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Photo courtesy of Senga

"Hey, Max, you know you're really workin' that dress."

"Shut up," she said, slapping Alec's hand away from where he'd reached out to caress her thigh beneath the short hem of her skin tight red silk outfit. At four months along she wasn't showing her pregnancy very much yet and the form fitting Ralph Lauren original left little to the imagination. "Is that all you think about? Sex?"

"Actually, all I think about is you."

"Well cut it out. We're on a mission, or have you forgotten?" Max angrily adjusted the top of her black hose (the garter belt was killing her) and glared balefully down at the sequined high heels. "I just hope I don't have to do any serious running or fighting tonight," she sighed. "I'm not exactly dressed for the job."

"Oh, I'd say you're dressed for the job," Alec quipped, his hazel eyes dancing mischievously. "Or at least the job I'd like you to be doin' with me."

"Shut up." She eyed the art gallery down the street where a crowd of extremely well dressed patrons were mingling at the front door. "This shouldn't take long," she said. "I crash the party, cozy up to Mr. Blatt, swipe his card key, crack the penthouse safe, then meet you on the roof." She scowled. "Just be sure you have our exit covered. There's no way we're getting into that safe without tripping the room's silent alarm, not to mention the cameras. Speed's our only way out."

"Which is why Lydecker wanted his pet pair of X5's on the job," Alec said, his eyebrows raised in vague disapproval.

"Hey, we scratch his back, he scratches ours," Max said. "He wants the software stored in Blatt's safe for one of his military operations. We get the loan of their science guys to start setting up our own tryptophan lab."

"Yeah, yeah," Alec agreed, checking the equipment hanging on his belt and looking up at the roof line of the eight story building. "But you know, I still think I could have pulled this off by myself. I've been told I look great in a tux and they say Blatt swings both ways. I could probably cozy up to the guy as easily as you."

Max made a face and shuddered, not liking the thought of Alec pimping himself. (Then again, wasn't that exactly what she was going to be doing?) "Yeah you're a real jack ass of all trades," she agreed. "But this is a two-man job and you know it. Even if you'd managed to life the card key and gotten into the safe you'd have had a hell of a time getting out without backup."

"I'd have managed," Alec said defensively. "And can you blame a guy for not likin' his pregnant lady bein' in danger."

"There won't be that much danger if you do your job."

"I'll do my job."

"Fine."

"Fine." Then he remembered something. "You aren't gonna toss your cookies are you? The morning sickness thing?"

Not wanting to admit she did feel vaguely nauseous, Max glared at him a moment then turned around and headed for the gallery down the street.

Alec watched her until she disappeared into the crowd.

*****

He scaled the back side of the building with the grace of the cat he part was, using the downspout as a ladder. At the top he perched briefly on the parapet, crouching pantherlike, surveying the Seattle streets below. Dressed all in black, Alec knew he wouldn't be spotted against the darkening sky.

The city had gone downhill since he'd last been here (if that was possible). Sector police were exerting an even tighter control and movement was incredibly restricted. If you didn't have high end passes you couldn't even get out of your own neighborhood. The Familiar's plague, "The Snakes" as it was called, had already killed one in three people, Sandeman's vaccine coming too little too late to help many. Only the armed forces kept the citizens from rioting out of control. As it was, society in the U.S. was teetering on the brink of total chaos, even moreso than it had right after the Pulse. Not for the first time Alec wondered where he'd be right now if Max hadn't freed him from Manticore ... what he'd be doing ... who he'd be killing ... The military was in its element right now, in complete control of the nation, and certainly the Manticore soldiers would have been put to use.

The software he and Max were going to steal was a prototype of an advanced communications system that didn't rely on satellites but rather used point-to-point lasers to carry information. Lydecker wanted the technology badly ... almost as badly as his former soldiers on Chimera wanted a tryptophan lab.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Alec jumped nimbly down from the parapet to land on the flat rooftop. Taking a thin, super strong nylon rope from his backpack he moved to the southeast corner of the roof and anchored one end, leaving the rest in a neat coil in the corner. When Max exited, she would in all likelihood have a posse of guards on her tail and they'd need an extremely speedy way out -- which was what he was here to provide.

Smiling slightly because he really did like his work, Alec took a folded crossbow out of the pack, readied the weapon, then attached the loose end of the rope to a bolt that had a special molly tip. Siting carefully, he shot the arrow across the wide gap between the art gallery and an abandoned skyscraper a block away where the tip struck and held against the mortar. A second later a small micro charge sent the point deeper into the cement and the molly expanded. Testing the cord with all his strength, Alec decided it would hold. Their motorcycles were parked in a dark hallway at the base of that structure. Their getaway, if all went as planned, should be clean.

There was no moon and the darkness closed in. Hunkering down in a corner Alec checked his watch. Max should be mingling with the in-crowd now, getting closer to her target. He didn't like to think what she might have to do in order to get access to that key card. Hopefully Blatt would simply have it in his wallet. But if not ... if he had it in his penthouse apartment ... Max would have to get seductive. The thought made him scowl. But he knew he had no real right to complain. It was, after all, her job.

However, that didn't mean he had to like it.

*****

The champaign was excellent, the hors douvres delicious, and the music delightful. Max wondered if she'd ever be able to attend a function like this in a legitimate manner, with her handsome man on her arm and no worries about whether she'd survive the evening.

Probably not.

The last time I was at a party like this I was with Logan. She shook the thought off, not needing Logan Cale's ghost intruding when she had to have all her wits about her.

Her mark was by the buffet table, a fat middle-aged business executive with thick glasses and a toupee. Max shuddered, then forced a smile on her face and a spring to her step as she sailed across the room to not-so-subtly bump into him.

"Oh, excuse me!" Max exclaimed as she knocked against his arm almost making him spill his plate of food.

Blatt's beady little eyes went straight to her pregnancy enhanced cleavage and a sugary smile appeared on his thin lips. "Of course," he said. "No harm done." He was still trying to balance the plate.

Max scooped it out of his hand and set it down on a side table. Then she began straightening his tuxedo jacket. "I really am such a clumsy thing," she cooed, slipping her hand into his pocket and deftly removing his wallet.

"No problem at all," Blatt insisted, staring at the hard nipples so blatantly visible beneath the thin silk of the dress.

Max rewarded him with a coy pout before whirling away into the crowd, the sensation of his eyes still on her making her skin crawl.

Stepping into a back hallway she quickly flipped through the wallet and smiled. The key card was here. She wouldn't have to play whore afterall. Checking the time on her watch, Max glanced up at the ceiling. Alec should be in place by now, her escape route secure. The next step was to access the safe before Blatt realized his wallet was gone. With one last glance into the gallery to be certain her mark was still unaware of his loss, Max turned and ran up the stairs, headed for the penthouse on the top floor, a camera on the wall tracking her as she went.

*****

Alec hated working blind. On other jobs, Lydecker had provided sophisticated transceivers so he and Max could stay in contact. But Blatt's building had a military surveillance system in place that might have detected transmissions. The cameras were bad too. They were going to be completely exposed, the whole job recorded on tape. Again, speed was their only option here, all thought of stealth out the window as soon as Max's intentions were detected.

His keen hearing picked up the first alarm going off deep in the building and Alec tensed, watching the rooftop door. A minute later he heard sirens approaching, which told him Max had probably now tripped the silent alarm in the room where the safe was. He began counting down the seconds. He'd reached 45 when she burst through the roof door running barefoot at top speed, the expensive high heels he'd bought her yesterday in the ritzy district ditched somewhere along the way.

Gesturing wildly, she waved for him to go. Alec quickly attached a glide to the rope and held out his arms to her. In a few seconds they'd be a full block away in the other building, safely out of reach of their pursuers.

She was almost within his grasp when the sound of a shot rang out.

"Max!" Alec screamed as she staggered, a look of terror in her eyes. And then she began to convulse, the Taser darts embedded in her side shooting 50,000 volts into her body.

Reacting on years of training, Alec drew a Glock pistol from his belt and fired a warning shot at the over exuberant guard who'd followed Max through the roof door. Wisely, the guy ducked back into the stairwell, calling for backup on his radio.

"Max!" Alec shouted again, turning back to help his mate.

But Max wasn't there.

Choking with fear, Alec sprang to the side of the roof and looked down, terrified he'd see Max's lifeless body sprawled on the pavement eight stories below.

But Max, even though semi-conscious, had somehow managed to grab an equipment box that jutted out from the side of the building. She was dangling there, six stories up in the air, with no place to get so much as a toehold.

"I'm coming!" Alec screamed. "Hold on!" Grabbing the end of the rope, he yanked it loose, wrapped it around his arm, and leaped to the top of the parapet.

But the guard had decided to play hero afterall. The Taser darts caught Alec square in the middle of his back. Paralyzed, his synapses overloaded, his eyesight and sense of balance gone, the young transgenic's body arched in agony -- and then he fell.