ARCHIVE: No

"So the mission all along was to infiltrate this prison and draw out the Familiar," Alec said, not even trying to conceal the sarcasm in his voice. "All that crap about you needin' some secret software was just the icing on the cake." He glanced up at the ceiling as if imploring to a higher being, a hurt look on his handsome face. "Why do I feel so used?" Then his gaze snared Lydecker. "Because I am being used, that's why."

Lydecker was sitting behind his desk in the prison's main office, Max perched on a chair to one side. Alec was lounging back on a semi-soft couch and holding an ice pack to his abused ribs. Their former CO looked insufferably pleased with himself. X5-494 wanted nothing so much as to beat that smirk off his face, but he was way too tired at the moment to fight another battle. Lydecker would live to pay for this little deception another day.

"Why didn't you just ask us to straight up?" Max snapped, getting to her feet and pacing the room. She gestured toward Alec. "He could have been killed." She glanced down at herself. "I could have been killed."

"Nature of the job," Lydecker shrugged. "You're both soldiers. You know the risks of any assignment. And this one was on a need to know basis. You see, I recruit men for my special elite unit from this prison, a Familiar-free squad loyal to me above all else. They may not be on the par of X5's, but they make me feel a lot better about someday being able to save my world. However, I strongly suspected our cult loony friends had a spy in here. Unlike transgenics, there's no physical indications to pinpoint Familiars, no high basal body temperatures, no twisted DNA, no modified iris in the eyes. You get the picture. They easily conceal those initiation scars on their arms, same way you two hide your bar codes when necessary."

"But you knew about the little recreational sport in here, the cage fighting on the side," Alec said. "And you figured this Familiar undercover operative wouldn't be able to resist beatin' a Trannie to death in front of an audience."

"They hate your kind with a passion," Lydecker said, almost as if he admired that trait. "I was counting on at least one of you being forced into the ring. Then the rest would fall into place."

"How did you know we'd win?" Max asked. "We could have been killed. Not to mention our little sojourn into an operating room. Was that part of the plan too?"

"I didn't know you'd win," Lydecker said coldly. "I didn't need for you to win. I just needed you to draw that bitch Thula out, make her use her enhanced strength so I could I.D. the spy. As for the threat of sterilization -- I didn't let that happen, did I?"

"Max is pregnant you know," Alec said quietly.

Lydecker turned and stared at Max, and for just a second a fleeting apology glimmered in his eyes. Then he shrugged. "So long as she wasn't pukin' all over everything it made no difference to the mission."

"She could have lost the baby," Alec pressed. "Or had it forcibly aborted."

Another shrug. "You're in a dangerous line of work in a dangerous world, son. Not exactly the best time to be bringing children into existence. Maybe you ought to learn how to keep your zipper closed, 494. The blame would be on you, not me, if she'd miscarried or otherwise lost the brat you put in her belly."

"Our children are our only future!" Max cried out.

"Not if you can't get a tryptophan plant up and running they aren't," Lydecker countered. He looked carefully at Alec. "Now, about our deal--"

"You're gonna welsh on it, aren't you," Alec said. It wasn't a question. "You're gonna put more strings on everything, keep us workin' for you with that pharmaceutical plant the carrot on the stick."

Lydecker's lips split into a thin smile. "Of course," he said softly. "Because, when it all comes down to it, you're still my kids, my soldiers, mine to use as I see necessary and fit."

"We don't belong to anyone," Max said coldly.

"You do so long as you need help with the tryptophan." Lydecker seemed to come to a decision. He brought his fist down hard on the desk top and said, "I'll give you a list of initial suppliers for the raw materials, and the names of some chemists who used to contract with Manticore. I know it's not the whole plant I promised you, but it's a start. We'll consider it my good faith investment. More will come later, provided you're good little soldiers."

Alec stared at him coldly, the muscles of his jaw working. He wanted to kill the bastard. However, they needed Lydecker. In a way, he was like a wicked brutal father to them, even moreso than Sandeman had been. His children hated and feared the man, but couldn't quite bring themselves to commit the ultimate act of patricide that would finally sever the family ties and set them free. Like it or not, Deck was in this with them.

"What else do you want from us?" Max asked quietly, her thoughts apparently paralleling his.

"I really would like that software you stole," Lydecker said amiably, obviously knowing he'd just won a big battle with his two naughtiest transgenic children. "The data's worth a small fortune on the black market and my operation could use the money. We're private, not government backed, and cash is always a problem. I know it wasn't confiscated when you were arrested. Where's the disk?"

Alec looked over at Max. He honestly didn't know. She'd had it, and she'd hidden it -- at Joshua's.

"Drop us back in Seattle and I'll get you what you want," Max said tiredly.

"Good girl, Maxie," Lydecker said, his voice deceptively gentle. "That's my good girl."

Alec closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and sighed.

*****

He watched as Max nimbly climbed the book case at Joshua's and pulled the disk out of a moldy edition of War and Peace.

"An apt place to hide the thing I suppose," he said lightly, blowing dust off of Lydecker's precious software when Max handed it down to him. He looked around the interior of the old house that had seen such strange times, wondering if he'd ever come here again. Probably not, since the place had been compromised now. Speaking of which--

"Hey, Max."

She'd been clinging to the bookcase looking at some of the titles, but now she turned and jumped lithely down into his waiting arms. "What?" she said, pressing close, her breasts nestling against his chest. He could feel her nipples harden even through the leather of his jacket.

Alec cleared his throat. "I was just thinkin' about something. How did they find us here, in this house? The military police."

Max shrugged. "Lydecker obviously tipped them off. He knew about the place, probably figured we'd use it. "What are you getting at, Alec?"

"Lydecker seems able to find us awfully easy sometimes."

"No," Max said, shaking her head. "That's impossible. I know what you're thinking and it just couldn't be."

"Why not?" Alec said, his eyes challenging hers.

"You're talking about a tracking device implanted in one of us, aren't you?"

"Not in one of us, Max. In you."

"No way," she said, still shaking her head. "More likely in you. He had you, Alec. More than once. Unconscious. Vulnerable. He could have done anything to you then, even planted a tracker under your skin somewhere."

Alec chewed on his lower lip, averting his eyes.

"What?" Max said. "What aren't you telling me?"

He took a deep breath. "I had Dix sweep me quite awhile ago," he admitted. "Checkin' for any possible source of transmissions, no matter how small." He watched her eyes get stormy. "I've thought about this before, Max," he said, the words coming out in a rush. "Like you pointed out, I always assumed it was me. But I was clean. Dix didn't find anything."

"But we've never checked me," she said, apparently seeing the worth of his words even though she didn't like the implications. "That makes me feel just ... incredibly creepy."

"I know."

"But when could I have picked up a bug? Of course there's that Red implant still in my brain stem, but it has a really limited range. Still ... maybe ..."

Alec buried his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, rocked back on his heels, and studied the ceiling.

"Alec! What aren't you telling me?"

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye then, a charmingly sheepish grin on his face.

But Max wasn't buying. "Alec," she warned. "Spill it."

He bit his lip again. He really, really didn't want to go here, but he also knew he didn't have a choice any more. Max had to know. He only hoped she loved him enough to forgive yet one more of his stupid ass mistakes.

"Ya see, Max, it's like this," he began. "Remember way back when we met, our oh-so-romantic first encounter at Manticore? Well, there's something you didn't know."