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This is a stand-alone story, a scene following the events of Max Allan Collins' DARK ANGEL novel SKIN GAME. -- author's note

Artwork courtesy ofJensen Ackles World

4 ... 9 ... 4 ... Ames White found himself hating those three numbers almost as much as he hated her barcode. The young transgenic male had escaped him yet again this morning. To make matters worse, that piece of filth had been instrumental in helping rescue another of his DNA-tainted kind from the streets, a mutant the conclave had been about to execute.

Photo courtesy of Jensen Ackles World

Four times now he'd had the one called "Alec" in his power, and each time the X5 had slipped from his grasp, almost as if the boy truly did possess the nine lives of his genetic ancestor. But one of these days 452's sidekick was going to make a mistake, White consoled himself. One of these days X5-494 would get careless, trust his luck too far ...

Ames grinned then, at the thought of the pain 452 would feel when she found out how her breeding partner had died.

*****

Alec was worried. Max was an hour overdue to meet him at Father's house. They'd separated after pulling off a daring drug money heist down on the docks, procuring much needed cash for the transgenic cause in Terminal City, leading the enemy in different directions and picking their divided pursuers off one-by-one. At least that had been the plan -- but Max had never showed at the rendezvous.

Now, he was searching for her, backtracking through the sewers that had been their escape route, at first worried, then, as another hour went by with no trace of his partner, becoming more frantic. A quick cell phone call to Logan told him she hadn't gone back to Terminal City either. Which meant one of two things.

Max had either been killed ... or captured.

Alec had assumed the enemy was the drug lord they'd so badly pissed off tonight. He wasn't thinking about Ames White at all ... hadn't even considered that the Snake Cult's assassin might still be lurking around spying on him, not after the ass-whooping they'd given the conclave that very morning. The general consensus in TC was that old Ames had slithered off into the darkness somewhere and wouldn't be a threat for awhile.

But Ames White hadn't slithered anywhere -- except into Alec's path in the sewers tonight.

It was perhaps the longest single second of Alec's life -- the time it took for it to register in his brain that Ames White had just stepped out of the shadows, gun drawn and leveled -- and the time it took for him to realize that his death wasn't going to be that easy. Oddly enough, as his body catapulted backwards from the impact of the blow to his head ... as he hit the dirty wet cement ... as the world around him exploded in white sparks then began to recede and darken ... the only thing Alec could think about was how he'd once again failed Max.

*****

Brain pounding, his body one big ache, Alec opened his eyes, blinked away tears of agony, and tried to focus. What he saw made him wonder why the gods were punishing him ... why they didn't just let him die. Ames White stood not three feet away with a gun leveled at his head.

"We've got to quit meeting like this, 494," White chuckled, his evil eyes narrowing as he studied his helpless captive.

Alec swallowed the blood in his mouth and and the rising nausea in his throat. Testing his shackles, he realized he was handcuffed to a chair. White had brought him to a house -- a ritzy place from the looks of things. But he had no idea where he was. For all he knew he could be in another state, another country even. He glanced around, seeking the one person that was worth going through all of this for.

"Where's Max?" Alec snarled, his voice hoarse with pain.

White's eyebrows rose, a look of mock surprise on his vicious face. "Exactly the question I was about to ask you, 494. Where's 452?"

Now the gods were surely laughing, Alec thought as the irony of his situation hit home. White didn't have Max. But he did have him -- again. White was right. They had to quit meeting like this.

Alec resisted the urge to laugh himself, realizing that his mind was drifting dangerously close to delirium. He tested the cuffs, pulling hard against the chain, the cold metal biting deep into his wrists. The steel wasn't going to give. But the chair was a different matter -- and his feet were free. Alec thought that had been careless of White, to leave him a way out ... until he realized how incredibly weak his limbs were. They'd drugged him. The symptoms were unmistakable.

Dizzy now, recognizing the signs of a narcotic or maybe even a psycho-active compound, realizing the futility of trying to escape, Alec coughed and raised blazing hazel-green eyes to the enemy.

"You might as well kill me now," he said quietly. "Because I'm never going to give her up, no matter how much shit you pump into my bloodstream." But damn it, I don't want to die! Not without knowing what happened to Max!

"Not just yet, 494," White said. "Don't you remember that little promise I made you the last time we talked? As far as I'm concerned, you've forfeited the right to a quick death. Oh, you're going to die all right. But it's going to be very ... fucking ... slow." Then he stepped forward and with one brutally swift blow knocked the X5 deep into unconsciousness again.

*****

"We have uses for him," the blue-painted Snake Cult priestess said to White. "Tonight. At the Ceremony."

"I want this piece of transgenic filth dead!" White roared. "I want him dead so bad I can taste his blood in my mouth."

"In due time, Ames," a man said soothingly, his face as bizarrely decorated as the woman's. "You'll have your revenge on this dirty animal, and maybe his bitch too if she tries to save him. We all will. But for now you need to put your desire for personal vengeance aside for the good of the conclave."

"A transgenic heart torn beating from the chest should please the gods, don't you think?" the priestess added, a look of morbid lust in her eyes.

"As long as he suffers," White replied, somewhat mollified at the thought of what 494's fate was going to be. "And as long as I get the information I need out of him first." He glanced at his watch. "The drugs should have saturated his system by now. He won't be able to keep 452's whereabouts from me for long."

*****

Alec lay on the floor of the cage as it swung thirty feet above the floor of the Snake Cult's underground ritual room. Below, a crowd of incredibly costumed, blue-painted minions (he could think of no other word for the loons leaping about beneath him) danced wildly to the beat of drums, passing a snake around like it was a reptilian mosh pit jumper.

He'd regained consciousness a short time ago, but they'd stabbed him in the neck with another hypo and he was having trouble discerning fact from fantasy. He could taste metal in his mouth -- probably some kind of truth serum. Squinting in the glare of overhead lights, ignoring the whirling psychedelic colors and phantom voices screaming inside his pounding head, Alec surveyed his predicament -- and, through the curtain that was clouding his mind, faced the reality of the situation. I'm not going to get out of this one.

Letting his head fall back against the metal floor of his cage, Alec lay staring sightlessly up at the ceiling as the drug slowly ate away at his sanity. White kept demanding Max's location, to reveal a way to get to her. But it wasn't going to work. He'd been designed and conditioned by Manticore to resist this very form of torture -- to die before submitting.

But damn it -- I don't want to die!

Alec knew he had to hang on, that his life couldn't just end like this -- so futilely -- without ever seeing his friends ... Max ... again. But as he lay there curled up in a fetal position, his face wet with tears of agony from the pain throbbing inside his head, he was so tempted to just close his eyes and go to sleep forever.

*****

Hours had passed and Ames White was playing with him like a toy. Cult members would swing the cage over to the balcony, drag him out, and then the fun would begin -- questions from White ... always questions. Where was Max? How could he kill Max? How could he get inside Terminal City undetected? When Alec regained consciousness, he was always back in the cage again, like a never ending nightmare. Almost dead ... not dead ... almost dead ... not dead. The drugs distorted time until it seemed like the conclave had been torturing him for weeks.

If he hadn't already been in such bad shape, Alec might have been able to fight back. But he literally had nothing left, and could only endure White's interrogation, the cult's taunts and laughter. Eventually, they would kill him. He'd heard them talking. The priestess and her male counterpart wanted to cut out his transgenic heart on that big stone alter that anchored the center of the room like a prop on a horror movie set. If he was useless as an informant, he could at least be a sacrifice. There would be drums, and dancing, and lots of blood ... his blood. And Ames White would be laughing ...

Alec squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands. He wondered if anyone back at Terminal City would miss him ... if Max would miss him ... if anyone would even give a damn that 494 was dead.

Probably not. But then why should they? Why should anyone, especially Max, care about the death of a Manticore assassin ? It wasn't as if his life was worth anything anyway. Hell, he never should have been born in the first place.

They'll probably never know what happened to me ...

In spite of trying to block everything out of his mind, Alec heard the footsteps. His eyes opening as slits, he saw a familiar pair of shoes on the balcony opposite his swinging cage. White. Back to gloat? Or maybe to kill him at last.

"We're ready for him" White said to the guards.

Alec sensed the end ... his end ... was near. Using strength he didn't know he still possessed, the drugs beginning to wear off, he dragged himself to his feet so he could face his death like a man. He guessed what would happen next, and he was right. The floor of the cage dropped open, and he was in free fall.

*****

With a monstrous grin on her hideous face, the bald, blue-painted priestess prepared her blade. Chained spread-eagle on the altar stone, Alec was totally helpless, a sacrificial victim. The drugs now nearly burned out of his system, he had the dubious honor of being able to die clear-headed ... to feel every moment of pain.

"Fen nos tol!" the priestess chanted.

"Fen nos tol!" White and the others shouted in unison, his old nemesis looking down on the scene from above with a delicious smile on his face.

The priestess had her hand on his neck now, holding him still in a grip of iron as she raised the ceremonial knife above his heaving chest. Alec grimaced with pain as nails dug into the flesh of his throat. The blade flashed silver in the torchlight as it arced high -- and then plunged down.

He bit his tongue and willed himself not to scream ...

*****

"I got nabbed by the Sector Police of all things!" Max said as she angrily paced the length of Terminal City's media center and back. "By the time I managed to get away and reached Father's house, he wasn't there. I figured he'd gotten tired of waiting and come home." She suddenly stopped and looked around at the assorted mutants and the few X series manning the monitoring stations, as if by will alone she could make Alec appear.

"Alec not come back, Max," Joshua said, the worry evident in both his voice and eyes. The dog man looked up at a clock on the wall. "It's been twelve hours, Max. Where's Alec?"

"I don't know, Big Fella," Max said with a huge sigh. "Maybe he got picked up by the Sector Cops too, and hasn't been able to make a break for it yet."

"If he did get caught, the cops were awful quiet about it," Dix said, indicating the police radio he was listening to. "We heard your arrest, although they only identified you as a mixed-race female picked up for being out after curfew. Nothing's come in about someone matching Alec's description, though." He shrugged. "Sorry."

Joshua had moved off to a far corner where he slid down the wall to sit with arms around his knees. Lowering his shaggy-haired head, he sniffed and gave a small whimper.

"I know you like Alec," Max said sympathetically, squatting down so she was at his level. "I'll tell you a secret," she whispered in a low voice. "Something you've got to promise not to ever tell Alec or anyone else."

"What?" Joshua said, sniffing loudly again.

"I like him too. A lot. In spite of that fuck-authority, dick-head attitude of his, he's a good guy ... a really good guy."

"Joshua knows Max likes Alec -- a lot," Joshua said, not looking at all surprised by Max's big revelation.

Max did a doubletake. "You do? How?"

Now it was Joshua's turn to shrug. "When Alec does bad things ... messes up, Max always forgives him. When Alec tells you you're wrong about something, Max listens. When Max needs someone she can trust with an important job, she calls Alec." Joshua looked directly into her eyes. "And when Alec's hurt ... missing, Max worries -- a lot."

"You're right, Big Fella," Max admitted. "I am worried about him. But Alec's a big boy. He can usually take care of himself. You know that."

Joshua nodded, remembering the recent encounter he and Alec had with Ames White and how Alec had gotten them out of the seemingly lethal situation. "Alec's good at getting out of trouble," Joshua admitted. He put a big hand on Max's shoulder. "But he's still Alec ... not perfect ... and White wants him dead really, really bad."

White. The name alone made Max shiver. After Alec's last encounter with Ames that very morning, there was no doubt whatsoever that cult leader would want 494's head mounted above his mantel right alongside 452's.

"Max go look for Alec now?" Joshua implored.

She turned stricken eyes on her big friend. "I can't," she said, her voice trembling with the agony of having to say the words. She gestured around her, at all the others in Terminal City. "I can't just leave, go out by myself. I'm their leader, Joshua. I'm responsible for a lot more people than just Alec."

"What if it was Logan missing?" Joshua asked.

Now it was Max's turn to hang her head. "Logan's different," she said quietly. "Logan can't take care of himself like Alec can. He needs more protection ... more help."

"Alec needs help sometimes, too," the dog man insisted.

"I know," Max replied, her voice a whisper now. She looked up at him. "But I can't. I just ... can't."

Joshua turned away from her and stared at the wall. But half an hour later, he was on the streets, a phantom in the night, following the scent of a wounded X5 -- the scent of his friend.

*****

The sound of a scream echoed through the cavernous room, but it hadn't come from the throat of the sacrificial victim. The priestess paused, her knife halted short of its target, her bloodshot eyes wide with surprise. And then a wild beast roared -- and a spark of hope rose in the heart the cult wanted to carve from Alec's chest.

Joshua. Alec knew that hoarse cry. Joshua was here. Somehow the big guy had found him.

"Josh!" Alec shouted, wanting to let the dog man know he was still alive. "Joshua!" There was the sound of gunfire and Alec strained against his shackles, trying to see what was going on. "Josh!"

Flinging cultists from him like they weighed nothing, Joshua waded through the room toward his friend. Guards fired wildly into the crowd from above, their bullets doing more harm than good as they struck their own people who were mobbing the intruder, trying to stop him with their bare hands.

Alec had been struggling futilely against the chains holding him to the altar. Joshua, his strength far greater than an X5's, simply ripped the links apart.

"Can you walk, Alec?"

"Right with you, Big Fella," Alec said, adrenalin purging the last of the drugs from his blood. Together, they made their way toward the chamber's door, Alec snatching up a pistol from the floor along the way.

What had seemed like dozens of the enemy were in reality fewer than 20, and the cult members left standing were in a state of impotent rage. For the moment, the enemy was hanging back, none willing to get within arms reach of Joshua who'd already felled half a dozen on his way in, their bodies lying as a warning. The pair ran up the stairs, Alec backing through the door at the top, firing several shots downward before closing the heavy panel and locking it behind them.

But Ames White was already there ahead of them.

"You're dead, 494!" White screamed, taking aim at Alec. However, his gun clicked on empty. Livid with rage, he flung the automatic away and attacked, reaching with clawing hands for the X5 male who'd thwarted him so often -- only to find himself face-to-face with Joshua.

Once again, cultist and the dog man fought. Once again the better "man" won. In less than a minute, Joshua stood breathing hard over Ames White's unconscious body.

"Tell me you didn't come alone," Alec panted as he looked down at the fallen conclave member.

"He didn't!" a new voice yelled.

"Max!" Joshua called out joyously.

"Couldn't leave you guys on your own now, could I?" Max said with a true smile. Off Joshua's questioning look, "Logan got some intel that the conclave had a big shindig here tonight. Word was a transgenic captive was going to be the entertainment of the evening. It didn't take much to put two and two together." She glanced at Alec, giving him the once over with critical eyes, making sure he was all right. "So, this is your excuse for standing a girl up? You always have to be the center of attention, don't you pretty boy."

Alec managed a cocky grin. "Hey," he said. "Can a guy help it if he's kidnapped by a nut case who wants him to be a transgenic sacrifice?" He checked the clip in his pistol.

"Excuses, excuses," Max clucked as they fled into the warehouse that sat to the rear of the conclave's secret headquarters. Behind them, they heard the footsteps of pursuers on the stairs. The locked door wouldn't hold them off for long.

"Wait, wait," Alec said. He ducked behind a stack of crates, counted to ten, and with perfect timing jumped out to pepper those who burst through the door with bullets, causing the cultists to scurry for cover. He glanced at Max. "You know, Maxie, you really ought to rethink that whole 'guns are evil' philosophy of yours. Guns can be a man's best friend."

But Alec had barely gotten the words out when they were hit with another round of bullets -- one of which found its target.

"Shit!" Alec yelled as the slug tore into his left shoulder.

Joshua, who'd taken cover a few feet away, was cowering down, keeping out of the way of the gunfire. But when he saw Alec take a hit, his blue eyes widened with fear.

"Alec!" Joshua shouted, starting to stand.

"I'm all right, Big Fella!" Alec hollered back with a quick look at Max. "Stay put!"

"There's a truck," she said, pointing to a vehicle parked just inside the warehouse doors.

"On my mark," Alec said, ignoring the pain of his wound. Leaping out into the open, he lay down cover fire, emptying the clip as Max gestured to Joshua and the two ran for the truck. When their attackers had all ducked out of sight, Alec threw down the used up gun, whirled and, with energy he didn't know he possessed, blurred for the open door of the vehicle, his eyes focused on Max's as she sat waiting behind the wheel. With a leap, he piled into the front seat beside Joshua while Max gunned the engine. Seconds later the truck burst through the wooden doors of the warehouse and they were in the clear.

Behind them a recovered Ames White charged onto the scene, his eyes bloodshot with rage and hatred as he and his men futilely shot at the fleeing vehicle. But once again 452 and 494 had escaped his grasp.

There would be hell to pay at the conclave tonight.

*****

Later, Alec, Max, and Joshua sat around a table in the Terminal City media center, sipping coffee and recounting the tale of their daring adventure to the others. "Not that I don't appreciate the gesture, Big Fella," Alec said to Joshua. "But you shouldn't have come after me. I'm bettin' Max told you to stay put, that I could get out of my own mess, right?"

Joshua hung his head and mumbled something unintelligible.

Max glanced up. "You're right," she said. "I told Joshua we couldn't afford to risk a rescue attempt. But when Logan told me that White probably had you ..." Her voice trailed off. "I couldn't just leave you there," she said, her tone softening. "I guess that makes me a terrible leader."

"Maybe," Alec conceded. "But it also makes you something better in my opinion. It makes you a damn good friend." He glanced at Joshua. "If it wasn't for you guys ... for you Josh ... I'd be dead. I'm not gonna argue with your decision."

"I'm not going to argue either," Max said with a fond look at both of her guys.

Joshua held out his hand to her. Max took it, moved beside him, and gathered his massive body to hers in a big hug.

"Thanks, Big Fella," Alec said huskily as he, too, enveloped Joshua in an embrace of his own.

But it was Max's hand that his own hand found.

THE END