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Artwork courtesy of Jensen Ackles Museum

This is a stand-alone story following the events of Max Allan Collins' DARK ANGEL novels SKIN GAME and AFTER THE DARK, and incorporating information revealed in D.A. Stern's THE EYES ONLY DOSSIER. The core plot for this story was inspired by a 1996 LA FEMME NIKITA episode titled "War" that I've adapted as a Max/Alec adventure for the DARK ANGEL universe. -- author's note

Artwork courtesy of Jensen Ackles Museum

The X5 had been working out for almost an hour and was slick with sweat, his t-shirt and loose-fitting martial arts trousers as wet as if he'd been doused with a bucket of water. Damn Mole for getting me into this, Alec thought to himself as he toweled off his face and neck. The lizard man had suggested the younger Freaks in TC, the X6s and beyond, needed to get back to their training, and pointed out that the former executive gymnasium in the abandoned JenCor lab building was perfect for practice. A call had gone out for volunteers and someone had informed Max that X5-494 had been a black belt with martial arts instructor certification back at Manticore. Which meant he now had to brush up on his Taekwondo knowledge. Funny, but Alec had almost forgotten how beautiful the Korean forms were. They weren't hard for him to remember. In fact, it was kinda fun ...

There was a working shower in the men's locker room, part of the main line they'd reconnected for TC use in other buildings. The water, although from the lake, was at least relatively clean (as in not sewage) -- and more than what Alec had in the quarters he shared with Joshua.

Stripping off the wet t-shirt as he walked, the tired transgenic padded barefoot across the gym and tossed the garment onto the pile of his belongings by the men's room door. Shivering slightly in the chill, unheated building, his skin pricked in goose bumps and Alec rubbed his arms. All of a sudden he felt odd -- almost as if he wasn't alone. But no one knew he'd come down here tonight, and there was no reason for anyone to be looking for him.

Quit imagining things, he chided himself.

He stopped at the entry to the locker room and skimmed down the trousers. Underwear, a luxury in the laundry-handicapped Terminal City, wasn't a problem. Most of the time, like now, he simply didn't wear any. Kicking the pants aside, Alec draped his towel over a muscular shoulder and, buck naked, entered the dark shower area -- his night vision sufficient for him to see the stalls. The pipes in the building were showing their age and lack of maintenance he noticed, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell of mildew and unable to suppress a sneeze. Small leaks had the cement floor slick with moisture and the walls were crawling with mold. Picking up his bare feet rather gingerly, Alec was about to enter the one of the cubicles when his acute hearing caught a subtle sound.

Eyes narrowing, the X5 didn't break stride. Reaching into the first shower he came to he deftly turned on the water, closed the sliding glass door -- and waited.

The attack came with almost supernatural swiftness, two black-garbed masked men leaping through the locker room door with stun rods in hand. Ripping the shower door off its hinges, they lunged into the stream of water, prods blazing with electricity, intent on capturing their supposedly unawares prey.

"What the fuck?" one of them cried in a muffled voice realizing the stall was empty. "Where the hell is he?" He turned to his partner, and saw instead a nude X5 male standing not two feet away. The Taser swung, but Alec's fist was faster, the crunch of bone audible even above the other man's yell.

Alec then danced back, fists up and ready as the second goon lunged at him, electricity crackling. The X5's spinning crescent kick caught his attacker on the side of the head and the man fell backwards into the running water. Seeing what was going to happen, Alec leaped upwards, his feet leaving the wet cement a fraction of a second before the shock wand hit the floor, carrying the current into both the man he'd knocked out, and the one trying to stand up in the shower.

It wasn't a pretty sight as the rod lay on the soaked concrete, thumbed in the "on" position, snapping ominously, feeding lethal electricity into the twitching bodies (as it would continue to do until its batteries ran out). Swallowing down rising nausea as the smell of burning flesh permeated the humid enclosed space, Alec regarded the two dead men from his safe perch crouched atop one of the sinks, even as his handsome brow knit in confusion. Who the fuck are these clowns?

A sound came from the gym, and the young transgenic's head snapped around with catlike quickness. A cell phone ringing -- his. Easily making the ten-foot leap through the door and onto dry floor, Alec ran to his belongings and picked up his cell, only to straighten and find himself facing yet another figure in black -- this one holding a gun.

A sharp crack and--

Dropping the phone, Alec reacted instinctively, a curse whistling through clenched teeth as his hand blurred to catch the hypo dart in mid air just before the needle lodged in his neck.

His assailant stared through the slit of his mask. "Jesus Christ," the man croaked. "What the hell are you?"

Alec straightened slowly, green-gold eyes bright with adrenalin and something else ... something frighteningly primitive -- a blood lust he couldn't quite control. "Better," he hissed. Then, with a feral grin that belied his pretty-boy looks, X5-494 blurred -- and deftly broke the ordinary's neck. Max might rant and rave over not having a prisoner to question he thought as the guy collapsed in a crumpled heap, but damn it, this was war, and he wasn't in the mood to take prisoners tonight.

The phone continued to ring. Alec looked dispassionately at the dead man at his feet for a moment, then, with a shrug, reached down, snatched the phone from off the floor, and thumbed "answer."

"Alec?" the voice he expected breathed on the line.

"Max, what the hell's goin' on?"

"Alec, get back to the control center. Now. We're under attack."

"No foolin'."

"Are you okay?" She almost sounded worried.

"Not really."

"Are you hurt?"

"No. But there's a mess in the JenCor gymnasium to be cleaned up. Barbecued NSA you might say -- or whoever the fuck these guys are."

"Alec, we think it's the Committee. They've already killed two of us, X5s, Nick and Wanda ... maybe more. They're inside. And someone saw another X5, Tricia, being dragged into a van as a prisoner."

"Not good, Max," Alec said, his eyes raking the far corners of the dusky gym, night vision in full mode, suddenly not feeling quite so cocky and wondering if he'd really gotten them all.

"Just, get here as soon as you can, Alec," she said. He could hear a lot of commotion in the background. "I need you."

"On my way, Max," Alec said. Then he snapped the phone shut and reached for his pants.

*****

The hour was late, half past dead in the morning, but Terminal City was alive with panic. Lydecker had called, telling them what was happening -- Stendahl and his Phoenix Project were on the move, and worse, tonight had only been a taste of things to come, a tactical preliminary invasion, a test of their defenses and personnel. The main raid would go down just before dawn. According to Lydecker's info, orders were for all remaining X5s to be either captured or, if necessary to prevent escape, destroyed. Their DNA was too valuable, and too many foreign governments knew of their existence thereby making them both asset and liability.

"I told you we should have booked a month ago when 'Deck first told us about Stendahl's big plan," Alec chided Max as he helped her carry a heavy computer module to the school bus that would be one of their escape vehicles. Dressed in a clean t-shirt, heavy sweater, dark jeans, and his favorite grey leather jacket that he'd snatched out of his quarters before heeding Max's call, Alec at least now felt sartorially prepared to deal with this latest chaos in his life. (Not that naked wasn't appropriate on occasion -- just not for combat.) Dix and Luke had already loaded up most of their equipment, and the other Freaks in TC were rapidly dispersing in whatever way they could, carrying their meager belongings in backpacks and duffels.

"You guys goin' in one of the vans?" Mole called across the compound even as he hefted a box containing rifles and ammo.

"We'll take our bikes," Max yelled back. She glanced up at the cold starlit sky. It was a moonless night Alec realized -- more to their favor. Maybe God was a little bit on their side after all, he thought. But then he looked around at his people in chaos, losing the only home they'd known for the past two years, heading for the unknown, relying totally on Max to keep them safe and find them a new place to settle, and suddenly felt as if God wasn't there at all, at least not for him.

Max turned to Alec. She, too, was watching the dispersal of their "family" with a more-than-worried look in her eyes. Terminal City might not have been much, but it had been theirs ... She took hold of his arm, and he looked down at her. "I want you to know our final destination," she said, speaking the words with difficulty. "Just in case ... You know. Just in case something happens to me. I want you to be able to go there and be safe."

"Dix and Luke already know," Alec said, nodding at the two little mutants who were scrambling aboard the bus with their precious computer gear. "They'll lead the others. I thought you didn't want us X5s in the loop in case we're captured in the next couple of days, so we can't be forced to rat out the secret location."

Max was shaking her head. "I want you to know. It's an abandoned ranch in northern Idaho, just south of the Canadian border near a little town called Elk City on the Clear Water River. The name of the place is the Bar M."

"M as in Manticore?" Alec asked with a half smirk.

"Just a coincidence," Max replied. "I didn't name the place. It's what was on the deed when I bought it."

"Good thinkin' on your part," Alec said. "Havin' a back-up plan in case TC was compromised.

Max almost smiled. "Hey," she said softly. "It's mostly your commercial expertise that let us make enough money to purchase the land."

Alec looked wistfully across the street at the dark Terminal City Artworks mall. In a way, he hated to leave the place behind. It had, after all, been his first successful business venture, and he was damn proud of what he and his brethren had accomplished. And now he'd be stuck out in the middle of nowhere, a ranch no less, livin' off the land ... Still, it wouldn't do anyone much good if he and Max and the other X5s were exterminated. Without their leaders to guide them, the rest -- transhumans, nomalies, and additional X series -- would be in bad shape, lost even. So, the only solution was to move the whole kit and kaboodle to some place more defensible.

"Hey!" Max said, giving Alec's arm a shake. "Snap out of it! You got the location? In case we get separated?"

"Bar M Ranch, Elk City, Idaho, on the Clear Water. Got it," Alec said.

"Come on then," Max said, nodding toward their bikes. "We've got to try and slow Stendahl down and give our people a head start."

Again, Alec nodded in agreement. This was Max's show all the way so far as he was concerned. Afterall, she hadn't led him wrong yet. And besides, if he couldn't trust the woman he could so easily have fallen in love with if he'd let himself, then who the hell could he trust in the world?

*****

"Max," Alec said softly, speaking into the micro transceiver clipped to the collar of his leather jacket. "Are you sure about the intel? Place looks deserted to me."

"Lydecker said Stendahl has an office on the second floor of the warehouse," Max's voice whispered. "If we can take out the mother fucker we'll be way ahead of the game. Maybe they'll even leave us alone then."

"Not likely," Alec said under his breath, remembering how tenacious and ruthless the Committee had been about its Manticore soldiers before. "Anyone in sight?" he asked his lookout in a louder voice.

"We're still clear," Max said. "Seems they've already mobilized most of their forces, but the big cheese is supposed to be inside until closer to the attack hour."

"Hey, Max," Alec said as he quietly crept along a catwalk in the humongous warehouse, making his way toward the enclosed office space up ahead. "If we find Stendilly or whatever his name is, we gonna snatch him? Or do you want me to kill him?"

"Kill him," Max said levelly. "If you can."

"Oh, I can," Alec replied softly, touching the handle of the Glock 65 tucked in the waistband of his black jeans and remembering all the pain these people had inflicted, not just on him, but on everyone he'd ever cared about.

He came to the closed office door and plastered himself against the wall. All around him was the vast, echoing open space of the warehouse without a soldier in sight. Something was wrong. This didn't feel right.

"Max," he said. "There's nobody here."

"Have you checked the office?"

"Doin' that now," Alec said, slowly easing open the slightly ajar door with the barrel of his pistol.

The explosion caught him completely by surprise, a flash of brilliant light that blinded his sensitive cat eyes and a concussion that knocked him backwards off the catwalk. With a yell, Alec tumbled over the railing and found himself flailing thin air.

The 20 foot fall could easily have killed an ordinary, but Alec's catlike reflexes served him in good stead, allowing him to flip and land on his feet. Still, the young X5 hit the ground hard and pain slashed like a knife up his left leg. Stumbling backwards with another cry, temporarily blind and deaf, he lost his balance and fell, striking his head on the concrete base of a support piling. Sparks flashed on his retinas. And then ... everything went black.

"Alec!" Max called anxiously in the mic. "Alec! Answer me!"

But he couldn't.

*****

The raw smell of pure ammonia brought Alec out of his stupor. Coughing, gagging, eyes watering, he slowly raised his head, trying to get his bearings.

This is bad, he thought as he blinked away tears and fought to focus. Very, very bad.

He was strapped in an upright position to some kind of metal gurney -- wrists, waist, legs, ankles, even his neck, held firmly in place with metal bands. He could turn his head, barely, but other than that, movement was pretty much impossible. Whoever's got me knows X5s all too well. There were diodes attached to his temples, chest -- they'd ripped his t-shirt open -- and wrists. A monitor just to his left was showing his heart rate, respiration, blood pressure ... Right now his pulse was a relatively steady 48, just a shade higher than his heart's normal 40 beats per minute.

And then Alec saw him -- Stendahl presumably -- a short, uniformed, middle-aged, grey-haired man of wiry constitution and icy presence standing just a few feet in front of him, studying his captive with the most cold emotionless eyes Alec had ever seen on a non-Familiar.

55 beats per minute.

The young transgenic raised his head slightly, his chin tilting a fraction in the air, and stared impudently back at the man who wanted to own his flesh and destroy his soul.

"Good," Stendahl said with a wicked little smile. "You look directly at me. That, in itself, tells me a great deal about you."

"I'm not afraid of you," Alec said through clenched teeth, ignoring the pain throbbing in the back of his head where he'd struck the concrete and in his damaged leg.

"Really?" the man said, grizzled eyebrows rising, seemingly genuinely surprised. "Ah well," he added with a wave of his hand. "We shan't worry about that. You soon will be." He took a step closer to his captive, his eyes piercing Alec's. "Where have the X5s gone?" he asked in a reasonable tone of voice. "When we mobilized just before dawn this morning Terminal City was deserted, every last one of you vanished in the night. Where have your brothers and sisters fled to?"

"Go to hell," Alec growled. "Who knows? Maybe you'll find 'em there."

The head of the Phoenix Project shook his head sadly. "I see we're going to have to go about this the hard way," he said. "But it will have to be quick. I don't want your brethren getting settled in, wherever they've gone to roost." He looked knowingly at Alec who was watching him like a cornered animal. "I have your file, you know. Stendahl held up a small computer module. "In fact, I have the files of all the Manticore soldiers. The DNA database was destroyed and will have to be re-created with the help of your bodies, but the psy-ops and individual medical records had back-ups." He leaned over and whispered in Alec's ear. "I know everything there is to know about what makes you tick, 494. Everything."

"You don't know shit," Alec said in a low dangerous voice. "About me or anything else."

69 beats per minute.

"Oh, but there you're wrong," Stendahl said almost gleefully, his pale blue eyes twinkling as he began to pace with hands behind his back. There were men holding machine guns standing nearby, but they kept a respectable distance, leaving their commander alone with his prisoner ... giving the two of them privacy.

"For example," he said, "I find you to be one of the most colorful X5s, personality wise, that Manticore ever created. How that happened, I'm not certain. You were supposed to have been simplified as a child, all of that rashness obliterated after the '09 escape of your platoon's twins. But your file states that, as an adult, you're extremely strong-willed and your powers of persuasion phenomenal." He smiled again. "Colonel Lydecker considered that both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. It also says you're independent-minded and that you don't always obey orders." He made a "tsking" sound with his tongue. "Not exactly what one wants in a supersoldier -- a penchant for disobedience. Still," his eyes raked Alec's body in a vulgar way, "you'll perhaps do for breeding, once I've gotten the location out of you. You do, after all, have an IQ in the high 180's. A pity to let such potential go completely to waste." He glanced down at the module in his hand once again -- at 494's information -- then gave his helpless prisoner another grin, sly this time. "Oh, and I like this one. It says here you have an unusual sense of honor and fair play, albeit in a self-centered sort of way, something that completely baffled the psy-ops team. They couldn't imagine where on Earth you picked up such notions."

Alec remained stoically silent. Afterall, what was the point of chatting at this stage of the game. He really just wished Stendahl would get on with it. Meanwhile, at least the others would be getting farther and farther away, although he did wonder about Max. Where is she? I hope she's not gonna try some stupid heroic rescue.

74 beats per minute.

Stendahl stepped back, hands still clasped behind his back, another shit-eating grin on his face. "But you know what I found most interesting of all in that decidedly checkered file of yours?" he said.

"My unwavering dedication to duty and love of Manticore?" Alec deadpanned. "Or maybe how many motherfuckers like you I've killed in cold blood, in spite of my so-called sense of fair play?" He smiled a tiny bit at that, finding it rather ironic he was bragging about what he normally found so shameful.

"Ah, a sense of humor," Stendahl said with apparent delight, clapping his palms together. "Lydecker really should have been more thorough in his notes. Your keen wit isn't mentioned." He paused a moment, regrouping ... thinking, his head cocked to one side like a bird's as he speculated. "What I found most fascinating, 494," he finally continued, "were your fears. I know them all. And now ... we're going to explore one of them."

80 beats per minute.

*****

Alec couldn't help it. He screamed, his features contorting in agony as the flame of the butane torch seared his skin. "Ahhhhh! Ahhhh!"

112 beats per minute.

Writhing in his shackles, the X5 tried to tear his left arm from the metal bands holding it to the brace that extended in front of him. Stendahl, a sickening amused look on his face, watched closely while one of his men manipulated the blow torch, teasing the blue-tipped yellow flame along the underside of his prisoner's bare forearm.

"Ahhhh!" Alec shrieked, closing his eyes tightly and throwing his head wildly back as he tried desperately to escape from the fire. There was a stench of burning flesh in the air, similar to the smell in the men's locker room when Stendahl's two men had been electrocuted.

His skin was already blistered horribly, bright red, beginning to blacken in a few small places ...

"I can end this easily, you know," Stendahl said amiably as he walked around his victim. "Just tell me the location of the new transgenic base camp and it will all be over. Your pain will be attended to. You'll be made comfortable. It must be terrible, all those awful memories surfacing, how you were experimented on as a child ... your limbs deliberately burned so the Manticore scientists could document and study your stem cell healing abilities. It's all right there in your medical file, every tiny detail of your physical abuse, how you withdrew for three weeks ... wouldn't talk to anyone ... wouldn't eat ... had to be force fed, put on I.V.'s ... They say you were probably trying to kill yourself to escape the pain. Too bad that's not an option for you now. But luckily for me it did leave you with a lifelong abnormal fear of fire." He regarded Alec's burned arm with mock sadness. "Much more and the damage to your limb might well be permanent, miraculous healing abilities not withstanding. You'll be mutilated for life. A pity to do that to such a beautiful creature ..."

"Go ... To ... Hell ..." Alec got out through gritted teeth. "Go to hell!" But then his eyes suddenly widened as the blow torch flame was upped a notch, it's tip beginning to glow white hot. "All right!" the X5 shouted hoarsely. "I'll tell you! It's in California! Anaheim, Mercer Street, an abandoned Disney warehouse!"

Stendahl brought his face to within inches of Alec's, his blue eyes sharp as if trying to impale the younger man's soul. "You're good," he said softly. "I almost believe you. In fact, if your file didn't describe in such vivid detail what a consumate liar you are I'd probably be sending a team to Anaheim this very minute." A tic in the older man's cheek twitched. "However, you're well known as a manipulator, 494. It's what you were trained for, along with your assassination techniques." He put a finger to his lips and made a clucking sound. "No. I think we need a little more incentive before the truth finally comes out of that pretty mouth of yours."

"Oh, God!" Alec screamed as the torch was applied again. "Oh God! No! No! Noooo!"

120 beats per minute.

*****

"He's not going to break," Stendahl said half an hour later, his voice as icy as the Seattle rain outside. "A shame really." He gazed at the stubborn, semi-conscious X5, and came to a decision. "Kill him," he ordered, the two words delivered with a total lack of emotion. "Take what DNA samples you need, then ice down the body for shipment and organ harvest."

Alec hung limply in the upright gurney, eyes half closed, the look in them far away. His breath was coming in short pants, his body covered with sweat. Occasionally an uncontrollable tremor ran through his limbs, a precursor to the seizures extreme abuse to his nervous system always brought about.

"But what about the other X5s?" the man still holding the now cold blow torch complained.

"We'll find out their location another way soon enough," Stendahl assured his lackey. We have our satellites searching. "Meanwhile," he gestured to Alec, "dispose of this worthless ... Unit." His lip curled as he spat the word. Then he reached up and caught Alec's chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing the X5's head up, peering through long strands of dark blond hair into lost looking hazel-green eyes. "According to your record you always were a disappointment," he said softly. "A failure. Useless. More than once you were on the verge of being put down for your intractability. Did you know that, 494? Did you know what a poor soldier you were considered by Manticore? Now, at least, your body will serve a purpose."

Stendahl turned to his men. "Shoot him in the head," he said. "But don't damage the eyes. They'll be used for transplant material."

"Yes, sir!"

*****

Alec heard his fate declared as if listening to words a great distance away. He really didn't care any more. The pain had chased his mind almost to oblivion, and now death would be welcomed with open arms. At least I didn't betray you, Max. At least you're still safe.

Max. Funny, but he could hear her voice somewhere, shouting, scolding, complaining ... just the way he remembered. He smiled, wondering when the bullet would come ... when it would all be over.

"Let go of me!" she cried out. "Get your hands off of me!"

Alec's eyes snapped wide open. Suddenly painfully alert, he looked toward the door. "Max?" he whispered hoarsely. Oh, God, no! Stendahl has Max!

135 beats per minute.

A guard was approaching him with a pistol in his hand. Alec wriggled, but still couldn't break free from even one of the restraints. Worse, his burned arm was pretty much useless, the pain whenever the skin touched anything pushing him to the brink of unconsciousness.

Stendahl was walking behind Max as the two came through the door, that huge smile once more back on his putrid face. She looked up -- and saw her "brother."

"Alec!" she cried his name, the emotion behind that single word more than he'd ever heard there before.

"Max," Alec mouthed her name, and closed his eyes.

145 beats per minute.

Alec felt the barrel of the pistol press against his throat just beneath his jaw. He forced himself to open his eyes then ... wanting Max to be the last thing he'd ever see. But it was Stendahl who caught his attention. The military man was staring at the heart rate monitor -- and suddenly the widest smile yet split his cruel face.

"How romantic!" he said, clapping his hands together with delight. "The alpha bitch has come to rescue her breeding partner!" He batted the pistol away from Alec's head. "Not yet," he said. "I may still have a use for the 'tom'." He indicated a pair of cages that were swinging from the ceiling just off the walkway they were standing on. Two men began undoing Alec's shackles. "Put him in one," Stendahl ordered. "All may not be lost yet."

*****

They dragged Max away a few minutes later, and for all of Alec's pleading, cursing, and threatening they wouldn't tell him where they were taking her or what they were going to do. Curled up in a corner of his cage, wrapped around his own pain, the X5 could do nothing but worry and wait and wonder, blaming himself because he knew damn well that Max had gotten captured trying once again to save his sorry ass.

*****

When they finally threw her into the other cage hours later, she'd been beaten half to death. Her beautiful face was swollen and bruised, those full lips lacerated, blood streaming from her nose, mouth and ears ... It was obvious she'd put up a fierce fight.

And it was also obvious Stendahl hadn't gotten anything out of her either.

They were left alone together for the rest of the day, two badly abused transgenics, both brave ... both willing to die for what they believed in and for the ones they loved.

"You shouldn't have come," Alec said, finally breaking the silence between them.

"I had to," Max whispered.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'll live, or at least I won't die from this." She touched her face and a ghost of a smile crossed her blood caked lips. "Don't worry, I'll heal," she added.

"So will I," Alec conceded. He held out his burned arm. The look of pity and horror in Max's eyes almost made him wish he hadn't shown her. But still, it was somehow good to know she cared.

"Alec," Max began again. "We're not going to get out of this."

"I know."

"They're going to kill both of us soon."

"I know."

"There's something I've got to tell you."

He tilted his head in that way he did, a curious little boy. "What are you talkin' about, Max?"

"I'm talking about us."

"Us? There is no us, Max. There never was. It was always you and Logan. I never had a chance, and I knew it. End of story." He gave her a little smile to show there were no hard feelings about that.

"Logan's gone now," she said quietly, the pain of her breakup with Eyes Only evident in her voice. She raised her eyes to him. "But you're still here. You've always been here ... for me. I see that now, and I want to thank you. I was hoping that maybe you and I could ... you know ... someday be a little bit more."

"Breeding partners maybe?" Alec asked with a mock-lascivious smirk.

Max smiled softly. "Something like that."

Alec reached his fingers through the mesh of the cage. Max did likewise. They could just touch. "Damn it, pretty boy," she whispered. "I wish I'd done more than kick that fine ass of yours."

"I wish you had too," Alec said honestly, shocked by the timing of Max's confession, but oddly not all that surprised. "Max," he ventured. " Truth? You know, if it hadn't been for Logan I think I might have--"

"Might have what?"

"Fallen in love with you."

"Logan's not in my life any more, Alec," she breathed, their fingertips still touching, an electric current seeming to run through their hands into each others' bodies.

"You already said that."

"Is it too late then?" she asked. "Too late for you to love me?" She choked a little, then turned her head to one side and spat blood onto the floor of the cage.

Alec took a very deep breath, the pain in his arm, head, and leg forgotten. "No," he said truthfully. "It's not too late."

"It's not too late for me either," Max said, tears welling in her eyes. "I always knew you had a good heart, Alec, and a beautiful soul. I just wish I'd told you that before now."

Footsteps made both transgenics look up. Stendahl was approaching. When he saw how they were touching he kicked the cages viciously apart.

"I guess it's a bullet for both of us now," Max said half under her breath.

Stendahl had the audacity to chuckle. "Unfortunately, my dear, it's not to be quite so pleasant an end for you." He glanced at his officers. "You see, my men are due for a little recreation."

Alec's head shot up from where he'd been resting it on his knees.

"Take her, strip her, and rape her to death," he ordered his boys." He leered then, his thoughts obvious. "This pretty package is in no condition to give you any trouble."

Two of the ordinary guards, their eyes eager, headed for Max's cage. Opening the door, one of them grabbed her arm.

"No!" Alec screamed, leaping to his feet, his pain and exhaustion forgotten as a burst of adrenalin surged through his body. "Leave her alone!" he roared. "I'll tell you what you want to know!"

"Alec, you can't!" Max cried out. "Don't! I'm not afraid!"

"Idaho!" Alec shouted. "It's in Idaho. A ranch on Clear Water River just outside Elk City. It's called the Bar M." He looked imploringly at Stendahl. "Check it out. I'm not lyin'. Just don't hurt her any more."

*****

"I'm sorry, but I had to tell 'em, Max," Alec said.

They'd been left alone again while Stendahl went to verify the information he'd given him.

"It doesn't matter," Max said, her voice oddly calm.

"Whadaya mean?"

She was fiddling with the collar of her vest and, while Alec watched, she pulled a small wire from the inseam.

The X5's eyes widened. "What's that?"

"One of Dix's magic toys," Max replied as she twisted the tiny explosive device into the lock of the cage. "Shield your eyes."

Alec covered his face with his good forearm as the self-igniting fuse flared white hot, then fizzled out. With a small crack, the door swung open and Max dropped down to the cement floor below. Picking up the keys from a nearby table, she climbed back up on the catwalk and opened Alec's cage.

Cradling his injured arm, his eyes still round with wonder (and hope), he followed Max. Stealthily, the two X5s made their way through the building, taking out two guards just outside the area where they'd been incarcerated, and Alec appropriating one of their guns. In the near distance he could hear Stendahl's voice, and glanced that way.

"Leave him," Max ordered. "We don't have time. We'll get him later."

But Alec, a grim expression on his face, was already gone. So far as X5-494 was concerned, there was still an unfinished mission to accomplish.

*****

Stendahl looked up in astonishment as the armed X5 burst through the door at the top of the staircase above his office. "You're reluctant to kill," the Committee man said flatly, laying down his own weapon in surrender. "It says so in your file. It was one of your greatest flaws. You won't murder me in cold blood. You can't."

"Guess it's time to update my file," Alec smirked as he pulled the trigger and put a bullet square between the evil man's eyes.

*****

Max was waiting for him by the outside wall.

"We have to get to a phone and warn the others," Alec said breathlessly as he limped to her side.

"Stendahl?" she questioned.

He looked at her knowingly, and she nodded in understanding. "A phone?" he pressed.

Max put a hand on his arm -- the good one. "Not necessary. The gang's ready for the invasion. In fact, they're counting on it."

Alec didn't understand. His brows drew together in a frown. But then suddenly -- light dawned -- a revelation he could hardly believe. Still, it took him a moment ...

He blinked, and then his lip curled up in a disdainful sneer. "You used me?" he said. Then, a little louder, anger building, "You used me!" His expression darkened. "You wanted Stendahl to have the location all along, but you knew he'd have to find out in a realistic way so he wouldn't suspect a trap." Alec's mind extrapolated the facts on out, and slowly a look of utter disgust filled his eyes. "You figured I'd crack ... give up the location. That's why you told me back at TC. I'm the one who's -- How'd you once put it? -- terminally untrustworthy, the one who'd turn traitor. Then you let me walk into a trap ... be caught ... tortured."

Tears were welling in Max's eyes. She put an apologetic hand on his uninjured arm again, but Alec jerked away. "No," she said, her voice pathetically pleading. "I knew you'd never tell them, that you'd never give up our people." She had the decency to look away. "That's why I had to come in."

And then the full scope of Max's monumental betrayal hit Alec like a ton of bricks.

"So you didn't mean any of it then?" he said, his voice quivering. "All of that talk about it now bein' me since Logan was gone? All of that 'us' stuff? It was just lies to sucker me in? To get me to think you might be in love with me so I'd break?"

Max hung her head in shame, still not looking at him.

Alec smiled grimly, suppressing his own tears, his self-centered facade slamming firmly into place. "Max," he said with an ironic little chuckle, shaking his head with disbelief and, oddly enough, admiration, "I've gotta give it to ya. You played me -- and you did it well. On that I congratulate you. You had me believin' every word. I really thought you were fallin' for me."

"Alec, I--"

His voice hardened again, his eyes narrowing with rage. "Just know the price you've paid though, lady. We're through, Max. You and me ... We're done, as friends or anything else."

"Alec! It's not too late. We can--"

"Oh," he said mockingly, this time with one of his most wicked smiles, "There's where you're wrong, sweetheart. It's way too late." Then, with a tip of his head and a little salute, Alec turned around and strode toward the door, the pain in his leg forgotten, overshadowed by the hidden agony in his heart.

Caught up in their own drama, neither of the X5s saw the gunman on the catwalk high above.

Three shots rang out, bullets blazing in the darkness. With a choked cry, Alec fell to his knees, then pitched forward onto the floor, his own gun dropping limply from his hand.

Blurring, Max dove for the weapon, came up with it, and opened fire on their attacker -- shooting a gun for the first time in over 12 years, saving her own life, watching Stendahl's soldier plunge to his death from above.

And then it was her turn to go to her knees, beside Alec, the man she loved and whom she'd just betrayed in a way beyond forgiveness.

25 beats per minute. 24 ... 23 ... 22

*****

"How is he?" Joshua asked.

Max sat in a chair beside Alec's bed, holding his hand, watching his face, waiting for him to regain consciousness. There were a million things she had to say to him, if only he'd open his eyes.

"Better than me," Max said truthfully, the guilt over what she'd done to her transgenic brother eating her alive.

Alec's heart rate was now slow and steady, normal, measured by a set of diodes once more taped to his chest. The burned arm had been coated in healing salve and wrapped in gauze, and twin I.V. tubes ran into both of his wrists (delivering life giving X5 blood -- Max's blood). The bullet wounds in his back had been serious, two lodging in his rib cage, a third puncturing a lung. But Luke had worked medical miracles in the rear of the bus that night -- he, Dix, and Mole meeting Max as she carried her half dead partner to the pre-arranged rendezvous point. By dawn Alec's own genetics had kicked in -- superb clotting factors, stem cells going to work, his heart and lungs compensating for the injuries -- as miles fell away beneath the bus wheels on their way to Idaho and the rest of their family. Extra tryptophan controlled his one seizure ...

The battle with Stendahl's people was long over by the time they arrived -- the Phoenix Group forces caught totally by surprise and annihilated at the ranch. It would be awhile before anyone tried to mess with the Freaks again.

Staggering work awaited them, of course, getting the ranch into shape -- finding supplies, making a new home ... But for now Max's only thought was for Alec.

Joshua patted Max gently on the shoulder, sniffed once, and left.

The two X5s were alone at last.

Looking down at Alec, tears welling in her eyes once more, Max gently caressed the fine blond hair on his unbandaged forearm. "It wasn't all a lie, smart ass," she whispered as she rested her head on his chest and hugged him close. He stirred beneath her touch. It wasn't all a lie.

THE END