Chapter Five: Because I could not stop for death...
Terminal City's main meeting room was bursting at the seams. At least two representatives of each group and training that Manticore had established were present, often more. In the case of the I.T. concentrates all four of the surviving members had made an effort to appear.
The room thrummed with nervous energy, rumors flying, nobody really knowing why they had been asked to come, all curious to find out.
They knew some of what had been happening, that which was common knowledge. That the meeting concerned the 09er 452 and the spec-op 494. The two who had saved their lives when Manticore tried to burn its bridges behind them.
Rumors ran wild. 494 wanted to establish a new Manticore. 452 hadn't deserted way back when, it had been a long-term undercover mission that got out of hand or had been alternately promoted or betrayed by Lydecker. Nobody had anything real to go on, though.
And so they sat and waiting and watched the two transgenics in question. catalogued the changes in 494's behavior. The quiet intensity, the nervousness only betrayed by the jiggling of one knee, quickly calmed by 452's hand. The 09er was a relatively unknown quantity to most of them and years of indoctrination warred with gratitude.
Dix watched the whole room, seeing the currents and eddies. The X5s reactions to one another, cataloguing it all for future reference. Who was friendly with who, where was there tension, who talked to who and so on. In the coming weeks and months the knowledge would be invaluable no doubt.
Any future actions depended on what happened in the next few minutes. Alec and Max had been perfectly willing to head out on their own, something that amounted to little more than a suicide mission. It had taken the combined forces of persuasion of him and Cindy to convince them to wait. Although it had taken longer for Dix to agree to do the talking that day. A lot longer. In the end Alec's arguments had won out.
No matter how much she had done for them, most X5s still viewed Max as an 09er traitor. Somebody who couldn't hack it and deserted. To make matters worse, she had also committed treason by returning a decade later and attacking base not once but twice.
Logically, they had received different intel since then, but that had to war with nearly two decades of indoctrination and brainwashing. Max was self-aware enough - with some less than subtle prodding by Cindy to help her along - to realize that her people skills could also be somewhat lacking when she was stressed and alienating potential allies wasn't in their best interests.
Alec, the sole surviving twin of an 09er, a psychotic 09er at that, disqualified himself for other reasons. He'd been too isolated at Manticore, groomed from an early age for solitary operations, undercover work, not much contact with other X-5s. And then there were his failures. The Huntington affair was infamous at Manticore. Months of preparation had gone down the drain because X5-494 couldn't bring himself to shoot the mark in front of his six year old daughter. The reindoctrination that had followed had only added to both Alec's isolation and the wariness of other X-5s.
No, Dix was the best bet, neutral enough that the assemblage would listen and not dismiss his words out of hand because of who or what he was. Glancing over at his two friends now, Dix could see how hard it was for them to remain seated and not jump up and pace, yell or hit something. Max held herself almost unnaturally still, hands tightly clenched in her lap as she leaned into Alec's side, face pensive and drawn. Alec's arm was around her shoulder, fingers stroking up and down her arm. It was a toss-up as to who found the action more soothing.
Taking a deep breath, Dix waited for the room to quiet down a bit and then began his speech.
"Well, we have called you here today, because there is something pretty big on the books. Now I know most of you have been hearing rumors about Max and Alec lately." Assenting murmurs filled the room. If there was one thing that worked without problems in their little kingdom it was the grapevine. Just about the only thing that worked. Everything else was patched together with parts harvested from god knew where. But rumors were whispers on the wind. And when the news concerned the two people most, albeit grudgingly, considered their saviors, well then the whispers didn't need the wind to carry them.
Slowly, step-by-step he recounted the events that had lead to this moment in time. Watching the expressions on his audience's faces. Their reactions as he told them what Manticore had done to Max ad Alec. He could practically see the flashbacks ghosting behind shuttered eyes. Not a one of them had not been subject to Manticore's tender ministrations at one time or the other. He watched as their eyes flickered over to the subject of his briefing, always careful not to stare, more than a little sympathy evident.
Max and Alec appeared lost in their own little world, solely focused on each other. It must appear strange to their audience, how quietly they sat, so unlike their usual personas. It did more to underline Dix's words than any amount of talking.
"Reindoctrination was successful and neither subject remembered the other." Dix let the rational part of his mind do the talking, locking away his emotions in a little box. Reindoctrination had been Manticore's favored method of dealing with actions they considered inappropriate. Many of them still missed days, months or even years, depending on when Manticore deemed the corruption to have started. No amount of therapy with the former members of the psy-ops squad could bring that lost time back, although the next part of his tale might give them some hope that it was not all lost. That given the right circumstances they could remember.
"Manticore set them up as a breeding pair. Why exactly they did this is unknown to us. It seems an unnecessary risk." Dix continued, only to find himself interrupted by Alec.
"And she kicked me clear across the room. Said that was the only personal contact I would ever get." He winked at the assemblage, letting them in on the admittedly feeble joke, skillfully bleeding some of the tension from the room, bringing it down to a more bearable level. Dix half expected Max to punch him, but instead saw her smiling into his chest.
So he smiled at them, too and continued with the hardest part. Telling them about Max's more and more frequent episodes as she struggled with her volatile memory, attacking Cindy and almost killing her while in the grips of her nightmares. Alec coming to the rescue and the curtain finally lifting, revealing to them what had really happened in those weeks at Manticore. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Max curl more securely into Alec's body, empty eyes focusing on nothing in particular, reliving what had taken place that night. In a flat voice Dix told them about the miscarriage and what his tests had shown.
After that it was bedlam. Female X-5s, capable of taking down a platoon of ordinary soldiers without even trying, broke down completely faced with the evidence of what they all subconsciously feared. Many of them had believed that they had been more to Manticore than simply cannon fodder. For years Manticore had been the only definition of their self-worth. Their handlers praise was scarce and hard-won and all the more desirable for it. Renfro's personal favor was equally feared and craved.
And now they were faced with proof that everything was based on a lie. They were no more important to Manticore than gnats, only the result had counted. So they supported each other, the only ones who truly knew.
The male transgenics meanwhile had gone still as statues, clearly struggling with the need to just go and do something. Anything. Fight something. It was the only way they knew how to cope. The only way they had been taught to cope. Find target, destroy target.
But the target had been destroyed months before, gone up in a blizzard of flame, taking Manticore down with it. There was nothing to fight for them. And so they just stood, each man alone in a room filled to bursting with people. Fists tightly clenched, lips pressed in thin lines and above all compassion blazing through them for their leaders. In that one moment, they all united with one thought, became one team again like they had not been since Manticore forced it on them.
Reluctantly Dix cleared his throat and found himself at the receiving end of more than one laser like glare. He would be worried, but then again he was about to provide them with a focus for all their anger. Another silent nod from Alec told him to proceed. And so he told them of the data dump from Manticore, Eyes Only's betrayal and what they had learned since then. Judging by the looks being shared in the room, Eyes Only could be lucky he had left the city long before. His odds for surviving had just dropped into the abyss. Then again, once these people had a little time on their hands, not even Eyes Only leaving town and changing his name was going to stop them. But that was beside the point.
"And this is where Alec is going to take over." Dix nodded at his friend and gratefully took a seat in a corner of the room, glad his part of this ordeal was finally over. It took a while for Alec to take center stage. Max seemed reluctant to let him go and it took quite a few whispered reassurances for her to stand up and let him go. Dix understood the sentiment. After months of being together twenty-four seven, reconnecting and pretty much avoiding the outside world, this was difficult. He watched as Alec gently got Max to sit back down and then moved to the front of the room, making sure to stay in her line of sight at all times.
The normally cocky self-assured transgenic shifted, apparently unsure of the hold he had over these people. His people. Dix had no such worries. Max and Alec tended to underestimate the regard they were held in. Alec cleared his throat and jumped right in.
"You all probably know what I – what we would like to ask of you. I'm not sure you all know what that means. We're asking you to commit high treason against everything you were taught to believe. To do what the 09ers did and what Max and I did a few months ago. Fight against Manticore. I can't order you to do that. I'm not your commanding officer." He stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts and looked at Max, who stared at him with unflinching faith in her eyes. Faith that he could convince these people to help them.
"Dix told you that we believe we have located our-" He stopped for a second, glaring fiercely at the floor. "We have located our child. The installation is in the Appalachians. Heavily guarded. Highest security money can buy. They really do not want to lose the project. Max and I are going in. That is our child and we are at least going to try to save him." he closed his eyes once more, then made sure to look at every transgenic in turn as he made his request. "I can't order you to come with us on what could quite possibly be a suicide mission. So I am asking you. I am asking you to come with us and help us get our child. Will you help?"