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"How'd you find me?"

The lithely handsome X5 shrugged. Dressed all in black, droplets of rain from the storm outside glistened on Alec's leather clad shoulders making him look all the more like the creature of darkness he was. "Let's just say I have resources too," he said with a wicked smirk.

Lydecker turned around slowly, hands out in the open, knowing better than to make any sudden moves. Although most who associated with his kids thought of them as completely human, he knew better. If he wanted to, 494 could have him by the throat in a fraction of a second, and the fact this X5 in particular had every reason in the world to kill him made him all the more cautious.

The colonel was in his pajamas, awakened from sleep, not by the sound of the Unit's stealthy intrusion into his hotel room, but by the sound of the Glock 65 in 494's hand being cocked. He knew his own pistol, stashed beneath his pillow, would be of no use against the X5's speed and accuracy, nor the darkness of the room a cover.

"Do you mind if I turn on a light?" Lydecker asked calmly. "If you're going to shoot me, I'd like to look you in the eye when you do it."

"Go ahead," Alec said, gesturing at the bedside lamp with the barrel of the gun. "Doesn't matter to me."

Lydecker snapped on the nightstand light and squinted up at the intruder. "You don't want to do this, son," he said quietly. "Believe it or not, I'm on your side. New Manticore is growing stronger by the day, rebuilding its facilities, acquiring new technology, scientists, and rounding up its wandering soldiers. The Committee wants it rebuilt within a year. There's no way you, Max, and the others can remain autonomous. But with my help you can at least retain some measure of control over your lives."

"Your help?" Alec raised an eyebrow, the gun never wavering. "Is blackmailin' Max by threatenin' me your idea of help?"

"It was the quickest way to gain her cooperation," Lydecker said. A noisy truck whizzed by on the highway outside the roadside hotel, the sound incredibly loud in the thin-walled room. Alec flinched -- and Lydecker grinned. "Your hearing was always more acute than the others," he said softly. "Yours and your brother's. One of the scientists who concocted your DNA mix said you had, and I quote, 'the ears of a Peruvian fruit bat'." He regarded Alec almost fondly. "Each pair of my kids had unique gifts. Yours was your exceptional hearing and an uncanny procedural memory. Max's was her extreme night vision and supple musculature."

"We didn't ask for any of your so-called 'gifts'," Alec said cynically. "So cut the biology lesson. I know exactly who and what I am, and I've learned to live with it. Oh, and you forgot to mention the seizures, by the way, the part of that 'gift' that keeps on giving."

"Oh but do you really know who you are?" Lydecker chuckled. "Max thinks she's human. So do you. But neither of you are, and therein lies the problem, doesn't it? The source of all your frustrations."

"I'm better than human," Alec said, clenching his jaw.

"Exactly!" Lydecker pounced on his words. "You're a god damned supersoldier for Christ's sake! And it's about time you started acting like one!"

Alec shrugged, a little smile tugging the corner of his full handsome lips now. "What's a supersoldier to do?" he said sarcastically. "When his command decides he's apparently outlived his usefulness?" The X5's finger began to tighten on the trigger.

"I'm trying to help you!" Lydecker cried out, stalling for time, prolonging his life.

"You tried to destroy us!" Alec shouted right back. "You tried to kill us all!"

So that was it, Lydecker suddenly realized -- the key to what made 494 tick. He'd been betrayed by his own command, his world ripped out from under him, everything he'd been taught and believed in proved a lie. No wonder he'd allied himself with Max, an X5 who'd already successfully adapted to the so-called "real" world, and gone native. No wonder he now hated those who'd created him, raised him, trained him -- not for what they did to him as a child, what they'd made him do, but for abandoning him. Of course the colonel knew that most of the surviving Manticore alum probably felt that way, but he'd never been quite sure about 494's motives. This could be useful. He could still be turned ...

"Put the gun down, son," Lydecker said gently. "And we'll talk. I'm not the one who betrayed you back then. I'm not the one who ordered Manticore burned to the ground. That was Renfro and The Committee. I fought her every step of the way, son, trying to protect you and the others. And I'll fight for you still."

Alec smirked, then with another shrug of black leather-clad shoulders and a slight bow, tucked the Glock into the waistband of his dark jeans -- a gesture that gave the colonel little comfort. The gun was, afterall, hardly necessary. It wasn't as if as if the X5 couldn't snap his enemy's neck with one hand any time he chose -- actually, come to think of it Lydecker realized, a much quieter and more stealthy way for a trained assassin like 494 to accomplish his mission anyway.

"You're a smart kid, 494. You know better than to destroy the only one who can offer you the protection you and your people need," the colonel tried. "Max knows too."

"And that, 'Deck, is the only reason you're still alive," Alec agreed cheerfully. Then his hazel eyes grew cold as he sobered. "I didn't come here tonight to kill you -- unless I have to. Max would be beyond pissed if I did. She still thinks you're useful. I came here to tell you to leave Max and me alone. Get off our backs."

"If I leave you alone, you'll be dead or captured within two weeks," Lydecker said, and he wasn't lying. "As I told Max, foreign nationals are on the move. The transgenics of Terminal City have to be brought back into the fold of the military where they can be both protected and utilized."

"And if we don't want your protection?"

"Termination," Lydecker said bluntly. "Every breathing transgenic will be destroyed." He sighed heavily, deciding to come clean with the boy. "Truth is," he said, "Max will cooperate because I told her I'd kill you if she didn't. But you ... you'll cooperate because you're far more of a soldier than she is and you see the big picture here. You'll go along with the plan not for personal reasons, but for professional ones. You know what I'm saying is true, and you know I'm offering the only chance for your people to live."

Alec didn't say anything, but stood with his head slightly cocked to one side, regarding the colonel as if he were an annoying problem he was trying to figure out how to solve.

In turn, Lydecker studied his kid, X5-494, a soldier who'd had disciplinary problems his entire life back at Manticore not to mention a psychotic twin brother. Under the old regime, this Unit would have been put down long ago. But that was before the threat of the Comet Plague and before 452's lifesaving DNA was discovered ... before 494 was determined to be the male most compatible to sire her offspring ... before there were so few X5s left alive in the world ...

"You know you have to take the deal," the colonel said in the silence. "Just like Max knows. The two of you will work for Manticore, and we'll provide protection for you and your people. Both sides benefit, and everyone stays alive and relatively free."

494 was staring at him. Lydecker shivered, and realized it was because when he looked into the X5's eyes there was this uncanny feeling that, even without a gun in his hand, the boy was taking aim.

Thunder clapped outside. Abruptly, Alec released the older man from that near-supernatural moment and headed for the door.

"Does this mean we have a deal, you and me?" Lydecker asked.

Slowly, those cat eyes turned on him again. "We have a deal," Alec grated, as if the words were costing him dearly to say. "But if you betray me and mine, I will kill you."

"Understood," the colonel replied.

And then the X5 was gone into the stormy night, leaving Donald Lydecker to collapse shaking on the bed, feeling as if he'd just cheated death one more time.

*****

Max's cell phone chirped, waking them both. With a grumble, Alec turned over in bed, slipping his arm out from beneath his mate, and fumbled for the device on the nightstand.

"Here," he said groggily, handing it to Max. Yawning widely, he sniffed and noted the time as he ran fingers back through already mussed hair -- 3:05 a.m. Great. His "little talk" with Lydecker had left him jazzed (not to mention Max's scolding for ostensibly putting himself in such danger), and he'd had a hard time getting to sleep even after the "make up sex." Two hours of shut-eye just didn't quite do it for him, genetically enhanced body or not. Unlike Max, he wasn't primarily nocturnal.

Her voice not much more coherent than Alec's, Max snapped the device open and mumbled, "Talk to me."

"Eight a.m., sector eleven, Union Bay," Lydecker's voice rasped. "There's a warehouse on the dock, number fourteen. Both of you meet me there. You've got a mission."

Max opened her mouth to ask the colonel just who the hell he thought he was, giving them orders, but the line went dead before she could vent the words.

Eyebrows raised, Alec looked at her expectantly.

"I guess this is it," Max said slowly, staring at the phone still in her hand.

"Some kinda mission?" he asked.

Max nodded. "Sector eleven, eight a.m." She chewed on her lower lip. "It was an order, Alec. Question is, do we obey or not?"

"Eleven?" Alec growled. "Hell, that's three sectors away ... four if the main checkpoint's still closed like it was last week. "It'll take us at least two hours to get there which means, by the time we get ready, this night's pretty well shot."

"You're saying we should take the mission?" Max asked.

"I'm sayin' we give it a try," Alec clarified. After his talk with the big man, he'd come to the conclusion that, like it or not, Lydecker did have something to offer their people -- and that he was also probably telling the truth about the government planning to take over the Manticore refugees. Sort of a "better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't" situation.

"We go then?" Max whispered, for once looking to him for the lead.

"We go," Alec said firmly. Then his voice softened as he lightly stroked the side of her cheek with his hand. "Together."