NOTE: The first three paragraphs of this Prologue - Italicised - are taken from Skin Game, by Max Allan Collins, after which this story takes place.

In Skin Game, White tracked down a mentally unstable Manticore escapee named Kelpy, with chameleon-like abilities (he could make himself look like somebody else, or render himself invisible to human eyes). Rather than capture or kill Kelpy, White instead replaced his Tryptophan supplier, providing him with tainted drugs that drove him over the edge, resulting in several murders. When rumours began to spread of a Transgenic serial killer, Max began working with Ramon Clemente to get to the truth.

Fixating on Max, Kelpy tried to murder Logan and take his place. When a fight broke out, the virus in Max's blood infected Kelpy when he took Logan's form. Before dying, Kelpy's confession, along with information supplied by Otto Gottlieb, who had been secretly investigating his boss, was enough to publicly expose White's crimes.

Also in Skin Game, Logan, who had been having trouble securing the Informant Net to avoid his broadcasts being traced, mentioned that he may call upon Sketchy to bring information to New World Weekly as an alternative means of getting the word out.

The Seattle PD Officer speaking in the excerpt is Ramon Clemente (Freak Nation).

"As the Seattle police officer assigned the so-called siege at Terminal City, I make this public plea to the Army: I urge you to reconsider your plans to invade Terminal City. These people – some call them freaks – have done nothing except defend themselves against false accusations, and yet…even when overwhelmed by problems of their own…still managed to help the police capture a serial killer. In addition, they have helped identify and expose the person manipulating the confessed killer, in an effort to stereotype transgenics as monsters, in a crass and heartless exploitation of the media and the public."

What the fuck office was that detective running for, all of a sudden? God, how White hated that pompous petty nonentity. He picked up the remote and fired it at the picture. A minute later he was riding away from the suburban house, leaving the lie of that life behind as quickly as possible, and heading into a precarious future.

On televisions across the city the Streaming Freedom Video logo returned and that familiar, strangely soothing voice said, "One man's hatred, one man's fear of things different…sometimes that's all that's need to tip the scales of justice, until they are criminally off-kilter. We hope that those who make decisions are listening. We hope that – unlike Ames White – they will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of those who are different. There is time to stop this madness, this hatred. This has been a Streaming Freedom Video."

The riots continued below, The National Guard still pushing back the mob of assorted troublemakers, though now seeming somewhat dispirited. Sector Seven, Terminal City, was the focus point of every grievance the people of Seattle had, but that broadcast could change everything. White was now a marked man for both sides, and better for him if he was caught by his own. The kids were doing a good job of proving they could be as human as everyone else, but if they laid their hands on Ames White they'd redefine pain.

Watching the scene from above, the television in the background now having switched back to the news, Lydecker wondered where all this was going. He'd sat with his eyes glued to the screen, and knew they'd left something out. There was something else Max had wanted to say, but held back on. When Kelpy had been telling his story about White, Max's game face had faltered, betraying her pain. She was still blaming herself for everything that went wrong around her.

When he'd been run off the road by White's goons, Colonel Donald Lydecker's training had gone right out the window, and he had survived instead using a trick he'd seen on some television show years ago. Waiting for his attackers to leave once they were certain he was dead, he'd survived by inhaling the air from his tyres. After leaving the water, he'd headed for Terminal City, which he knew was quickly becoming home to many of Manticore's less sociable and far less attractive residents. He'd watched and waited, the drama unfolding before him, waiting for the right moment to show himself. There were some people he'd contacted, though anonymously. No names, and nobody had seen his face. He had eventually returned to the Kiloma burial site that had nearly gotten him killed in the first place, and although it was now unguarded, everything was still there, and a little research had uncovered more sites bearing the Manticore symbol all over the world, the oldest dating back to 5,000B.C.

The past few weeks had been very interesting. A week after the initial exposure, when a worker transgenic known as Mule had been the subject of a police shooting at a Sector Checkpoint, Joshua's kidnapping of a girl and her eventual death had been enough to ensure that everyone in Seattle was in support of annihilating the 'transgenic threat.' However, unlike most at Manticore, Lydecker had known about Joshua living in the basement, had known him since Sandeman's time, and knew him to be quite docile, though the canine man-child had never liked him. Pretty much anyone else who had known Sandeman was dead now, many having suffered various 'accidents' like the one that had befallen Lydecker. There was nobody who could have vouched for Joshua's childish, friendly nature, even had they wanted to.

The girl turning up dead had to be White's doing. He'd done what Lydecker himself would have done in that same situation.

No, not anymore! That's not me!

It isn't? What about Adriana Vertes? Or Tinga's son?

It's over!

Anything to get the job done, Deck.

Trying to distance himself from the acts he'd committed while attempting to capture the X5 escapees wasn't easy. There was a part of him that just wouldn't shut up, wouldn't let him forget. He wanted to go back to the man he'd been before Manticore, before alcoholism. He wanted to protect his family, his kids, like he should have protected Rachel. Not that they really needed protecting, but he had to redeem himself somehow.

The ringing of the phone in his jacket pocket put pause to the debate in his mind. The cell was scrambled, virtually untraceable, and nobody had the number. He didn't know it himself. Slowly, cautiously, he reached into his pocket and took out the still ringing phone.

"This is Lydecker." Whoever was calling obviously knew this much already, so there was no point in denial. "Who am I talking to?"

And Donald Lydecker, the king of composure, stared at the small, dirty mirror on the east wall, and watched the colour drain from his face. "How did you find me?" And why are you calling me, of all people? "Yeah, I saw it. Max has been very busy lately. Rallying a transgenic army, tearing up White's cover." Trying to recover from the shock of it all, Lydecker launched into his own questions. "Perhaps you can help me with something. You're obviously calling me because you need some kind of help, so let's set the price. I want answers. I think you can provide them."

The negotiation was brief, and though he got no answers from this conversation, the new questions in he'd formed in his mind were interesting enough. That settled it. The answers were coming. Time to visit the kids.

X5-599, I've got a heart for you.

Leaping up with a start, soaked in sweat, the echoing explosion of gunfire still ringing through his head, Adam Thomson ducked into a corner of the small room, cowering, frantically checking his surroundings, primed to pounce on unseen enemies wherever they might appear. His breathing slowed as the terror of the dream – dream?– faded, and recognition sank in. The ranch; Buddy's ranch, which he had come to some months ago, after the apparent accident driving one of Buddy's trucks into Seattle. When he'd woken up in the hospital Buddy had introduced himself – for the first time, Adam – Zack – knew now. When he'd arrived at the ranch, everyone had greeted him like an old friend, and at first things had been great; quiet, peaceful, normal, everything he'd ever wanted from life. He'd also fallen for Sara; a beautiful olive-skinned girl who worked with him on the ranch. It all felt right. But none of it was.

This wasn't the first time he'd been frightened out of his sleep by the horrifying dream, or others like it. The dreams had started two months ago, when a hoverdrone had captured footage of Sector cops fighting a Nomlie at a checkpoint. The news had played the footage over and over again, zooming in on the beasts' barcode every time. Just like his own barcode, the one everyone on the ranch pretended not to notice. He hadn't slept soundly since that day, and things had gotten steadily worse. Not long after the first fight at the checkpoint, another Nomlie had been found, and this one had kidnapped a blind girl and taken her into sewers. The chase had ended with the discovery of the girl's mauled and mangled body, and the revelation of X-series transgenics, who looked just like everyone else. Though none of them spoke of it, Adam knew that everyone on the ranch knew what he was. It made no sense. Out there, anyone even suspected of being a transgenic was as good as dead, but here, where everyone seemed to know the truth better than he did, they all still treated him like a friend. Out there, the only support for transgenics was coming from Eyes Only – traitor! But even he had disappeared, reappearing only days ago with another shocking revelation – Max.

The government agent in charge of capturing Manticore escapees had been trying instead to manipulate them for his own ends, to annihilate them whatever the cost, even orchestrating a series of gruesome murders by drugging an already disturbed Nomlie and setting him on innocent people. That hadn't shocked him so much. That kind of thing could be expected from some people. People like Lydecker. But who was Lydecker? What had shocked him was Max. He'd seen her before. She'd been in the hospital when Buddy had taken him... home. Why can't this be my home? He'd spoken to her, thinking he knew her, but she'd claimed not to know him. She'd also been involved in the siege at Jam Pony a few weeks ago, hijacking a hoverdrone and riding it over the police and right through the window. That was when the worst of the nightmares had started. Every night since then he'd had the same nightmare, knowing how real it had been once. Running through a dense forest, watching over his shoulders for the pursuers ever he couldn't see in his wake. But he could hear them. A gun fired from the shadows, the pain of white-hot metal in his shoulder he tried to ignore as he fell. The gun sounding again, further away. Flash.

Strapped to a hospital gurney, doctors treating his shoulder. Through the doors to an operating room, where Max lay unconscious, bleeding from a shot through the heart. Flash.

"Her heart has been shredded." "Then she needs a heart!" "It wouldn't help. She's an X5, she needs an X5 heart." Flash.

"X5-599, I've got a heart for you."

Rising unsteadily to his feet, Adam – Zack!– walked over to the bed and stared at the girl lying with her back to him, her sleep undisturbed by his sudden panicky awakening. She stirred gently, on the verge of waking. She'd liked him from the start, always making excuses for the two of them to be together with nobody else around. At first, he'd been cautious, as if something inside told him he shouldn't get involved, but something about her made him drop his guard, and he'd fallen in love with her. It was only now he realized why, and the shock at the thought almost made him cry aloud; she looked just like her.

His mind finally made up, he reached under the bed, and pulled out the bag he'd packed the night of the broadcast but had hoped he wouldn't need. Inside he had things he'd bought in the city over the past few weeks, after the Jam Pony siege. A few questions to people he'd spotted as easily as breathing had secured him a fake I.D and Sector Pass, and a USP .45 pistol. The gun lay disassembled in a small case, which he opened now. After piecing the weapon together, looking not at it but at Sara the whole time, he went to closet and got dressed quietly, and, making sure the safety was on, he tucked the gun into the back of his jeans, covering it with under his sweater, turtle-necked to cover his barcode. Back to the bag, he made sure the money was still there – not much remained after paying for the documents and gun, but it would be enough – and his keys. He stood over Sara for a few moments longer, wanting to wait until she was awake, wanting to say goodbye. Hoping she could talk him out of leaving. Instead, he leaned forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and whispered, "I'm sorry."

On his way to meet the guy he'd been buying the I.D from, he'd seen a run-down apartment building, which, in truth, looked no different from any of the rest, but he knew he'd been there before. On the fifth floor, he'd reached up behind a loose ceiling panel and pulled the keys down, knowing they were his. He had no idea when he'd been here before, but the apartment was in Sector Six, less than two miles from Terminal City. He'd had to kick out a couple of squatters, but knew from the scare he'd given them that they wouldn't be back, and that the apartment lay empty. The only other items were an untraceable cell – the I.D guy had referred him to a friend for that – and a bottle of Tryptophan, for the occasional seizures Buddy said were a result of the head-injuries he'd suffered in the truck crash. Sure he had everything, he closed the bag, picked up his boots and snuck outside. Putting his boots on and lacing them up, he went outside and crossed the yard.

Stepping so lightly the dirt under his feet didn't even crunch, he opened the door of his truck- at least, and Buddy had said it was his – climbed in and froze. He still wasn't sure he wanted to do this. He had a great life here, a quiet, happy, normal life. What's normal anyway? The others in Terminal City were getting along fine without him, and did he really want to know about his past? But Max - I died for you! - and Eyes Only - Agitator, Turncoat, Murderer – both had a hand in this life, leaving him here for whatever reason.

Promise me you'll fight them, Maxie.

He couldn't let her fight that fight alone, whatever had happened in the past.

The old house had probably once been quite attractive; back when it had a decent coat of paint and its' large garden had been well tended. Now, despite its' being kept relatively tidy by its' previous owner, it still appeared a dilapidated shell on the outside; not uncommon in post-Pulse Seattle, but still a sad sight, if people noticed it, which few did. Even the young man approaching the house barely registered its' condition. He only saw that the blinds were up.

Ever since leaving Terminal City, Calvin 'Sketchy' Theodore had passed by the old house every day on his Jam Pony rounds to see if any messages had been left by Logan. Every day until today, the blinds had been down, indicating no news. Now he left his bike by the porch and went inside, into the living room. There he opened the top centre drawer and took out the large envelope inside. Almost gnashing his teeth with the thought that he may finally have something important to do, he emptied the contents of the envelope onto the desk and started going through it.

First was a note to him from Logan telling him to bring the contents of the envelope directly to his editor, and that more would soon follow. Intrigued, Sketchy picked up the first items on the desk in front of him; three photographs of what looked like a tomb or a burial ground. The bones of a woman and two children with their skulls caved in, and a drawing on a wall, of what seemed to be a lion. Next was a sheet of paper covered in Logan's handwriting. Sketchy started to read and was instantly lost for words. '…legends of ancient societies…Chile, Mesopotamia…child was described as horribly deformed…second child…the third child was born, and this child they took with them, after killing the mother…symbol and identical story connected to many such societies across time and distance ruling out all possible relation…evidence that such societies exist even today…'

Taking a second to try and get the information clear in his head, Sketchy picked up the last file, a bunch of pictures and printouts. The pictures were of a bunch of kids in camouflage carrying M4s, and scribbled notes clipped to the photos said they were file photos stolen from a Manticore computer, of a group of transgenics who escaped eleven years before Manticore burned. On every page of the printouts…Sketchy picked up the first photos he'd looked and placed the one of the creature painted on the wall beside the pages he was reading.

It was the same symbol.

A couple of minutes later, when Sketchy left the old house practically skipping with excitement, he never noticed the woman watching him from across the street. If he had seen her, he might have been pretty scared of her; she was pretty small, but one look at her was enough to say she wasn't to be messed with. Blonde hair, ice blue eyes and a sweet, innocent face made her very pretty, but those same eyes betrayed the face, giving the girl a predatory demeanour.

Before starting up her bike to follow, she made a quick call on her cell.

'He just left the house.'

'Don't let him out of your sight,' came the reply.