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"Max, I think maybe you're the one who should be doin' this after all."

"You're right. But it's too late now Mr. I-got-myself-elected. Now shut up and listen."

"Like you said, I'm not a politician. I'm a soldier."

"No, you're not a politician. But you can at least yack like one when you have to."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Max stopped on the steps of Seattle City Hall and gave her companion the once-over, taking in his clean dark gray t-shirt, khaki slacks, and quite respectable looking black leather jacket.

"Not formal enough?" Alec asked, shrugging his broad shoulders in the jacket, more than a little bit uncomfortable under her scrutiny. "Shoulda worn a suit afterall ya think?"

They'd debated that point for quite awhile the night before -- casual or a business suit. Alec had argued he needed to look equal to all the other City Council members in their high class outfits and Gucci shoes. However, when Max had pointed out that a large part of Terminal City's bargaining power with the local authorities lay in the fact that they were considered "genetically engineered killing machines" he'd been swayed to her way of thinking. He needed to present the image of a professional soldier, an officer, a person of physical as well as mental power -- not a white collar ordinary.

"Did you ever notice how Manticore always outfitted its X5 assassins in black leather jackets?" he commented offhandedly as they continued up the steps.

"Just ... don't say you're a former assassin," Max said nervously. "And--" She suddenly turned to him and began feeling up and down his torso.

"Hey, Max," Alec chuckled. "What's this? Not gettin' enough from Logan?"

"Shut up," she said as she drew a mean looking Glock pistol out of the inner pocket of that snazzy black jacket. She held the weapon with two fingers, her distaste obvious.

"Aw, come on, Max," Alec pleaded. "You don't expect me to walk into the lion's den unarmed, do you. Everyone in that room hates transgenics and you know it. Besides, I was makin' a deal down on the docks this mornin' for the fresh fruit Gem wanted. Those Colombian banana dealers are a rough crowd."

She was eying a nearby trash can.

"Don't you dare," Alec said, a hard gleam in his eye. "That gun's worth a lot of money."

"Fine," Max groused, tucking the offending pistol in the backpack she was carrying. "I'll hold onto it for you."

"You better," Alec warned.

"Do you have your facts straight, Councilman McDowell?" Max asked, getting back to their earlier conversation.

"Twelve councilmen -- or I should say 'council representatives' since there are two women on the board -- one for each sector, plus the mayor who has veto power but no vote," Alec said tiredly. "I memorized all that info Logan dug up last night." He glanced at Max, one eyebrow raised. "I do know how to prep for a mission."

"Of course you do," Max said impatiently. "But this is really important, Alec. We can't afford to make new enemies."

"They're already old enemies, Max," he pointed out. "And they're all crooked as hell. Especially that guy, Pedro Juarez. He's councilman for Sector 7, and we just took away a big chunk of his jurisdiction. He lobbied to be in charge of Terminal City, which would have been just ... great. The guy's an outspoken freak-a-phobic on par with that Reverend Terry Caldwell. I'm actually surprised he hasn't hired a hit man to take me out already. They say he's got the police commissioner in his back pocket."

"I know," Max said worriedly. "Clemente warned me about Juarez, said we needed to watch our backs with him."

"Can I have my gun back?"

"No."

They'd reached the front doors of city hall. Alec remembered making a run or two down her while working for Jam Pony, and of course he'd memorized the floor plans of the building, not to mention the security systems and all possible exits. However, he sincerely hoped he'd be able to leave through the door after the meeting tonight instead of leaping off the roof or climbing out a window.

All those armed guards standing just inside the entrance didn't look promising though.

"Go get 'em, tiger," Max said, giving him a slight shove forward."Too bad the Sunshine Law was repealed and it's closed to the public. But don't forget the media will be there. I'll meet you on the Needle afterwards and you can tell me all about it. Remember, we want to emphasize our need to be granted access to decent medical care and hospital facilities. Food's important too, but if they give you trouble, don't push that yet."

Alec walked backwards a moment. "Max," he called out to her as she headed down the steps.

"What?" she said, turning around.

"If I never see you again ... it's been fun." He was only half joking.

"Shut up!" she shouted at him. And then she was at the bottom of the steps and headed for the parking lot where they'd left their motorcycles.

Suddenly feeling very much alone, and strangely out of his element, Alec squared his shoulders again and made himself go through those high, intimidating wooden doors like he owned the place. Into the lions den.

*****

He was a few minutes late for the seven o'clock meeting. The other 13 men and women had already taken their seats along the double row dais at the front of the room with its individual desks for each council member. Mayor Steckler sat in the middle of the top tier, with three on each side of him, and the other six were seated below.

Alec's first thought as he entered the tall and wide walnut paneled chamber with its impressive portraits of Seattle's founding fathers staring disapprovingly down at him from the walls, was to question if this many reporters always attended city council meetings. His second was to wonder where the hell he was supposed to sit.

There wasn't an empty chair to be seen on the main floor, the place literally brimming with reporters from every news station and paper in Washington State, not to mention several from the national networks.

But he needn't have worried. A smallish balding man in his mid-fifties wearing a tired looking nondescript brown suit, bustled up to him, hand extended. "Mr. McDowell," he said in a voice high pitched enough to match his delicate features. "Welcome. I'm Rudy Alberts, Mayor Steckler' assistant. I've been instructed to see that you're made comfortable and informed about our procedures."

"Procedures?" Alec said as he let himself be led by the elbow to the front of the crowded chamber where he now saw that a hard backed chair had been dragged to the end of the second tier of desks. It reminded him of the "dunce" seat Manticore kids had been forced to sit in when they didn't perform well in class -- a way of segregating and humiliating the ones who were failing from the rest of the group.

Alberts thrust a large packet of printed material into his hands and a styrofoam cup of black coffee. "Tonight's agenda," he said. "I'm sorry a copy wasn't delivered to you yesterday, but ..." He hesitated and looked sideways, his eyes apologetic. "We couldn't find anyone willing to deliver it to you in Terminal City."

"No problem," Alec said, his voice clipped but controlled as he set the unwanted coffee on a nearby table, and wondered why they hadn't just used Jam Pony. "Thank you, uh, Rudy."

"The pertinent pages regarding the transgenics are on--"

"I said, thank you," Alec repeated, dismissing the sputtering little man who was starting to get on his nerves.

The meeting was called to order, and the Pledge of Allegiance said. After everyone sat down, the mayor then began making opening remarks, thanking members of this and that association for their help during a local festival. Alec took those few minutes to thumb through the quarter-inch thick agenda, reading every page at transgenic speed, absorbing the information as the neural synapses of his brain worked at nearly twice the efficiency of a human's.

Most of the material was with regards to approving clean-up of the park on the west shore of Lake Washington, and giving the chief of police his second raise for the year. The issue regarding the transgenics was buried in the very last section where there was a matter that was going to be voted on regarding whether or not their arts and crafts building should be closed down due to health code violations -- some question or other about there not being sufficient bathroom facilities, no handicap ramp, and a note from the health department regarding sanitation conditions in the coffee shop involving cockroaches and a wooden cutting board.

Alec sighed, and resisted the urge to drop his head into his hands. And now that the fighting is over, the bureaucracy begins. But Max absolutely insisted the fledgling transgenic colony had to work within the boundaries of Seattle government -- that if they didn't, they wouldn't be any better than one of the outlaw clans. Personally, Alec saw nothing wrong with being an outlaw clan. Clans protected their members fiercely, as witnessed by the recently deceased Furies gang. He never felt so safe as he did when he was with his brother and sister transgenics inside the fences of Terminal City -- with his own "clan." And he'd do anything now to protect his family, legal or not.

But Max had asked him to take this seriously -- pleaded with him in fact -- and he really didn't want to let her down. Afterall, he was representing all the transgenics here, and the eyes of the world would be on him -- a burden not to be taken lightly.

"Oh well," he said under his breath with one last look through the agenda. "Let's get this over with."

Mayor Steckler, an extraordinarily suave individual with flinty eyes and a toupee of all things, had just finished thanking the Ladies' Auxiliary for raising money with a bake sale to buy a new emblem for his office. Alec was beginning to wonder if this branch of the Seattle government ever did anything more than thank people. If indeed, that's all they did, then they at least ought to thank the transgenics for not pouring out of TC and going on a rampage considering how hungry everyone there was.

Finally, they came to the subject of "new business," which is where the "transgenic situation" as it was called in the agenda, was at the top of the list. Suddenly, all eyes in the room turned to Alec who felt rather like a new animal exhibit at the zoo. The mayor then read out loud the list of code violations against the arts and crafts market. When he finished, without allowing time for any discussion, he glanced at his fellow council members and quickly said, "All in favor of closing the aforementioned establishment, raise your hands."

"Hey!" Alec said, jumping to his feet. "Wait a minute! Don't I get to say something here?"

The mayor sighed, and Councilman Juarez from Sector 7, a swarthy Latino with the eyes of a killer and one gold front tooth, grinned. "I believe we can allow some discussion," Juarez said smoothly, if Councilman--" He glanced down at his notes as if he didn't know Alec's chosen surname, "--McDowell wishes to say something in defense of his people."

His people. Alec had heard that before too. It still irked him that the U.S. government had actually passed a separate amendment granting transgenics citizenship and the vote, as if they hadn't been born with those rights already ... as if they weren't really human, but something else ... maybe even something less. There should never have been any question about their legal status.

"Don't we get some kind of grace period, to correct the violations?" Alec asked. "And why is this being voted on in city council? Isn't it a health department issue?"

"The health department turned jurisdiction of this particular case over to the mayor's office, Mayor Steckler said smoothly, due to its unusual and possibly volatile nature. As for a grace period ..." He glanced around the dais at the other council members. "Since you've requested it, we'll grant you two days, as per code regulations. Then another inspection will be held."

"Two days!" Alec said with dismay. "Two day's time to build six toilet stalls and a wheelchair access ramp? You've got to be kidding! It'll take just a week to get in the supplies!" A flashbulb went off in the audience, followed by another, making blue spots swim before Alec's eyes. The transgenic was finally performing.

"Take the offer or leave it, Mr. McDowell," Juarez said.

"What gives you the right to say that to me," Alec snarled, knowing exactly who and what Juarez was. He'd heard stories about the dirty deeds of Pedro Juarez and his sector police cronies ever since landing in Seattle after Manticore went down.

"Because Terminal City, independent representation or not, is within my jurisdiction as well," Juarez replied calmly.

Another flashbulb went off, and Alec glared into the audience where he saw Sketchy in the front row of reporters. Oh, great.

"Look," Alec said forcing himself to calm down and blinking away the big blue blob floating in front of his vision. "You can't close our market. It's our only source of income."

"Oh, but we can," Juarez said.

"Then what are we supposed to do for money for food?"

The way the mayor shrugged made Alec oh-so-very tempted to leap over that stupid dais and punch the stuffed shirt right in the face. But then his sensitive ears picked up a single voice in the crowd.

"Easy, man," Sketchy was saying to him, speaking so low no one else could possibly hear but a transgenic. "Keep your cool. Don't go all primitive on 'em. It's just what they want."

Alec nodded in Sketch's direction, and his lips twitched in a little smile, thanking his friend. Taking a deep breath, regaining his sense of self and his temper, he nodded politely at the mayor and simply said, "We'll take care of the problems. But we've got two days, as in forty-eight hours startin' tomorrow morning, right?"

"Two days," Mayor Steckler assured him. He looked out over the audience, then rapped his gavel twice, calling for order from the murmuring crowd. "Moving on to the next item," he said, and then he began talking about some sort of upgrade to the sewer systems in Sector 9.

Alec wanted to ask about medical access for his people like Max said, but he had the feeling now wasn't the time. Apparently one had to get on the official agenda before a topic could even be discussed, let alone voted on. Damn, he needed to learn this system better.

The meeting adjourned half an hour later, and Alec, his back aching from sitting in that horrible chair and not permitted to vote on any of the issues anyway (the TC seat being a "voice only" appointment), elbowed his way through the crowd of reporters, holding up his hand indicating he wasn't going to answer any questions. It wasn't that he was shy, but right now he was so angry he was afraid he'd say something Max would kick his ass about.

However, a hard hand clapped down on his shoulder and spun him around at the doorway. Reacting instinctively, Alec half crouched and brought up a fist, but relaxed instantly into what he hoped was a natural pose when he saw it was Juarez. After all, the reporters were still watching.

"Mr. McDowell," the Latino man said, "I just wanted to be certain you understood something about my position regarding your kind."

"My kind?"

"The mutants ... The rest of the nation now refers to Seattle as 'Freak City' you know."

"We prefer genetically empowered," Alec said quietly as he clenched his jaw. This guy had the stench of bigot all over him. "What's there to understand?"

"What's to understand is that, if it takes me to my dying day, I'm going to see you freaks gone, not just from my ward and my city, but from the face of the Earth. As far as I'm concerned, you people are a danger to the purity of the human race. Your DNA is twisted and tainted. You're going to contaminate human kind and be our downfall. You shouldn't be allowed to exist, let alone breed. There's a bill making its way through Congress right now demanding the mandatory sterilization of all Manticore creations, and I'm backing it wholeheartedly. You, Mr. McDowell, should be castrated."

Juarez paused for breath.

"Call me 494," Alec said evenly.

"What?"

"I said call me 494, not 'Mr. McDowell'." He shrugged. "It's who I really am."

"What do you mean by that?" Juarez asked, his black eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"It's my Manticore designation," Alec said, his voice controlled, but with an edge. "My barcode number. The one on the back of my neck?"

"So what?" Juarez said, not understanding.

Alec's hand blurred and he had Councilman Juarez by the throat in a very frightening, iron grip. "It's what my handlers called me when they told me who to assassinate," he said low in the man's ear. Then he let him go, the whole exchange happening so fast no one around them had noticed.

"You're ... you're an assassin?" Juarez gulped, having difficulty swallowing.

"Created in a lab," Alec said with a charming smile, his tone of voice as friendly now as it had been dangerous a moment before, although the look in his green-gold eyes was feral. Anyone watching would think they were just having a friendly chat. "A real special cocktail mine was, feline DNA, cat ... plus a touch of Mozart and assorted other geniuses. I'm the perfect spook, Juarez. Black Ops. And believe me, you don't wanna get on my bad side."

"I'll keep that in mind," Juarez said fingering his bruised throat. Then he straightened his jacket, turned away, and walked quickly toward the exit, signaling his totally out-of-the-loop bodyguard to follow.

"You do that," Alec said softly.

"Hey, Alec!" another voice said behind him. Startled and wondering "what now?" Alec whirled just in time to be blinded yet again by the flash of Sketchy's camera strobe.

Would this evening never end?