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"Max, you're awful quiet," Alec said as he wriggled uncomfortably in his coach class airline seat. Wedged between Max (who had the window seat) and a snoring overweight Korean business man, his long legs were aching from being essentially folded up in his own lap for the past six hours. "You know," he added, "if Lydecker had sprung for another two hundred bucks we could have flown direct. I mean, I know the guy is a cheap skate and all, but five layovers is a bit much. Talk about an out-of-the-way route. Our boarding pass in Des Moines was an ear of corn for God's sake."

He smiled at his own little joke, hoping to provoke one from Max as well, but she just continued staring out the window. "Max," he said again. "What's wrong. I know you're upset about your mother bein' dead and all, but it's not like you really knew the woman."

Max turned weary eyes to her man. "Don't you ever wonder about your own birth mother, Alec?" she asked. "Who she was, what she was like ... if she loved you?"

"No," he said firmly. "I can honestly say the thought never even crossed my mind." He bit down on his lower lip. "Max, I was at Manticore almost my whole life. I saw what the surrogate program was all about. The girls they used were picked up off the streets, people no one would miss, mostly cleaned up junkies and whores. Your mother was apparently an exception, but mine ..." A sad little smile. "Mine was probably a hooker or an addict. So far as I'm concerned, she was just a container, no emotional attachment at all, and as for her feelings about it ... well, I imagine that baby in her womb was just a bunch of dollar signs. The surrogates were pretty well paid for their services and silence you know."

"Alec, I made a deal with Lydecker."

The U-turn in their conversation threw Alec for a moment, and his mind scrambled for footing. "Excuse me?" he managed to say. "You did what?"

Max's shoulders sagged with a huge sigh. "I told Lydecker you and me would work for him again, as well as some of the others in Terminal City. In return, we get protection for our people from foreign agents and medical help." She looked up at him. "It's not a bad deal, really. Sooner or later we were going to come under fire from the Chinese or the Saudis or South Africans. Lydecker's right about that. We're too valuable, Alec ... our bodies too much in demand in the world."

She was leaving something out. Alec's intuition was keen when it came to Max, and he could tell she wasn't giving him the whole story. "There's more," he said, crossing arms in front of his chest and trying once again to ease the nasty cramp in the side of his right leg. "Spill it. What else does the bastard want?"

"It's not what else he wants," Max said. "It's what he promises not to do."

Alec's brows drew together in a scowl. He didn't understand.

"If I hadn't agreed to the deal, you'd be dead now."

"He blackmailed you?" Alec said, not at all surprised. He took Max's hand in his own. "Hey," he said gently, concealing the anger he felt about the whole situation. "I know you were tryin' to protect me, but you should have told me. I can take care of myself. I'd have gotten away, laid low for awhile until the heat was off. Max, you don't hafta look out for me."

"X5-600 had you in his sites in the hotel lobby," Max said. "You'd have been dead in seconds if I hadn't agreed to Lydecker's terms." She looked up at him. "I had no choice, Alec. No choice at all." She exhaled shakily. "I still don't. None of us do. If we don't work for Manticore and accept their protection, sooner or later we'll be taken by a foreign government." There was irony now in her voice. "We're incredibly valuable bio weapons, Alec. Worth millions for our DNA strands alone. Now that Manticore's in disarray, the labs gone, the scientists scattered, we're even more desired than before by the Committee. They've found they can't force us back into the military program." She squeezed his hand and gave him a sympathetic smile. "You taught them that lesson. But that doesn't mean they're just going to leave us alone -- ever. They'll make use of us, Alec. One way or the other. Lydecker's deal didn't seem so bad to me. It lets us keep what we've created in Terminal City ... keeps our family together ... keeps you safe ..." Her voice trailed off.

"Keeps the colonel's foot on our throats," Alec added dryly. "Max, Lydecker wants me dead. He's gonna make a run at me deal or not."

"He promised!" Max said loudly.

The businessman beside Alec stirred in his sleep and the X5 shot his mate a stern look. Keep it down.

"He promised you'd come to no harm so long as I provide Manticore with the services of our people on occasion," she said more quietly.

Alec looked at Max for a long moment. "What if it was Logan?" he asked. "What if it had been Logan that Lydecker was usin' for blackmail, back when the man was pretty much the sum total of your emotional world? What would you have done then?"

Max opened her mouth to answer, but then she closed it again, her dark eyes clouding. "I ... I don't know," she stammered.

"When White had Logan kidnapped," Alec pointed out, "you went after your man with guns blazin' -- figuratively speaking of course since you hate the whole gun thing." He shrugged. "Why roll over this time?"

"This is different, Alec," Max said quietly. "It's not just Manticore. Lydecker's right about the foreigns. We've got more than one enemy to worry about. With Logan, it was just the Breeding Cult."

"Just the Breeding Cult?" Alec said, almost laughing. "Max, we went up against hundreds of those bastards in their own stronghold -- and won. We can beat Lydecker and any internationals who make a run at us."

Max was shaking her head. "You don't understand," she said. "I can't risk losing you, not after all we've been through to be together." She squared her shoulders in her seat. "If using Terminal City's population as mercenaries for Manticore keeps you safe ... keeps all of us safe ... then I don't think it's too high of a price to pay."

Alec wanted to argue with her, but something about the look in Max's eyes frightened him. He'd never known her to give up before, and that's what he saw right now on her face -- defeat. But now wasn't the time for this battle. As soon as they got into Seattle he'd go find Lydecker himself and have a "little talk" with the man -- that is, he thought as he glanced out the window at the abandoned agriculture land skimming below the plane and rubbed an aching calf, if this goddamn flight ever ended.

*****

Melissa Brown, New Manticore's CEO and chief torture-maven, couldn't believe her ears. "You were supposed to bring 494 in for medical experimentation and destruction!" she spat. "Not turn him into a bargaining chip!" She paced her office, the billowy purple skirts of her dress swirling like thunder clouds in the sky. Distractedly, she straightened the lavender felt cap on her head -- an Armani II creation that had cost more money that most people made in a month. "At the very least you should have ordered X5-600 to pull the trigger when he had the chance!" she continued. "494's made a fool of you ... of us ... more times than I care to count. The entire point of the mission was to lure that Unit out into the open so he could be captured or terminated."

"I saw an opportunity and I took it," Lydecker replied calmly. "I saw a way to gain 452's cooperation, as well as some degree of control over the transgenics holed up in Terminal City."

"They're already contained," Ms. Brown said coldly. "The elimination of most of them is currently in the planning stages, as well as the retrieval of the Units we deem salvageable."

"You mean the X5s," Lydecker stated. "452 and 494 are the best of that class," he reminded her. "I'm just doing my job trying to save valuable military property."

Ms. Brown flounced into her plush suede desk chair. "Just neutralize 494," she ordered. "Either bring him to me, or let X5-600 put a bullet in that handsome head of his after all."

"Yes, mam," Lydecker replied with a half-salute, although the look in his eyes belied the promise. The colonel had no intention of killing or turning over the man who was the key to X5-452's continued cooperation, which, in turn, was the key to his future career.