Title: Lifeways (1/1)
Summary: The X5s through the eyes of one of their pursuers.
Rating: R - language, violence, sex. We aren't dealing with the politest of characters below.
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee.
Date: April 10, 12, 2001.

"Crazy bitch walked right into the crossfire..."

She had moved, at ease with her own body and its motions. The girl had slid into a crouch, her knees sharp beneath the frayed bottom of her jean-shorts. A t-shirt had hung loose around her narrow chest and slight shoulders. A band's logo was imprinted on the front, and Robert Lessard hadn't heard of them since the Pulse struck. She wore no socks, and her ankles emerged narrow and frail from scruffed grey running shoes. Her hair was light brown, awkward and unmanageable as it grew out from the short cut imposed on her by Manticore.

She had shifted, moved so quickly that Robert hadn't realized she had struck until Keller screamed. The other man lay writhing on the pavement, his knee shattered with a blow from the small girl darting past him. A voice screamed to life in Lessard's ear: "stop her!" He leapt over Keller, the others behind him. She was fast. He'd known that the girl was special before he had been sent out to help retrieve her. The knowledge of fast and the experience of it were two completely different things as he watched her run.

"Stop!" Stearns shouted, pointing his weapon at the girl. Word and weapon discharged as one. The girl stumbled, white shirt going red low at her side. Stearns was puffing. "For Christ's sake - get her!"

Lessard drove the girl's body to the ground with the weight of his own. She wiggled beneath him, turning with the blow she aimed for his head. He fell back, blood spurting from his nose. "Fuck," he bubbled, reaching towards her past the sharp stab of agony radiating outwards from his broken nose. The rest of his team fell out around them.

He'd never imagined such an expression as the girl wore on her face. Muscles bunched in her legs and the girl had leapt, arms swinging outwards to catch the upraised ladder to fire escape above them. Another shot, and the girl jerked midair. She tumbled towards the ground, t-shirt pulling out like a sail behind her. She collapsed to the ground and even after what he had seen from her, Lessard was surprised to see her push herself back to her knees. Her eyes, dear God, her _eyes_, Lessard thought. Unconsciously, he cast a prayer towards his parents' God even as he moved to train his gun on her.

"It's over, kid," Lessard muttered beneath his breath, willing her to stay down, to stay still.

Her eyes jerked upwards, slamming towards his. He could feel the heat of that gaze even through the visor lowered between them. Her mouth twisted in silent words: no, no, I'm not going back! Sorrow too deep even for tears. She moved and Higgins brought his arm down in a blow to the back of her head. The girl tottered forward.

"...I don't know what the fuck made her do it."

"They're unbalanced. All the shit the docs have pulled with them. She was one of the X5s who made it out, back in '09."

"No shit."

"Yeah. Robert here was there when they brought her in, heh?"

Robert rubbed at his crooked nose. "...Yeah. Yeah, I was there."

"First one who got brought back in. Hear they had to pump two bullets into her before she gave up."

"That true, Rob?"

He blinked, slow dry fall of eyelids over burning eyes. "Right into the crossfire?"

"Like I said. Just stood there, head titled back towards the sky and waited."

"No, she didn't give up," Robert said.

...~*~...

*Chris here. Impress me and I may get back to you.*

Lessard was in the bedroom. He was at the dresser, pulling each chipped drawer open. Bottom drawer held pants - jeans and leather stuffed messily into it. Pulled each pair out and slid them into the bags settled next to him. Their target had made it out before they'd been able to reach him. They would clear out his home, strip it of every possession held within the apartment's walls.

Lessard listened to the rise and fall of the target's voice as he stripped the dresser. The kid sounded supremely self-confident, bordering on arrogant. The answering machine was stupid of him - they'd recognize that voice should they run into it again in the future.

*Chris? It's Amber. Call me, okay, baby?*

*Hey. Danielle speaking. Gotta work a bit late tonight. I'll meet you at seven instead. Looking forward to seeing you again.*

Higgins' head was cocked, clearly more taken by the messages that were playing in the living room than he was by the contents of the closet. "What the hell does this guy have that I don't?" he muttered, half-envious, half-awed at the procession of female voices emerging from the machine.

Lessard shrugged, moving up another drawer towards the shirts. "Youth."

Campbell grinned, "stamina."

"Looks," Simmons added as he snapped his gloves into place. He leaned forward slightly, picking his way through the trash basket set beside the night-stand.

"Hey, now!" Higgins protest. "You can't be sure about that one. We've never caught a glimpse of this kid."

Simmons didn't look up from the trash. "Tell me that you've seen one of them that isn't attractive."

Higgins didn't even have to consider the question before he spoke. "No." He paused momentarily, eyelids half-lowered, "I'm kinda surprised more people haven't followed Landry's lead, actually."

"Landry?" Campbell questioned. He was new to the team, and had yet to hear the stories each of them had about various Manticore personnel and the genetically engineered superhumans. The glint in the younger man's eyes told them that he was more than looking forward to dipping into the rumour and gossip mills.

"Greg Landry worked with the X4s," Higgins explained. "He was boffing one of them."

Lessard could remember the woman in question. She had been tall, slim, sleek. She'd had high cheekbones, slanted green cat's eyes framed by dark lashes. Full lips that had curved back into smiling snarls to expose pointed white teeth. He'd seen animal in her movements, something wild in her eyes.

Campbell rocked back on his heels, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "I didn't think..."

Simmons answered the younger man's unspoken question. "It certainly isn't encouraged, but as long as you aren't obvious about it, you won't get reprimanded. Strong sex drives in some of them. Get testy when they aren't getting any. Most of them consider us subhuman, anyway - no worry about them getting attached to human bed partners." He cast a glance at Campbell. "I wouldn't go hunting for one of them, if I were you."

"Why not?"

"Landry's little kitten bit his dick off," Higgins said, grinning at Campbell's expression.

Lessard grunted. "They're shitting you, kid."

"The tip. Honest to God."

Campbell looked back and forth between Simmons and Lessard. "That true?"

Simmons shrugged. "Yeah."

"Fuck," Campbell breathed. "What happened?"

"Landry was transferred out of Manticore. Don't know what happened to the girl," Lessard said.

"I can see why people aren't all that eager, then," Campbell commented.

Higgins grinned. "Not all of them have teeth like she did."

*Chris, pick up, you damned ass! I told Tangerine that you were good for the job. Do you have any idea what kind of trouble I'm in if you don't get down here _now_? C'mon, Chris - I trusted you with this, you bastard!*

Lessard sighed. "Someone turn that damned thing off all ready."

*Where are you, Chr--*

...~*~...

The building had been stripped. The team stepped into empty space, bare floor and blank white walls. Stearns scowled, deep brackets forming in the weathered skin around his mouth. Dark brows lowered into a heavy line, marking his discontent. "What I wouldn't do to figure out how they always know we're coming," he grunted sourly. Stearns' left foot came down and his body was flung towards the wall behind them with the force of the explosion.

Later, Lessard would always wonder why none of them had expected it. The kids they hunted had been trained as killers - they held a more thorough education in death than did the men who followed them.

"Sir? Sir?" Campbell's voice was distant, frantic even through the seeming distance stretching between Lessard and his teammate. "Oh, God. He's dead!" Campbell choked. Lessard's eyes fluttered open. He stared at the darkness smudged ceiling for a moment before he turned his head towards the younger man's voice.

Stearns was sprawled out, messy and inelegant in death.

"Christ Almighty," Campbell said and dipped his head.

The next night, released for the infirmary, Lessard sought out Campbell. "You okay, kid?" Lessard asked, asking only because he knew Campbell wasn't. He pulled out a half-empty pack of cigarettes, offered one to the slumped figure beside him.

"How could the X5 have done it?" Campbell demanded.

"We aren't on the same side, Andrew. We're hunting them down, and none of them are eager to be brought back here." Robert struck a match, held the quivering flame up to the end of his cigarette. The tip glowed orange and he let the match drop, dying out against the ground.

Andrew shook his head impatiently. "That's bull. Manticore isn't a bad place."

Robert looked at Andrew's profile from the corner of his eye. "You want to keep those illusions of yours in place a bit longer, or you figure you can handle the truth?"

Andrew turned to face him, thumbs hooked through the belt-loops of his pants, face set in anger. "Go ahead, tell me."

"You chose the military, kid. The X5s didn't."

"That doesn't matter," Andrew said, shaking his head. "They were made to be soldiers."

"Didn't stop them from being human," Robert countered. "We cherish our freedom and our free will. The X5s aren't fighting to stay free for greasy hamburgers, border patrols and irritable landlords. They want the basic rights every other American has."

Andrew's eyebrows arched. "Don't tell me you agree with the escaped X5s!"

Robert shrugged. "Not saying I do or don't. Just saying why I think they do what they do. If you stay here, it's something you'll have to think your way through sooner or later. It's easy enough when you start out - they're creations, they're soldiers. And then you find pictures and messages from friends, potted plants and favourite novels left on beds. And it stops being quite so easy."

"You're soft," Campbell accused.

"Tell me that once you've stared one of them eye to eye, kid."

...~*~...

Lessard figured that he had gotten a feel for each of the escaped X5s over the years that he had been following them. He knew this one from the moment he stepped through the door. The former home smelt of vanilla and a faint hint of chocolate. Yellow curtains hung from the windows. A vibrant blue blanket was draped over the back of the couch in the living room. Magazines were scattered across the scruffed end-table at the right side of the couch. A chocolate bar wrapper lay crumpled next to the magazines. A sketchbook lay abandoned on the couch cushion nearest to him.

"I hate those damned bears," Simmons growled from the bedroom. "Every fucking time. I wish she'd grow out of them, already." Lessard knew the teddy bears got to Simmons.

Higgins whistled. "These look pretty grown up," and there was a leer in his voice.

Lessard blocked out the other men's voices. He picked up the sketchbook, flipped it open. Blank page after blank page. They'd taken her last sketchbook when she'd ran. That one had been filled with images. The profilers had combed through the book, had decided that she liked open spaces and being near water. She'd been in something resembling a shack more than a house the next time they'd tracked her down, a small home hugging the beach. Lessard had never seen the woman who had inhabited this space. He could imagine her, a shadowed shape with haunted eyes, empty fingers running patterns across blank pages.

He was with the team who brought her back in. Lessard had lifted her off the bench she was curled up on. She had lay limp and weary in his arms, her head fallen back. Her throat was exposed, vulnerable. Her eyes had flickered across his face, and he'd known that expression - rage and hate and fear, and the last woman he'd seen wearing that expression had walked into a hail of bullets. Her face shut down, smoothing away emotion until she looked empty and untouchable.

Campbell sought him out the next morning. "You good?"

Lessard shrugged, twirling an unlit cigarette between his fingers. "I'm good."

"You figure you can handle the truth?" Campbell asked.

Lessard shot him a hard look. "You want to tell me. Go ahead."

"They aren't going to win, you know. As hard as they fight, as passionately as they believe, they can't win against their own bodies."

A slow drag upwards of his shoulders. "Maybe not."

Campbell shook his head, irritated. "I don't get why you care what happens."

"She always had a teddy bear on her bed. She smells like vanilla. She likes drawing but got too damned scared to do so." Lessard ran a hand across his short cropped hair. "I know more about her, about all of them, than I do about my own family."

"They aren't family. They're our job. That's it."

"I know."

...~*~...

A motel room, and Lessard knew their target would be gone before they opened the door. The woman had been sitting at the edge of the mussed bed, yanking her jeans up with angry, jerky motions. She turned her head, dark curls cascading over her shoulder with the motion. Her dark eyes widened and she let out a shriek at the sight of them.

"Shut up, all ready," Lessard said. He lowered his gun slightly, so that it pointed at the floor rather than the woman. "Where is he?"

"Sam?" she asked, full lower lip trembling. "I-- I don't know! I swear to God. I barely even know the guy..." and she was sobbing, hands held out before her as if to push them away.

"When did he leave?" Lessard asked.

"Said he was going to get something to eat. He's been gone a long time." She was still crying, sucking in air in deep wet gasps. "I'm going to get killed because of him, and he couldn't even get my name right."

They weren't going to kill her. Lessard had noticed most people didn't believe that reassurance, so he didn't bother trying. "Spread out. We still may find him," Lessard told his men. He knew the X5 would already be gone. Their quarry had no reason to remain here. They never did.

They'd found lovers waiting in homes, in beds, one woman naked but for her underwear eating a peanut butter sandwich in the kitchen. They'd caught the glint of rings on fingers before, and none of the X5s had come back even then. He could remember frantic, frightened, angry lovers. Crying children. Worried roommates and friends. Abandoned animals. An elderly neighbour who had attacked them with flying frying pan, screaming shrilly that she wouldn't let them take her son away again.

He could remember the man who had pulled a gun on them, demanding that they leave. Lessard could just as clearly remember how that man had jerked back, collapsed to the floor in a spray of blood. He'd been wearing a wedding band. A child had started screaming, loud and frightened, from the bedroom: "Mommy! Mommy!" The child had moved easily, quick and strong, and they had taken the kid back with them - let the scientists decide the child's worth.

Lessard could recall finding a straightened coat hanger with other supplies in the bathroom of one of the X5's home. He'd wondered at such desperation then. He'd delivered a child into Manticore's hands, and Lessard figured he shouldn't have wondered. It all came back to Manticore, everything he'd seen in the kids, everything he'd seen them do.

...~*~...

He had caught a glimpse of the girl he'd helped bring back to Manticore. She moved, young, graceful and confident. There hadn't been the life he'd seen in her face, even when she'd lay dying.

"...flew right over Lydecker and blew him a kiss," Simmons said.

"Huh?" Lessard started. "What was that?"

"Getting old, Rob?" Simmons grinned. "One of the X5s - one of ours - made a break for it. Saw it myself. Hopped onto the rogue X5's vehicle and got the hell out of there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I swear, I'd never seen anything like it."

Lessard saw the girl a few weeks later. She moved graceful and confident, her face a blank. He looked harder and saw... something. He thought of the X5 who had grabbed onto freedom, dove full into life without any previous experience of it. He thought of chocolate bars, yellow curtains, teddy bears and drawings. He saw something, and looked away. He'd let her keep her slivers of freedom secret and hers and possible so long as they alone knew.

~end~