to Max, holding onto her hands at arms length and checking out her figure "Two babies and you still got the physique of the cat walk" she smiled again.
Omar, Jacinda's son now stood beside his mother. He had been five the last time Max had seen him. Now at eight years old, he had grown a few inches, his hair still in a bald buzzed cut.
"This can't be Omar" Max said in disbelief to the boy "Boy you're growin' up so nice" she looked at Omar
"I know" Jacinda's voice was proud "He's gonna outgrow mama at this pace"
"Hi Max" this time Omar spoke up, looking to the woman he use to be neighbors with.
"Hey kiddo, get over here it's been a while-" she hugged the boy when he got to her.
"You helpin' out your mama?"
"Yes ma'am"
"Ma'am" Max repeated "Hear that Jacinda-"
"Hey I didn't instigate that," Jacinda argued, holding up her hands "He learned it from his teacher. But I'm not complaining" she looked to her son "Omar, you know Max is a mama now too?"
Omar looked at Max "Really?"
"Yeah really" Max returned with a smile, turning to face her children "Guys come meet some friends of mine"
Lexi was the first one, running directly towards Max, who bent down to pick her up "Like to introduce my littlest diva, Alexis Marie"
"Hey hun" Jacinda greeted the child "I like your name." She turned to Max "Girl it's a good thing her eyes are blue, cause she's all mini you"
"I also have a son around here somewhere-" Max turned to see Jess lagging behind "C'mon baby, don't be a stranger" she coaxed, holding out her hand to him "Little bit on the wiggy side cause he has to have a needle prick today" Max told Jacinda.
"Your son I presume?" Jacinda asked
"Yep, my man. Jesse Trevon"
"And how old is he?"
"Three and a half" Jess answered for himself
Jacinda laughed, and bent closer to him "Almost four huh? You're a big leaguer"
"I have to have a shot today" he opened up to Jacinda
Jacinda made a concerned face, for his benefit "I'm sorry little man, but it's not that bad.."
= = =
"See?" Max looked at her son "What I've been telling you the whole time" Max gave him a kiss, after the pediatrician finished administering the vaccination.
"Brave boy you have there Max" Dr. Michelle James, an associate of Sam Carr who recommended her to them applied a Band-Aid to the injection site. She smiled at the child "What'll it be today kiddo, red or green?" she held up the choices of two colored lollypops.
Jess grabbed the green one, saying a muffled "thank you" after the candy was already stuck in his mouth
The doctor smiled again "You're very welcome" she wrote down the MMMR(Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine, tagged with the new Meningitis series started after it was discovered that the terrorists who set off the Pulse stock piled the disease to use as bio-warfare. No traces were ever found in 09 or there after, but it was a risk they weren't messing with) on the vaccination record attached to her clipboard.
"After this he's got only one more series of the MMMR" James noted to Max "But that's not until he's nine"
"Somebody should have told them that back where I grew up" Max grabbed Jess's jacket and helped him slid it on his small body. "When I was nine I was a walking anti-virus machine"
"Yeah but Manticore didn't have the luxury of having sick prototypes." Michelle had been Sam's intern for a while, mostly during Max's second pregnancy (she saw Sam outside of her normal OB/GYN). She had sensed a difference in Max from the start with how her pregnancy was progressing. The DNA of the baby taken for an ammio was almost perfection. Every chromosome set in almost perfect alignment, almost evenly matched. No junk DNA in the lot of it. And EVERY person, regardless of who they were never had such a perfect set of chromosomes as this child. When Michelle inquired about it, of course Max didn't tell her, until one emergency visit where her seizures had caused her to start contracting in her sixth month. Michelle had been at the Cale house to assist Sam. With a full dose of liquid Tryptophane her seizures had stopped and with enough meds in a portable IV drip her contractions had ceased.
Max had been placed on complete bed rest for two weeks and Michelle had checked in on her from time to time, and had asked (but didn't pry) again about her patient's medical history so she could help her completely. Finally the truth came out. Michelle was sworn to secrecy, an oath she still kept, because she knew she would want the same if the roll were reversed. In the end the bed rest, the restrictions and the visitations paid off. Max delivered a healthy baby girl three months later by one of Michelle's old attendings on her OB rotation, Dr. Janston. Michelle completed her internship and now was a peds resident at the clinic. She was very happy to see her old patient come regularly with her kids.
"Go scan this" Michelle took the vaccination record over to her office and scanned the record on her personal scanner, the one hidden behind the bookcase because scanning vaccination records without direct authorization from an attending physician was illegal. So far she hadn't be caught, and she was prepared to hand over her career and work on back alley black market clinics if she had too.
"Send these over to Sam" Michelle indicated the still hot photocopies of the records. She handed Max the original copy that she had brought. This was illegal too, but Max's kids were at a high risk of being ratted out to anyone and everyone if their medical records ever fell into the wrong hands.
"Thanks" Max took the papers from her, tucking them into her pocket, the one that she could easily reach to break people's hands if they tried to take it from her "So I guess I'll see you in five years?"
Michelle laughed, "Yeah something like that" she looked to the kids "Bye guys, see ya next time" she waved to them as they went out the door to her office.
"Have you even thought this through?" there was a woman in the corner, talking to a girl, presumably her daughter "You can't take it back-"
"I KNOW mother" the teenager spat back "But how the hell can I have a baby?"
"You should've thought about that before you screwed around-"
"Fuck you!" the brunette teenager spat "I didn't ask you to come down here and lecture me-"
"Then why am I here Breeana?"
This was met by silence. Max didn't stop to stare at them, she knew how rude that could be. Walking past them, her children in tow she saw the older woman stop to look at her. "I could've helped you out-" she didn't say it but she looked at Max like the representation of something her daughter could have achieved if she would just work on it.
"Forget it mom, you already signed the consent." Bree snapped angrily at her mother "It's better for me now, it's my body. I should be able to make my own decisions on what the hell happens to it-"
/MAX FLASHBACK: Invitro lab at Manticore. Base doctor stands masked and gowned over a girl, X5-452 lying on the hospital gurney. Her legs are raised above her in stirrups, and her lower body is shrouded in a blue cotton sheet. The doctor comes over to 452 with a long tube like medical instrument and inserts in under the sheet. 452's expression changes to one of pain and her arms jerk.
"Suck it up 452 or I'll restrain you!" the doctor yells at the girl. After that 452 "Max" is still, her face still contorted with pain.
After the process was done the doctor simply left the girl on the gurney, ignoring her as he went into the next room to clean his instruments. Soon he emerges, and orders her to get up and go get dressed in the next room.
Max pulls on her camo in the small closet of a room next door. She looks up at the sound of the motion sensitive camera above her head recording her movements. Privacy was not a luxury they had on base.
A pop was heard a few seconds later, and when she looked back she saw Jondy with wire cutters in her hand, having just snipped the camera's wall cable.
"Does it burn Maxie?" Jondy lowered the clippers, stepping over to Max. Her voice held some experience; she had just been through it three weeks before.
"A little" Max admitted "What will happen to us now?" she turned to face her sister
Jondy shook her head "Nothing yet. We are not far along enough in the program. There's talk that Jesse is going to the surrogate ward next month-" Max looked at her sharply at this remark. That meant that Jess would begin the high dose gene drugs and constant check-ups of all pregnant females at Manticore.
"Why do they need us if they have the lab?" Max asked a tough question
"I don't know Maxie" Jondy answered honestly "The Cornel told me we were his 'special bunch'-" she stopped there, like she wanted to go on, but the sounds of approaching guards silenced her./
"Mommy?"
Max looked down. Mommy, she was a mother, now. But back there, back then. What was it?
"Just thinkin' for a second baby" she reassured her son. "Let's go"
*****
UNKNOWN AREA
WASHINGTON
White slammed through the navy blue double doors, his coat tails flapping from his movement.
"Sir!" a tech in a lab coat stopped him, but White held up his badge "NSC" ("National Sterile Control" the underground organization Manticore created to find the transgenics that escaped after Manticore burned)
"Special Agent Ames White" White barked at the man "I came here to-"
"You want to see it?" the tech broke in
"Well I didn't come here to admire the décor" White snapped, "No one's told me much over the damn phone-"
"Sorry Sir" the tech apologized, he started walking down a long corridor and White followed "Some of the operators here received a call when they found him-"
"Found him where?" White asked
"Just outside the main compound"
"And who is 'he' exactly?"
"You should see for yourself Sir" the tech opened another navy blue door and came into a single room with a double-sided mirror. In the other room there was a single table and chair. Sitting in the chair was a boy, around the age of 11 or 12, sitting perfectly still, hands folded under the table
"It's a boy" White didn't sound all that impressed.
"Not just any boy Sir" the tech interjected "We picked him up in the woods in Gillette"
White's attention became more rapt "So this is another one of those freaks?"
"It would appear so Sir. Though apparently not just another freak. His barcode is different then the others"
"How?"
"It starts with the double X sequence. He was part of the Manticore interbreed program. It was designed to take the sperm from Alpha males in the series and combine them with as many X series females as they could shove a tube up in. But up until now we didn't think there was any successful project from that series. All of the X series females involved never carried to full term. So they switched strictly to the genetics lab"
"So how is it that this kid is sitting here?"
"His DNA was most likely re-used and planted in a surrogate. As hard as Manticore tried to make the perfect creations they could never work out a way for X series to breed successfully. It'd be like interfamily births. The cross breeding would create weaker genes. After the first batch went bad though they corrected it. Needed it after the gene lab was blown up by the renegade X5 series-"
"So enough with the history lesson" White spat back, staring at the boy through the glass "What's his barcode string?"
"First let me explain how it works Sir. Normally the barcodes start off with the designation class then the regular sting of numbers but with interbreeds it starts with the double X to identify them with the program, then their numbers are merely a combination of their parents designation with the father's last for sperm documentation. Only three or four X series males were ever used, but a ton of females were inseminated. It made the count easier to follow."
"So what's junior's here?"
In answer the tech handed White the clipboard he was holding. White looked down at the paper and read it to himself.
"Subject was found outside former Manticore compound in Gillette, Wyoming. Caucasian male. Sandy brown hair, brown eyes. Age: 11 yrs. Barcode Designation: XX5-5452599. Product of Manticore Operation B3-0248 "Selective Interbreeding Unit" Disbanded in 2011 after repeated failure to complete any of the goals it was assigned to.
Conception Date: March 5, 2009 0930:015 HOURS
Genealogy:
X5 Alpha (Male) Designation: X5-599
X5 Surrogate (Female) Designation: X5-452*
*X5-452 suffered a miscarriage during the first trimester (approx. seventh week) of pregnancy. Embryonic cells were subsequently found from miscarriage that was still viable. Cells were placed via invitro methods into the normal class surrogate C-0359 on April 25, 2009 2312 0:15 HOURS.
C-0359 sustained the pregnancy through full term and was delivered via C-Section November 9, 2009 0638 0:18 HOURS
"452, and 599" White read off the numbers
"Like I said Sir the designation-"
"Shut up" White interrupted to the tech. "I want you to go to your little archives and bring back some slides for me on those two designations-" he slapped at the form with his finger. "In the mean time I'll have a talk with junior here-" he opened the door to the holding cell where the kid was and stepped inside.
Immediately upon White's entering the room the boy snapped to attention that only those trained in the codes of soldiers could. "What is it you request of me Sir?" he barked this in the typical "hu-ah" fashion of the soldier, eyes straight forward in a stance of attention.
"To sit down back down and shut up until I deem it necessary for you to talk again."
"Yes Sir!" the boy answered back, pulling back his chair and sitting in it like it was a planned battle tactic.
"No Thank You Sir?" White called him on his sloppy military tone. The kid obviously regarded him as a superior, and there was something lacking in his return.
"I don't see it as a necessity to thank a man who could very well have a double sided ass Sir" the boy's tone was slightly corrupt. He was talking crisply enough, but his voice spoke of the same thing as the others. Though they were soldiers, by the book was not always followed. Street tone and cockiness always was in the mix of any unit, be they U.S. Navy Seals or Manticore enhanced X5 combat units. He now sat a little laid back, his arms crossed over his chest, where the beginning of a bicep muscle was forming, still giving White respect, but defying it a little with the 'want a piece of this, bring it on' look behind his brown eyes.
"Then I'll cut through the crap kid" White leaned over the boy, getting as close to his face as the table in front of him would physically allow. "Let's go through the typical Manticore tampered BS before I bring out the harder part of the quiz." He leaned closer, if that were even possible "State your designation"
"Double X 55452599 Sir" a pause, his eyes never moved from White's "State your business" If all boys didn't hit puberty and the aggressor factors that come with it until at least 13, then this kid was now taking every pimply faced, voice changing preteen for a fly by the seat of their ass ride.
Despite the burn, White had to smile at this. "I assume you never knew your mother or who shot her up with the good stuff?"
"Small price to pay to come out on top"
"You never were the least bit curious?"
"For what? Which solider cocked a gun at another and hit the target?" he blew it off "Parents are for the weak who want them around to wipe their asses and noses because they lack efficiency to do it themselves"
The door opened again and the tech that had first seen White appeared in the doorway. "It's all set up Sir"
White didn't turn to thank him or even acknowledge him. He stood up "You're coming with me"
The kid didn't move "For what?"
"Debriefing"
He blew off the idea
"You gonna defy me Gi-Jr.? Cause I could just as easily turn you over and have you dismantled piece by piece back at HQ."
"I guess it beats the alternative" the kid finally agreed and stood up. "Permission to ask what the debriefing is for?"
"Permission only goes as far as the respect you dish out on your superiors" White returned going first through the doorway "And as an X5 you should be aware of this"
"And how many X5's have you caged with that bull flop Sir?"
Another door is opened; this time it's steel. "One today"
The room they now stood in was lined with steel walls. There was no furniture except a long folding table and two chairs that could have very well been a set with the table. In front of the room sat a large white screen, and resting in the middle was a slide projector.
The kid turned to White "You didn't tell me it was Movie Night Sir"
White pulled out a chair, in a forceful indication that the boy needed to sit "Surprise"
White wasted no time in getting started. The second the boy sat in the chair he kicked on the slide projector. The sound of the machine's fan soon filled the room.
At the first click an image of one of the Manticore nursery units for the babies born there. But this was no regular hospital nursery. Each baby was monitored via tiny electrodes strapped to their head. Another click was heard as the shot zoomed in on a close up of one, the boy at two days old. "XX5-5452599" White's tone became slightly like that of a game show host "This is your life"
'Click'
Shot of the entire interbreed unit "You were conceived during the Manticore Operation B3-0248, Selective Interbreeding. Basically that meant an X5 Alpha males sperm was used to knock up the girls in the unit-"
"You mean those nine year olds?" the boy snorted at the idea, laughing to himself
White went on, ignoring his remark "The surrogate chosen for your conception however did not carry to full term. The unit was fairly new, and problems still hadn't been completely ironed out. Base doctors found the still viable embryo and placed it in a normal surrogate. And nine months later-"
"The miracle of life" the kid interrupted, a smug smile on his face.
White ignored him again
'Click'
Shot of barcode on back of the neck of a nameless X5 "Your barcode does more then identify you as Manticore. It traces the X5 used in the interbreeding, a combination of both parent's designation"
'Click'
Shot of black screen, except for two designations in white letters "X5-599" "X5-452"
"My parents Sir?"
White turned to him "And your mission"
'Click'
Shot of Zack at twelve, crew cut and wearing camos "X5-599"
'Click'
Shot of Max at nine dressed the same as Zack with the same short crew cut and "X5-452"
"Chosen by Manticore for this conception. They are two of the rebel 12 that escaped Manticore's compound in 2009."
'Click'
More recent head shot of Zack, taken during his re-capture to base by Lydecker "The members of this unit gave each other names outside their designations to keep track of each other in the field. X5-599 here-" White pointed to the image with his hand "Goes by the name of Zack. His age is now twenty-four years, 5'9 inches tall, between 160 and 170 lbs, blonde, brown eyed, with strong muscle definition on his upper body, particularly the arms"
'Click'
Shot taken of Max, not a head shot like Zack, one stolen from a hover cam readout of Max standing at a Sector stop by her messenger bike.
"X5-452, the original surrogate in your conception goes by the name of "Max" Her age is now twenty-one years, 5'7 inches tall, between 110-115 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair, long, like most of the other girls who escaped with her to conceal her barcode"
"Wow, base gave me a hot mom" the kid said, looking at Max's image "So I take it their my mission?"
White clicked off the last slide, the screen going black, until the next wave came in
'Click'
"Duty" appears on screen
'Click'
"Honor"
'Click'
"Mission"
"Yes they are" White watched his "pupil" watch the screen. "These are renegades who deserted the mission"
'Click'
Image of Max and Zack appear
'Click'
"Rat"
'Click'
More images of them
"Deserter"
'Click'
"Traitor"
The kid broke out of the trance to look at White "So what's the objective?"
White turned to him "They must be taken out"
"I was not trained as an assassin Sir-"
"One day with me and you will be" White reassured "You can shoot right?"
The boy scoffed, brainwashing hadn't eliminated his hard ass side "name it I can blast it Colt, Sig, Revolver, M-24, 16, Glock-"
"I get it kid" White interrupted. Then he looked to him, eyes cold and completely serious "This is the objective solider. You will only receive one day of training in marksmanship. If you fail you will be terminated, erased, like you never blipped any radar at all."
"I understand Sir"
"452 and 599 won't go easily. They have been trained in Manticore combat like you. 452 was trained as a sniper-"
"Nothing hotter then girls and guns"
"You will have an advantage over her." White cut in "Events that happened during the escape of 09 induced 452's hatred of guns, and she will not use them for defense, unless as a last resort. Also 452 is now married to a civilian-"
"Manticore contaminated itself with a civilian?" the boy's view of the world was true to his Manticore brainwashing roots.
White nodded "They both have people their close too. 452 to her husband and two children and 599 shares relations with a woman, a civilian as well-"
"That can be used to our advantage Sir" the boy smiled sinisterly
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
"I'm impressed"
Jondy turned her head, her ponytail bobbing with the movement "Impressed by what?" she was curious as to what her brother-in-law meant by that remark. All she was doing was making a Reuben for herself. She never had the chance to eat this kind of food at home, mostly due to the fact she didn't have enough money to spare on any ingredients that didn't all come in a box with three step directions.
"Seems like most of the X5's I know can kick major ass, do intensely hard equations and logarhythms but cooking is one of those things that doesn't come standard with the package"
Jondy placed the top slice of bread on her sandwich, throwing a dishtowel at Logan with her free hand. "I'm not what you call your standard package" she picked up her plate with the food on it and jumped up on the counter to eat her creation.
Logan watched her eat "Ya know I have a table-"
Jondy looked up, talking through the small bit of sandwich in her mouth "Logan. Visualize it. Thinking outside the box"
He just looked at her "So what other motives brought you out from San Francisco besides wanting to eat my food?"
"You mean I had to have another reason besides that?" Jondy argued with a smile
"Have I ever told you how much I love your cynicism?"
Jondy grinned after she swallowed "All the time baby" a pause "If you think I came out here for some deeply technical, X5 missionesque reason you would be-"
"Right" Logan broke in
"Wrong" she corrected, "Just traded my Spirit for a 2020 Honda Shadow VLX that I saved from the impound lot."
"How can you afford a new bike? I thought you were living the humble life"
"I go minimal on the groceries Logan" Jondy told him "Spares up a lot of change. Not like I need to eat that much anyways. Some guy in Chinatown couldn't make his payments so the bike got repo-ed on his ass. I swoop in, haggle for a good offer-"
"How much?"
"100 to get it out of the pound and 200 to adopt it-"
"That's it? On a motorcycle that's only a year old?"
"I do a good haggle" she set her empty plate back on the counter beside her. "Baby's chromed out with 1,100 cc's and digital ignition."
"I'm impressed," he agreed "But I thought you loved your old bike"
"It was her time to fly" Jondy spoke of her old motorcycle the way parents do about their kids. "I filled up the tank and been two days on the road breaking in the newest addition to the family. Figured the only way to get a decent meal was to drop in on my favorite brother-in-law."
"And by 'decent' you mean 'free' right?" Logan crossed his arms over his chest.
"Only way to do decency up right," she agreed hopping off the counter.
"Plate." Logan pointed to the dish with crumbs left over on it "Washed, if you don't mind."
"What happened to chivalry?"
"This is a do it yourself establishment" Logan reminded "There for you have to-"
"Do it myself" Jondy finished for him "Ya know you being more sarcastic then me doesn't make you very attractive-"
"Dish soap is by the back splash" Logan pointed out, leaving the kitchen.
"Jerk" Jondy muttered under her breath kiddingly, loud enough for Logan to hear her.
"I don't hear scrubbing" Logan threw back, adding his part to the joke.
"Bite me!" Jondy threw back good-naturedly. /Millions of civilian males in the Unites States and Maxie had to shack up with one whose just as bad as us/
"Am I interrupting something?"
Jondy turned from washing the plate when she heard her sister's voice in an indication that she had come home. "Nohtin' that you could black mail me by" she rinsed off the plate and shoved in the top rack in the dishwasher. She soon heard the sounds of smaller footsteps of her niece and nephew running towards her.
"Aunt Jondeeee!" Lexi was the first one to reach her, drawing out the ending 'y' sound of Jondy's name.
Jondy picked her up "Hey sistah girl" she kissed her, looking down at Jess who was now at her feet "Sup my man?"
Jess held out his arm showing her the Band-Aid on it "I got stuck"
"Ouch" Jondy sympathized "Sorry baby, but hey no pain no gain" she looked over to Max who was now standing beside Logan after giving him a kiss. Next to her was another woman that Jondy didn't recognize.
"Remember you alright" Jacinda hugged Logan when he offered the gesture. Omar had an afternoon date to hang with his old friends while they were still in the city that his Aunt Lydia was supervising so it was just her this time.
"You look great Jacinda" Logan complimented her
Jacinda smiled "Now I remember why Cindy liked you so much for Max" she laughed briefly "You look great yourself Logan. Can see that being married to this woman put some pleasure in your features"
Logan looked over to Max "Defiantly" he smiled and kissed her on the shoulder
Max broke from their contact a moment later to focus on her sister "Everything good?"
Jondy stepped over to them setting Lexi down on her feet "S'all good baby girl" the two women shared a short hug.
"Jacinda" Max began in an introduction "This is my sistah Jondy. Jondy, Jacinda, she use to live in my old crib"
"Nice to meet you" Jacinda spoke first
"Same girl" Jondy greeted "Well I guess I should get goin-"
Max turned to her "You leavin' already?"
"I dropped in on Tinga first. She basically sat on my chest until I told her I'd crash at her place-"
"So I'm not good enough for ya is that it?" Max started teasing Jondy the way they use to do as kids.
"Nobody likes a whiner Maxie"
"Bite me Jondy"
"See it's this kind of abuse that makes Tinga the better sister" she laughed
Max just shook her head in exasperation "Come out to Crash tonight?" she glanced over at Jacinda "You too. Know Cindy would be glad to see ya"
"I'll try Max," Jacinda told her "It all depends on if I can find a sitter for Omar."
"Me too Maxie" Jondy agreed "But it depends on if I can find a sitter for Krit"
"Thought you came out here alone" Logan questioned
"Did" Jondy stated, "Alone for the first two days then caught sight of his tail on my ass. Can't really blame him for leavin'. Montana's nuthin' but Big Sky Country. Ditched him somewhere in Sector 1. He'll figure it out eventually. My hope is that he'll go bug Zack's Seattle digs like the last time"
"You two are terrible" Logan scolded "Why do you always feel the need to ditch your brother?"
"It's fun," Max told him
"You haven't had to LIVE with Krit Logan." Jondy reminded "I love him to death but the boy keeps you up till seven o'clock in the morning tuning his bike and listening to Drowning Pool. I mean C'MON I normally knock off my bike repair by at LEAST five-" she shot Max a knowing look when she said this.
"Plus he's WAAY too over obsessive about being orderly for my taste. He organized my CD's collection once by the amount of music on each disc, took me a whole day to figure out where the hell everything was-"
The phone at Jondy's waist rang. She cringed at the ring, pretty much already knowing who it was.
"Hey-" pause "Oh, Zack-" she relaxed for a second, maybe she was wrong for once "I dodged the bullet-what? No, hey wait dammit! I said "no" Put him on but I'm already at Tinga's. The hell I will, you just gotta deal with it. Yeah? Hey Cat-Man." Pause "Ditching is such a strong word. I prefer escape and evade. You wanna settle this at Crash? You bring some thugs with you?" Jondy blew him off "Boy whatever. Can't call you what I want, the niece and nephew are in here-" she turned to Max pointing at her with one hand "7:30." She waved at her a second later, still complaining to their brother on the way out the door.
"Sorry you had to see that" Max apologized in a joke to Jacinda.
"I'm use to sibling rivalry" Jacinda acknowledged "I have two brothers of my own" she checked her watch "I have a few things I need to take care of, but I will take you up on your Crash offer. Omar should be able to stay with some friends of mine-" she looked up to Max "Who's watching yours if-"
"My mom" Max broke in.
Logan looked at her for this. This was the first time she had ever called Lucia 'mom'.
"She lives here?" Jacinda didn't understand the full extent of Max's declaration.
"About thirty minutes away" Logan confirmed
"But Max you told me you didn't know-"
"I didn't" Max finished for her "She came to me a few months back. We got to talking-"
"Did she explain why she would abandon a divine girl like you to be raised with strangers-"
"I got what I needed to know" Max calmed Jacinda's defensiveness down "Hey foster family's not all bad. Grew up with a family of eleven kids. Wasn't exactly alone."
"Long as you're okay with it" Jacinda finally agreed "I just don't get how a girl can do that kind of thing to an innocent baby. Not like they asked to be born."
/FLASH: "Max!" Zack whispered her name, catching her attention on the way out of their barracks.
Max turned to him. Despite their brainwashing to be strong and emotionless, the girl-soldier's eyes were watering slightly in the overhead light. "We'll catch hell if we're late Zack-"
Zack came closer to her. He could now see the notable difference in her appearance in any female that was pregnant. He was so close to telling her the truth about it, but something held him back. Not protection for them, but her safety. He was sworn to secrecy. The op's threatened him with locking his sisters in the VC unit if any of them found out about the origins of the babies they were carrying.
"Jess-" he couldn't get the words out past his lips
Max looked at him coldly "She's dead Zack-" she could hear the sounds of the op's shouting at them to stop the delay "We have to go"/
*****
SEATTLE
SECTOR ONE
EXACT LOCATION UNKNOWN
7:01 PM
The black Buick Skylark approached the sector stop, all the tinted windows raised. White sat opposite the boy, 599, who was sliding on black leather gloves and dropping the hood of his black cotton hoodie so the sector cop could get a clear look at his face.
The sector cop's flashlight shinned right in the boy's face as he compared it with the fake pass he was looking at. "You're nephew you say Sir?"
"Yeah" White lied. Two months after the Pulse something called Birthing Notification was passed by Congress. It forced parents to register their children with the newly created branch. It was overturned eventually by the new President in 2011 seen as a direct invasion of privacy. However it did not get removed before Ames and Wendy White registered their son Raymond Peter with the board. White as a listed government agent still was to abide by this registration. And in the ten years since, White had not notified the agency of a new child between him and Wendy. Even though now Wendy was dead, and the kid could be registered as an illegitimate, but "nephew" was a more erasable route.
The cop finally turned the beam away from the boy, handing the passes back through the window "Curfew for all non working personal is midnight"
"Got it" White didn't say anything more, nodding to his driver to continue.
The kid turned to White "So where's the pick up spot 'Uncle'?" he pulled the hoodie back over his head.
White didn't acknowledge the remark "Sector 3. Corner of Main and Fifteenth. Place that's known for it's Black Market arson."
"I thought you had covert government issue Sir"
White jerked to face him "Think what's smarter 599, handing you standard issue M-24s with the 100% follow up or having the locals pitch you one that is as easy to trace as the drugs that are smuggled into the city everyday."
"You have money for this right?" the kid didn't give in and admit his mistake. He had as much testosterone as any X5 male.
White threw a paper bag at him in answer "5 grand. Should get you the 24."
"What about a CAR?"
"These are street dealers boy, not the Army Rangers" the car came to a stop. The Black Market business was already booming, hookers, guns, drugs, everything was out.
The boy stepped out. Being 11 didn't really make him fit the scene, even in the kind of world they were living in.
White rolled down the window "Ten minutes, or your Manticore created ass is gonna be given a workout."
"So if this thing was reversed I'd be workin' your face Sir?" the sarcastic smile was back. He stepped away before White could say anything.
One of the stall owners saw the kid approaching. "Hey boy what's your name?"
599 turned to him. He had no designated alibi, but he was well equipted to handle these situations. So he played into the man's game. "Trey."
"Trey? Big name for a baby face."
599 ignored him, searching over his guns that were displayed.
"What can I help you with Trey?" the stall keeper leaned over his merchandise "Cause the lollypops are in the candy store"
XX5-599 never knew Zack, but his patience level ranked as high as his. He whipped around to the owner before he had a chance to think, chocking his neck with piano wire. "I came here for the big boy stuff. Can you wrap your head around that, or do I wrap it around this?" he let the wire fall back into its canister while the stall keeper chocked from the lack of air.
"You a little mother fuckin' bad ass white boy, can tell you that much. Fine-" he took a big, gasping breath of air feeling the blood around his neck from the piano wire slash with his free hand. "Whatcha want?"
"M-24 laser sighted automatic"
"Bad ass or not I need the green to back it up."
XX5-599 took out the wad of 100 dollar bills White shoved at him and threw it at the dealer "five g's. That enough, or do you wanna bargain some more?"
The man took the money, counting it until he was satisfied with the amount. He turned and reached for something in back of him, soon tossing the gun at 599. "You know how to work one of these kid?"
XX5-599 checked out the weapon he was just handed "You didn't think I knew how to use piano wire." that remark served as his answer.
"Don't kill anyone sport"
The boy turned to him "Now where's the fun in that?"
After the transaction was made he searched out White's car, finally finding it parked on a curb across the street.
The window rolled down after he tapped on it, and he climbed back inside.
599 looked down the barrel of his newly acquired weapon "Eleven years old and I already got somethin' cocked" he said this with smug pride.
"The word is "cocky" 599" White interrupted "But cocky is good. Cocky is what get's the job done."
"Defiantly better then a shag shoe shine J-O-B that's got as much appeal as my love for you Sir"
White ignored him again, talking to his driver "Pull it back to HQ for the night"
"Yes Sir" the driver said without taking his eyes from the road.
599 turned to White "Read me a bedtime story Sir?"
White matched his quip "Who said anything about sleep?"
*****
"Hey" Max smiled at the woman beyond the door "C'mon in"
Lucia greeted the younger woman with a kiss. "You look great" she admired Max's chosen outfit for the night, which was just a lime green long sleeve shirt with tie sleeves and flair sand blasted low riders. But she had a mother's prejudice on her side, so anything Max wore would make her fabulous.
"Thanks for doin' this" Max closed the door.
"Best way to spend my Saturday" Lucia told her
"Girl you need to get out more" Max suggested.
"Nana nana!" Jess's voice reverberated through the air, making both women turn.
Lucia smiled, as wide as she could without splitting open her jaw. This wasn't the first time Jess had called her 'nana', but each time it affected her. Max would be the only daughter she would probably ever have, and to find her and also find out she had a family that equaled grandchildren for her in all aspects of her thinking, it was incredible.
Lucia braced herself for Jess's tackle "Hey handsome" she gave him a big kiss on the cheek. "You all ready for our date?"
Jess nodded, but there was a slight weird look on his face "Can't be a date nana, Lexi is here"
Lucia tried not to laugh too hard at Jess's words, knowing he in all his almost four-year-old glory saw this as a perfectly logical way to think. "Okay hun, you're right. It's more of a group thing." She smiled at him again "But that doesn't mean we can't still have a great night." She set the boy down on his feet after seeing Lexi walk in the room, and she knew the little girl would want her equal time with 'nana'.
"Daddy hot nana" Lexi entered the room with that phrase, rushing over to hug the woman.
Lucia picked her up just like Jess, kissing her on her forehead.
"Daddy's warm?" Lucia picked at the remark in the way she thought her granddaughter meant.
Lexi shook her head "No nana" she corrected her "hot."
As if on cue Logan walked in the living room, dressed in black jeans a navy blue sweater and his leather jacket. Lucia took one look at Logan and got exactly what Lexi meant.
Her eyebrows rose as she herself gave him the once over "Where'd you hear that daddy was hot?"
"Mommy" Lexi wasn't shy about it.
Lucia's eyebrows rose at the pair in front of her who now seemed to be very interested in the patterns of wood grain on the floor.
"Ahh, did it get warmer in here all of a sudden?" Logan fanned himself by whipping his jacket back and forth.
"Just leave the room Logan if you want it to cool down." Lucia couldn't help it, this was great. There was nothing to be shy about. They were two adults, married, obviously bad for each other, why shouldn't they show it?
"Thanks for the advice Luc" Logan walked over to her and kissed the older woman. "And thanks, for commin' over. You sure you're husband won't mind us stealing you away late at night?"
"Normally he would, but he's out of town on a conference so I'll have my late night when he comes back" her voice was half reassurance, half suggestive. "Speakin' of nights, you two should get outta here or you're gonna miss the excitement." Lucia set Lexi back on her feet and took off her suede jacket revealing a burnt orange v-neck sweater over flair coffee colored flair pants. The woman had a flair for fashion.
"We can take a hint." Max told her, slipping into her jacket, that Logan was holding out for her, being a gentleman.
"Oh good" Lucia stated, taking something out of her pocket "Cause I have one more before you go" she held up the paper which had something written on it in her handwriting.
*Lifestyle*
Max looked at the brand name for the contraceptive, this time it was her turn to raise the eyebrow. She turned and walked out the door, not saying anything.
"Always respect your elders Logan."
Logan couldn't help it then, he cracked into a grin as big as hers "Yes ma'am"
*****
CRASH
"Boy you're smashed" Jondy took the pitcher away from Krit who reached for it again. "Lay off the hooch"
"Smashed is for civilians little sister" Krit told her "The way I can hold my stuff is an art form"
he looked at her over the rim of his cup, drinking the last bit of beer from it.
"Bout to decorate the table if you chug anymore" Jondy took his now empty glass away from him.
Krit laughed at her. He wasn't drunk yet, His eyes had a happy look about them like normal people who've had too much, but they weren't glazed. All X5's had the ability to drink almost twice their weight in alcohol before it took affect. And all though Krit had had seven beers straight in a row, his weight of one hundred and fifty pounds would mean that in order for him to get wasted he'd have to drink an entire fraternity under the table.
He put his head on Jondy's shoulder "You know from this angle you look really hot."
"Krit, this shirt is new. If any bit of your happy hour comes out on me I'm gonna wrap your ass around a telephone pole." She took a sip of her own drink. "And stop incesting me, you're not that great of a catch for that to work out."
Krit removed his head then "Then who floats your boat Jondy? Zack, Zane?"
"Why the hell are we even having this conversation?"
"Tinga?"
"I'm gonna get a refill" Jondy stood up and walked behind Krit to the bar, slapping him on the back of the head as she passed him. She refilled the glass pitcher with more spirits, stopping in her journey back to the table when she spotted Logan playing pool with, of all people Alec.
"Is this Warped World or something?" Jondy moved to stand beside Original Cindy when she saw her standing by the other end of the bar that was closest to the pool table.
Cindy turned at the noise "Hey sistah girl, didn't know you were in town"
"Girl's gotta have her secrets" Jondy told her.
"San Francisco's lost is our gain" Cindy told her with a smile.
"Mine too" Jondy agreed. "You know if I wasn't straight I'd be all over the brown sugah."
"Thanks boo" Cindy took it as the compliment it was meant to be. Jondy didn't swing her way, but when it came to fine women, Max's sisters ranked on the 'A List'.
Jondy turned to call out to Alec "Careful, think Max said her man went to college on a billiard scholarship"
"Careful is for whimps" Alec threw back while lining up his shot.
"Ergo-" Jondy stated.
Alec ignored her and made his shot, splitting the cluster of three balls into the left and right corner pocket.
"Impressive" Logan commented. His feelings of Alec aside, it was a good shot. He watched Alec move for the next one.
"What I do" Alec agreed lining up another ball, but this one was about one inch shy of the pocket.
"Then I suggest you don't quit you're day job" Max stepped over beside Logan.
"Hey no women" Alec informed, "It breaks the vibe"
"Alec are you forgetting who you two ARE?" Logan asked, lining up to take his shot.
"Manticore or not, a woman is very distracting" Alec leaned on his pool cue.
Logan grinned, "Wait till you're married" he took his shot.
Max smiled too, hearing the balls fall into the pockets, telling of Logan's success.
Logan smirked at Alec over setting the pool cue back on the table "Believe the bet was a free round"
"You know there's nothing free in this world any more Logan" Alec interjected.
"How bout a swift kick in the ass?" Max reminded
"Fine" Alec finally caved "But don't complain if I get the beer that tastes like cat piss" he left for the bar.
"Asha Copland comes out at night" Alec picked up the full pitcher of beer the barkeep had just refilled looking at the blonde he saw sitting in one of the stools.
"Yeah Alec it's a world gone mad" Asha tucked a loose chunk of hair behind her ears.
"Something I can help you with?" Zack's voice came up behind Alec
Alec turned to the face Zack "Last time I checked this was 'sit freely zone'"
"Maybe you need to consult the updated handbook" Zack's voice was growling.
"You ladies done bitchin'?" Asha broke in the 'I can kick your ass more' X5 battle. She liked men with testosterone, but she didn't want to swim in it. "Cause I can leave you two alone." She took a sip of her Heineken.
"Zack give Asha some sugar" Krit came over, still not hammered, but defiantly feeling the effects of the alcohol shooting through his body. "Always love seein' two women making out"
Zack forgot about Alec and jumped Krit, throwing him to the floor, pinning his arms behind his back.
"Smack me around some more Krit" his voice was threatening.
"That's enough" Jondy pulled Zack off Krit "Can't hit a squad member at a disadvantage Zack" Jondy reminded.
"He's always had only those two brain cells to rub together Jonnie D"
Jondy had to suppress a laugh then.
"Stickin' up for me, that's my girl, love ya-" Krit was a very ademate drunk.
"Baby" Jondy's fake coed "Get that sweet ass up so I can kick the shit out of it" she hauled Krit to his feet.
"You gonna be able to walk a straight line in the mornin' boo?" Cindy got in on the act, observing Krit.
"My life is always about walkin' a line Cindy" Krit threw back with a drunken smile.
"You're wasted" Zack commented to his younger brother, then looked to Jondy "You-"
"Helll no" Jondy interrupted "I don't live here remember? Make Maxie do it-"
"Make Maxie do what?" Max joined her siblings.
"Keep the smashed company tonight" Jondy looked at Krit when she said this
"Uh uh, keep me out of this guys. I have children who I would like to be able to sleep tonight"
"Yeah well Zack has Asha who he would like to be able to sleep tonight later on-" Jondy couldn't help it, she lived for moments like these.
Zack shot her a look "I already had him, someone's gotta give it up"
"Guys I'm not THAT wasted yet" Krit notified
Jondy smacked his shoulder "Shut up" she turned to her sister "Please Maxie? Just this time?"
"This time?" Krit wanted to be included in this conversation about him "How often do you think I'm gonna get hammered while I'm here?"
Max looked to Jondy, then to Krit, who was wagging his eyebrows at her. She sighed. "You owe me MAJOR Jondy" she grabbed Krit by the arm "Party's over Mr. Fun" she dug into her brother's pockets and threw the keys to Zack. "One of you has to keep his bike overnight"
"Max, you leavin' already?" Jacinda asked from the bar, her beer now half empty.
"Gettin' late" Max informed, yanking Krit to the door. "Gotta go tuck in the children" she looked at Krit when she said this.
*****
Southside Market
Black Market Auto Dealer
9:55 PM
599 moved stealthily on the sidewalk, observing the people in an abandoned garage, young men taking a break from breaking down cars to get wasted.
/Morons/ 599 listened to the sound of drunken laughter coming from them, and the sounds of blaring DMX tracks. He checked his position in relation to the street before creeping closer to the scene, the M-24 he had just purchased gripped in his hands.
He set his sights on one of them wearing a green ski cap and dark jean jacket. Richard Anderson. A prominent member of the underbelly of Seattle, who according to White possessed a map of the city's underground trail ways, and that, without knowing it had actually mapped out a portion of NSC's HQ location in Seattle.
So basically 599 was on recon to get it back.
The boy checked the sight on the gun. He used the old fashioned cross hairs on the sight instead of the laser one in order to not compromise his position.
He waited for the right moment, until Anderson was dead in his sights, before he pulled the trigger.
Anderson fell almost instantly. 599 had aimed for the cerebellum in the back of the head. His buddies became alive then.
"What the fuck happened man?" one of them leaned over the body of Anderson. "Ahh!" he became revolted at the sight of brain matter and blood sprayed on the leg of a table. He pulled out his switchblade, pointing it into the night.
599 moved undetected into the garage, once there he searched Anderson's pockets for the map. He was known to always carry it on him.
"Fucking baby prick!" A sig was balanced at the back of 599's head by one of Anderson's associates.
599 finally found what he was looking for, and rolled out of the line of fire at the last minute.
Before the guy could process this 599 knocked him in the balls with the butt of the M-24, once he was down, he knocked him out, along with the other two that were with Anderson.
Once all men were incapacitated 599 took the switchblade from the ground with gloves on, and rubbed it's owner's fingerprints all over it, then slashed at Anderson's body to mimic defensive wounds. Then he took the other man's gun and shot Anderson once in the leg to make it look like there had been a struggle before the kill shot. 599 then proceeded to wipe his prints of the M-24, and cover it in the prints of the others, laying it beside the unconscious form of Anderson's associates.
He stood up and grabbed the map and walked out like nothing happened, meeting the black Buick Skylark twenty feet down the road.
"You got it?"
The car door slammed and 599 threw the paper at White "Always make good on my promises Sir"
White pocketed the map. "Weapon disposed of?"
"Did what I was came out to do Sir" the boy taunted.
White smiled, barely there and cynically "Then maybe we should have that talk about raising your responsibility" he handed him another M-24, government issue.
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
10:18 PM
"Maxie I love ya" Krit's voice was getting slightly slurred as Max hauled him into the apartment.
"Yeah uh-huh" Max dragged him over to the couch "You better not mess up my shoes"
"Guys" Lucia came out of the back bedroom when she heard the noise in the living room. "Something wrong?" she looked at the young man she didn't know.
"Maxie, is there something you're not telling me?" Krit looked to Lucia suggestively
Max unslung his arm from her shoulder "Can it boy" she pushed him on the sofa. "You want anything, water, aspirin, knock upside the head?"
"Nah I'm good lil sister" he looked up at her with a drunken grin.
"He's-"
Max turned to Lucia when she started talking again, moving away from Krit "My older brother, one of them at least"
Lucia looked up and over at the man sprawled out on the sofa "Wild night?" she figured it was so she went on "I have this good recipie for a hangover remedy. Tomato juice, black pepper and tobassaco, probably get a fraternity up and going the next day"
"Thanks" Max told her "But I have one with a single ingredient, ice water at six o clock in the morning."
Lucia smiled in agreement. "Maybe I'll use that next time" she checked her watch "The kids have been down for about two hours now, and their still in dreamland."
"Thanks Luc" Logan spoke out. He kissed her on the cheek as she went out the door, petting the dog on the way. "Kaja" the dog looked her full in the face "Keep an eye on Max's brother tonight okay? They already have enough babies to worry about" she kissed the dog's snout, smiling when the animal returned the gesture with wet licks on her face "Aww, thank you baby girl" stood back up. "Bye sweetie" she waved at Max.
"Bye" Max called out to her, waving back.
The door closed.
"If you guys want to go rated X I wouldn't mind"
Max picked up a pillow from the chair and threw it at Krit "Shut up and go to sleep."
"Since when do I sleep?" Krit reminded
"Since you're staying in my house"
"C'mon guys it's still early"
"Goodnight Krit" this time it was Logan who said it, flipping off one of the lights in the living room.
"Oh I get it." Krit declared in the semi darkness "Just tone it down some, remember I'm suppose to be asleep."
The other two in the room didn't say anything as they retreated off to the back of the apartment.
*****
"Should be the third window over" White rolled down the window, peering up into the tall building from the road.
"So the objective is-"
White turned away from the window to look at the kid "452, and 599, they have people their close too. They are not ones to come voluntarily into a fight with me. It requires some force."
"Who is this person?"
"Asha Copland" White read the name of the file, staring at an image of the blonde in a mug shot when she had been arrested once for her involvement in the raid with the S1W. "She has been seen around with 599 when he comes into the city. My guess he's slamming her."
"You want me to kill her?"
White shook his head "Just get a message across. Civilian blood is not worth spilling, too much will be exposed" a pause "Fifth floor apartment 501"
599 climbed out of the car. He snuck around to the bushes that lined the apartment building and shot off the rope from a crossbow. The anchor wrapped around something on the roof and held.
599 released the catch and coasted up the outside of the building until the fifth floor. There he used a cat burglar's tools to cut a small circle into the widow that lead into the outside hallway of the fifth floor. He pocketed the glass piece and unlocked the window, sliding inside five seconds later.
His feet were soundless padding on the carpeted hallway floors. Soon he reached apartment 501. He could hear noises coming from inside, meaning that someone was home.
He knocked, like he wasn't Manticore, but a regular boy.
The door opened soon, revealing Asha's face.
"Yeah?" she was surprised to see a boy standing there "Something I can help you with kid?"
599 lowered the hood from his hoodie and stared at her. "Who-hoo mama" he leered "You must get slammed a lot of thank yous" he looked her up and down.
"Excuse me?" Asha did not just believe this pre-teen had just knocked on her door to hoot at her. "Kid you need to go home before your mama busts your ass, or before I do."
"Lady the only ass busting will be from me" 599 kicked the door open all the way sending Asha reeling to the floor.
Asha went for her gun laying on the coffee table. She never would shoot at a kid, but this little rat bastard was different. "Get the hell outta here!"
599 kicked the gun out of her hand, and threw her into the opposite wall before she had time to react.
Asha looked up in time to see the kid holding her Colt in her face. "599 sure the found the good kinda cookie to eat," he cocked the gun at her. "Tell Zack I stopped by" he knocked her out with a slam across her face. She slid down onto the floor. He leaned closer kissing her face "Okay sweetie?" he threw the gun on the floor and left, locking the door on the way out.
"Civilian women" he reached the spot where is rope was suspended outside "They're hot, but that's about it" he climbed back out on his rope and slid silently to the ground.
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
10: 45 PM
"We have advanced hearing, why the hell is he still blasting that?" she could hear the song from Korn that Krit managed to find on the radio blasting through the bathroom walls. She slipped off her shirt, pounding on the wall with her fist "Turn that down boy! Don't make me come out there"
"Yes mother!" Krit called back lowering the volume on the stereo system in the living room.
"You wouldn't understand baby" Logan told her in their bedroom next-door "It's a guy thing, not for the fairer sex" he was messing with her.
It got its desired result when she came out of bathroom and threw her shirt at him.
He laughed to as she retreated back into the bathroom. He looked at the shirt in his hand before setting it on top of the bed. "Max, what are you wearing in there?" there was seduction in his tone.
"I decided to go with the ball gown" she remarked "Great for shower taking-" she felt a breeze as the door opened. She was midway from taking off her jeans. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to seduce me Logan Cale"
"Yeah, but you're smarter then the average person Max" he stepped closer to her "So you know this is a seduction."
"What if I told you I wasn't in the mood?"
"Then I'd be a gentleman and wait-"
"How long?"
"Until you changed you're mind"
She smiled, full and sexy "What if I told you it's already changed?"
"Then I'd say you'd have to put that shower on hold sweetheart"
"Or we could just conserve water and crank up unisex one notch" she went and turned the showerhead on. "Krit's got his music up anyways" she started to remove her bra, dropping the bit of cloth to the ground. She felt him come up behind her, laying warm hands on her bare shoulder's
"Sounds like a plan" his voice was low, tickling her skin as he kissed the back of her shoulders.
She turned around to face him, pulling his long sleeved shirt up over his head, then his cotton undershirt
In was in this manner that he removed his other clothes and his glasses.
The hot water beat down on the pair. Max stuck her face under the spray, enjoying what use to be a rare luxury at her old apartment. The warm water and the man behind her were doing great things to her senses.
= = =
He peaked inside. All the lights were out. 599 pulled out the glasscutter, but then cursed a few seconds later after it fell to the ground. He checked around the window, seeing a tiny sensor attached to the frame, a security system that would go off it the laser was broken when the window lifted up. He took out an small flat head screwdriver and after a few seconds de-activated the laser. The alarm would not sound now, but the window was still locked. He punched through the glass with a gloved fist, sending shards flying into the room.
He miscalculated the location of the occupant in the room. The shattered glass flew out from the window landing directly over the crib where Lexi had been sleeping.
She had woken up from the noise and now scream/cried as the glass cut her on the parts of her arms that weren't covered by the blanket.
= = = =
Kaja had heard the noise of the smash and began to bark a low fierce growl. Krit turned down his music "what's up?"
He heard the baby screaming "Maxie!" he bolted off the couch
The bedroom door opened two seconds later as Max ran out, she had heard it too. She and Logan ran to their daughter's room with Krit.
Kaja was already there, barking and whining at the closed door.
Max tore into the room and flipped the light on. The first thing she saw was Lexi screaming her head off, sitting up in her crib. Max rushed over to her and picked her up, she then saw the cuts on her arms.
"The windows broken" Logan looked over the large window that stood over the crib. He looked back to his wife and baby daughter "How bad is it?"
"Just superficial cuts" Max looked Lexi over "It's okay baby" her head had a few small cuts, and one piece of glass was still sticking out of one near her hairline. There were also similar injuries on her arms and one cut on her neck.
Kaja continued to bark, scanning the room, sniffing, barking growling.
"Room's clear" Krit announced, doing a scan of his own. "Someone cut of the motion sensors" he looked down below, seeing nothing. He pulled his head back inside and bumped into the dresser that was beside the crib.
Something white fluttered to the floor, sliding under his boot. Krit picked up the small square of paper.
"Max" he turned the card around to face her.
It was a card the size of the ones in the bicycle deck, printed on it was the Manticore symbol, the monkey holding the scepter, and underneath it was a stamped mark of a barcode.
It was a marker used by Manticore snipers to identify a target in practice tactics. Max recognized it since she herself had been trained as a sniper. The barcode underneath coincided with the 'target'
And this one matched hers.
*****
Asha's head was killing her. Her eyes opened to a bleary world and the taste of blood in her mouth. She spit that out, not caring that it landed on her floor. It was then that she heard the pounding on her door.
Zack kicked open her door three seconds later when she didn't answer and found her sprawled out on the floor.
He was immediately beside her "What happened?"
"I don't know" her eyes finally adjusted better to her surroundings and she could see her boyfriends dark brown eyes looking at her in concern. "There was some kid and he was leering at me and the next thing I know BAM he's tossing me around the room like it's a sport"
"What'd he look like?" Zack pulled her to her feet and pushed her into one of her dining room chairs.
"Punkish, shaved head" Asha told him "He kicked my ass around pretty good for an eleven year old"
Zack stuck a rag on her hairline and she jumped. "Did you use you're gun?"
"Didn't have the chance." She placed her hand over the rag, taking control over holding it. "Damn!" she cursed at a new pain.
Zack took her hand down from her face "Pinky's broken" the digit was already starting to swell. He went to get some ice.
"You know how to set bones right?"
"Basic minor simple fractures" he handed her the ice.
Asha looked at her puffed up finger "looks like that to me. I've got a splint kit in the kitchen drawer under the microwave. Do it here. If I go to the ER they'll think I got mugged or abused by my boyfriend, and I don't even have a good lie to tell them."
Zack got the proper supplies and lifted the ice off her finger after he felt it was numb enough "Boy was around eleven?"
"Yeah" Asha's voice was at best a grimace when picked up her finger to set the break. "For some reason he-"Ahh!" she broke off when he re-aligned the bones in their correct order "Shit!" after she was done cursing she went on "looked like you, something in the eyes. Didn't look all that close" she felt him splint the finger and soon release her hand. "Zack I think he's from Manticore"
"I figured that already Asha with how you told me he came in here." He closed the box of splints.
"Not just that" she told him "He told me to tell 'Zack' he was there"
Zack's attention grew one notch. "Did he say anything else?"
Asha shook her head "Zack what the hell is going on?"
*****
"One more piece honey" Bling worked carefully to remove the glass fragments still stuck in Lexi's skin.
He grasped the glass embedded in her scalp with the tweezers making her cry, and bury her head in Max's body who was sitting beside her.
"Done" Bling showed the girl the glass before setting it on the cloth he had spread out on the coffee table. He smoothed out Lexi's hair "You did good sweetie" he dabbed at her cuts with peroxide before getting up to throw the glass away in the kitchen trash can.
"S'allright baby" Max comforted her scared daughter, hugging her close. She rubbed her back and wiped her tears from her cheeks.
The front door opened as Krit stepped back inside "Found it outside down around the parking garage" he showed her a silver glasscutter. "No tracks. Whoever came in descended back and landed on the sidewalk"
"You see anyone?" Logan was in one of the upholstered chairs with his IMAC in front of him.
"Nothing" Krit told him. He took a cup of coffee Bling handed him "Starting to regret my alcohol consumption"
"Regretted that already" Max spoke up from the couch.
Bling looked at the marker that Max had thrown on the coffee table "Story with this?"
"Sniper mark" Krit told him "During, training we were all given these kinds of cards in black wrapping Had to go out one mile on the training ground before opening the "package" All of the cards were plain except one-" Krit slid the card to him and picked it up. "If you got one that wasn't-" his finger traced along the edge of the barcode "This was yours and you were the target. You had to move around though, just like in a real situation. Targets aren't just gonna sit pretty watin' for ya to sneak in and blow their asses off"
"Then how come there weren't bloody heaps of soldiers?" Bling asked, "Snipers have great accuracy."
"Since it was 'practice' they only shot off blanks" Krit threw the card back down. "Good old Deck and his gang knew we were too valuable of an asset to kill us off just in a damn pseudo combat situation."
"This one belongs to Max why-" Bling stopped when he realized that Lexi was within his earshot. He leaned forward. "the hell would they break into a babies room and not do the fucked up thing they came for?"
"It's a warning." Krit looked at his little sister when he said this. "If you were the one with this card it was your notification that you were being sought out, and you had to do something about it"
"So this freako is busting in here to kill my girl?" Bling was pissed "Forget the Manticore thing on his side I'll beat his ass to the ground myself"
"Got something" Logan broke in, looking at his computer screen "Hover Cam caught the form of someone moving across the road" he ran the feed "There's not much, the camera's range didn't go far enough, but-"
"It's a kid" Krit was looking at the feed with Logan. "Barely make out a face though"
"Could be an X7" Max stood up, still holding Lexi in her arms.
"But they were never trained as snipers Maxie." Krit reminded "They were created for recon missions. Sniper training was limited to the X5's" he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye when he said this, knowing she knew all to well of this fact.
"But there weren't any X5 kids after the escape, just the teens and adults."
"Is there anyway that a baby could've been born afterwards?" Logan asked
"There could be" Max answered "But they'd all be only around one or two"
"What about-" Logan stopped in his sentence
"What about what?" Max wanted to know what he was going to say.
"The interbreeding unit" he finished "A kid from there would be about 11 now-"
"None of them survived Logan" Max spoke in a low voice, not wanting to talk about this tonight. "20 girls in the program and they all miscarried. The DNA was too screwed to create a baby between two unit members"
"But the avenues all fit together" Logan continued typing "An 11 year old kid with sniper knowledge. You said it yourself that he couldn't be X7 if he has that training." He brought up an old sealed file of Manticore's OB records. The designations of the twenty girls appeared in a list, Max's, Tinga's and Jondy's among them.
An asterisk appeared by Max's name, and referenced an end not at the bottom of the report. Logan read it in silence.
"What is it?" Max could see the look on his face
"Max, you said you miscarried the child?"
"Yeah like all the other nine year olds who got knocked up." She was getting defensive "I was there remember?"
"End remark" Logan read of the endnote on the report. "Viable embryonic material was found and placed into normal class surrogate C-0359. Pregnancy sustained successfully. Delivered November 9, 2009. Male. Designation Class: XX5-5452599"
Max's expression was one of complete shock, not believing at all what she had just heard.
*****
UNKNOWN LOCATION
"So boss how'd I do?" 599 was slinking in the chair, back in the same interrogation room he was at when he first came in contact with White
"You performed the way you were trained to do" White answered, standing in front of 599 "The Manticore sniper death card was a nice touch"
"Aww, I KNEW you cared about me" 599 leered back
"Incidentally-" White leaned over the boy "You weren't trained as a sniper, so how the hell did you wind up with these?" he held up a unused death card in 599's face.
"Well basically Sir I hawked it, and stamped on the barcodes myself" 599's tone was bragging. "The guy I got them off of was in VC for a month, left them right in the breast pocket of his flack jacket. Not like he needed them in there."
"You're a corrupt little transgenic aren't you?"
"I can't see now Sir, my eyes are tearin' up so bad-" 599 tilted back in his chair, rocking it back and forth, defying the laws of gravity by preventing the chair from crashing to the ground and landing him with it.
"So what was this recon deal for?" he kept up the movement in the chair "Why didn't I just go in and kill them straight away?"
"A good player knows not to play the trump card on the first hand." White was being elusive. "With all the renegade transgenics running around in this city it wouldn't take much for a posse to form along with "mommy" and "daddy" to so they can put you over their knee and give you a good solid kick in the balls"
"So-" 599 didn't understand the importance of this "If 452 turned around in this fight she could do what ever she wanted to my balls" a pause "Wait, you want them to riot don't you?" a smug grin came to his face "You want to have a moment of glory where I beat down these threats to YOUR balls. If I just killed them at night, it would be like any street sleaze. But we're Manticore, it's disgraceful to just shoot and run with an equal opponent"
"You're catching on-"
"I'm gonna start balling here-"
"Shut up!" White snapped "You may be a enhanced weapon, but with just one phone call I can have the boys back at HQ tearing you apart for scrap, so I suggest you watch your mouth" he turned and left.
The door slammed out, rattling the two-way mirror.
The woman waiting outside turned to White after he stood beside her "Fascinating little prick isn't he?"
Her white teeth stood out noticeably against her baldhead and multiple body tattooing
White looked to the priestess, not saying anything
"What do you want with this boy Ames? He is Manticore trash. He is not worthy to be in the group."
"I know" White agreed "But one man's trash is another man's treasure"
*****
"Guys" Jondy got right down in between Charlie and Tinga who were making out on the couch "Door"
"You could get it Jondy" Tinga broke apart
"Not in the guest handbook" Jondy threw out
Tinga growled at her and stood up, straightening out her long hair on the way.
"Tinga you home?"
Tinga growled again when she heard Krit's voice "No. Krit it's late, bug me in the morning-"
"Tinga open up it's me" Max's voice broke in.
The front door opened a few seconds later "Maxie" Tinga saw her sister there with her brother-in-law and kids in tow "What's wrong?"
"Someone broke in our apartment" Max stepped inside holding Lexi
"What?" Tinga was shocked "You guys okay?"
"Great considering the fact that the kid who did it had this with him" Max fished out the death card, showing it to her.
Tinga's eyes grew larger "But how?" she took the card from her "You guys can stay" she moved aside to let them all in "I wanna know how the hell this got there?" she looked at the card on the way to the couch.
"It's obvious girl" Krit pointed out, heading straight for the coffee pot in his sister's kitchen, not even asking, considering it his right as her brother to steal her food and drinks. "Someone has a hit out on Maxie"
"You're frankness is great in these situations Krit really" Max moved over to the couch, Charlie vacating the seat a few seconds later seeing that she wanted to sit. Lexi was still in her arms, and she cradled the little girl to her chest, pushing back bits of her growing baby hair.
"Why don't you guys go see Case in his room?" Tinga stood in the middle of her living room, talking to her niece and nephew. "He's got a lot of things to do in there-"
"Yeah c'mon Jess" Logan chimed in, sensing that his sister-in-law wanted to talk about the recent events, and it would be better to not do it in front of them, even though they were part Manticore themselves.
Max looked down to her daughter "Baby, why don't you go with your brother-"
"No mama" Lexi cut her off, hugging her impossibly tighter "I wanna stay here"
Max rubbed her back sympathetically "Me and daddy wanna talk alone with your aunts and uncles for a bit, but as soon as we're done you can come right back," she kissed her on the cheek "kay?" she wipped a tear from her face.
Logan came around and picked up their daughter "C'mon sweetie" he carried her off into the back room, with Jess following behind.
Tinga waited until they were out of earshot before turning back to her siblings "Now what the hell is going on? Who sent you this?" she addressed this question to Max.
"Manticore obviously" Max threw back
"Don't play dumb with me baby sister, there's more to it then that" she looked at Max sternly
"XX5-5452599, ring a bell?"
Tinga just stared at her, shocked "That's impossible, none of them made it out alive-"
"Guess we were wrong" Max looked at her then.
Tinga came closer and sat in front of Max on her coffee table "Were there more?"
Max shook her head "Only that one. After-" a pause "After I got rid of it, docs came along and salvaged some pieces, put it in a regular surrogate," another pause "guess they didn't want the project to go to a total waste"
"Why is he after you?" Tinga demanded.
"That I don't know. He's toying with me. Prick wants something more-"
"Can't call him that Maxie he's-"
"What?" Max cut Tinga off "my son? C'mon Tinga! You know as well as I do that's crap. Just like those damn op docs told us, we were just donors. I HAVE a real son, so do you. You think Manticore wanted us to be moms to these babies? We were just passing on alpha genes, why the hell else would they kill the faulty things that came out if it-"
"Jesse died because of premature labor complications Maxie-"
"No she died because they killed her!" Max shouted back. She got up from the couch and began to pace
"They dragged her away from me and that stupid photographer and cut her up, but it didn't work. Manticore in all its fucking glory couldn't save a nine-year-old girl. So what did they do? They took away all her dignity and made us watch while they charred her body to a damn heap of ashes!"
"We were there sis" Jondy broke in "we know."
Max whirled on her "you didn't break into an officers barracks and pill pop a whole bottle of aspirin to get rid of it-"
Jondy looked stunned, she never knew. Max had only confided in her that she miscarried the baby, not that she caused it. "Your miscarriage-"
"Self-inflicted" Max spat "Obviously I didn't do a good enough job since someone decided to pick up where I left of. Getting knocked up with my own brothers baby wasn't humiliating enough."
"Max-" Logan had come out of the back room
She pointed a finger at him "Don't you dare say one damn thing Logan Cale! You have NO idea what it's like to be an incesting whore and have this kid try to come back and shatter the ONLY stable part of your life that you have!" she slipped out the back fire escape window, standing on the landing, and climbing up to the roof.
"Max!" Logan stuck his head out and called to her, watching her climb higher and higher. Despite his fear of heights, he braved the landing and climbed up the wrought iron stairs after her.
"Max listen to me!" he caught up to her in the middle of the roof and grabbed her arm.
In a reflex move she turned and threw a punch at him before she had time to think. He ducked just in time and grabbed her arms again pinning them behind her. Where he was getting this ability to fight with his super soldier wife, he didn't know, maybe it was due to the adrenaline pumping full gush though his system.
She matched this, being the Manticore soldier she was, never mind that he was her husband. She was angry, and provoked, she was his wife, but she was a soldier first. She threw him to the ground, hearing him hit the concrete not real hard since he caught himself. Blood came from scrapes on his hands as a result of making contact with the roof. His glasses skidded across the roof a foot in front of him.
She moved, to help him up, to keep going, who knows. But he knew he had to stop her. She was in Manticore mode, and telling her to stop wouldn't do it. Hating himself and being a gentleman aside, this had to end. He tripped her, a move that caught her off guard and she hit the ground on her back.
Before she could get up he tackled her and pressed her down to the roof with his weight. "Enough!"
He pinned her arms to the ground. He was breathing hard, and she could feel the small bits of blood from his cuts on her arms. She stopped struggling, mainly because it scared her that if this kept going on she could very well kill Logan without meaning to.
"I am sick of your self blame Max!" he was shouting, despite the fact that she was six inches from his face. "You were nine years old! You did what they told you to because they brainwashed you into believing that their reasons were just. You are NOT a whore! I didn't marry a whorish, street incesting slut who liked to do it with her brother before puberty even hit. How can I blame you for something you didn't ask to be done to you?"
"That doesn't change the fact that it's true-"
"Max shut up!" he released her arms and grabbed her face he was still shouting at her "I LOVE you dammit! I would love you even if you WERE a whorish street incesting slut who ran away from that to start a new life. Because it would be YOU. Stop running for once in your life and face this! You are not a girl who takes the cowards way out. Leaving Seattle without me and the kids won't make it go away."
She never told him that, but it had been in the back of her mind. After finding out that SHE had created this thing that was after her, endangering her family. She couldn't live with that knowledge that her baby could've been killed by him to get to her. There was so much more to protect then when she tried to leave before. They did not deserve to be in the cross hairs of her shit. "It would protect you-"
"Don't even think it" Logan warned, "If you leave I would never forgive you" he meant every word of it, hating himself, but not wanting do deal with being alone because of her again.
She didn't say anything, looking up at him, knowing that he was telling the truth
His finger brushed her lip "You're bleeding"
She sucked on the cut, still not saying anything. The tension between them was thick. She didn't want it, but they were drifting. Three years of marriage, love, trust, and now /What the hell is happening to us? An hour ago we were fine/
He stood back up, wanting to stay there, to be there when she finally broke, but she would have to come to him now, that was how it was with her. She was a strong woman. And anything else would just be a lie.
She watched him go, intending to let him leave so she could think, but something ate at her stomach /Don't let him go! It's not suppose to be this way!/
"Don't" she grabbed his hand at the last minute, her eyes finally looking up into his deeply, colored in the way that made him remember that he was still deeply in love with her. "Stay with me" her fingers closed around his hand "I don't want it to end like this" she traced the scrape marks with her finger in sensual movements.
Slowly, slowly, he lowered himself back down to her, pressing his forehead against hers. Her arms came up around his neck and it was then that she allowed herself to cry.
He held her, feeling each of her sobs on that rooftop. "We're in this together okay?" he kissed her again
*****
"Why are mommy and daddy yelling?" Jess had come out of Case's room, looking completely scared. His parents had never screamed at each other like that.
"It'll be allright baby boy" Jondy picked up her nephew.
Finally, Max came back through the door, followed closely by Logan.
"You okay honey?" Jondy looked at her sister in concern. "Girl, you're bleeding" she looked warningly at Logan "Boy I love you, but if you laid one hand on Maxie I'll-"
"It's fine." Max broke in. "kay? Calm down." a pause "I'm tired. Gonna go to bed." She looked to Tinga "Okay if we crash in your room?"
"Yeah that's fine" Tinga agreed.
Max looked at her son "It's okay baby"
"Do you still love daddy?"
She kissed his forehead "We're fine hun, I promise. I love daddy, with all my heart. And I love you" she caught Logan looking at her. "See ya in the morning kay baby?" she went off into Tinga's bedroom, Logan following close behind her.
Krit strained an ear to the door to the bedroom a few seconds later, listening, smiling at what he heard "make up sex is the best"
Jondy threw a cushion at him "get away from their Cat Man and leave them alone."
*****
THE NEXT MORNING
Logan woke up with two realizations. The first one was that he wasn't in his bed, and the second that he was alone. He sat up, not bothering to flip the light on. It was only 7:30 but the sun was beginning to come out through the wooden blinds in Tinga's room.
For one insane moment he thought Max's fear had outweighed her senses and she had left him. He pushed that thought aside, knowing that Max wouldn't just leave without telling him goodbye somehow, in a note, a message, SOMETHING.
He and Max had fallen asleep on top of the bed in their clothes. Their "love making" of last night had been restricted to lustful kiss and listening to each other breathe. Their need for contact was greater then the desire for sex.
Getting up from the bed he stretched, wincing as the cut skin of his palms stretched with his movement. The marks weren't too deep; they were already beginning to scab over.
The living room was silent except for the quiet tick of an antique looking table clock on top of the TV.
Tinga and Charlie were nowhere to be found, but Krit was sacked out on a brown leather chair by the couch, his leather jacket used as a blanket.
All thoughts of Max abandoning him got shot to hell when he spotted her asleep on the couch. She had kept her promise to their daughter. Resting in the shelter of her body was Lexi, securely held to her mom by a strong arm.
He knelt next to the couch, Lexi awakening at the movement. Her crystal blue eyes looked into his matching set.
Logan smiled and kissed her, putting a finger to his lips, silently asking her not to say anything yet. The blood on Max's lip had dried in the middle of the night, and the skin was split under the redness. The adrenaline from last night was gone, and guilt was starting to set in at having to hurt her, even though he wasn't doing it TO hurt her. He kissed the spot on the side of her mouth where the blood was, then kissed her full on the lips.
She stirred at the second contact, blinking a few times before looking into his eyes. "Hey"
He smiled at her "Hey yourself" this banter felt like when they use to just be-whatever it was before they were married.
"Any of the past few hours a dream?"
He shook his head
"Damn" she whispered, turning up to look at the ceiling. Her eyes drifted back to him "You should put something on those baby" she indicated his palms with a nod.
He flipped them over and looked at them "Worse then it looks sweetheart" the "before they were married banter" just got taken up a notch.
Max grabbed one of his hands and flipped the palm up. "Kiss daddy's ow-ee's babe"
Lexi did, three times "Does that feel better daddy?"
Logan smiled softly at her "yeah much better honey." He kissed her again on the forehead "Why don't you go wake up the boys?"
Lexi broke out in a huge grin as she climbed off the couch. She loved busting in to her brother's room and jump on his chest, talk to him, give him slobbery kisses until he woke up.
"Don't beat him up to bad baby" Max called after her, watching the girl take off in a euphoric sprint to Case's room where the boys were sleeping.
"Guess she's feeling better" Logan said
"Like mother like daughter" Max shot out, sitting upright on the couch. Her sweater had gotten bunched behind her back in the middle of the night, and she straightened it out.
"You ever get in touch with Zack?"
She shook her head "he wasn't home, figured he might be at Asha's but I lost the number."
"Then let's go pay a visit" Krit had woken up and was now joining in the conversation.
"I gotta go to work" Max informed, not believing what just came out of her mouth. "Plus gotta get these guys back home today."
"Max if you're worried about him just go see him" Logan broke in "This XX5 kid might be looking for him too"
"Zack can take care of himself" Jondy came out of the kitchen with coffee in her hand. "If junior used the same tactics as he did on you then he's not going after Zack at first, he's breaking into the circle of friends, and since Zack doesn't HAVE any family or fr-"
She and Max got the same idea but Max was the one who said it "Asha"
"My bike's at Zack's" Krit notified
"Mine isn't" Max stood up "Can make it there in ten minutes if we move" she turned to Logan "Take them home?"
"I got it" Logan told her "Tell me what you find"
She nodded and kissed him, before going to retrieve her Ninja keys
"Wait now" Jondy was still absorbing this "Maxie are you telling me that the kid Manticore made you and Zack have is still alive and is running around pissing up the place?"
"Damn" Krit said "And I thought I was the pissed up one in the family" he headed over to one of the interior walls, and broke through it with his fist, unearthing the gun he knew Tinga kept inside "Just in case" he checked the ammo.
"What the hell was that?" Tinga called out from the bathroom.
"Just borrowing something sis" Krit told her "I'll return it" he and Max headed out the door just as Tinga came out, her hair halfway damp from where she had just stopped blow-drying it
"Dammit Krit!" she looked at the mess "I gotta find a better place to keep my gun."
*****
134 FENTAL AVE
Max knocked on the door "Asha?"
Krit had the gun cocked at his side, ready to use it if need be.
The door opened, Krit kept the gun down, not wanting to shoot Asha by accident by firing off blindly. Asha stood there. There was a light bruise on her hairline, and Max could see a splint on her pinky.
"What happened?"
Asha didn't answer right away. Max took something out of her pocket "It was a kid wasn't it?"
"How did-"
"Did he leave one of these?" she showed her the death card that she had gotten.
"Yeah" Asha agreed, "Right after he broke a digit" she held up her splinted hand.
"What'd he look like?" Krit asked as Asha moved aside to let them in, closing the door.
"Young, 11ish, punk ass as anything. Wearing all black."
"What'd he want?"
"He told me to tell Zack that he stopped by, among other things"
"Was Zack here?" Krit asked
"Until about three" Asha confirmed "Was sitting on my couch when I fell asleep, and I heard him leave. He kept hovering too much so I kicked him out. He didn't know the kid" she held up the card that 599 had left on her TV, she had found it an hour after Zack came by.
Max looked at it. The death card, but this time not with her barcode, with Zack's.
"Why is this kid after me?" Asha wanted to know
"He's not after you he's after Zack" Max told her.
"Then why'd he come here?"
"You were a scare tactic" Max answered "Last night someone broke into Lexi's room and left this card."
"Why?" Asha demanded
"It's a marker" Krit informed "For a Manticore sniper. Whoever hired him out wants to take down Zack, and Max" Krit looked to his sister when he said this.
"Still doesn't make any sense"
"Asha-" Krit was about to tell her, but Max cut him off.
"There was an interbreeding unit at Manticore. Two X5 males inseminated 20 girls in their units, Zack was one of the males, he was an alpha-" she watched Asha's eyes get wide "Among these girls were Tinga, Jondy, Syl and me. None of us carried to full term, we miscarried in the forth month. But somehow someone got ahold of the embryo and picked up where I left off"
"Zack-" Asha finally tried her hand at speaking again
"No" Max cut in for the second time "He's related to him biologically, that's it. None of us ever consummated in this process, it was all done in a lab"
"Where's Zack now?" Krit asked
"He left" Asha answered him
"Did he say where?"
Asha shook her head "Surprisingly yeah, he said he was going to see you" she signified Max with this remark.
"You should lay low" Max said to Asha "Think this kid's moving on to the main target, but he might decide to double back"
"Laying low isn't an option for me" Asha told her straight out "He maybe your brother Max, but he's also my boyfriend, and I don't care if this shit is from Manticore he's killing Zack without going through you guys and me first."
*****
UNKNOWN LOCATION
"Phase One is complete" White leaned over 599 "Targets has been flushed out. Now it's only a matter of time before they show themselves"
"What makes you think they will Sir?" 599 asked, this time he was sitting on the table
"Let's just say I know these two" White backed up from 599, now standing in front of him "You're a threat, a thorn in their side, and what's the Manticore protocol for thorns?"
"Break'em off." 599 replied "I know you've kinda 'taken me under your wing' Sir, but as far as things go, I may be a thorn, but you're the only prick-"
White got pissed then, and pinned 599 against the wall with one arm "You are MY tool understand kid? After this is all over you're going to be reunited with the all the other freaks back at HQ awaiting Judgment Day"
"Could be now if you don't break this off Sir" 599 warned "I have a temper too"
White leaned closer to his face "But I'm the one who'll win" he released him "Never underestimate your superiors 599"
*****
JAM PONY
"Where the firetrucks is Max?" Normal checked his watch "The weekend ended two hours ago"
"Family emergency-" Cindy stuck up for her home girl
"She ran out of sick and dead aunts" Normal told her
"One of her kids got hit by a car" Cindy got him to shut up after that with her lie
"Are they okay?" Normal actually sounded like a decent human being then.
"She called me last night from the ER. Baby's fine, a few cuts a bruises, but damn lucky."
"I got one worker with a legitimate excuse, unlike the rest of you slackers who pull the first thing out of your ass to get out of work, speaking of which, where's Alec?"
"He was driving the car" Cindy broke in again, lying came more natural as she kept going.
Normal's eyes got wider. Alec was his diamond in the ruff.
"Push those eyes back in yo' head Normal" Cindy stated "Your golden boy didn't hit and run, it was an accident. Her ball rolled into the road by that park and he didn't see her. He had to have his car repaired this morning."
"Tell him to take all the time he needs" Normal informed
"And Max?"
"Yeah her too. I'm not being accused of unethical work conditions"
"Oh damn no, that would be whack" Cindy agreed in a mocking tone. She headed over to the payphone to call Max and find out what was REALLY going on.
"Yeah?"
Cindy recognized the voice, but it wasn't who she was expecting. "Bling?"
"Cindy" Bling replied warmly enough into the phone, but there was something in his voice "Hey girl how ya been?"
"I'm great boo." Cindy told him "Love to catch up, but I wanted to talk to my girl"
"She's out right now, but I could let her know-"
"Is something wrong? I also called cause-" she lowered her voice to just above a whisper "cause Normal's about to get that stick deeper up his ass for her not clockin' in"
There was a pause on Bling's end
"This is Original Cindy you're talkin' to boy remember?" she reminded him "I will smack down your ass real bad if you don't let me know if there's bad stuff goin' down with my boo"
"Max is okay" Bling told her
"I hear a but commin'-"
"I really don't wanna do this over the phone"
"Then I'll come over there, see ya in ten" she hung up "Gonna go visit my baby boo in the hospital, so I'm takin' off early for lunch"
"Thought you said it wasn't serious?" Normal asked
"Not boy, observation, doctors like to be sure and rich" Cindy turned and left.
*****
FOGGLE TOWERS
"I hate to sound like somebody's mama" Bling began from Logan's couch "But how'd you bang yourself up?" he could see the cuts on Logan's hands as he was typing on his IMAC.
"It's not a big deal" Logan didn't look at him as said this.
"Kinda thing that IS a big deal when you say it" Bling reminded "you hit the ground falling?"
"Can we drop it please?"
"You fight with Max or something?"
This was met with silence
"What happened?"
"Bling-"
"She hit you or you hit her-"
There was a look on Logan's face
"You HIT her?" Bling was shocked
"No I didn't HIT her" Logan corrected "What kinda man do you think I am? She tried to fight ME, so I had to get her to stop so-"
"So? Logan you can't end a sentence like that"
"I tripped her."
Bling's shocked look got deeper "Man you're terrible tripping your own wife"
"She's a soldier Bling, not like she couldn't handle it."
"Soldier or not you don't do that to a woman"
"Bling you're taking this out of context, you weren't even there, so can we please just drop it?"
"Fine" Bling agreed after a minute. "You guys tight again?"
"Yeah we're tight again Bling."
"Sex huh?"
The front door was heard to open.
"See who that is please" Logan told him
"I don't work here anymore man" Bling reminded
"Seems like you never left"
"Max-" the voice belonged to Zack as he came through the living room "Where's Max?"
"She's on her way" Bling said "She's a big girl Zack" he sensed what Zack was thinking.
Max arrived about ten minutes later, with Original Cindy who came there about the same time, along with Krit.
Logan stopped typing for a moment "How's Asha?"
"Broke her finger" Zack cut in "whoever he was"
"He's us" Max spoke out to her brother, she showed him both death cards. "Designation XX5-5452599"
"That's impossible" Zack said in denial
"It's true" Logan broke in "Embryo was found and placed in another surrogate, baby was born few months after that."
"So now Max and I have a freako kid running around loose?" Zack spat back. "After everything else Manticore did they had to screw us over again after they burned too?"
"It's worse then that"
Max looked at Logan when he said this "What do you mean? Cause tryin' to kill me is about as worse as it gets for me."
"You said it yourself that this kid never even knew which X5's he had been conceived from. So how could he have know to target you and Zack?" a pause "Someone tipped him off, which means somebody is working with him. He couldn't have formed a grudge against you two if he never even heard of you before."
"Question is who then?" Krit asked
"I'm wid Krit" Cindy agreed "Need names so I can bust some smack downs"
"Two days ago a report came across secure channels about a sighting of a boy near an abandoned VA hospital. Agents of the DCFS came to pick the kid up, only they weren't DCFS agents because the VA hospital was right outside some woods in Gillette, Wyoming. Apparently the boy was hiding there behind some trees."
"Who were the people then?" Cindy asked
"All I know is that he was transferred to a site where at 3:35 a.m a call was made from that location to Ames White. The feed got scrambled, but the man on the other end said he had something 'remarkable' to show him"
"599" Max said the only 'name' for the kid she knew. "Why is this kid going along with it? White's going to throw him in a cage as soon as he's done using him as a tool. We were taught better then that."
"He might have been brainwashed like you were as a kid into believing that you two were a threat that needed to be eliminated."
"As if I didn't have enough people trying to kill me, now there's one I'm related to" Max spoke out
*****
Zack raised the kickstand from his Vulcan out on the parking garage
"Why didn't you tell me the first time?" Max had followed him down there.
He looked at her solemnly "I wanted to protect you"
"I could've handled it" she spat
"Some things are easier to forget Maxie"
"How can I forget that they seeded me with my own brothers baby?"
Zack remained silent.
"Don't be so hard on yourself mom"
Max whipped around to see an eleven-year-old kid there, wearing black and white fatigue pants, with an M-24 slung over his shoulder.
"Get one thing straight kid" she approached him "You call me mom again, I'm gonna knock that smirk off your face."
"Think I'm the only one whose gonna do the knocking sugar" 599 lowered the M-24 at her.
Zack moved in front of Max, blocking her with his body "You might wanna think about that before you do it shit"
"You speak that way to a kid?" 599 leered, looking Zack over "So you and 'mom' are blood related. Isn't that outlawed?" a pause "No matter, after I'm done it'll all go away. No cop can convict two corpses." He squeezed off the gun, bullets ricochet off the concrete pillars and the ground. Both Max and Zack dodged the bullets with amazing speed.
Zack made his way over to 599 and grabbed the muzzle of the rifle but the young X5 seesawed the gun and slammed it into Zack's midsection, causing him to loose his balance.
"So" he pointed the gun barrel directly on Zack's neck "should I call you dad or uncle?"
Max threw herself on 599 then, sending the gun clattering away. 599 whipped around and nailed her in the stomach with his foot with a force that threw her into the opposite wall. The force knocked the wind out of her, and stunned her so much she couldn't recover right away.
599 then turned his attention on Zack "You are a really pathetic soldier you know that?" he corkscrewed, but this time Zack was ready for him and caught his foot throwing him down flat on his back. He then jumped on top of him and seized him by his hair "don't piss off daddy bitch!" he pounded his head on the ground.
A gun blast went off again. 599 held the M-24 still smoking in his hand.
"No!" Max saw Zack pull back in a reel, obviously hit. She pulled herself on her feet and in less then three seconds she was on 599. They fought hard for a dozen seconds before she threw a hard maneuver that shattered three of his ribs when he hit the ground.
599 lay there, gasping at the pain of broken ribs. "Impressive for a slacker"
She picked up the gun and pointed at him "I oughta kill you for what you did to my family you little bitch!"
599 looked up at her, still panting "You would kill your own son?"
Max stared him down, her face emotionless. "You go back to White now and he'll tear you apart like paper." She was still winded, running on only pure adrenaline. She fought hard to keep the gun steady, when all she wanted to do was throw it away.
"I'm not going back to White" 599 corrected, "I failed in my mission." He pulled out another gun, one he had concealed, a .22 caliber pistol and aimed it, at his own temple. "XX5-5452599 aborting the mission at 01023 hours" the gun went off and he fell back to the concrete.
Max dropped the gun and knelt next to Zack, who had his hand held over the wound in his shoulder not saying anything.
Zack leaned over and picked up the gun where it lay in a pool of blood.
"What are you doing?" Max watched him
Zack turned the body over, so that the neck was facing him, pointing the gun at the barcode. A standard procedure done by Manticore soldiers to erase any physical evidence that this kid was anything less then human.
"Zack don't-"
"I have too." Zack cocked the gun "He's still one of us" the gun went off, blowing away the skin on 599's neck.
Zack fell back down beside Max, dropping the gun. She reached her arms around his neck, pressing the side of her face against his back.
Zack grabbed one of her hands.
(SLOW PAN OUT OF SHOT. AIRAL VIEW OF MAX AND ZACK HUDDLED TOGETHER WITH 599'S BODY LAYING TURNED OVER IN A POOL OF BLOOD)
*****
(FADE IN 9:00 PM METRO HOSPITAL)
(MAX IN WAITING CHAIRS SURROUNDED WITH LOGAN AND KIDS)
Dr. Carr approached the two waiting in chairs "He's gonna be fine Max." he touched the woman's shoulder "Nothing major was damaged"
Zack came out of one of the exam rooms with his shoulder now bandaged, peaking out from under the tears in his blue shirt. Asha is right behind him.
(SLOW MOTION SHOT AS MAX WATCHES HIM)
(ZACK WATCHES HER BACK)
(MAX V.O) The life I wanted as a child was never meant to be-
Zack stops in front of her and kisses her on the forehead. She turned up to him and they shared a look before he broke away.
(MAX V.O) I will forever be the soldier who came into being by people with their own twisted agenda-
(CUT TO: SHOT OF AN OPERATING ROOM. DOCTORS ARE FLIPPING OVER A BODY. ONE DOCTOR REMOVES A BULLET FRAGMENT FROM THE NECK OF THE BODY. OUTLINES OF A BARCODE ARE STILL VISIBLE AROUND THE FOLDS OF SKIN)
(MAX V.O) People who create life, not to love, but to attack-"
(CUT TO: SAME O.R. A .22 IS DEPOSITED INTO AN BAG. THE SHOT FOCOUSES ON AN OUTSIDE BLACK WALL. WE SEE IT IS A DOUBLE SIDED MIRROR AND AMES WHITE IS OBSERVING THE PROCEDURE)
(CUT TO HOSPITAL MAX PICKS UP JESSE AND HOLDS HIM AS SHE WATCHES ZACK WALK AWAY WITH ASHA)
(MAX V.O) I was a receptacle for that kind of life. Done without my permission, without permission from any of us (HER EYES FOLLOW ZACK DISSAPPEARING DOWN THE HALLWAY) Max holds Jess closer to her body, as he snuggles to her.
(MAX V.O) I do what I have to do to protect my family. Logan and I have worked things out. I don't know what would have happened if I had left, (MAX LOOKS AT LOGAN) and I don't want to know
(LOGAN PUTS AN ARM AROUND HER, PULLING HER CLOSER)
(MAX V.O) He asked me if I would shoot my own son (LOOKS AT JESS) No I wouldn't shoot my SON. Ever
(FADE OUT)
*****
CREDITS ROLL
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: JAMES CAMERON
EXECUTIVE WRITER: MYSTIC25
****
WOOWEE!! This one was the longest one yet. Since I started this ditty with a voice over from Max I decided to end it that way too. I did the "credits" thing at the beginning at the end for something different..
599-i debated on whether or not to make him survive, but White would have him killed or torn up after he got back from the mission. Max likes to rehabilitate Manticore, but this was a touchy issue. He tried to kill her for cripes sake! And the ending is like what I think DA would do.
There wasn't much of the Jam Pony crew, and barley any of Alec in here, but I couldn't fit him into the storyline that much. He'll be back in the next chapter.
Well sorry again for the insanely long wait.
R/R please!!
Peace
mystic