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Post by Max on Dec 30, 2007 22:32:39 GMT -5
"Honest curiosity doesn't involve chaining me up after ripping me from the skies," Max growled irritably. Refolding her wings again, she sat with one knee propped up, the injured ankle stretched out across the sand. As long as she had to endure this hired killer, she could at least be comfortable before he turned her back to the world of metal and plastic that she had lived in for sixteen years. Even this dry and coarse sand that had a habit of getting everywhere was like a soft down mattress compared to a cold barred cage.
"Privacy?" repeated Max, quirking only one eyebrow, "You wouldn't know the value of privacy if it came up and bit you in the face! When you live all your life under constant surveillance, no inch of your body unknown to men, no beat of your heart unregistered, no blink unquestioned, then will you truly value privacy," she said. Now she was not so much angry in her tone as just stating a fact. Privacy was what this life on the run gave her, to a degree. True privacy, anonymity, a life where no one knew about you nor cared what you did, was what Max longed for. Freedom to do what she wanted, when she wanted, to explore, to soar through the heavens and dive to the depths. That was what Silas had just ripped so callously away from her with his chains. A few feathers did not bother her so much. It was what the loss of them, what this assassin, represented. Captivity. The scientists. Needles and the smell of antiseptic she had so grown to hate. For now she would answer his questions, hoping for escape, for any way out. Max would not go back to them alive.
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Post by Silas Bloodthunder on Feb 28, 2008 21:28:02 GMT -5
"Oh do pleease relax!" Silas said with a sigh. "You at least are known. Try living in complete anonymity. The only way the world knows I even exist are through murders. Not exactly the most glamerous of legacies you'll have to agree..." He smiled at her, a half smirk he hoped would at least quell her rising tempers to some degree. He didn't feel much like fighting with her anymore, in any sense. He had gotten what he came for even i she didn't know it. "Still, I offer one last time for some assistance. I don't approve of your creators. I don't approve of thier meathods and I don't approve of them hiring someone like me to come and bother with someone who had the will to escape them. I do approve of that." He gave her a little bow to her, all playfulness gone. He seriously wanted her to trust him from here on out. "Now if you'll listen, I'd like to propose a deal. You have no reason to trust me after our meeting so far, and likewise I have no way of changing that so far as our relationship goes. And I use the term loosely...." He added, knowing it might spark her ire again. "Yet I tire of my role as assassin to the likes of those scientists. I detest the work, and I detest the people. So I am hoping that this time I can hang up my killing for good, and move on to better passions. What I am offering is to both to let you escape, completely wiped from thier radar for good, and I will no longer be of any service to anyone. I will help you be on your way, and likewise assist in your endevor from freedom in any way I can. Wealth nonwithstanding, I think you'll need all the help you can get." He stood back from her, arms crossed and looking intently at her. he didn't smell anything off her, nothing that he usually smelled anyway. That, he thought, was a good sign.
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Post by Max on Feb 28, 2008 22:11:42 GMT -5
Apparently when the scientists messed with her genes, they must have cut out the trust gene. Max no more trusted this strange assassin than she trusted the average stranger. But unlike others, he offered a way out. His plan was sketchy at best, but it was her only option. Max could not fly, could not run fast enough to escape the hunter. Max thought about it. He obviously did not lack the monetary means to fund their escape. And he was a master of disappearing, or the scientists would not have hired him. She considered his offer. "Where would we go to escape them?" she finally said after a long silence. There were few places to escape the wrath of the scientists. "And I am afraid I can never be free. They planned for the event of my escape." This last part was said bitterly. For the scientists, haughty though they were, knew enough to plan for that which they thought would never happen. In one of the surgeries she had at least monthly, though which one exactly she was not certain, they had made sure she would never truly escape them. Even when they weren't where she was they managed to ruin her life.
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Post by Silas Bloodthunder on Mar 3, 2008 17:22:23 GMT -5
Silas smiled, and held out a hand to her. He could tell that while she didn't fully trust him yet, that she would accept help. That was good because he was planning on doing whatever he could. "I'm glad for your slight shift in heart, my dear." He said quickly. "Now while this seems ludicrous, I intend to fake my own death here. I believe we can work out a way so that I can stop my life of crime and you can disappear from your scientists friends for a good long time. The problem is the only way I can do that, is by getting more information on you and what these pathetic excuses for humans methods. With that, I more then have the means to finance or supple us on this endevour, and with that said, you help me in this and I will make sure you finally obtain the freedom you're running to find." With this his eyes changed, sparkling one moment and dying to holes the next. "I understand a bit better then you might think as to what it means to be hounded and made someone else's plaything. And i very much know what freedom feels like after that."
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Post by Max on Mar 3, 2008 17:48:48 GMT -5
Taking the proferred hand, Max tested her injured ankle gingerly. It was not broken, only sprained. By tomorrow it would be okay to walk on again. She listened to the plan he outlined, her gray blue eyes still wary. "At least you know what freedom feels like," Max replied quietly. Now was probably the time to tell him about the 'security measures' the scientists had employed. "I can't ever be truly free of them, you see. I have chip, a tracking chip, that they put in me a while back. It can't be hacked, disabled, or removed without killing me. So though I can avoid them, it is never permanant. Your plan will work in that your death will prevent others from looking for you. But as long as I am around there is a danger of discovery." This was another reason Max did not make friends. She could never stay with them. It was all too easy for another to get hurt.
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Post by Silas Bloodthunder on Mar 6, 2008 22:25:02 GMT -5
Silas nodded at that, thinking it over. He had an idea to maybe fix her chip problem, but it was a long shot. He motioned for her to follow him, and made for the Nile, walking slowly so as not to stress her injuries. He played with a thin knife from the confines of his coat, staring off into the night. While he hated these scientists, he had to admit their tactics were sound. A puzzling problem; his favorite kinds. However, he had to think of ways to complete every end. He despised his career of killing, even with the excitement and money it brought in. He wanted to disappear for good. His plan for that was a public display, but it need to include Max, and in a set up that would allow her a lengthy reprieve from her pursuers. Why not trick them in the same fashion, all at once? "...assuming that this chip can't be removed without your death, will it then deactivate or shut down?" He asked her slowly, digesting the problem. "I believe we can induce you into a state of temporary bodily shutdown, or a state of death. Not for very long, only about a minuet or two, but assuming its done, will that be long enough for this chip to be, say, removed?" He didn't expect it at all to work, and privately, would have thought these scientists quite foolish for falling for something so eaily done. Still, it was an idea, and he was determined to help Max out, provided she assisted him.
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Post by Max on Mar 6, 2008 22:33:42 GMT -5
Faking her death, as interesting as that might be, would not work. "I have tried to fake death before," she said, "when I was fourteen I figured out that if I concentrated, I could slow my own heart and breathing, literally retreating inside myself. But I can only do that for about five minutes. But no, you can't deactivate it. It doesn't have a pulse sensor or anything. After all, if I died they would have to find the body before the police." Max let out a weak chuckle at that one. Imagine the media coverage then. But still, she would be dead. "It's not something you can take out," Max continued, "unless you are a trained neurosurgeon. It's not a skin chip like you would put in a pet or something. This is a chip embedded in my bone...right about here." Max turned, bending her arm behind her back and indicating a spot to the right of her spine at the base of her wing. "Even if you did take it out I could be a parapalegic and I would probably lose function in my wing. Which would be totally pointless." Max had thought this over many times. Unless this assassin was a trained neurosurgeon - which she doubted - and had a fully equipped micro-operating room prepared - even more unlikely - then they were out of luck.
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