Making their way through the dummy Manticore compound felt unnecessary. Outside the city, no hover drones tasked out this far; besides, the place was remote and drew upon its own power source. It was just a shell of a building with less than 50 agents pacing the barren halls with clipboards and lab coats, making the whole site seem fully operational. The twosome followed through anyway, sneaking by the exits and flattening themselves against the walls, acting like they were breaking out while their own crew captured footage from a distance, in case Cale had informants anywhere near them and could then be tipped off with the location. Incidentally, that was what was going to happen if it hadn't already. Cale would somehow be tipped off with their location.
Can't believe I'm literally running toward Cale, Max thought as she scaled the fence and continued on foot, not looking back to Alec as he jumped the fence and followed in her wake. After everything she'd been through with the older bespectacled man over just a six-month period, going back undercover felt different. All the bits of trauma she survived added up, building an impossible mountain she feared she wouldn't be able to climb. She wasn't sure she could pretend to be falling in love with him anymore, especially since she had feelings for Alec, feelings that were growing stronger.
She'd read up on Alec's missions - solos and ones where he'd been called in as an accelerator. Half of his jobs were ones where he'd been brought in after a year or two, and the mission wrapped up in weeks to months.
Operation: Two Jakes had Alec taking over a typical Nova assignment and getting the information within two weeks, where the previous agent had stalled out after several months. She could hardly blame the mark when her own fantasies starred her gorgeous handler handling her both on assignment and off.
Operation: Total Recall had him come in after a fellow agent was unable to blackmail a crooked congressman to resign. Alec's involvement saw the man resigned and replaced within two months.
Operation: Die Hard was a lengthy solo where Alec infiltrated a German nationalist group and dismantled it from the inside out. Honestly, it was one of her favorites.
So how will Alec accelerate this mission?
Some of the reports she read about their shared cover assignments - like Edward and Eva - were glowing reports of Max's involvement.
'The agent's quick improvisation led to mission success.'
'Max's expert profiling returned significant results.'
'Her skill as a Romeo, enhanced by her intuition and natural abilities, achieved mission objective faster than any I've ever seen.'
Zack had never done that; she knew that now, having used Alec's credentials to access Zack's mission files. It's not like the man had said anything disparaging - he just didn't give her credit for her ideas or accolades for a job well done.
Alec's debrief of the Dorokov mission especially made her feel proud. He wrote that she cracked the case, that her profiling and quick decision making gave him time to copy the drive, as well as preserve their mission for a chance to go back and obtain even more intel.
She felt like she had a true partner, someone who supported her, someone who wanted to promote and recognize her strengths. She corrected her growing smile as they hopped the Sector Checkpoint leading into the city. A woman wouldn't be smiling who'd just broken out of a top secret government facility to go save her kind-of-boyfriend from an assassin.
Alec had pulled her retest results an hour prior. As he suspected, she aced the Romeo section, again. But she also aced several other sections, including - unsurprisingly - profiling, as well as coding, mathematics, some sciences, and a host of languages. Her scores across the board should have put her in the same program he'd gone into himself. So why hadn't she?
Lydecker's files showed that her unit leader at the time, Grant Nicholson, gave his recommendation that she should join the Romeo Program. That full-human sleaze was reassigned two years ago to the basement. He had it on pretty good authority (Sandoval) that it was because he was bordering harassment with a female agent. Max may not have been the female agent who'd put him in the basement, but he realized that predators rarely changed their behavior. Was Max put in Romeo because Nicholson was a complete waste of a human being and wanted to see her there?
It wasn't long before they reached Logan's building. Alec hung back while Max started up the stairs. He'd give her a minute or two, and then he was supposed to show up and offer to help get Cale to the safe house so IT could be let in to do their part. He just hoped Max didn't get too pissed at him for what was about to happen.
Max silently entered the penthouse and crept through the dwelling. It was in some disarray, clothes haphazardly strewn about the room. Coffee cups, glasses and bottles sat forgotten atop his granite countertops. Guess the maid has a few days off.
She'd walked this exact path dozens of times. She could probably close her eyes and manage not to run into anything. Through the front doors, into the living room, past the interior hall toward the kitchen, bust a right and yep, there he was in his office.
From behind him a few yards, Max could see Cale's hair was a bit longer and unruly, looking unkempt and greasy. He wore a sleeveless tee and windbreaker pants, and she didn't have to enhance her olfactory sense to notice that, despite the slight hint of lavender, he had not showered in a couple of days, at least.
He played a pre-recorded video of what would be his Eyes Only video bulletin.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom video bulletin. It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city. For years, Manticore has operated unchecked, massacring countless lives to obtain genetic material. It ends now. Your location has been revealed, and you will be brought to justice."
IT had already leaked the location of the dummy site to Cale's network, buried in back channels, but he found it quickly, which meant the plan was on.
Max questioned what he planned to do with the site. He couldn't bomb it or blow it up, he couldn't go there himself; was he just hoping authorities would get the longitude and latitude and show up to apprehend what Cale thinks is a compound-ful of criminals? What about all of the soldiers he presumed lived there? If he really thought Max was strong enough to overpower them all, what did he think a whole building of supercharged soldiers would do to outsiders? She shook her head. For a smart guy, he must be pretty desperate to try to do something so stupid. Desperate to free me?
The video did not have the typical sign off, but Cale didn't feel as though it warranted one. He prepared to click the little button that allowed him to interrupt everyone's regular programming. Watching him prepare to do an Eyes Only bulletin made her a little sick, and again, she speculated why they couldn't just eliminate him sooner rather than later, and sort out the fallout afterwards. He was constantly on the verge of crucifying someone for a presumed mistake in their past; she'd seen it time and time again. She'd give Zack the information and Zack would do his best to have Manticore intervene before the perpetrator was picked up by police or brought to justice by the court of public opinion.
Logan cleared his throat and clicked the button. At the last second, however, the satellite link failed.
"Dammit." He fingers flew over the keyboard forcefully before he grunted frustratedly and threw his pencil holder across the room. It broke upon impact with the wall and pieces scattered on the wood floor.
Finally, he saw her in the reflection of one of his monitors and reached for his glasses. Slipping those on as fast as he could, he turned in his chair and stood up, eyes clouded in disbelief. Was she just the mirage, constructed by his fatigued brain?
"Max?"
Show time. Her careful expression conveyed a mirrored sense of disbelief that he was actually standing there before her, no, drifting toward her. She flashed back through all the Eyes Only jobs, the explosions, the pasta and wine, the righteousness, the sex. Times he'd softened and she thought he might've told her he loved her.
"Is it really you?" The cyber vigilante seemed as if he was about to rub his own eyes to ensure she was not just some figment of his imagination.
She steeled her reserve. Push this mission. Play the part. Alec should be coming in any moment. "We have to get you out of here. Manticore's sending someone to kill you, and we don't have much time." Her brows turned up.
He sized her up, taking in her cammos, dirt-smudged t-shirt and muddy boots, her longer hair, and pieced together that she must have broken out. She escaped and had come straight to his penthouse because Manticore was sending an assassin. Pride and gratitude filled his chest that she cared about him enough to protect him. Cale reached out to her, grabbing her arm gently with one hand and sliding his smooth palm along her cheek to grasp the back of her head. He pulled her forward and planted his lips on hers.
Immediately, the whole thing felt wrong to her. The last person she kissed was Alec, and his lips were fuller, softer, infused with emotion. Logan's were dry, probably from dehydration, and thin, and he kissed like he was stamping his brand on her. She pulled away under the guise of urgency. "We really need to get you out of here. Someone's coming."
To her true and utter surprise, Cale started to twitch and jerk. He teetered as if he was about to drop to the ground, so Max helped lower him down. What the hell was happening?
Alec waltzed into the room, looking pretty sure of himself.
"What's happening to him?" Max implored her handler. Was it a seizure? Is this what it looked like when she'd gone down in the ring? It was a little terrifying to think that this was what Alec saw happen to her in Osaka.
"You killed him, that's what's happening. Nice job, 452. Mission accomplished." The delivery was as dry as Cale's lips, like he had not one shred of a care. As if the whole thing was just a fact.
Confused, Max narrowed her eyes at him. This was not what they discussed. Had something happened in the hallway, and he had to adjust on the fly? Didn't seem like he would have lied to her, not after having read her files, and not after having treated her with such respect throughout their professional relationship. Or else, she figured, did Lydecker give Alec the order to kill Cale? Was the cyber terrorist actually about to die? By a fucking virus? It lacked a certain violent poetry, like maybe the satisfying click and crack of each vertebrae in his neck breaking, or the blooming vermillion rose of a close-range gunshot wound.
"I'd stop touching him if I were you. You're just going to make it worse," Alec interrupted her thoughts. He gave her a barely noticeable 'sorry, I had no choice' shoulder shrug/eyebrow lift combo.
So there was something that happened in the hall. She returned to her cover, incensed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Straightforwardly, as one might expect from a soldier, Alec explained. "He's suffering from the effects of a genetically targeted retro-virus, and you're the carrier. Any intimate contact between you activates the agent. Now you didn't kiss him, did you?"
Max gave him a warning glare as she speculated how she could have been given a retro-virus. That fucking potassium shot... With some truthful ire, Max spat out, "You son of a bitch!" She flinched to stand up.
"Whoa, there," he said, flashing a gun. "If you want him to live, you gotta bring him back to Manticore and turn yourself in."
Various emotions surged through her. She was furious that she'd been left out of the plan, again. She would have gone along with it, found a way to make it believable, and they still would have ascertained everything they wanted - Cale's contacts, networks, digital everything. She was eager to understand what had happened in the hall, if anything. And part of her was impressed by Alec's acting choices. She'd more or less been herself as Max Guevara, but Alec's character oozed entitled arrogance with a marbled vein of nonchalance.
But wait. 'Back to Manticore' gives us a chance to get Cale to the real Manticore. Is that what the Director wants? Or are we taking him to the dummy location?
Time seemed to be of the essence as Cale choked a bit, arms and legs spasming on the floor, which brought Max back to the objective at hand. "There's a cure?"
Alec nodded. She seemed to understand the new plan. "They'll give him the antigen if he tells them what he knows and who he's been working with."
She turned back to Cale and bent to try to help him. Even in his gradually declining mental and physical state, he still twitched away from her.
Good, he understands he can't touch her, thought Alec. First mission objective complete. But how would they get him to the dummy location now, considering Cale was essentially allergic to her touch, and he'd accidentally painted himself as another soldier, one who may not be as disenfranchised as Max? Plus, there was soon to be a fourth person in the penthouse. He cursed the woman he'd heard climbing the stairs when she found out the elevator was broken. She'd mentioned maybe there was something Logan could do to help her.
Luckily, Max had thought through their choices, even though her knowledge of the situation was incomplete, and launched up at him with a swift uppercut. He dodged it, letting her punch knock the gun out of his hand and toward Cale's prone form. Now he just needed to keep busy until Cale picked up the piece.
Alec dropped to a squat and swept under her leg, causing her to fall into her back with a thud. 'Sorry,' he mouthed, adopting a fighting stance and waiting a second for her to get to her feet.
She kicked up into a standing position and grabbed him by the arms, tackling him through one of the partitions between Cale's living room and office. As they fell through the obscured vinyl, Max landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
His eyes watered and his lungs burned from the sudden impact, and as he coughed back into breathing normally again, they both got to their feet. He made a show of indicating his next combination of maneuvers, which Max picked up on as one of the combos she'd memorized for the Christina Op.
A flurry of fists danced between them as they blocked each other's jabs and punches. The choreography was quick, and even if Cale wasn't poisoned with a virus, he'd have trouble keeping up with the speed of their movements.
Finally, Cale saw his opportunity and picked up the firearm, pointing it right at Alec. "Don't," he said with as much force as he could muster.
Her handler raised his hands defensively. He hadn't loaded the weapon with live rounds, but he was the only one who knew that.
Max caught sight of the dirty journalist and stood between him and Alec. "Wait! We really need that antigen, which means we gotta get you out of here."
"If you broke out, you can break back in," Cale said weakly.
Good lord, he's good. Not even five minutes and he already led our mark to believe it was his own idea to go back to the site. With her back to the older vigilante, Max eyed Alec with astonishment. Only the deep green gleam in his eye showed any kind of recognition that he understood her unsaid compliment.
"Let's go," Max said authoritatively.
"Max," Cale called, eyes sliding closed for a moment. "I'll just slow you down. You go, and I'll make sure he doesn't follow you." He waved the gun in Alec's general direction.
Alec rolled his eyes. "Fine, but when he's dead, can I go home?"
Cale's computer beeped, drawing their attention to its screens. The satellite link had been established and prompted the user to upload. Max squared her shoulders and walked over to the computers. "It won't be there."