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Max didn't know what else to do ... how to help. She spent the whole night in the infirmary curled up on the cot and holding Alec in her arms. Doc had pushed a huge quantity of naloxone, the counteractive drug for an opiate overdose, into the X5's veins three hours earlier, then had stepped back with a resigned sigh and told everyone all they could do was wait and pray -- that it was up to Alec now.

You've been back from the dead all of two days, you big jerk, and already you're leaving me again.

Max blinked away tears of loss and anger, swiping the back of her hand across her face. This was so wrong ... her life. Why did it have to be like this? ... all of the fear and uncertainty ... seemingly destined to lose the ones she loved no matter how hard she tried to protect them ... Maybe Renfro had been right. Maybe she was poison.

"You idiot," Max said softly, stroking fingers through Alec's hair and remembering the feel of his hard body on top of her the night before. As always, the guy had gone off and done something stupid, put into motion a dumb ass plan that no sane person would even have considered. But then that was Alec -- impetuous, unpredictable, and selfish, always thinking it was about him first. Of course he'd used himself as bait ... And of course he hadn't told her what he was going to do because he'd known she'd never have let him put himself in danger like that. And of course it had all gone wrong ...

Was that bravery? Max wondered. Or just sheer egotism. Was her lover a hero, or someone she should never trust again? She looked down at Alec's still peaceful face, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest, each breath precious -- and perhaps his last. Of course none of the questions would matter if he died ...

"He's going to make it, Max," Zack said from across the room. The bigger X5 had been sleeping, but now his blue eyes were bright and alert as he watched her from his pillow. "Alec's X5. And he loves you. He'll pull through because he doesn't want to leave. 'Least that's what I'd do -- live for you."

Max found a little smile of gratitude for the man she'd always considered her brother. "You know," she said. "I ought to be kicking your ass for letting Alec do this. I didn't think you guys were good enough friends to conspire against me like that."

Zack smiled ruefully and shifted his weight, easing the pressure on his wounded side. "I wouldn't exactly call us friends ... yet," he said. "But Alec's all right." He thought a minute. "You know, if it would help, he could have some of my blood. Maybe the Nanocites would counteract the heroin."

Max shook her head no. "Thanks, but we don't know what effect they'd have on a regular, non-enhanced X5," she said. "They might be code-specific to your tissue and could kill Alec." She touched the side of the handsome X5's unconscious face. "Besides, Doc says he ought to be able to pull out of this on his own."

"Maybe Alec knows what an ass-whoopin' he's in for from you when he wakes up," Zack said with another little smile. "Could be he's hidin' out from his angry lady."

"Could be," Max conceded, wondering just when her big brother had gotten so much more comfortable with the idea of Alec as her lover.

As if reading her mind, Zack softly said, "I saw him in action tonight, Max. He's all right. He may be hard core Manticore, but underneath ... Alec's one of the good guys and brave as well. I honestly don't know if I could have done what he did, sacrificed myself, even for the sake of my family."

"He probably didn't realize the risk," Max said wryly. "Alec has this tendency to leap before he looks, in case you hadn't noticed."

"'What you don't know can't hurt you' philosophy?" Zack shot back. "Maybe. But I still think the guy's pretty decent, once you get past the snarky attitude. Although, one-on-one, soldier-to-soldier, I could still kick his butt."

"Wanna lay money on that?" a sleepy voice asked.

Startled, Max looked down into a pair of extremely bleary hazel-green eyes.

"A guy takes a little nap and what happens?" Alec groused. "Everyone starts talkin' about him behind his back." He grimaced. "What the hell time is it anyway?" And then he remembered. Eyes brightening rapidly, he looked up at Max. "Eve? The X7s?"

"Eve's fine," Max said, absurdly finding her eyes moist again, only this time they were tears of relief. "And we got three of the X7s. Your idiotic plan sort of worked."

"There were four ..." Alec said, looking across the room to Zack. "You all right, bro?"

"I'll heal," Zack replied, indicating the bandages. "Probably faster than you what with my advanced technology."

Alec reached a hand up to touch his own wounded neck. "Ouch," he said, remembering the feel of teeth.

"Ouch is right," Max replied. "You almost got yourself killed. Remind me to never trust you again."

"I gather the Narcan worked," Alec said, again his eyes going to Zack.

"Yeah," Max said dryly. "After you spent several hours almost not breathing. Doc would have put you on a respirator if we'd had one."

Alec waved her worry away. "Hey," he said. "Any chance of gettin' a drink of water around here. I'm--"

The crash of splintering wood drowned out Alec's words as the door to the infirmary burst into pieces and the X7 blurred into the room. The lone survivor of its platoon, cut off from contact with its brethren, the extremely pissed adolescent bat kid had only one imperative on its little hive mind -- to complete its mission.

The three X5s, caught completely by surprise, stared down the barrel of the M-9 pistol as it wavered from one transgenic to the other and finally came to rest with Alec in the sights.

"No!" Max screamed even as Zack threw himself off the cot toward their attacker. Alec tried to leap to his feet only to have his knees give out. Tangled in sheets, he fell to the floor with a curse and rolled sideways to get out of the line of fire. He wasn't used to his body betraying him like this -- to being weak. Head spinning, his vision flickering, the X5 fought to remain conscious as he helplessly watched the fight going on around him.

Zack had reached the X7 and was struggling with it for the M-9, crimson drops of blood flying through the air from his reopened wounds. However, Lydecker hadn't been joking when he said the newer Manticore models were stronger than the old. With a vicious jerk, the X7 jammed the butt of the gun first into Zack's seeping bullet wound, then straight up into his chin, knocking the bigger transgenic backwards into a wall where he slumped to the floor with a cry of pain. Then it swung the barrel in Alec's direction once again and pulled the trigger. Four shots echoed in the small chamber as bullets dug grooves in the wooden floor where 494 had been, the young transgenic barely making it out of the way as he frantically rolled. But there wasn't any cover, and no place to run even if he could have gotten to his feet.

"Max! No!" Alec shouted as she launched herself at the deadly kid only to be met in mid air with a fist that felt like it was made of steel. Knocked senseless, she joined Zack in a heap on the floor at the base of the wall. And, for the third time, the M-9 leveled on its true target -- Alec.

Propping himself up on one shaky elbow, Alec lay panting, staring up at the empty-eyed X7, waiting for the shot ... waiting for death. When it came -- a sharp retort that hurt his sensitive ears -- he jerked, then blinked, expecting oblivion, or at least pain. But the blood he saw wasn't spurting from his body. It was from the X7's. Black pupils wide and sightless, the Manticore creature dropped the gun from limp fingers and pitched forward, falling on top of Alec before he could get out of the way. Every muscle in his body shaking, the X5 stared at the corpse, not understanding -- and then he raised his eyes.

She was standing on the other side of the room with one hand against the wall, and his own Glock 9mm in the other. Someone -- Mole probably -- had retrieved the weapon from the street and left it on the table by the door within reach. But Max didn't use guns -- not ever.

"Max?" he questioned.

Swallowing hard, Max threw the 9mm on the floor. "Are you all right?" she breathed.

"I'll live," Alec said. "Question is, are you all right? Max, what the hell did you do? And remind me to teach you the basics of gun safety if you're gonna make this a habit. We don't throw guns down like that."

"I did what I had to do," Max said, ignoring Alec's little diatribe.

Zack was coming around, shaking his head and rubbing his bruised chin. When he saw the dead X7, blue eyes widened.

"Max shot him," Alec explained simply. "She shot him to save me."

Looking from one X5 to the other, Zack, who knew full well Max's loathing of firearms, grunted and said, "'Bout time you got over that phobia baby sister." He smiled then. "Guess you just needed the right incentive."

*****

"We figured it out," Luke said later that evening when everyone in Max's immediate circle of friends had walked (or in some cases limped) to the media center.

"Figured what out?" Alec asked through a mouthful of potato chips. Well on his way to recovery now, he'd declared himself starving. Zack, with one arm in a sling, was sipping a soda, and even Joshua was wolfing down popcorn. Only Max seemed not inclined to eat, her eyes still looking haunted after her kill.

"Why we could never catch those X7s on our monitors." Luke held up a data sheet. "Their core body temperatures are about five degrees lower than a human. They weren't tripping the heat sensors in our motion detectors."

"Great," Alec snorted. "Meanwhile, the rest of us make those sensors light up like Christmas trees 'cause we're so hot blooded."

"You X5s have the metabolism of cats," Dix explained. He looked at Joshua. "Others of us have body temperatures similar to other animals, but it's all higher than human. That's why White's little gadgets worked so well at pinpointing our kind. But with the X7s ..."

"No one would ever know they were comin'," Alec said, appreciating the gravity of the discovery. "Lydecker could send more of them in here at any time and we wouldn't know what hit us until the bodies started turnin' up."

"We'll just have to stay more vigilant," Max said tiredly from her place against the wall. Alec held out a hand and she came over to sit beside him.

"Aren't we always vigilant?" Zack pointed out. "And do you think Lydecker's gonna go after Alec again?"

"The man's not one to give up," Max said dryly.

Alec shrugged, an "oh well" look in his eyes. Then he put an arm around his mate and drew her close. "Don't worry," he said softly in her ear. "Remember, one way or another, I'm always all right."

*****

"They failed," Melissa Brown said, her cold voice leaving no doubt as to her foul mood. She was wearing crimson today, from head to toe, a satin dress topped by a long flowing cape. And, of course, there was the red velveteen hat.

"The X7s weren't prepared for a long term away mission like that," Lydecker offered as an excuse. "Once inside the Terminal City compound they were out of contact with their handlers. We couldn't risk audio transmission because the signals might have been intercepted by God knows who, and their sonar has only about a fifty foot range. The X7s were bred to be reliant on superiors, not to act on their own. Their programming was tragically limited."

"They were eating people, for God's sakes!" the Manticore matriarch spat, her ruby lips curling in a sneer.

"Their basic instincts overcame their discipline," Lydecker admitted. "We'll learn from this mistake and take steps to correct it in the future."

"Bah!" the woman swore, swirling her red cape around slender shoulders in a way that would have looked ludicrously villainous on almost anyone else as she paced the small office.

"He's right where we expected him to be," the colonel offered. "It's not as if 494's really gotten away."

"He's supposed to be dead!" Ms. Brown stopped and pinned Lydecker with a frigid stare. "Or, better yet, in my hands."

"Why do you want that kid so badly anyway?" Lydecker had to ask. "What's so special about 494? You could have your pick of a dozen X5s on the base if you just wanted ... companionship. Any one of them would take orders a hell of a lot better than that rogue."

"I want him because he turned me down," Melissa Brown said, her voice low and ugly. "I want him because he chose another woman instead of me. Men don't say no to me, colonel. Not ever." Her eyes challenged him to deny that statement.

Lydecker, wisely, remained completely silent. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"He needs to be shown who's boss," she snarled. "And failing that, he needs to be destroyed so as not to set a bad example for the others."

"We're in agreement there," the colonel said tiredly, rubbing one side of his weathered cheek with his fingers and looking out the window at the New Manticore compound. Troops were practicing martial arts on the parade ground, a squad of X6s under the command of Lane and Devon. "All we need is for more of our X5s to get rebellious thoughts in their pretty little heads."

"So," Ms. Brown said. "Tell me your plan."

"What plan?"

"Your plan to kill that piece of good-for-nothing X5 shit."

"Sending more X series after him would probably be futile," Lydecker replied quietly. "494 will be ready and waiting for that, and I don't want to lose any more men."

"What then?"

"I'm thinking that the real way to take down that boy is to get at him through his Achilles heel."

"452?" Ms. Brown said, one perfectly plucked eyebrow arching. "Max?"

Lydecker nodded. "Exactly. She's his weak spot. We need to get the two of them away from Terminal City. Max will be the distraction. 494 will be so wrapped up in protecting her he'll leave himself vulnerable."

"452 will simply back him up," the woman said scathingly. "She'll be an additional obstacle."

"Not necessarily," Lydecker replied, a gleam in his eye as the idea began to take shape in his mind. "As I said, Max will be a distraction, especially if the two of them are at odds with one another."

"You mean fighting?"

The colonel nodded. "Get those two kids away from their support system, set them at each other's throats, and I have a feeling 494 won't be such a difficult target after all."

"And the girl?"

Lydecker shrugged. "I'm beginning to think I made a mistake leaving Max on her own in the world when I had a chance to bring her in. With her mate dead, she'll be extremely vulnerable, both physically and emotionally -- an X5 ripe for reindoctrination."

"Do it," Ms. Brown ordered. "Set the trap."

Lydecker leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. "I will," he promised. "And you know what? I think I just may have the perfect bait."