WYOMING

Wyoming

November 2040

Max arrived in Wyoming the day after the conversation with Alec. She knew he had to hide somewhere near the old Manticore barracks from which she had fled with her siblings. Lydecker. She hadn't thought much about him since his car was found abandoned in the water. Only later, when Mole claimed to have seen him during the failed rescue operation, did she think of him again and tried to locate him. However, she didn't know exactly why she was looking for him, because until now she had never even tried to talk to Alec again about the kidnapping and so she didn't know anything about the files.

That might have increased her motivation to find him, but there had been a few days over the last few years when she had taken care of it. She had traveled a lot in search of her own mother and had observed or visited many of the friends and other siblings scattered throughout the country. Zac could only watch her from a distance so as not to provoke a relapse. He had been her closest confidant before Alec. Alec and she had sat together every now and then and had a beer. They had told each other so much, why had this one topic never come up again? He devoted himself to the education of the two children but she had never been surprised, but thought he was carrying out some kind of legacy and Logan's last request. Now it was lingering in her head that he had lied to her, or that he had fooled himself, or whatever it was, it meant Ben might have emerged from that captivity. She tried to push this thought aside and concentrate on finding documents with which she could turn all of this speculation into truth. She now knew her way around Wyoming well because she had been drawn here again and again since she was found disoriented in the forest. Alec hadn't even told her that he was the one who saved everyone. He was such a show-off otherwise. Was he ashamed of what had happened? If it had happened. She couldn't let it get to her yet, she kept seeing Logan's face in her mind, how disappointed he had looked when she and Alec had pretended to be a couple to protect him from the virus. And now she realized that she might actually have cheated on him. Again she pushed the thought aside and knocked on the door to which she had gone, lost in thought. An old woman opened the door. Sarah, the woman who took Max with her in the car when she escaped. At some point over the last few years she had plucked up the courage and gone to her. They only talked briefly at the time and Sarah knew who she was the first time she looked into Max's eyes. She had never forgotten packing the little girl into her car, even afraid of being caught by the bad people of Manticore and conflicted about having to report it. But she had been so happy that Max and some of her siblings had made it. She resigned shortly afterwards and traveled a lot, but as she got older she was drawn back to her homeland. Here stood the girl from back then and she was happy that at least now, after many years, she could once again contribute a small part to a good cause.

"Max, good to see you," she said in a warm, now somewhat shaky voice.

Max came in and hugged the old woman. It was a hug almost as if Max was returning home to her mother, deeply and with a lot of longing for a family.

"Do you have a lead again?"

Max shook his head.

"No, this time I'm not looking for her. This time I'm looking for Lydecker."

Sarah looked at her in horror. She knew the relentless man well enough to know that there was nothing good that would make anyone seek him out.

They sat down in the room and Sarah brought Max tea and cookies. It was already late in the afternoon and Sarah knew that Max needed to rest a little if she had set herself such a goal. She also brought her tryptophan and Max looked at her gratefully. Since then, Sarah has always stored a few helpful things because it wasn't the first time that Max had shown up at her house completely exhausted. This time it seemed to be not just physical exhaustion but also mental exhaustion. Max began to talk slowly. She talked until late in the evening and Sarah continued to interject in order to better understand this confusing situation.

"So you're saying it could be that only one of your boys is from Logan?" And Lydecker has the key to this mystery?"

"Yes, you could sum it up like that."

"This is hard to digest, but I suggest you rest here first, there is always a bed available for you and tomorrow I will make a few calls to help you."

Sarah had spun a large web of supporters. She could never fight and never dared to reveal the truth about what happened in Manticore, but she always helped with shelter, safe houses and put people in touch with helpers. Max now trusted her. She thanked Sarah and was only too happy to take advantage of the opportunity to have a hot shower and a bed for the night.

As she walked out of the shower into the room, images flashed through her head. She saw Alec leading her out and then staggering through the forest. After hearing so much about it, did her memories come back? Had the grief and pain of Logan's death prevented her from remembering?

She lay down on the bed and thought for a while about what would have happened if she had known. She saw Alec taking care of her, making her tea, looking after her, how she kept pushing him away and how he then looked after the boys for many years without stopping. All the money he earned as a city councilor went towards the safety, education and livelihood of his two children. She realized that she had contributed little and had left him alone to deal with it all. No wonder he was hard and withdrawn; like back in Manticore, when she had also fled, he had carried the heavy burden. In Manticore, the torment of being a twin who was more monitored, trained harder and under constant observation and was now alone for years with the uncertainty of exactly what had happened and the task of keeping the two boys safely hidden so as not to endanger them, hard work to be able to take care of them and to be reminded again and again of his own fate. She had seen his soft side several times, how much he longed for love, how much he sacrificed himself for it and how much grief it had brought him over the years. Just before she fell asleep she decided to talk to him about it. He had to learn that she noticed him but had been trapped in grief until now. He needed a family, more than anyone else he needed a family that would stand by him.

In the morning it already smelled of coffee and Max woke up and was happy to wake up here after a restless night plagued with wild dreams. For a moment she thought it would be nice to finally have a home, a routine and a quiet life and again she realized that she could only have all of this when the Familiars and the last Manticore supporters were finally eliminated.

She slipped into her clothes and just heard Sarah end a phone call.

"Yes, she will come to you today and you will give her all the information about it."

She hung up and looked at Max, who was coming down the stairs.

"Friends of mine across town can help you. I've been on the phone for a while and have written down everything you need."

"Thank you Sarah."

Max sat down with Sarah in the kitchen for breakfast and Max tried to steer the topic of conversation away from the mission.

"You've made yourself beautiful, the house is great."

"After the forest hut and the long time of hiding, it was a relief to finally be able to settle down somewhere."

Max could understand that only too well. She thanked Sarah and took the piece of paper with the information that Sarah had given her, hugged Sarah and left. The nearest address was on the other side of Wyoming. Max jumped on her Ninja, the black motorcycle that she had been driving for many years, and roared off.

The address was hidden in a side alley and Max had a little difficulty finding his way around. That was her luck because she noticed that she was being followed. She jumped back on her motorcycle and skillfully outpaced her pursuers. But that also meant that she couldn't go straight to the first address she chose. She looked at the piece of paper and decided to go to one of the addresses listed as a safe place to stay. From there she wanted to try to reach the other addresses under the cover of darkness.

It was a small apartment at the top of an abandoned house. Max climbed up to one of the windows and looked in through a window. The apartment was empty so she pushed up the window and climbed in from there. Inside, there was sparse furnishings and lots of filing cabinets. What kind of accommodation was that? Who stored all these documents here? She pulled open one of the filing cabinets and didn't know what it meant until she saw the name Ames White.

The cupboards were all filled with files on Familiars! She picked up the first stack of files and began reading. It was noted on the envelopes whether the person was still alive and in the country. Many of the files were stamped 2021. These were all people who had been present at the great battle and most of these people were dead except for a few of the higher-ups who were brought to safety. Max had an idea. If the Supreme of the Supremes, the only living author and commander of this sect so to speak, could be tracked down and destroyed, the entire organization could perhaps be dissolved or at least rendered harmless. The hierarchies gradually became clear to her as she worked through these volumes of paper. There really was a hierarchy and it was tied to a genetic code. For many years, the Familiars had built up a breeding cult that was supposed to produce the perfect human being. Sandeman had initially been one of these cult followers and it was he who founded Manticore with the aim of doing exactly what years of natural genetics had been unable to accomplish. He created many very strange figures. Joshua was first. He then looked for a lot of people who put together even better, genetically perfect people for him in the laboratory, and the X5 series was created. She herself, as it later turned out, was exactly what he had been trying to achieve. Perfect genetic sequences, no errors in the DNA, she was actually the goal of his creation but she had a single error. She was female. There had to be a male descendant who could assume leadership of the entire cult. This had brought some of the former Manticore employees and the cult together.

The files reached exactly up to the merger of the parties. Max had sat on it all day and tried to put together as much as possible into an overall picture. It was already evening again and she had spent another whole day here, but she had now gotten an overview. If she was right, the key was in the files after the merger, and those files she suspected were in the possession of Colonel Donald Lydecker.

She looked out and decided to try again. This time on foot because she suspected her motorbike would cause too much attention. She went to the window and looked out, it was now It became completely dark and she could only see anything at all thanks to her cat eyes. The address she went to first wasn't too far away, a few blocks, but she only walked in the side streets and a block before her destination she decided to continue over the rooftops. She jumped over to the roof of the house when a black car pulled up below. Two men got out and went straight into the house where their contacts were staying. Shortly afterwards she saw the two fighting machines leading two people to the car.

"Damn," she muttered, she knew it had somehow come to light that she was looking for files that this cult was also very interested in and now the bastards were becoming active faster than she would have liked. Nevertheless, she went through the roof access to the stairwell and from there she went to the apartment that was on her list. The door was still ajar but it was quiet inside. She went in and looked around. She could see from above that at least one of the two being taken away was a transgeno. It was lucky that they had all had the same training and she now knew for sure that there was information hidden for her somewhere in the apartment. She looked around carefully and tried to understand who had lived here so that she could find the hiding place. Quite expensive but simple and with few things everything was stylishly furnished. The two paid great attention to order and put everything together very detail-oriented and carefully. There was fresh food in the kitchen and everything was in tip top condition. Her gaze continued to wander through the apartment and fell on a somewhat strangely repaired spot on the wall. There seemed to be something there behind the wallpaper. It was a bit uneven and didn't fit the image of two people doing everything 100 percent. She knocked on the spot and lo and behold, it sounded hollow and the paint above it wasn't completely dry yet. Then she pressed a little harder and the edge of a small door appeared. She got a knife and pried it open. Behind it was a small niche in the wall with a small pile of storage, valuables and on top a piece of paper with an address. She looked briefly at the other things but only the note seemed to have been put there for her. Luckily, the residents of this apartment acted quickly and hid the most important things before the attack took place and they were taken away. She quickly left the apartment after pushing the sofa in front of the small opening in the wall and went back up to the roof. She went back to the apartment with the filing cabinets and decided to first try to find the address on the piece of paper in the documents. Only tomorrow morning she wanted to look outside the city to see if there was an interesting target there.

In fact, the address could always be found. But no name could be assigned to who she was expecting there. Most of the time only copies flowed there, as if it were some kind of archive.

Max sat down on the small sofa, which wasn't exactly inviting or comfortable, but it was just fine for leaning back, looking through files and taking a few notes. She was completely exhausted and so she nodded off, half sitting over the files. Again she was tormented by nightmares that made her wake up. She stared into the darkness. The images of the dreams seemed familiar to her and she thought about whether her subconscious had been trying to show her the truth for years.

She stared into space for a while until morning came. It was still very early, but she immediately made her way to the address on the piece of paper to do a little scouting out of the area beforehand.

She drove near the address, which was in the suburbs, and continued on foot from then on. It was a quiet area, familiar, small houses and gardens. It was quiet but as a precaution she walked around for a while to make sure she wasn't being followed this time. When everything seemed safe to her, she went straight to the house that was on the note. An older woman opened the door and when she saw Max she waved her straight in.

"Mrs. Guevara, it was only a matter of time. I've been waiting to see her for a long time."

Max was skeptical and prepared for anything, but she hadn't expected that.

"Who announced me?"

"My husband has been waiting for her for many years. Would you like to talk to him about it?"

Max nodded and the woman led them to a room further back with a view of the garden. Max could hardly believe her eyes. In a large bed that was obviously set up for a very sick person in need of care, he lay, Lydecker! He was getting old, very old, and looked very frail and sick. She walked around the bed and looked at him. She didn't have to be afraid because he was lying there in bed and he was no longer a danger.

"Max!"

He knew her name, he didn't address her by her number. The old man looked at her and beckoned her closer.

"I've been waiting for your visit for a long time, I've had the documents under lock and key for many years."

She sat down on a chair near the bed and he told her in a shaky voice how he had gotten out of his car underwater, then disappeared and had built an inconspicuous life here. He deliberately stayed here because they weren't looking for him here and he could wait in peace to see them one last time.

He told her where she would find the documents she was looking for. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep. His wife came and she also told Max how he had waited all these years.

"Why didn't he just contact me?"

"It was too dangerous," he said. He never told me the whole story and for many years he just wanted to be left alone."

"So you don't know his business side?"

"No, and I think it was better that way."

Max turned to the room where Lydecker was lying. She nodded and then slowly walked towards the door.

"Wait Max, take the letter he wrote with you in case he dies before you got here."

Max took the letter she held out to her and nodded again without saying another word. She was completely exhausted and overloaded with this information. Now all she had to do was get the files and finally reveal everything.