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"Why didn't you ever answer me?" Max asked.

They'd finally made it to a bed. Now, she was snuggled like a kitten in his arms, the musky scent of their sex filling his nostrils ... his mind ... their sweat and body fluids mingled. Dawn would be breaking soon, but they still had a little while before they had to face the day and the reality of their situation.

Alec thought carefully before answering.

"I almost did once," he finally said. He licked his lips. The taste of her sex was still in his mouth ... a taste he loved. "But I told myself it would be better for us to have a clean break -- that I'd never be able to make a life on my own if I thought there was any hope of coming back to you. And I wanted you to be able to move on too, Max." He shifted his position so he could look down into her upturned face. "But everything's different now," he whispered, nuzzling her hair with his nose, then kissing the dark strands tenderly. "No matter what the danger to me, I wanna come home with you. It's where I belong."

"Alec," Max said his name tenderly. "You can't."

Alec sat up in the bed, his green-gold eyes puzzled. "Why the hell not?" he asked, sounding like a whiny little boy who'd just been told he couldn't have ice cream. The thought that Max might not want him back had never even occurred to him -- not after the night they'd just spent together.

"You don't understand," Max said helplessly.

Alec took hold of her shoulders and gave her a little shake making her naked breasts bounce like plump ripe fruit. "Then explain it to me," he demanded. But then suddenly a horrible thought occurred to him. "Is it Logan?" he whispered. "Are you back with Logan?"

"No!" Max said adamantly -- and he believed her.

"Then is there someone else?" Alec asked in a rush, needing to get this over with. "Zack? Are you and farm boy--?"

Max made a wry face. "Of course not," she declared. "Zack's been a big help. He's my second in command now. But he's fallen in love with Gem. They've been a couple for quite awhile. He a great daddy to Eve."

Alec tried to picture the big taciturn X5-599 as a "daddy," and couldn't quite manage it. But if Max said it was so, who was he to argue?

"There's no one else, Alec," Max said gently. "I didn't want to replace you. I couldn't replace you." And then she pinned him down. "What about you? Don't try and tell me you've been celibate for a whole year because there's no way in hell that would happen."

"Maybe I was pinin' for you all that time," Alec tried, managing to sound indignant, "and was too upset to even look at another woman." He sniffed loudly, as if offended by the very question.

Max narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, all right, there were a few women," Alec groused, caving in and coming clean. "There always are for me. You know that, Max. I can't help it.. It's liked when you're in heat, only for me it's pretty much twenty-four/seven. Without you there to keep me content I--" He hesitated, not knowing how to put this delicately.

"You fucked whoever was handy," Max finished for him. "But what I want to know, pretty boy, is if there was anyone special for you. Is there a little missus waiting out in Arkansas for the father of her baby to come home?"

Alec did a double-take at that comment. "Of course not," he said levelly. "And it was Arizona, not Arkansas. Believe me, Max. I don't even remember their names. It was just sex. Not like what we have."

"You mean love?" she said.

"Exactly," Alec agreed, nodding his head. "Love. We love each other, and that's gotta count for somethin' right? And it's why I wanna come back to TC with you right now ... be with my family again."

"We're under The Phoenix Group's control, you know," Max said. "Part of New Manticore, with Lydecker as our commanding officer. We've become the secondary base of operations for the X5s and X6s with the North Dakota facility -- where you had such a lovely vacation that time -- still the primary one. Luckily, they let us keep the others -- the transhumans -- around as well. Mole and Joshua have proven themselves to be useful, and Dix and Luke have been helpful too. So far, Lydecker isn't trying to segregate the X series from the others like they did before at the old Manticore, although they're still keeping the main base pristine -- higher X series only. Seattle's where they let the rabble exist alongside us so-called 'perfect' soldiers."

"Bastard's dream come true, isn't it," Alec said bitterly. "What've they got you doin'?"

"Missions," Max said, the single word explaining it all. "Jobs the regular military can't handle, and undercover work." Suddenly, she kissed him on the lips. "Listen, ass hole, even without you to use as leverage, Lydecker still had plenty of ways to make us ... to make me ... obey. They've got a really tight leash on all of the transgenics."

"What ways?" Alec wanted to know.

"Medical help, for one," Max said. "We really need it -- especially the pregnant females, the X5s' with our seizures, and the nomalies with their quirky DNA. And then there's the constant threat of the government wanting to come in and sterilize us all, plus the do-gooders of the world trying to take our children away saying we're unfit to be parents."

"But we're free citizens," Alec said. "They can't just--"

"Oh, but they can," Max said quietly. She was absently running her fingers over the front of his naked chest, teasing his nipples, but for once Alec didn't find the sensation particularly arousing. What Max was telling him was far more grim than he'd imagined her situation would be.

"We're 'conscripted,' remember?" she continued. "Which means they can legally order us to do anything they want, and do anything to us they want. We're government property again, Alec. In a way, it's as bad as being imprisoned back at Old Manticore. The bars are invisible. But we're still in a cage." Suddenly, she kissed him, then whispered softly in his ear, "I don't want you to be locked in that cage, too, Alec. It would be selfish of me. You'd be better off going back to Little Miss Arkansas."

"Arizona," Alec corrected her absently. Then he frowned. "I'll get you out, Max. ... take you away from here. We'll disappear together, like we've talked about."

Max was shaking her head no. "I can't leave, Alec."

"Why the hell not?" he demanded to know. "Because of Joshua? The others?"

"Yes," she said quickly, jumping on the reason. "I can't leave my family behind to suffer while I run away again -- not like I did before -- when my sibs and me ran from Manticore leaving you and the others to pay for our freedom with your lives."

Alec saw her reasoning, but his keen ability to read people told him there were things she wasn't tell him.

"How did you know to show up at the dock last night?" Max suddenly asked.

Alec smiled a bit as he answered, a little ashamed at what he had to say. "'Cause I got my butt caught by the Reds three days ago," he confessed. "And I overheard their plans for the ambush."

"I gather you got your butt free," Max deduced. "And then you decided to play hero and come to the rescue? Why didn't you just contact me and tell me what was goin' down? It would have saved lies."

Alec knew he had to be honest here. "Because I wasn't sure I wanted to jump back into your life," he said. "At first, I was just gonna help you out then disappear again. But after I saw you ... after you sent that message ... I couldn't just leave."

Max was looking at him strangely.

"What?" Alec asked, his hazel-green eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Max, what aren't you tellin' me?"

She seemed to come to some sort of decision. He saw it in her eyes. "Look at this," she suddenly said. Slipping out of his arms, she turned around, lifted up her long hair, and showed him the back of her neck.

"Your barcode," Alec said. "So what? I've got one too, remember? Proof of purchase?"

"Below the barcode," Max said. "See it?"

Alec focused his eyes on the back of his lover's neck, and then suddenly he did see it -- a small silver circle about the size of a pencil eraser on her spine, just below the black bars of her Manticore brand.

His mouth gaped. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked in a hushed tone, not trying to conceal the horror in his voice.

"Bright boy," Max said quietly, lowering her hair and turning to face him once more. "But then I figured you'd recognize it since you once wore the jewelry yourself."

"Why the hell did you let 'em put a pop gun on your brain stem, Max!" Alec cried. "I was gone, supposedly dead. What did Lydecker threaten you with?"

"Like I said," Max replied. "It's complicated, and a long story. But the upshot is that all of the transgenics in TC are wearing one of these. It was part of the deal that allowed us to remain together as a semi-free community in Seattle."

"What?" Alec said, his eyes darkening with anger, his voice sarcastic. "And now Lydecker or Phoenix or whoever the hell has their finger on the trigger can kill any one of you whenever and wherever they feel like it? I assume they're radio activated."

"The device's use as a terminator is secondary," Max said, her voice oddly flat. "It's primary function is to act as a tracker. That's a cessium chip lodged against my brain stem, Alec. Lydecker and his people know every second of every day exactly where I am ... where all of us are. Right now, for example, 'Deck thinks I'm doin' recon work for our next mission. He also knows that O.C.'s my friend and won't think it odd I'm at her apartment for the night." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Supposedly the explosive component would only be put to use if we were captured and beyond all hope of recovery. That way our DNA and biology can't fall into enemy hands." She smiled bitterly. "They call it 'national security'."

Alec was just staring at her, for once at a loss for words.

"Alec," Max said, taking hold of his upper arms in a grip of steel to emphasize the urgency of what she was about to say. "If you come back to TC with me, Lydecker will put one of these in you too. It's the only way he'll let you stay. He'll take away your freedom forever! Just like he's taken away mine!"