Medical cleared Max after the two tests, satisfied that, despite her apparent seizure, her billion-dollar brain and body were both fit for duty. The miracle water had worked its mojo, and the swelling had gone down to barely anything. The cut on her brow would take another few days to finish healing, and then it would look as if she hadn't traded blows with a jackhammer at all. Her ribs, however, would take a bit longer (the docs said light activity for a week or so, but that she knew her body better than anyone else and could back off any activity if the injury started to hurt). She felt those bruised ribs with every sneeze, cough and crunch, but less and less.
She met Alec in Lydecker's office for an informal debriefing of the Christina Op, and a briefing for going back under on the Cale mission. Biggs had already contacted base about the young men they'd won as a reward from the boxing match. There were sixteen of them, malnourished and strung out, and he and their team had begun the first round of collecting information to try to get them back home.
"Valerie Cale was just a teacher from California. Taught second grade, if I remember correctly," Lydecker said, segueing into the next Op. His brow furrowed as if his two agents should challenge him with factual information instead of theories that were, at best, educated guesses.
"She has no actual history that IT could dig up prior to 1997." Alec trusted Max's instincts. Her profiling ability seemed innate, and so far, she'd been insightful at every opportunity and had seen something everyone else seemed to have missed. "Because Valerie didn't exist before then. You know who doesn't have a history? Government assets not in WITSEC, assassins, spies, people who don't really exist." Like us, he wanted to add. He was struck in that moment by the parallel to their own lives. They weren't supposed to want more out of life. They weren't supposed to want a brilliant life with freckle-faced kids and a certain peace.
"The absence of data does not equate to fact," Lydecker reminded him.
Max noticed that Alec seemed somewhat... deflated?... and jumped in to pick up where he left off. "Autopsy reports on Valerie and the two other civilians from the robbery showed they'd all had implants removed from their bodies, like the woman I just fought in Osaka, which leads me to believe Valerie and the two civilians were either Reds, or maybe some other kind of hybrid. Something happened that made them targets," she explained. "Someone was hired to take them out - not to exfil them or message them to go to ground. But who? And why?"
"Sir, Max found a recording from the coroner," the blond transgenic added, noting how the director's brows only twitched up a little, his micro expression showing his surprise. "Valerie was pregnant at the time of her death. The coroner said she'd have another autopsy to do on the fetus. If we can find any record of that report, we might be able to determine paternity."
"If it's Cale's baby, that would lend some pretty strong motivation to his crusade against us." Max wrung her fingers. "And if it's not, then he could have been angry enough to take her out himself."
"Max, do you have any reason to believe Cale would be physically violent?"
"Maybe. Was he on our watchlist before Valerie's death - as being a potential threat to us? If he knew about and hated bio- or genetically-engineered people before his wife's death and then found out that she was a hybrid, he could definitely rage out. I don't know if he could kill his own baby, though, if it was his."
Her former Colonel took in that information, and she could tell his mind was on the precipice of something, but he needed confirmation. "Has he demonstrated a capacity for rage or other physical or emotional outbursts?"
Immediately, Max mentally traveled through time back to when Cale had punched her, the time he'd bared her barcode while fucking her from behind, and the instance where he actually bruised her collarbone and hip from holding her in place while he violently thrusted against and inside her.
Max tried to keep her detached facade. Had Zack ever reported Cale's domestic abuse or the rough hate-sex? She wasn't privy to his debriefs with the director since she was out in the field. She also didn't want to tarnish Zack's reputation by complaining about the things he may have withheld from the reports.
Alec's posture was rigid and his jaw clamped shut tightly while he and Lydecker awaited her answer.
"Was he abusive to you during your time with him?" Lydecker pushed.
Don't look at Alec, she reminded herself. She hadn't gone into the details with him, and she didn't want him to know all she had gone through with Cale. Even though 'Max Guevara' was a character, parts of character Max were based on parts of real Max, and she didn't want Alec to think less of her. She was ashamed to have let some of those things happen. "A few times," she finally said.
Anger seemed to pour out of her commanding officer at that vague response. Again, she had skirted the issue. He was losing patience.
"Why didn't Zack mention anything in his reports?" Alec asked accusingly. It was ridiculous that a handler wouldn't hold his agent's safety as his top priority. It was ludicrous that he wouldn't have included the details in those files so that they could make all of the needed countermeasures and profile him appropriately. But more than that, he was furious at Zack for what was apparently his nonchalance and negligence when it came to Max's physical safety and emotional state. And even though Zack was dead, Alec was not afraid to call him out for it.
Despite the fact that it was Zack's inaction which fueled Alec's complaint, Max still felt responsible, as if she should have reported it herself when Zack didn't. How could she have known either way? She was in the field. If she had, though, it would have felt like she was going over Zack's head, or being insubordinate. But what could she say? She had no idea his reasons for omitting Cale's short fuse and subsequent lashing out from the operational notes. "I probably made it sound-"
"You don't have to protect him," Alec said firmly, and a bit too loudly.
"I can protect myself," she argued to her handler, even though the director was sitting right in front of them like a disappointed therapist. He'd had 'Resting Disappointed Face' for years.
"That's true, but you should have felt the freedom to choose. You're a brilliant profiler, but you did not follow your instincts because Zack gave you no choice. He had you stand down. He had you eat crow."
Is that true? she wondered. Historically, when she followed her instincts, she would have bet her own life that Cale would find a way back to her. He needed a dose of humility, of knowing he'd done something wrong, that he wouldn't get Max back without an apology and some sincere groveling. Every other time someone in his life kowtowed to him reaffirmed his authority over them, but if she retained her personal authority and autonomy, he'd forever be chasing her, trying to find a way to control her, too.
But when she'd told Zack about Cale's behavior, the square-jawed CO had ordered her to double back, apologize, make gestures to solidify Cale's dependence and connection. His motto still rang loudly in her mind: Whatever it takes.
With a start, she realized Alec was right. The times she had listened to her own instincts, she'd had greater success. She guessed that's what had saved the Dorokov mission, and the Eyes Only mission at the ball when she'd stolen information from Jedidiah Harrison's office. And if Zack had listened to her, he wouldn't have been in the building when it blew up. Ten minutes' wait to exfil the building was too much time, and at the last moment, he pulled rank and threatened a blemish to her file. Her last words to him had been an apology for nearing insubordination. She put those guilty feelings back in their box, and shoved that box back into its place in the deep recesses of her mind.
For now, she needed to set the record straight. She faced the director and reported facts, keeping her eyes forward as if wearing blinders to keep from glancing at Alec. "Cale hates Manticore because he thinks we are responsible for his wife's death, and by extension, the baby's. When I mentioned his wife in a patronizing tone, he punched me, which almost broke my cheekbone. On more than one occasion, he has used aggressive intercourse to prove dominance - feel powerful, in control, to feel like he is at the top. One of the more recent times about six months back was very violent."
Alec's hands balled into such tight fists he expected there to be little crescent moons of blood once he opened them. He gritted his teeth to keep from having his own emotional outburst. He wanted to kill this fucking asshole for all the things he'd done to Max, things that could never be undone. She'd squared her shoulders and sat up perfectly straight to tell the Director - with zero emotion - the trespasses Cale performed against her. She'd compartmentalized her own emotional state in order to do so. She explained as if they were all hazards of her job.
Was it rape? he wanted to ask, but didn't. Maybe she thought the lines blurred when it came to consent. As a Romeo, she may have felt it was her job to be sexual, even if she didn't want to.
Lydecker's thin-lipped grimace proved this was brand new information for him. His head shook minutely from side to side.
Give us the order to take this motherfucker out, Alec begged mentally. He knew the Director was concerned for Max's safety; he'd told Alec as much before the Christina Op. And Alec had assured him she would be fine.
Max continued. "Given the givens, we may still have another problem. If Cale didn't take them out, then who did? Another military operation?"
The director thought about it all for a moment, making a steeple at his fingertips. "Besides the South Africans who were our main competitors, for lack of a better term, and MI-X, the British genetics section, the Russians were working on splicing, too. Probably a dozen other private companies funded by bored billionaires."
A dozen more? Max tightened her grip around the armrest, a move her handler didn't miss, but he couldn't very well offer her comfort right here in the Director's office. It would look like fraternization. Which, it sort of was. And he understood from where her behavior was coming. If an entire container full of hybrid lives could be snuffed out by gross negligence, what might twelve other companies be willing to do to be on or stay on the cutting edge of bioengineering?
"I'll have our team dig deeper and see if we can get clearer profiles on these companies. With any luck, we'll find the autopsy for the fetus, or some mention of Valerie Linden or Cale." He nodded curtly to the pair and then checked with Alec. "In the meantime, tell me how you're going to accelerate this mission."
"We talked about a couple of ways to move forward. Our best bet is going to be Max's 'escape,' but on the heels of her finding out that Manticore is sending an assassin to take him out, and that she needs to get him out of his place to keep him safe."
The old man nodded, and Max sat quietly, going over the different facets of the plan in her mind as the two men hammered out the operation. She and Alec had discussed it at length on board, and her busy brain was already organizing it all. They'd take Cale to a safe house and while they mined him for as much information from him as possible, Manticore IT units would break into his penthouse and build back doors into his informant net. The 'threat' would be neutralized by Alec as a kind of initiation into Cale's inner circle, and then Manticore would systematically start bringing his co-conspirators down one by one, until there was nothing left. And when they felt they'd gleaned all they needed, the Director would give the order to eliminate Cale.
Max sat in the infirmary, where she'd been for the last two hours receiving a series of shots including anti-seizure meds (just in case her episode in the ring was the start of a neurological problem), birth control (which she despised getting, because it meant probable intercourse with Cale), and a whole battery of vitamins meant to speed up the healing process. Taking so many shots made her feel like a pin cushion, but if it meant bringing down this cyber terrorist asshole, she would persevere. There was a little bit of misplaced pride somewhere in her being that she would still do whatever it takes.
Nervous energy coursed through her limbs. Was she really ready to go back under? She wasn't sure how to be Cale's girlfriend and somehow also be with Alec. She supposed they could concoct a story to convince the cyber joke of a journalist that in the few months they'd been apart, she had started dating someone else. Otherwise, she had little faith that she and Alec could actually be together until Cale was dead. And who knows how long that'll take? Alec the Accelerator is still working under orders from the Director.
Alec leaned against the door jamb, dressed in his cammos and t-shirt, just like she was. Her blond handler had only received a few of those vitamin shots. He didn't need the others, though he did wonder when their scientists would invent birth control for men. A little something to make the 'Novas less nervous out on assignment. "Hey," he greeted.
"Hey. I think this is my last one." She watched as the doctor pressed the needle into the pit of her elbow. A small pinprick of blood bubbled up when he was done, and when he wiped at it with a cotton ball, it looked as if her system had already replaced the injury with new skin. "What's up? Did we miss something in the briefing?"
"No, everyone's on board with the mission. Before we hit wardrobe, did you get a chance to retest the MASVAB?"
Max wished they were alone instead of in an area that had three doctors and three scientists on standby. "Yeah, uh, I already took it," she informed him. She didn't tell him she'd retested while still 35,000 feet in the air, one eye still mostly swollen shut, and before Medical had cleared her. She really wanted to prove that she was in the right classification.
Conversely, he didn't tell her he'd already pulled her first set of results, plus the original recommendation from her unit leader. He didn't want her to lose focus while out on the Cale mission. Plus, telling her anything about it right now would probably make her angry. Hell, it made him angry, so what would he expect from the femme fatale agent herself?
"Alright, great. I'll check for your results before we leave for Seattle." He glanced into the distance and came to some sort of decision. "Did you get that potassium shot?"
"Yeah." She spied him with suspicion.
"Good. That's a good one to have after getting your body speed-bagged by a Hungarian Red." He mimed boxing the speed bag, which drew Max's attention to his biceps.
Max faux-chuckled. Weird that he would single out the potassium shot specifically. Many of the injections she'd just received would be helpful after any kind of taxing physical activity. Maybe whatever pushed her to seizure was exacerbated by hard physicality.
"Anyway, let's head on over to grab some new threads. And some old ones, I guess." He pushed off the wall and cocked his head toward the wardrobe department. "Just a few more hours until we head out."
Don't remind me.
As they proceeded down the hallway, Max rubbed her elbow pit. "Can we stop by my room real quick? I need something."
"Of course, do you want to meet at wardrobe?"
She stopped in front of her door. "No, come on in. It'll only take a minute."
Alec followed her into the dark room. Once he passed the threshold, he expected she'd turn on the light and search for whatever it was she'd come back here for, but instead, she turned to face him, put her hands in his chest, and gently used his back to close her door. Within a mere second or two, she'd lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed him.
She felt his hands shift up her sides as his lips rubbed against hers, slow like whiskey burning down his throat. When Max pulled gently at his earlobe, he groaned softly into her mouth and deepened their lip lock. He cupped her jaw and held her face next to his own, sliding his hand back through her hair.
When Max whimpered that sexy purr, she pulled back, breathless.
And, goddamn, he was breathless too, heart up in his throat, blood rushing through his veins like wildfire, heating his skin all over. If they didn't have somewhere to be, he'd have spent the rest of eternity tasting her.
"Sorry," she breathed out, nearly inaudibly.
"You never have to apologize for that," he echoed her words from the harbor. "Are you okay?"
She peered up to him in the darkness. "I just wanted... something real, you know? Before I have to go back..."
"Yeah," Alec comforted, pulling her against his chest in a gentle embrace. "Yeah, I get it."
He desperately wanted to tell her the part of the plan she didn't know. He wanted to tell her the myriad ways he'd considered murdering Cale when he found out about how he'd abused Max. He wanted to tell her about her original MASVAB results. He wanted to tell her he thought about her all the time when they were apart, even for a few hours, even for a few minutes, how he craved her intellect, her calming presence. He wanted to tell her how scared he'd been when she seized out there in the ring, how relieved he was when she woke up. He wanted to tell her it was as all going to be okay.
"I want that, too," he said, guiding her backward a step, just enough to meet her eyes, and then kissed her again.