JC flipped the knife he held and threw it at he wall again. Tom stood at the window staring out into the dark night. He'd introduced Tom to the joys of coffee and now he drank a lot of it. JC went to get his knife when Tom said, "Where'd they take her, JC? It's like she dropped off the face of the earth." He took a sip from the cup in his hand.

Tom looked at the thin young soldier that had saved him, brown hair and dark eyes, slightly shorter than himself. He wondered where the grit had come from. His voice was soft with a southern accent, belaying the strength that was within.

He'd had this conversation with Tom dozens of times since he'd got them out. In his anger JC had blown the whole building, he had a price on his head. "I dunno, Tom. We'll find her. They can't hide someone like that forever. Her friend, what's his name?"

"Ed, Ed Tate."

"He's still in the hospital. They messed him up real bad."

‘Messed him up real bad’ was a nice way to put it. Ed had been the only survivor. He’d also been the only one in the lab at with her at the time. Apparently, he’d tried to stop them. They beat him senseless. A concussion, broken bones and internal bleeding. He was lucky to be alive. The violence of the attack was what had convinced Tom that his people had taken her.

"You know they won't kill her. She's too valuable. To both sides. Bait for you and the fountain of knowledge for the government. You think your people's got her. I ain't so sure. I seen what they did in that place. You're still recoverin'. If you were human, you'd probably be dead or nuts. You ain't that sane anyway."

Tom watched him flip the knife again and throw it. He'd watched as JC had killed those who were supposed to be his friends and companions in order to rescue him. The months he'd been in captivity had left him weak and debilitated, at least for a dominant. He still had been more than a match for some of the guards. That very knife had slit at least three throats that night. JC had been lucky. The bullet he caught in his shoulder had not shattered bone. He was almost back to normal, at least physically.

Mentally he was shattered and Tom knew it. The attachment he'd formed to Tom was dangerous. JC was now his avatar. A weapon Tom could point.

Ever since that night he'd watched as his friend had changed. The anger at what had been done to Tom had changed JC. He'd become colder, harder in some ways than even Tom. He shook his head. He could feel the fire that burned in JC and knew it burned only for him. "Walter is giving us all the help he can. He's not pleased, either. The government tries to kill him and locks me up. Shortly before I get out Sloan is taken and Ed is almost killed. He's out of the coma now. But he's still got a lot of recovering to do." He'd been locked up for six months. Sometimes it seemed like six years. His life was empty again and his salvation was out there somewhere.

"So, where do we go from here, Tom? How's our money holdin' out? I know you got sources but sooner or later they're gonna go dry." Tom reached up and squeezed JC's shoulder.

"Don't worry. For now, we're fine. We're headed to New Mexico. I gotta lead. There's a dominant holding facility there. We're gonna go and see if that's where she is. If not, maybe we'll learn something new.

JC shrugged. Anything Tom wanted was fine with him. Tom wanted the girl; he could have her, as long as JC could stay with him. He flipped the knife and threw it again.

"JC, that's enough. Let's get some sleep. We'll start early tomorrow. I picked up our ID's today. You can buy anything with enough money." He looked critically at the identification cards spread out on the small table. "We each have three. I'll always be Tom and you'll always be JC, but remember the last name. Eventually we'll have to become someone else."

"Where ya sleepin' tonight?" Something JC asked him every night.

"It's a double bed. We'll share." He could feel JC's pleasure at that. Their relationship had never turned physical, he didn't quite know why. But JC always wanted him close. Street doctors had patched JC up. He'd been lucky that infection hadn't set in. Tom knew how to sweat out most of the drugs, but it had been touch and go there for a while.

He feels JC snuggle against him as he sleeps. Maybe he'd see her soon.

They left slightly before dawn, in a second-hand car he'd bought, dark and nondescript. Midmorning Tom wakes him and they switch off. They keep it up until they pull in to Santa Fe after sundown. They'd have their base of operations here. Tom had some contacts. They'd start tomorrow.

A month later they had it. Through all the false leads and dead-ends, they had a place. It was some sort of training facility. Tom had got JC in by giving him a false memory and getting him in as a tourist with a breakdown. He picked his brain about everything he had seen. He knew Sloan wouldn't be there but there might be some information he could use. Now he had to find a way to get in.

They sat up a vigil to watch it. Comings and goings, who went in, who came out. They were careless; they had a pattern. Weekly there was someone from the town who came in, a human driver and a dominant passenger, some kind of control from the local town. They had their way in.

The car was always the same. They got one exactly like it, and then Tom took a trip to Mexico for supplies. He set up a lab in the garage and gave JC a target to throw his knife at. He got so he could hit the two by four even when it was on its edge. He told JC not to bother him while he was working, if he made an error there wouldn't be enough of either of them to bury.

Two weeks later Tom & JC hit the car. A flat tire stopped it. A knife and a bullet killed the driver and passenger. Tom went through his pockets and knew he was just a courier. It wouldn't make a difference. They took their car and left the courier's behind, hidden by brush. He went through everything in the briefcase as JC drove him to the compound. As they came to the gate Tom triggered JC's false memory, until it was removed he'd be only what he was supposed to be.

Tom was a stranger, but he was a dominant. He was generally accepted. He didn't need a code word or anything else. His pass was in his genes.

Tom did what any dominant would do under the circumstance. He delivered his package and did a walk around to become familiar with his surroundings. He walked around each of the main five buildings, except the one he wasn't allowed to approach. That was his target. At the opposite ends of each building he placed a cigarette pack-sized package, things were going to get hot.

Tom took out his cell phone and made a call, JC answered. "Armageddon." JC was released; the conditioning was gone. He was a soldier again. JC got out of the car and shut the door. He leaned up against it, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tamped it down. He put a cigarette in his mouth, reached in his pants pocket and then patted himself down. He walked over to the dominant guard beside the building. JC knew the man could feel his apprehension. This was the most dangerous part of the plan. "Hey, buddy, ya got a light? I forgot my lighter." He walked beside the man to shield himself in the shadow of the building. He turned his back on the guard. When the guard reached for him to turn him around and reject his request, he died. His throat slit down to the backbone. JC took off into the desert. The rest was up to Tom.

Tom was doing a count down, they'd practiced it as much as they could but mistakes could happen. He hoped it wouldn't kill JC, but it could. He pressed the trigger on the detonator and the compound became a living hell. Where his car had been was a 50-yard wide fireball, incinerating everything in its path including the main building. Solid rocket propellant makes a hot fire; it melts everything. While everyone else headed for the explosion, he headed for the building that he wasn't allowed to see.

Tom stood to the side of the door as he triggered the second detonator. The cigarette packs went off in series, one after another. The last two in his pocket were on a different circuit or he would have gone up in flames too. As they rolled out of the building he slipped in after them. He was right, the computer center. All the information he needed was here. He walked in and looked for the central processor. A network server. He found it. It weighed less than 50 pounds and could be lifted with one hand. That's what he did. He left the two packages and departed with the server. He headed out into the desert to meet JC. When he was far enough away he triggered the last detonator and the computer center was enveloped in a fireball as well. They got to the car they had hid in the desert.

"Where we going?" JC asked.

"El Paso. I'm gonna see what they knew. They'll be something on one of these drives. I've got to find it."

The next day's papers report a disastrous propane explosion at a private ranch.

They rent a house in El Paso and Tom goes to work on getting information out of the drives. Most was useless. Some was sent to Walter or members of the coexistence faction back in California. Three weeks later they have something.

"JC, I know something now."

JC stopped flipping his knife. This close to Mexico he had quite a collection now. "What is it, Tom?"

"Two weeks before we hit them, five weeks ago, she was taken to a breeding facility near Oaxaca, Mexico. It's gonna be hard to get to her there."

"What's a breeding facility?"

Tom closed his eyes in pain. Sloan was too smart. She would be a perfect breeder for his people. He had heard of this but didn't believe it to be true. "It's a place where they take exceptional women to bear children for the cause. All children born of one dominant parent will be dominant. My people are no better than yours, JC. They will treat her as less than a slave. I don't think they thought I would ever get out when they took her. She may be with child already. We have to get her before they think she's a danger to them."

JC looked at him. "When do we leave?"