Photo courtesy of Supernaturalfan.net

*****

Most of the time they left him alone, in solitary, the guards having been given orders that the prisoner was extremely dangerous and shouldn’t be approached without special precautions no matter what.

Alec didn’t mind. Not really. Logan meant for him to be physically uncomfortable, allowing him nothing to wear but hospital scrubs in the unheated cell (sometimes he could see the vapor of his own breath), and not even the luxury of a pillow or blanket to ease the hardness of the stainless steel shelf which served as his bunk. There was a small sink with a cold water tap and a toilet. Other than that, the X5 had no amenities whatsoever, nothing to read, no television, no one to talk to, no way to even tell the passing of time other than his own inborn sense. They fed him twice a day -- the tray shoved through a small slot in the metal door -- nondescript food rich enough to nourish his high metabolism but tasting like dreck. Alec ate it though, just like he regularly took the tryptophan tablets they supplied him with -- a whole bottle they let him use at-will. At least he was feeling better on that front ... no seizures or blinding headaches lately.

All 494 could really do was sleep, exercise, and think ... meditate one might call it ... the way he reached Talon ... the reason that, in spite of all Logan’s precautions, he wasn’t really alone.

Alec was resting now, arms behind his head as he lay on the steel shelf, the feel of strong, lithe muscles rippling along the length of his body beneath the scrubs comforting. A thousand push-ups a day were doing the trick, along with a thousand crunches ... a thousand jumping jacks ... Logan might be taking his blood but he wasn’t doing any lasting harm to him physically. What worried Alec was that a time might come when Logan -- as previously hinted -- would want more than just his blood ... something more vital. The infusions of transgenic DNA had partly worked, Cale looking visibly younger the last time he’d deigned to visit his prisoner. Alec figured that had been about two weeks ago. However, from what the medic who harvested his blood said, the X5 gleaned that Cale was far from cured, and in fact was regressing more rapidly between treatments than ever before. This couldn’t go on much longer.

And then there was Max to worry about. He’d heard nothing about her ... didn’t know if she was even in the same compound. He needed to get out of here soon -- something he’d let his brother-ship know in no uncertain terms. Talon was working on a plan, which at the moment needed checking. Feigning sleep for the ever-watchful video cameras, Alec closed his eyes and let his mind touch Talon’s. Then he smiled. He couldn’t get all the specifics, but the sense of success in his twin’s thoughts was unmistakable.

At long last Dean and Sam had been found, and more importantly they knew he and Max were in trouble as well as where to find him. He didn’t know how Talon had done it, but the feeling of accomplishment and relief from above was very vivid.

Relaxing more, letting go of his contact with the ship, Alex allowed himself the luxury of what he supposed was a deeper form of meditation ... a state of being that he’d discovered by accident. He didn’t know if it was endemic to X5’s, the ability to “see” a bit beyond what he should be able to, but while exploring his empathic link with Talon he’d apparently opened up another door in the extrasensory package Sandeman had endowed his Manticore children with. Much like Max’s ability to occasionally see visions of the future, both near and far, Alec had discovered that he, too, could “sense” (see even) a few seconds beyond the here and now. For example, right this moment, he knew Logan’s doctor and a contingent of guards were on their way down the hall to the cell, transfusion gear in hand. Time for another bloodletting, and another treatment for Cale.

When the guards opened the door, the X5 was sitting up on the bunk, his mouth quirked in a sly smile. “Mornin’ gents,” Alec said easily, holding out his arm and not offering so much as an iota of resistance so as not to provoke a stunning. “Time for Cale’s transgenic cocktail?”

There was no reply. It was rare if one of them spoke so much as a word to him. A rubber tie was placed around his arm while two guards held TASERs at ready. Alec gritted his teeth slightly as the needle plunged home, the pressure was released, and a large vial of his rich red blood was drawn upwards by the plunger. “Is Max still here?” he tried quietly, his full attention on the doctor who’s fearful blue eyes met his then looked quickly away.

No answer, of course. Not out loud. But Alec’s smile widened just a fraction. He’d gotten what he needed just then -- a fleeting hint of the truth from the man’s mind. No details. But he could tell that Max was, indeed, still near ... very near. And hopefully that would make what was about to happen much, much easier.

*****

X5-494’s feeling of smugness, however, didn’t last long. Soon after the medics left, as he sat relaxed on the metal bunk idly studying the door and daydreaming about the first thing he was going to do after he and Max were free (eat a big steak -- rare -- with baked potato and all the sides), a crawling sensation he hadn’t felt in a very long time began to skitter up along his spine. “Hello Ames,” he said softly when the cell door opened five seconds later.

“We meet at last, 494,” a younger version of the Ames White Alec had come to know and hate replied, the impeccability of his tailored suit just as annoying, and the thin line of his mouth just as cruel as the X5 remembered.

“We’ve met before, you idiot.”

“Not in this lifetime,” White replied softly. “Not in my world.”

“Ah,” Alec said. “But in mine. Where, by the way, you’re dead. And for that reason alone, you should be afraid of me.”

“I am,” White said as he drew a Glock 95 pistol from the shoulder holster beneath his suit coat and pointed it at Alec’s head. “Very. “Which is something I’m going to remedy right now. Cale’s addiction to your blood aside, you’re too dangerous to exist.”

“Wait!” Alec said, sitting up straighter and holding out one hand, alarmed by the unexpected turn of the conversation and stalling for time while he figured out a way to keep breathing. “Answer me one thing first.”

“And that would be?”

“Your father. Why didn’t you stop him from makin’ the transgenics a long time ago? Why did you let Manticore evolve? Wouldn’t it have been easier to nip the thing in the bud years ago when Sandeman first started experimenting with his own super race?”

“Of course it would have been easier,” White said, his eyes narrowing and his finger quivering on the trigger. “My people -- when they found out what my father was attempting ... creating a race of animal abominations mixed with our precious DNA and abilities -- ordered his death. But for years we couldn’t find him, and when we did he was too well protected by the military. We were just closing in on him when he chose to disappear, abandoning you -- or rather the you you would have been here -- and your brothers and sisters to the military ... to Lydecker.” He smiled. “But all of that is being taken care of soon. Thanks to you and your pretty little mate the government has seen what monsters it’s created and, if all goes as planned, soon the X5 children will be slated for euthanasia.”

“Then they’re not dead yet?” Alec had to ask, although annoyed at himself for caring. This wasn’t what he was here for.

“No,” White said, pursing his lips. “But they will be just as soon as those bleeding hearts on The Committee can be persuaded that -- children or not -- the X5s are too dangerous to be allowed to exist. It’s not as if we haven’t put down young soldiers before. The previous series are already dead, some on ice for future study, and there’s an indefinite hold on the X6’s. They’re thinking that implants, robotics, and DNA manipulation for existing human soldiers is now the way to go. Not that it will do the Ordinaries any good in the long run ... not when my people strike.”

“You mean The Pulse,” Alec said, wanting verification. “And the following plague, which by the way I wouldn’t count on if I were you.”

White’s brows drew down. “Why? What do you know?”

Alec just smiled, his hazel-green eyes inscrutable.

“You thought you were going to stop us, didn’t you?” White said. “You couldn’t save your own world in your own time so you came back to mine.” He raised the barrel of the Glock again. “Nice plan. Too bad it didn’t work.” His finger pressed the trigger--

--and Alec blurred. One second he was seated on the bunk, the next the gun was in the X5’s hand and Ames White was slumped against the far wall of the cell, shaking his head, stunned but not unconscious.

Nervously, Alec glanced up at the camera in the ceiling. “Does Logan -- the young one I mean -- know you were going to kill me?” he asked.

White spit at him.

“Does he?” Alec snarled, on top of the man in an instant and raising him up by his shirt front. “Because I can’t imagine him approving of you killing his mentor’s fucking ‘golden goose’.”

“No,” White said through gritted teeth as Alec pressed the barrel of the Glock to his temple.

“Well,” Alec said, again glancing up at the camera. “He does now. Careless of you, Ames.”

“You really think I’d be foolish enough to come in here and assassinate Cale’s precious X5 without first covering my tracks,” White said. “Logan trusts me right now -- both of him. Implicitly. It’s why he’s such great help to my people, him thinking all of the research I’ve had him funding is being done for the good of mankind. Talk about a dupe ...”

Alec pressed the barrel of the gun harder into White’s temple, the whole time very much aware that this man was pretty much his equal in strength, albeit not quickness.

“I looped the tape,” White said.

The X5’s eyes lit up. “Good,” he said simply. “Which means no one will see that I’ve done this.” Neatly flipping the gun in his hand, he cracked White on the side of the head, sending the man’s body slumping to the floor. Standing above him, Alec briefly contemplated finishing the job ... killing the bastard. He wouldn’t need to use a bullet. There didn’t have to be any sound. One quick snap of the neck with his assassin’s hands would suffice. However, White was his only lead into the Breeding Cult. It might take him months to find another. And he needed to have access to the Cult’s main headquarters if he was truly going to stop The Pulse and their plan of genocide for the human race. And just when did I catch Max’s goddamned save-the-world syndrome? he found himself wondering briefly as he realized just what he was about to do. “Damn, it’s a helluva lot easier bein’ a bad guy,” he muttered out loud.

However, now was not the time for epiphanies. Now, he had to get himself and Max away from Logan -- both of him. Help should be on the way. Talon told him so. But when that help would arrive he didn’t know, and this was just too good of an opportunity to miss. Stuffing the bottle of tryptophan into the pocket of his scrubs, he checked the clip in the Glock then moved toward the unlocked door of his cell.

*****

Max was close by. He just knew. And Alec found himself heading for the next room down the hallway, certain he’d find his mate in a cage much like his own. However, his co-called “abilities” had never been of the kind to provide specifics ...

The X5 paused, hand on the door handle but not turning it, every sense attuned and wishing like hell that he had true telepathy. He honestly didn’t know if Max was inside. For all he knew there could be a large guard contingency on the other side of that panel just waiting to blast him full of holes, or worse -- one of the Logan Cales in which case they’d probably put him in a permanent coma or cut a piece out of his brain.

Hefting the Glock pistol in his right hand, Alec let go of the door handle with his left and slowly backed up, finding it incredibly hard to tear himself away from the feeling of Max. However, the soldier in him knew full well that now was a time for retreat. After all, if he was caught, it would all be for nothing.

Forcing himself to turn around, bare feet silent on the linoleum floor, the X5 padded up the hallway toward the well-marked elevators and stairwell. The cameras above would, of course, pick up his progress. However, no alarms had yet sounded and if he was lucky the guards monitoring the security equipment wouldn’t see him right away.

The stair well was cool and quiet, smelling stale and vaguely of take-out food, the only sound the faint echo of his own breathing and feet on the cement. Taking the steps three at a time, the X5 sped upwards, toward the surface of Cale’s office building and the streets of the city above. Alec knew Seattle like the back of his own hand -- or at least post-Pulse Seattle. Once outside he’d be able to disappear, and he defied Logan or anyone else to find him if he didn’t want to be found. Talon would then help him, and Sam and Dean were on their way.

The stairs opened out onto the ground level mezzanine that served as the front foyer for Cale Enterprises. Peeking through a crack, Alec realized his first true problem. The lobby was filled with people, it being the height of the working day. His hospital scrubs would attract attention, not to mention his bare feet. Glancing behind him, his keen hearing didn’t detect any sound of pursuit, but the X5 knew he had only minutes left before someone found White’s unconscious body in his cell below and sounded the alarm.

Alec was just about ready to make a dash across the lobby anyway for the revolving front doors when he saw something that took a moment to process. Then he blinked, shook his head, blinked again ... and a wide grin bared his white teeth.

There, parked bold as you please on the street at a meter right outside the front doors of Cale Enterprises, was a black ‘67 Chevy Impala. And there, walking through those front doors, were his two human brothers -- to the rescue.

“Stay right where you are!” a familiar voice commanded as Alec was about to launch himself across the foyer.

His head whipping around, the X5 spotted Logan Cale (the younger) standing framed in, of all things, the men’s room doorway just to the right of the entrance. Sam and Dean couldn’t see him, nor could they see the mean looking pistol the man was holding in his hand pointed right at them.

“Don’t!” Alec shouted, instantly stepping into the clear with both of his hands held high, the Glock tucked into the back of his scrub pants.

“Stand down!”

“Standing down,” Alec replied calmly with a quick glance in Sam and Dean’s direction. The two young men had quickly sized up the situation and were hesitating, not advancing further into the building but rather standing still in front of the main desk beside a confused looking bespectacled security guard.

“Sir?” the guard said to Logan Cale, his boss.

“Everything’s fine, Randolph,” Logan replied easily, stepping out into the main room but with the gun still trained on Sam and Dean.

“Should I call the police, sir?”

“Not necessary,” Logan said, his voice tight. Alec noticed his hands were shaking as well, a sure sign that this version of Cale was not exactly a soldier. He took a step forward, then another.

“I said stand down!” Logan shouted, the gun now pointed at the X5.

“I am,” Alec said calmly. “Just ... don’t hurt anyone.”

“Call building security,” Logan said. “Get them up here.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard replied, picking up a phone.

Alec looked toward his two brothers, catching Dean’s eye, and his sibling nodded. It was all the signal the X5 needed. In a jump worthy of his feline ancestry, the young transgenic launched himself into the air across the wide expanse of the open mezzanine, twisting in mid leap to avoid the bullet from Cale’s pistol as he spun and drew the Glock. When he landed he was less than six feet from the astonished enemy, and before Cale could even close his mouth he was beside the man, the gun pressed into the side of his head and Logan’s arm twisted in a painful lock that made him drop his own weapon to the floor. “Where’s Max?” Alec hissed in the man’s ear.

Logan actually managed to smile a little bit at the question. “Naked in my bed,” he grated through teeth clenched with pain.

Alec increased the pressure and Cale cried out.

“Where’s Max?” he repeated.

“I just fucked her,” Cale said. “I fuck her every day. She loves it. She’s forgotten all about you.”

Alec raised his eyes to meet Dean’s, his brothers having cautiously crossed the floor until they were only a few feet away while the onlookers either edged toward the doors or stood huddled trying to not attract attention. Several were dialing cell phones ...

“Alec,” Sam said softly. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

“Not without Max,” Alec said adamantly, his voice thick with anger. “She’s here. I know she is.”

“And we don’t have the time or resources to dig her out of this rabbit warren,” Dean replied.

An elevator was ascending from the basement -- the one marked “private.” Dean nervously looked toward the doors, then toward the guard who’d picked up the phone.

“Don’t!” Alec roared, aiming effortlessly and sending a bullet into the receiver, blasting it out of the guard’s hand in a shattering rain of plastic bits. The blond young man yelped and ducked behind his desk, only to peer out a few seconds later, blue eyes round and terrified behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Alec!” Dean commanded. “We’re leaving. Come with us or stay here if you want. But if you stay, you’re on your own. I didn’t buy into this just to get me and Sammy killed.”

Alec hesitated, his mind racing. He’d never in a million years abandon Max, but he wasn’t going to be any good to her dead or captured again, nor did he want to be responsible for getting his brothers killed. Dean was right. This wasn’t even their fight. “I’ll be back for her,” he said softly in Cale’s ear. “And if I find out you’ve so much as touched her--” He twisted Logan’s arm until the bone snapped, the rest of his words partly drowned out by the man’s scream. “Tell him he’d better remember just what an X5 is capable of. Tell him he’d better just let her go.”

“He’ll never let her go,” Cale whimpered, sagging to the floor at Alec’s feet as the elevator doors opened and half a dozen armed guards poured onto the floor, pushing through the dozen or so shocked onlookers who’d been standing around watching the drama unfold. “And he’ll never let you go. He can’t!”

“Shut up,” Alec said, lip curling in disgust as the butt of the Glock descended to crack against the side of Cale’s head. He wanted to kill the guy -- badly. But not while Max was missing.

“Quit yappin’ and come on!” Dean yelled, already at the front door, gesturing to Alec to follow.

But he’d waited too long. Guns at ready, the six guards were slowly forming a partial circle around him, another three coming up the hall at his back.

“Drop your weapon, son,” the guard chief said -- an older guy with graying hair who’d accompanied the medics to Alec’s cell a time or two. “There’s no escape.”

Dean and Sam hesitated at the door, Dean’s hand on the glass but not pushing through ... waiting far longer than they should.

Alec straightened slowly, the gun still in his hand but hanging at his side, an easy smile on his lips and death in his eyes. There were nine ... but they were all Ordinaries -- and he didn’t think they’d really dare pull those triggers, not with all the innocent people around.

“You know,” Alec said to the head guard. “I pity you.”

“Why would that be, son?”

“Because in spite of everything you think you know about me ... about Max ... you guys still have no idea what I am.”

The man saw it coming. He had to -- in 494’s eyes ... the narrowing ... the widening pupil ... the hazel morphing to pure green as the X5’s adrenaline surged ... the animal emerging in the human/feline hybrid.

“Alec!” Dean’s voice came from seemingly far away as the young transgenic soldier raised his gun and opened fire. Six shots, six men down, then he whirled and let loose with three more rounds, taking out the ones behind him, the sound of the Glock echoing deafeningly in the enclosed space of the mezzanine as blood poured onto the floor. The screams around Alec seemed as far away as his brothers’ calls, the moment in time surreal, almost as if his own universe was trying to drag him back. However, it wasn’t a temporal disturbance that had taken hold of the X5 but rather the basic instincts instilled in him since before birth. He was a soldier, a survivor, a unique person ... part animal.

And, when an animal is cornered ... threatened--

--it bites.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam screamed in Alec’s ear, his younger brother’s grip on his gun arm strong but nowhere near enough to wrest the weapon away.

Alec looked down at the hot weapon in his hand and shook his head, not certain himself what he’d just done.

“Let’s go!” Sam implored, tugging him toward the door as people continued to cry out around them and the wounded men writhed on the floor. The stench of blood in the air was thick ... intoxicating ...

494 knew he had to get out of here -- now -- or else he was going to kill a lot more people. Manticore’s gift ... Manticore’s curse ...

“I’m coming,” he whispered hoarsely, following Sam and Dean to the door, the street, and the Impala even as sirens wailed in the distance.

*****

“Max,” Alec said thickly as he sat in the back seat of the Impala, hands dangling between his knees and his head bent forward as if in prayer (or as if he was going to vomit). The gun was with Dean. He’d let his brother take it ... hadn’t wanted it any more.

“Where is she?” Sam asked, his voice carefully level.

“Still back there ... I think,” Alec replied softly, glancing up at last. “We need to get her.”

“And we will,” Sam reassured him. “But we need a plan. Preferably one that doesn’t involve killing people this time.”

“Hey,” Dean said from the driver’s side. “When I signed on for this gig it didn’t involve being wanted for mass murder.”

“It was self defense,” Sam quickly said, although there was a shade of doubt in his voice that Alec heard and noted.

“It was instinct,” Alec said tiredly. “Training ... genetics ... brainwashing ... When I’m threatened I can’t help it. I do what I have to do in order to survive.” He glanced up into the rearview mirror, a very small wry smile curving his lips. “They’re not all dead anyway. No need. Some maybe, but most were winged or kneecapped.”

“Small consolation,” Dean said grimly. “You’re still gonna be wanted for murder, or at the very least assault with a deadly weapon, and in case you’d forgotten, you’ve committed all of this carnage while wearin’ my face.”

“It’s not just your face,” Alec said tiredly, leaning back against the seat as the Impala merged onto the freeway. “It’s mine, too.”

“I could argue that,” Dean began. Then he looked into the mirror at his bedraggled, exhausted twin brother and added, “but I won’t. Seriously, though. Do you know where Max is?”

“Locked up like I was probably,” Alec said. “It was just good luck that White decided to come in and off me, and that he took down the video cameras so Cale wouldn’t know. How’d you guys find me anyway?”

“We got a tip via e-mail,” Sam said with a quick look at Dean. “Coordinates. You mean you didn’t send them?”

Alec bit down on his lower lip, a lie ready on his tongue. But he didn’t want to lie. “No,” he said. “A friend did. What? You didn’t think I had resources in this town?”

“What friend?” Dean asked.

Alec swallowed hard and glanced out the window. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try us,” Sam said firmly. “Alec, we’re risking a lot helping you right now. Like Dean said, you’ve probably just involved us in a mass murder. I think you owe us the truth. Who sent that e-mail to us with the coordinates?”

Alec gave up. Shaking his head ruefully, he said, “Talon.”

“Who’s Talon?” Sam asked.

“My brother,” Alec replied lightly. “Our brother.”

“Another one?” Dean practically yelped in dismay as he took his eyes off the road to glance back over the seat at Alec. “Oh, gimme a break! Wait. Don’t tell me this guy’s from the future too?”

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Alec replied calmly. “But he is.”

“And this Talon’s here in Seattle?” Sam pressed.

“No,” Alec said. “Not exactly. He’s--” He looked up toward the ceiling of the Impala.

“Dead?” Dean guessed, not sounding all that surprised. “A ghost? A spirit? No! A demon?”

“Nothing so incorporeal,” Alec said quietly. “Talon’s a starship.”

Dean’s jaw dropped open and he had to quickly turn the wheel of the Chevy when the tires hit the gravel of the berm.

“He came back in time with Max and I. He’s the brain on the ship we were in when I used the spell. He’s in stationery orbit above Seattle right now.”

The Impala skidded to a stop.

*****

Max sat bolt upright in her bunk when the younger version of Logan Cale stormed into the holding area outside of her cell. Looking uncharacteristically disheveled, his glasses askew, he was rubbing the side of his head and holding his right arm against his side, the look in his slightly glassy blue-green eyes maniacally murderous.

She knew in an instant what had happened. “He got away, didn’t he?”

There was the sound of a small motor’s whine from the doorway, and the older Logan Cale from the future wheeled his chair near the bars of her cell. The treatments of X5 blood and hormones were helping a little bit ... keeping the progeria at bay. However, the elderly Logan ... the man Max had once been madly in love with ... the man Manticore science had turned into something else ... still looked at least 40 years older than his younger counterpart. “He’ll come back to me,” this Logan said. “He won’t leave you.” A cruel smile split his face. “And when he does I’ll see to it that the surgeons insure he never tries to run away again.”

“He’ll kill himself first,” Max said.

“He won’t have a chance.”

“And what about me?” she challenged, standing up and moving toward the bars. The younger Logan backed up a few steps and the older one also wheeled away, putting distance between himself and the deadly X5. Max smiled. “You say you want to have sex with me, but you’re afraid to even get within arm’s reach. Now who’s the pussy?”

“Ames is in a coma,” the younger Cale said, glancing at his older self. “Fractured skull. That was never part of the plan. And we’ve got three dead soldiers and half a dozen wounded up in the mezzanine. The press is going to be hard to control. Rumors are going to start.”

“The plan can go on without White,” the older Logan replied. “He did his part. We have our connections to the Cult. Things are still on schedule. And I really don’t care what society thinks about Cale Enterprises. In a short time it won’t matter.”

“What ‘things’?” Max asked quickly.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” the younger Logan said. “Oh, and as for that having sex with you part?” He glanced at the old man beside him. “There are drugs that will make even an X5 docile ... make you enjoy it.”

“Alec will kill you, too,” Max said levelly. Her eyes went to the man in the wheelchair. “Both of you. He’s an assassin, remember?”

“Oh, but we’re well aware of that,” the younger Cale said. “He’s done us a favor already as a matter of fact. Thanks to your breeding partner’s antics I’ve been given the go-ahead by The Committee to have all of the X5 children euthanized. Obviously the series is far too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Up until now the vote would have been close, but it’s clear you’re all a bunch of killers.”

“No!” Max said, grabbing hold of the bars. “They’re innocent children. They’re only what you made them! You can’t kill them for something that’s not their fault!”

“Oh, but we can,” the younger Logan chuckled. “You see, Manticore has now seen firsthand just what those children will become as adults -- you and 494. It’s a nightmare waiting to happen. No. They’ll be put down, and you and your mate -- when he’s re-attained -- will be mentally neutered and kept here for the uses your bodies can be put to ... your antibodies ... his blood and hormones. And in the meantime ...” Both Logan Cales’ smiled this time. “Take off your clothes.”