A/N: Guys, I can't tell you how sorry I am for taking forever to update. I've just been so busy and then school came and… well, enough excuses. On with the story. Please give me feedback; is anyone interested in this anymore?
Disclaimer: Some of the phrases are from the show or book but slightly altered.
"What's happening Zack?" Max asked frantically. "Why is this happening to them? Why?"
"I don't know, Maxie," Zack said. He put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her down. "Don't panic. That's not going to help us."
"Why does everything have to be so hard?" Max cried. Ever since she had been pregnant, she was always more emotional than usual and the tiniest things still seemed to get to her. Since this was no tiny thing, she was starting to freak out.
"We should get them to TC. Dix said that he was almost done decoding the runes on Max's body right? So he should have no problem with the ones on the babies," Alec said.
Nodding and composing herself, Max picked up Tiana and followed Alec, Lucy and Zack, who was holding Ben, out the door.
"Would you stop doing that? It's driving me fricking crazy," Mole growled.
"Look who's talking, Mr. I can't survive without my stupid heat lamps," the frosty looking transgenic shot back.
"These artic division guys," Mole said, shaking his scaly head, his cigar bobbing up and down. "When we blasted Saddam, we trekked 50 klicks across the desert in a day, the burning sand making the trip all the much harder. The sun was blazing; I bet you'd melt."
"So? Try imagining the Siberian campaign, trekking 50 klicks across the mountains in a night, the driving snow slowing down your progress. It was below 50; I bet you'd freeze."
Mole growled again and both looked a the new mule-looking transgenic who shrugged. "Hey, I'm a trench dude. I didn't do any of that heavy labor stuff, so how am I supposed to know?"
Mole and the frosty guy both shook their heads.
"Good for nothing son of a – " Mole muttered, but he was interrupted by someone else's voice.
"Where's Dix?" Alec asked.
"Oh, it's you again," Mole grunted.
"Nice to see you too," Alec said sarcastically. "Well, you know, you were so nice and homey the last time we were here we couldn't wait to see your pretty face again."
For once in his life Mole actually cracked a grin. "Nice to see some people around here actually have my sense of humour."
"Hey, why don't you guys go on a date later," Max interrupted impatiently. "Where's Dix?"
Mole nodded his head upwards to the balcony. "Spud head should be zonked out in front of the TVs."
The quartet walked up the stairs quickly, Lucy looking a little nervously at the deformed transgenics staring at her. Alec squeezed her arm.
"I know they're freaky-looking but they're not going to do anything to you," he said under his breath, low enough so that they didn't hear him. Lucy nodded and felt slightly calmer, reassured by his words.
"Hey guys!" Dix said cheerfully. "Good news, I deciphered the runes. Bad news... it ain't pretty."
Max massaged her temple. "Some more appeared, but not on me. They've completely faded. They're on Tiana and Ben."
Dix frowned, his forehead squishing. "You're kidding?"
Max handed Tiana to Dix and she giggled and tried to poke Dix's monocle. He fidgeted, obviously not used to being around babies. He studied her arms, noticing the little black marks. Then he hastily handed her back to Max.
"Well, first things first. The runes on your body Max... they were some kind of prophecy."
"Prophecy?" Lucy asked.
Dix appeared to just notice her and gave her a friendly wave. "Yeah. Something along the lines of, when the shroud of death covers the face of the earth, the One whose power is hidden will deliver the helpless."
Max looked at him in disbelief. "And the runes appeared on my body because...?"
"You're the one the runes are talking about, apparently. But it said something else. The One will not be able to deliver them on her own. The liquid that courses through her veins will only be sufficient for a short period of time, but what will bring the helpless from the dark into the light are the gifts that was given to the One by the protector. The three are what will set us all free from the dark times and the horrible deaths," Dix explained.
Zack shut his eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of everything. "Okay, so in plain English, Max's blood can 'deliver' the helpless, whatever that means. But it won't last forever, which means that the 'gifts', which I'm guessing are Tiana and Ben, are supposed to help her. Mix the blood of all three of them, maybe?"
"Yeah, but for what?" Alec asked. "What's this thing that Max and the kline kinder are supposed to free everyone from?"
"Not everyone," Dix corrected. "The helpless."
"But who are the helpless?" Max asked.
"The humans," Lucy said quietly. Everyone turned to face her.
"It has to be us," Lucy continued. "We're the ones who aren't genetically engineered or anything, and didn't that White guy have a major thing against regular people? What if whatever that's coming is designed to wipe out the entire human race?"
"It would be the equivalent of an apocalypse," Max said.
"How could everyone just die, though?" Alec asked. "What are the Familiars going to do? Go door-to-door in boy scouts' uniforms selling cookies and chocolate bars filled with some dreadful poison? I just can't see that. How is everyone on this planet just supposed to drop dead? And how is the mixed blood supposed to help them? I'm telling you, the whole thing is just wack. Besides, if the runes were encoded in Max's genes from day numero uno, then someone had to know something like this was going to happen. How could someone just know that?"
"Father," someone said behind them. Joshua stepped forward. "Father," he repeated.
"Sandeman?" Max said thoughtfully. "Alec's right though, Joshua. How could Sandeman have known that something like this was going to happen?"
"Maybe he was part of the cult," Dix suggested.
"Or maybe he was just one strange dude who screwed up with Max's genes and made these funky runes appear?" Mole added, entering their conversation. Many of the transgenics around them were listening intently, and not really bothering to hide it.
Joshua shook his head. "Father knew what he was doing."
Mole let out a bark of laughter. "Right. Don't you think if he knew what he was doing we wouldn't look like we belonged to the Cirque du Soleil freak fest and would've gotten us right the first time?"
"Runes on Max for a reason," Joshua said, throwing away all of Mole's comments. "Father was a good guy."
"Look," Dix interrupted, seeing that a fight might break out soon on their creator's status. He handed a digital camera to Zack. "Take pictures and give the camera to me when you're done. Then we'll see if it'll give us any more information."
"I still say that we go find Deck," Max said. "I mean, he was part of Manticore. Wouldn't he know what the hell was going on?"
"Not necessarily," Zack said, trying to shoot down the idea so that she wouldn't do something that could get her hurt. "If this Sandeman guy was into something really secret, maybe he didn't know about it."
"It's still worth a try," Max insisted.
"White knows something too," Alec said. "Do you think we should pay our snaky friend a visit?"
"It's too dangerous," Zack said. "Look, getting ourselves killed right now isn't a really good idea. We need to get info, but not if we won't be around long enough to use it."
"Hey guys?" an X-4 said, taking their attention away for a moment. "There's a transgenic on the news. X-5. It looks like he might be in trouble."
They rushed to one of the many TVs and Alec drew in a sharp breath.
"He was in my unit. X5-510."
X5-510 walked around quickly, nervously, eyeing the crowd as if certain someone was going to jump out and try to kill him. Earlier in the morning he had been careless and let some ordinary catch a glimpse of his barcode, immediately setting Seattle PD after him. He had managed to escape, but he had the strange feeling he was being watched. He was close to Terminal City, his destination, which was only about 5 blocks away if his directions were correct. He only hoped that he'd get that far.
He bought a second cup of coffee to replace the first that he had wasted and walked, a little more calmer now but still keeping his eye on who surrounded him. He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary so he let his tense muscles relax for a moment. It seemed he was in the clear.
He turned and three men he had seen earlier collecting money for a transgenic-free Seattle appeared in front of him. The lead man was smiling, but it was almost as if he was smiling out of victory instead of greeting. It set 510, christened Biggs as of a little while ago, on edge.
"Would you like to donate some money for a transgenic-free Seattle?" the man said, still with the same shark-like smile. A predator.
And he was the prey.
Something caught Biggs' eye as he started to respond and his blood ran cold. He saw a picture of himself on a TV across the street and immediately the lead man knew that he knew he was caught.
"Get him!" the man shouted but Biggs had already flown into action. He elbowed the man hard in the gut and aimed a flying kick at another man's head. He threw the cup of coffee at the third man.
Damn. What does it take to actually be able to drink your coffee in Seattle? That's the second cup I've wasted on an ordinary.
By then he had drawn a crowd and many of them moved forward, eager to join in on the fight. There were many of them and Biggs forced himself not to think about the odds. Trainer Hamilton's voice echoed in his head.
Life is never fair, so don't complain about it. Do you think in a battle they'll back off because there are more of them than there are you? NO! Odds don't matter; it's the skills that you have that are put to use properly that will get you out alive. DO YOU UNDERSTAND SOLDIER?
Biggs punched the nearest one but before he could move again an ordinary immobilized his arms. He wrenched them free and knocked the person out but another one took the man's place. He could feel them surrounding him, punching him and kicking him with all their might.
"It's one of the trannie freaks!" a man yelled. There were screams, some of terror and others of outrage. Biggs doubled over as he spit blood from his mouth. Another man kicked him and he lay flat on his back. He looked up to see a foot descending towards his face and closed his eyes, waiting for the impact, but it never came. He heard someone yell and suddenly someone was pulling him up. He opened his blood crusted eyes and saw his old unit mate staring at him on one side and a lizard transgenic on the other, smoking what looked like a cigar.
"You look like shit," the lizard-guy said.
"So do you, but I'll heal," Biggs quipped. The lizard-guy looked at his old friend. "He got the same sort of funny bone, huh?"
"You boys can have a slumber party later and catch up on all your juicy gossip, but can we get a move on?" an impatient-looking female said. His friend looked vaguely offended.
"We don't have slumber parties, Max," he said. "We're not girls."
Max looked around nervously. "Most of the people have run off but there are still some hanging around. Can we go?"
Biggs' friend helped him into a van and they sped off.
"How are you, 494?" Biggs asked. "I go by Biggs, by the way."
"Well, I've got ordinaries and wacky cult people on my ass, but you know, life goes on," he said. "Name's Alec, courtesy of Max." He nodded at her.
Biggs smirked. "Gee, I wonder why."
Alec smirked right back. "I could say the same for your name. Don't you think it's a tad inappropriate?"
Biggs heard a giggle and looked at a blond girl sitting beside them. He studied her carefully and noticed she wasn't a transgenic. She was beautiful but she didn't have the model look all the X-5s had.
"And who might you be?" he asked.
"Lucy," she said, still giggling. Biggs felt a switch in Alec's attitude and now his body language was screaming possessiveness. Biggs laughed inwardly and backed off.
"Nice to meet you," he said. His attention switched to the other people in the van. There were a few anomalies and the brunette who was lying down against a blonde man. Following his gaze Alec added, "That's Max, 452, and Zack, 599."
"Hi," Zack said. Biggs nodded until something lit up in his brain.
"Wait. Weren't you two, like, top of Manticore or something way back when?" he asked. "There are lots of stories about your group because of, well, you know… the whole '09 escape, but there were a lot of stories about you guys too." He looked at Zack. "You were the best CO at the Seattle base."
Zack looked surprised. "Thanks," he said.
Biggs shrugged. "Sure." He looked at Max. "Hey, wait a minute. 452. Wasn't there – ?"
"A twin in your unit? 453? Yeah, I already met her," Max said tiredly. Biggs blinked. Damn. It felt as if everyone knew everything except for him.
Alec handed him a cloth and he wiped his face, handing it back to him when he was done.
"So. Are you still as fun as you used to be or have you turned into one boring dude?" Biggs asked.
"Are you kidding?" Alec said. He looked off into space reflectively. "We had some really great times, huh?"
They looked at each other. "Lola."
Max groaned. "Great. Now we have two womanizers."
A/N: I hope you guys liked this. This fic's going to come to an end soon, I'm just not sure when. If you have any ideas, please tell me. And please give me feedback; it's the only way I know that you're still enjoying this.
Thanks to -
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Thank you to everyone who took to the time review. Do it again? Please? (Bats eyelashes)