34

I met G.I. Joe today, Max’s brother, Zack, the alpha male, the perfect soldier. He has all of Max’s militaristic qualities, but in him they are magnified tenfold. Max has attempted to let go of her Manticore training, but Zack has held onto it like a lifeline.

He claims he is a soldier, cold, calculating and unfeeling. He puts security above everything else. I could see the extreme distrust in his eyes. Outside the X5s, he doesn’t know what a friend is, nor does he have anyone he can trust. To him, feelings are a liability and emotions cloud judgment. They are more than useless, they will get you killed. He may think that he can convince others that he is right. He may think he can convince himself. But I know that, despite his claims, Zack is driven by emotions.

He is full of hate and anger and a ferocious love for his siblings. Everything he does for them is driven by his feelings. I see his intense love for Max and her love for him. I see their fear and concern for their sister, Brin. Behind his ranting about carelessness and OPSEC is a desperate concern for Brin’s welfare. When it comes to Brin, Zack seems to have lost all his strategic skills. He seems to have lost his ability to think. He couldn’t think clearly enough to realize that, if Lydecker has returned Brin to Manticore, there would be a military trail of some sort. He couldn’t think clearly enough to even look for a trail. He couldn’t think past the fact that he had lost her.

Zack may have been bred and trained to be the perfect soldier. He may be able to jump twenty feet and kill a man with one hand. He may be stronger and faster and more intelligent than I am, though I doubt that after today’s demonstration. He may be able to do everything that I can’t do. But in the end, he is just a man, driven by his emotions. No amount of posturing will hide that.

If Zack thinks he can control Max with his attitude, he is greatly mistaken. If he thinks he can control me, he is greatly mistaken. He first words to me were a command to stay out of it. Does he think that I will back off now? I’m not staying out of anything, especially if it concerns Max. She needs my help and so does he. He could be much more effective if he would realize the fact that he doesn’t have to fight every battle alone. But I doubt this will ever get through that military issue, armor plated skull of his.

So now in an attempt to find Brin, we tracked down some leads on Lydecker, the super spook, the creator of G.I. Joe and all the X5s. Max and Zack are out there looking for the man that has been hunting them for the last ten years. If I could get a handle on this guy, I would understand what kind of risk they are subjecting themselves to. What did he do to those children that Zack would accuse him of murdering his own wife? Zack said it so easily, as if he expects Lydecker to be behind every evil act that has ever been committed. It’s easy to believe that Zack’s anger and distrust come from Lydecker, but what about Max’s compassion? Did Max and Zack become who they are because of Lydecker or in spite of him?

Lydecker’s D.O.D. records are amazing, Purple Heart, Legion of Merit. He was an exemplary career soldier. He graduated at the top of his OCS class. He saw action in Panama, Kuwait and Somalia, all the major late twentieth century conflicts. The military in the nineteen nineties was not the same as the military today. It was the military of General Colin Powell, an organization of integrity. It would have required exceptional conduct in a leadership position to earn the Legion of Merit. I’m not sure how to reconcile that soldier with the man that Max and Zack know.

The death of Lydecker’s wife in 1995 must have had a catastrophic effect on him. Still, the man I met at the hotel did not appear to be the monster that Zack and Max remember. He wasn’t just shorter than I expected, he was much more human. I have dealt with many truly evil people over the years and I have seen the kind of evil that no façade can hide. Yet, I did not see that in Lydecker. That coldness was not in his eyes. Has he softened since those early days with the X5s? The man is still a complete mystery to me. Why would he create a group of genetically enhanced children only to torture them in an attempt to fit them into some twisted idea of the perfect soldier? How could he put so much effort into them and then shoot one of them in cold blood? How did he manage to train those children so successfully that even he has not been able to recapture them since their escape? What has driven him all these years to continue hunting them down? What took him from the fast track to edge that he is standing on now? I wonder if we will ever know.