GH1

"G'day, Hooroo"

This story was inspired by Dazedizzy months ago, who said I should parody a sacred M/A Dark Angel episode, she suggested Gill Girl but I thought no. I'll massacre the one dearest to us M/A shippers hearts. This is an alternative universe when Manticore and everything else is Australian.

Warnings: frequent coarse language, frequent drinking and really unromantic sex.

Note: Australians say yeah and hey at the end of their sentences like Canadians and New Zealanders say eh. Imagine also everyone's voice raising at the end of a sentence especially the women's yeah? When Australians drink they are pissed as in drunk not angry very important to remember that hey. Pissed equals drunk not angry.

Spelling: Australian English "Australians let us all rejoice for we are young and free"

Part One Beyond the Black Stump

Part One

In his Sydney inner city basement, Joey the escaped part wallaby freak manufactured by Manticore scratched. An aerosol can labelled "FLEA BOMB" stood nearby.

"Ahh! Bloody fleas!" Joey growled in irritation. Now that autumn was here, the fleas had moved into his basement for warmth. The place Joey liked to do his painting. His tail had amazing artistic talent.

Joey read the aerosol spray can label that Max had got for him: "Press nozzle to activate and run away."

Joey pressed down on the tab, and the can sprayed into his face. He hopped upstairs, leaving the can to continue spraying. In the borer ridden living room, Max stood near a similar can and scratched her leg.

"Did you come a gutser, when you set the bleeding thing off?" Max asked in her nasal Melbourne twang.

After she had escaped from Manticore in '09, Max had gone bush for several years. Living off the land had been monotonous, and so at fifteen she had gone to Melbourne. An intelligent teenager with super human strength and good looks. Naturally, Max had fallen in with street kids and the criminal underworld immediately.

Max had been involved with the Melbourne Gangland community for two years, before coming to Sydney three years ago. Max had decided to make a new start after seeing her gang massacred and had got sick of the freezing winter weather in Melbourne.

Joey nodded bashfully. He'd buggered it up in the basement too right.

"Silly chook." Max scolded him affectionately. Joey hung his head embarrassed.

Max instructed Joey what to do next. Max was obviously going to have to hold his bloody paw all though the bloody thing. "Righto. Let's do the other two cans mate and then run like scalded dingoes, before the buggers eat us alive."

"Righto." Joey hopped off.

Joey went into his kitchen, where another can stood waiting. He and Max held their fingers on the nozzles.

"Hold your breath." Max grinned at him like a maniac. She loved doing stuff like this. "On three mate. One...two...three!"

They started the cans spraying and then ran out onto the veranda, closing the door behind them.

"That was cutting it fine." Max gasped, she slapped Joey on the back. "Good one mate."

"Ta for bringing the...for the bombs." Joey told her gratefully.

"No worries Joey." Max brushed his thanks off. "You're goin' to have to stay out of there for a couple hours."

"Righto. Stay here with little bloke." Joey nodded happily. His wallaby ears twitching.

"Sorry big bloke, I've got to shake my hind leg on this one Joey." Max apologised. "I'm meeting Logo at Smash.

"Shit Maxers." Joey was disappointed.

"I wish you could come. You know that. Tomorrow sport, I'll get some time off from work...No drama."

"Righto," Joey mumbled. He got so lonely and bored, in his abandoned house in Redfern, one of the toughest, slummiest, suburbs in inner city Sydney.

"Flea powder." Max handed him the tin guiltily. "Douse yourself with it before you go back in there, or else you'll be right back where you bloody started. Righto? See ya mate."

"Joey just score some shit to fill in time with Junkie dealer round corner hey?" Joshua complained. "Next time bring Tim Tams. Only chocolate biscuits will make up Maxers leaving early."

Max left swiftly, sick of Joey's guilt trips. She did her best hey. But the part wallaby freak was just whinge, whinge all the bloody time.

Joey sprinkled the entire contents of the flea powder tin over his head.

Part Two

At Smash the popular inner city Sydney pub favoured by the couriers of Shank's Pony round the corner, Macquarie University Students and political activists, Logan Cale was sitting down at a table in the pub scribbling on a beer mat. The handsome journalist millionaire was making notes on a conspiracy theory involving his spunkrat girlfriend Max. Down the left side of the mat was written "Cult powers, FAMILIARS, Ames Black, Wendy 'chosen', 2 nippers killed, Ray, cult." Down the right side of the mat was written "Genetic engineering, MANTICORE, Sandeman, Joey #1, Lydecker, MAX, X5 SERIES." At the bottom, the columns were joined with "MAX IMMUNE?"

"Gidday Logo, this seat taken?" Max flung her self down in front of her scruffy, journo, Clayton's boyfriend, carefully balancing her jug of VB. Max poured herself a beer and gulped it down.

Logan's face lit up on seeing her. Max was as spunksome as ever. Hair tied back in a high pony tail like all Australian women against the heat, very low cut black top, tight blue jeans and black ugg boots. You could never quite pick her ethnic origin. Wog obviously, Greek, Italian, Lebanese it was hard to tell. She was just a beautiful bitzer.

"Gidday Max, how's it going?"

"Good, yourself?" Max smiled back.

"Good you?"

"Good." Max said. "Sorry I'm late Logo. Joey needed my help. What's that?" Max pointed to the beer mat.

'Oh, just trying to connect the dots on this bastard thing." Logan sighed. "Just trying to make bloody sense of it all. Have a squiz see what you think?"

"That's ace, but...here?" Max glanced around Smash dubiously. The pub was crowded with people it being Friday night.

"No one's looking, don't be up yourself. Can I see the cut on your hand for a tick?" Max raised an eyebrow at his sudden death wish. "Hurry up Max." Logan chided her.

Max briefly removed one glove and showed Logan her palm.

"It's fading bloody fast. You said all of Black's cult mates have one?"

"Too bloody right. Right here." Max pointed to her to her forearm. "I saw it when they were saluting their holy snake god, or whatever the fuck it was."

"Looks like a mucked up caduceus, the symbol of medicine hey?" He copied the symbol carefully on the serviette.

"You know what?" Max sighed. "All work and no play makes Logo a bloody boring boy. Stop being such a conch Logo drink up. It's Friday night you wowser."

Alec sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. He glanced down at the other end of the crowded bar and saw an ex-one failed night stand of his Ashleigh talking to a bloke.

Ashleigh tall, blonde, busty a total Skip, she was Alex's usual type that he had wombat encounters with; eats, roots and leaves.

Ashleigh noticed Alec. The two young peoples' eyes dilated.

"I'll talk to you later mate, yeah?" Ashleigh told her companion quietly. They had been plotting to kidnap the Premier of New South Wales but it was now the weekend yeah? The bloke Ashleigh was talking to was playing footy tomorrow and had to leave.

Alec moved and sat down next to Ashleigh.

"How ya going?" Alec inquired, of the blonde, politics student attending Macquarie University. Macquarie was Sydney's most prestigious university. It was also a hotbed of political activism against the oppressive Australian Federal Government.

"Good, you?" Ashleigh sipped her beer. Was Alec going to try and pick her up again, she hoped.

"Good. Haven't seen you in this pub lately," Alec commented, refilling their beers from the jug he had brought over.

"I suppose not. Been arse over tit at Uni this term." Ashleigh explained. Which she had been, what with trying to over throw the government and writing her political science essay on what made Australia finally become a republic in 2012.

"Righto." Alec said paranoid. He had been convinced she had been staying away from Smash because of him. "Wondered if you'd been avoiding me doll?"

Ashleigh shook her head. "No. But I'm bloody glad you couldn't get it up, because you'd been drinking that night."

"Me too Ashleigh." Alec said sincerely, even though it had been bloody embarrassing at the time.

"Probably works for days, hey? Your whole "Life is brief, have to put your heart on the line, doll I want you" speech?

Alec smiled at her nastily. "I was pissed. Ashleigh, you don't want to get involved with me. I was made in a lab hey. I spent my ankle biter years learning the fine art of assassination. There are blokes out there right now looking to cark me, and I'm positive someday they'll probably succeed."

"Don't throw a spaz Alec." Ashleigh sneered contemptuously. "You're just too bloody scared to make a commitment and give a rat's arse about a girl."

"Too right, because the last time I gave a rats arse, some chick from the North Shore got caught in the crossfire and died." Alec though mournfully, of his lovely Rach a year twelve at North Sydney Girls High School when he met her. Dead now at twenty because of him.

"I'm sorry mate, I didn't…" Ashleigh trailed off despairingly.

"Just do yourself a favour, Ashleigh. Leave me the fuck alone." Alec drank more beer trying to forget his tragic past. Transgenics were not immune to alcohol. The founders of Manticore had drawn the line at that, as being inhumane and worse bloody Un-Australian.

"Alec." Ashleigh entreated, to the young, handsome, mouse haired male now ignoring her.

"Rack off." Alec turned back to his schooner of beer.

"I beg your bloody pardon? You came over here dropkick, you fucking rack off!" Ashleigh pointed out indignantly. Who the hell did this dickhead root rat think he was?

Alec went ruefully back to his previous spot, resting on the pub's bar.

Max walked up to the bar, witnessing Alec slink off from Ashleigh.

Max leaned over the bar. "Oi, can I get another jug of beer please mate?" she addressed Gazza the bartender.

Max turned to Alec and raised her eyebrows. Max didn't like Ashleigh much, she was sure the up herself Uni student was trying to crack onto Logan. "Ohmigod, what's Ashleigh got her knickers in a knot over you doing now Alec?

"Why am I always the dip stick bastard with you, Max?" Alec asked his fellow transgenic crossly. He tried so bloody hard with Max, but blow the chances of getting a girl's bloke's virus cured just the one bloody time… Alec didn't get why Max was so up herself with him, and so ace with everyone else in their lives.

"Because you couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery," Max said to him sweetly. "You've obviously stuffed up your chance to crack on to Ashleigh hey?"

"Righto, yeah, 'cause I could be this sensitive wanker and bag myself a really nice girlfriend but, unlike you doll, I'm actually trying to be dinki-di for once."

"And what the fuck does that mean?" Max drank her beer puzzled.

"Mate, you think the only problem you and Logo have is some genetically-engineered virus that'll kill the bloke if you touch him hey?" Alec shook his head, and finished his schooner of beer, refilling it immediately from the jug and topping up Maxers.

"Yeah, that Duxes the list." Max agreed. She drank the foam away from the top of her glass. Christ Alec must be a little pissed already if he was causing foam when he poured beer.

"Mmm." Alec sucked his teeth; Christ Max could be a drongo sometimes. "Max, we don't belong with them. We're dingoes let loose in a sheep pen to them. When are you goin' to finally crack on to that fact?

Max choked on her beer in indignation. "Me and Logo are none of your bloody bizzo."

"Why don't you just take a bloody gander..." Alec began cruelly

"You're just…"Max interrupted him, and then stopped as she saw Logan approaching.

"Gidday Alec how it going?" Logan greeted him.

"Good thanks Logo." Alec said shortly. "You?"

"Good. What's going on?" Logan screwed up his forehead. "You two having a blue?"

Max paused, drank more beer and looked at Logan, "Nothing."

"Yeah. No worries here mate." Alec drained his glass and walked away to play darts with his fellow Shanks Pony friend Sketcho.

"Max?" Logan inquired

"I'm getting too pissed to drive. I'm goin' to ...I'm goin' to go home yeah." Max told him. "Hooroo."

She started to walk away. Logan stepped in front of her angrily. Were she and Alec rooting behind his back?

"What the fuck was that all about hey?" Logan asked her

" Nothing, it was just...I'm getting too pissed to drive home safely, so I need to go before Normo get's up my arse tomorrow morning. For being hungover, and late for bloody work again yeah." Max tried to walk away once more.

Logan grabbed her arm. "Oi!"

Max shook off his hand, horrified. Logan looked at the instant welts appearing on his arm and began feeling a trifle bloody alarmed himself.

The next thing it seemed to Max Logan was lying on the ground, unconscious, pus ridden. Alec and other Smash pub patrons tried desperately to revive him as Max wrung here hand shelplessly. Sketcho rung for an ambulance, fortunately the ambo workers weren't on strike this week and arrived in nine minutes. Alec tried to pat Max on the back as the ambos came in and started worked on Logan with their specialised equipment. Like all Australian males Alec was rendered inarticulate by emotional crisis. The St Johns ambos' took Logan away.

The patrons of Smash were silent as Logan was wheeled awa,y looking down at their beers and then looking across at the publican drying glasses. Everyone started drinking again, once assured by the publican it wasn't the beer that caused Logan to break out like that.

Part Three

In the Royal Albert hospital room, Logan lay unconscious and covered in hives. Max sat in the waiting room trying to concentrate on the Australian Women's Weekly. "Nicole and Russell" screamed the headline. "Are they having it off?" God Nicole was a slut, poor Danielle, Max thought automatically. She threw the magazine away.

'God are you there mate? It's me Max', she prayed. 'Look I can't give up beer you know that God, and I can't give up shagging either because I don't bloody do it anymore, but let Logan live and I'll visit Joey more or something, please God.'

Dr. Shankar, Logan's physician attempted to get her attention. "Max? Max? You alright, darl?"

"How's he doing?" Max asked tremulously. Dr. Shankar sighed and shook her head.

"Don't let him bloody cark it. Please." Max begged her.

"From what I can tell, the virus is a mutated strain of a biowarfare agent called Zycinor. There's no known cure. Can you sign a waiver form here, here and here." Dr Shankar broke the bad news and held the necessary paper work in front of Max.

"Manticore made us immune to a more of germ-warfare bugs than there are Koala's up a gum tree. I'm pretty sure this is one of them." Max told her as she signed the triplicate papers.

"That'd explain how you can be a carrier and not be affected. You've got antibodies." Dr Shankar said interestedly.

Max looked up with dawning hope. "So what about a transfusion?"

"You'd just reinfect him." The doctor reminded her gently.

"No, not my blood Dr Drongo," Max snapped impatiently. "Another bloody transgenic's."

"It's worth a bloody shot." Dr Shankar exclaimed excitedly. "We've got nothing to lose hey."

Part four

Alec was still going though his round at Smash when his cell phone rang.

"Gidday how's it going Max?" He spoke into the phone, recognising her number.

"Good, you? It's me. I need you to come to the Royal Albert, now." Max instructed him urgently.

"No worries Max, I'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail." Alec gave Sketchy some money to cover the rest of his drinks round and ran to the door.

A man sitting at the bar watched him go and then spoke into a hidden microphone.

"He's coming your way Murray mate. Get ready."

As Alec left the pub, he found several policemen pointing guns at him. Alec started to step back toward the door, but the man who alerted the police came out and put a gun to Alec's head.

"Don't even think it Mate. You've been nicked."

Part Five

Meanwhile at the dreaded headquarters of the Un-Australian Ivestigation Unit, Ames Black stepped into a room. Inside, the transgenic Sketcho had seen earlier that week down a sewer, was polishing several pairs of shoes.

"How's it going?" Black asked jovially.

"Good thanks. You?"

"Good. So I hear you're not feeling crook anymore."

"I'm working hard. Doing what the men tell me. What if the union rep finds out I'm doing this job?" The transgenic kept polishing his shoes nervously.

"No worries." White brushed the transgenic's legitimate concern aside. "I've faked a form that puts you under the cleaners and shopkeepers union. I'm not going to hurt you, Wombat."

"My oath. You cut me...and put the bloody snake blood in me and said it would kill me. If that's not bloody hurting me, what is hey?"

"You didn't tell dob me in about that, did you?" White whispered, looking around.

"You think I'd dob?" Wombat was outraged. The marsupial faced transgenic had never been so insulted.

"Sorry yeah. See, I reckoned you were a good bloke hey. I'm sorry I had to do that to you, it was the only way but. Sort of like a...like a test, yeah? Don't worry, you duxed. Remember, though." Black lowered his voice and put his finger to the side of his nose. "We're keeping it on the QT."

Wombat nodded and White left the room.

Part Four

Back at the Royal Albert, Dr. Shankar was preparing to chuck a wobbly. "If we're going to do this, your mate bloody better get here soon."

"He's coming. He knows how up shit creek we are on this." Max felt herself growing white with anger. She had thought she could bloody trust Alec on this one, just bloody once. What kind of useless mate was he? "He's a completely unreliable mongrel."

"Is there anybody else you can get? Because right now this is the only shot Logo has." The Indian doctor said worriedly

"I'll be back yeah." Max ran from the room. It was Skippy to the rescue time.

On his veranda Joey was taking forty winks. A genetically engineered Guide Kangaroo approached and licked Joey's face. Joey laughed, still half-asleep.

The woman holding the kangaroo's harness spoke. "Is someone there?"

Joey woke up and ducked, hiding his face.

"Are you pissed?" the woman said worriedly.

"No, Joey not pissed. Joey has not been drinking amber fluid." Joey told her quickly, seeing the woman was blind.

"Billie's never done this before. She just pulled me off the footpath and up these steps." The women shrugged surprised.

Joey petted the Kangaroo. "Gidday, Billie."

The beautiful indigenous Australian woman smiled. "Guess she just likes you hey?"

Joey was touched, "She helps you."

"She leads me around. Makes sure I'm safe."

"Makes sure you don't knock into things." Joey laughed.

"That's right hey." The beautiful woman chuckled.

The woman proffered her slim brown hand. "I'm Annie. Annie McFisher. I live up the street in the Government Housing Commission Block."

Joey shook her hand "I'm Joey. I'm, uh, from" he started to point to the house, and then thought for a second. Firstly the woman was blind so it was stupid to point and secondly he was meant to be keeping under the radar. "Not...here. Not here. I mean, I'm visiting."

"Oh, from where?" the woman asked pleasantly. He didn't sound Australian.

"Manti." Joey caught himself in time. "coro."

"Mantia Coro." The woman rolled it on her tongue. "Sounds wog."

"In Tahiti." Joey elaborated, bullshitting as he went along. "French Polynesia."

"I'm blind not a thicko. I know where bloody Tahiti is. Your English is very good." Annie bent down and cuddled Billie. Joey wished he was Billie.

"Merci beaucoup" Joey said gallantly.

Annie laughed. "Righto, we should probably be going. Get in behind, Billie. Get in behind."

Joey watched as she walked away. Once at the footpath, she stopped to call back to him.

"It's beaut to meet you, Joey."

"Bonza to meet you too, Annie." Joey called back.

As Annie left, Max pulled up on in her Holden Motorbike.

"Joey! I need your help!" Max held out a bike helmet. "Please, I know you're cranky, but it's for Logo yeah."

Part Five

In the hospital, Max pulled a wheeled stretcher through the hallway. Joey lay on the stretcher covered by a sheet.

Her best friend from work, Olympia Cindolaus a Greek Australian came up to her.

"How's it going darl?" O.C. greeted her.

"Good thanks." Max greeted her best friend, emotionally moved that O.C. was here when Max needed her most, unlike bloody Alec McDowell aka bloody 494. "You?"

"Good. I came as soon as I heard darl." O.C. placed her hand on Max's shoulder comfortingly, running along beside her.

"Gidday O.C. How's it going?" Joey spoke through the sheet.

"Ohmigod. Kangaroo boy? Good thanks Joey, you?"

"Good." Joey spoke muffled from under the sheet.

Max lifted the sheet a little bit to reveal Joey's face.

Max explained quickly. "He has a little...wallaby DNA.

The doctor was briefly taken aback "Righto. Well..., as long as he's got the antibodies. She'll be right Max."

Max dashed into Logan's room. "Just be a tick O.C."

Shortly afterwards, Joey sat by Logan's bedside, transfusing him. He touched Logan's face. Why did Max want to get busy with Logan so much Joey wondered baffled? Any bloody idiot could see Alec was right for her. Manticore matched them better than an episode of Perfect Match for God's sake.

"Logo get better now." Joey smiled comfortingly at Max.

Part Six

At the Rocks Police Station, a woman stood before a two-way mirror, looking into a line up room. The policeman who arrested Alec joined her.

"We're ready when you are, Mrs. Ryan luv." The cop told her supportively.

The grey headed battler nodded. The cop spoke into an intercom.

"Bring them in."

Alec and four other men entered the line up room. One was a Caucasian male in his nineties, the second was a Maori in his forties, the third bloke was Vietnamese and the fourth looked a bit like Alec except he only had one leg.

Mrs Ryan indicated Alec instantly: "That mongrel. He's the one."

Another policeman stepped over to Alec as the other line up men left the room.

"Shit, I've got to be somewhere Constable hey. Can I go now?" Alec was going insane with worry. Logo could die, he could be dead now. This was Alec's big chance to prove to Max he wasn't a dickhead. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

"You've been I.D.'d." the policeman told him.

"For what?" Alec hoped his Andie trading wasn't coming back to kick him up the bum.

"For the murder of Timothy Ryan." The cop sneered. He hated outback serial killers.

Part Seven

At the Royal Albert, Max and O C sat in the hallway. Anxiously waiting to hear if Logan had recovered or not.

O.C. put a comforting arm round her friend. "She'll be right darl. You'll see. Logo's staunch sort of. He's not goin' to kick the bloody bucket Max."

Dr. Shankar emerged from Logan's room. "The antibodies in your friend's blood are neutralizing the virus, keeping it from replicating. He's going to be fine."

"Ohmigod." O.C. squealed. "You hear that? He's goin' to bloody recover."

The two girls hugged for joy.

"Logo's asking for you." Dr Shankar smiled at Max before she walked away quickly to something else she had to attend to urgently.

It was Dr Shankar's tea break after all. There were union rules.

"I can't bloody go in there." Max pulled at her pony tail.

O.C. glanced at her friend surprised. "Ohmigod but he's asking for you, Maxers"

Max put on her jacket and prepared to go. "I can't see him. Not now. Not bloody ever again".

"You're just saying that 'cause you're upset. You heard the doctor, Logo's going to be fine yeah."

"This time. But what about bloody next time hey? No, this has to stop. Tell him I'm glad he's not crook anymore."

Max stood up straight and forced herself to walk away from her ordinary boyfriend.

Max had illegally parked her bike as close to the hospital as possible to get Joey into the Royal Albert hospital. Sydney traffic inspectors were ruthless. They might be slashing the wheels of her Holden with a knife as she walked.

Glossary: Strine: Australian dialect

Geography: Redern is a suburb in Sydney which is a city in the State of New South Wales which is in Australia.

Drinking words

Pissed, rat faced, off your face: intoxicated

Claytons: Non alcoholic drink substitute catchphrase the drink you have when you're not having a drink.

Schooner: glass of beer

Jug: Pitcher

Beer mat: coaster

VB: Victorian Bitter (Melbourne is in the state of Victoria)

Nature

Gone bush: lived off the land in Australian outback/ bush Australian countryside

Dingoes: Wolves

Wombat, Wallabys, kangaroos: marsupials

General

Shake a hind leg: hurry up, move

Up your self: think you are great for no reason

Bloke:Man

Cark: die

Dux: valedictorian, so duxed comes first

Root: copulate with

DipStick/Drongo: idiot

Gidday: good day or hi

Hooroo: Goodbye

Crook: sick

Skippy: heroic kangaroo children's television hero from the sixties often repeated. Led to the derogatory term Skip: Anglo Celtic Australians by the derogatorily termed Wogs: Mediterranean Australians These are not considered that offensive anymore by most unless you're a bloody Wog or up yourself Skip of course.

Perfect Match: TV series like blind date