"Her wounds are fairly light, it’ll take only a couple of minutes for her to heal," Dr. Cain said. "When she recovers, see if you can get the frequency of the forcefield from her." With that said, he turned to examining the contents of Theta’s bag and utility belt. X and Zero entered the inner chamber where Theta was resting.

"What’s with the lab coat?" Zero asked.

"What, this?" X said, looking at the coat in his hand, as though to make sure it was still there, "I found it lying around. It must be hers." With that, he proceeded to search through the pockets. The only thing he found was her identification badge.

"Alexandria Carthage, NISAR researcher, level 3 specialist," X read. "Hey, Doc! You’re right, it’s Carthage’s daughter!" He yelled out the door.

"I thought he said she was dead," Zero said in a low voice.
X shrugged. "Dead, alive, whatever. The question should be why she’s working for the Mavericks."

"Now that I think about it, Dr. Carthage was the one who died, and his daughter was missing for the past three years," Dr. Cain said as he walked into the room. He peered at the sleeping figure. "She’s suffered a bit. I don’t blame her for being a bit strange. Hey, some might even say I’m strange, but you can't really blame normal people for failing to recognise true genius. Now, if you can talk some sense into her, she should be helpful in penetrating the Maverick defences. After all, she did set them up."

Theta had been awake for a moment, but pretended to sleep until she had gathered herself again. She was surprised that she was still alive, but being trapped in Hunter Headquarters was not much of an improvement. She located Dr. Cain from the sound of his voice. She sat up and immediately aimed her cannon at Dr. Cain. Unfortunately, he was shorter than she imagined and she ended up aiming at a point a few inches above his head and ruining the effect. By the time she had adjusted her arm cannon, X and Zero had theirs locked on her head. She couldn’t help but notice a smirk on X’s face.

"No need to be so tense," Dr. Cain said, calmly looking away from Theta’s cannon. "I’ve taken the liberty of disarming her first."

Zero shrugged and sat back down. X seemed a little disappointed at losing the chance to be heroic.
Theta was quietly furious, "I don’t know what you’re trying to do by keeping me here, but I’ll be of no help."
Dr. Cain looked at X with an annoyed expression on his face. "Just talk to her, all right?"

X looked helplessly at the scientist as he left the room again. "Umm…Theta…Alexandria, we need your help to crack your forcefield. The Mavericks are probably attacking even as we speak."

"Actually, it should be a while yet before they have smoothed out the bugs," Theta said. "They don’t know that there are a few connections to fix."

"Ah, those incompetent Mavericks," Zero said. He and Theta exchanged a smile. X rolled his eyes.

"Yes, but when they do have it fixed, they’ll rampage through Elysia. Think of the civilians they’ll kill," X said urgently.
"And how might that affect me?" Theta responded.

"All we need from you is the frequency of the forcefield. We have a device to crack it, we just need the frequency," X pleaded. "Any extra information you would like to share about the generator and such would also be nice," he added hopefully.
"A device? Ah, yes. Dr. Cain always was rather brilliant with machinery."

X and Zero were a little surprised. They had never heard anyone at Headquarters praising the scientist before.

"But I see no reason to help you," Theta continued. "For that matter," she said as she stood up, "I see no reason why I should be helping the Mavericks."

With that, she snatched her lab coat from X and walked out of the room. She politely asked Dr. Cain for her equipment returned and proceeded out the door. Zero gestured for X to keep an eye on Elysia in the lab while he followed Theta. She entered the communications room and began opening (well, more like ripping open) the panels on one of the computers.

Zero motioned to the others in the room that it was okay. He tried to act casual to assure them that everything was fine, but that was a little hard to do when wires were being spewed all over the floor. Theta dug into the components and finally emerged with a small computer chip. She inserted it into her small computer and typed a few things. Zero peered at the screen curiously. Theta popped the chip back out and tossed it to Zero.

"A decoding chip? You have some guts sneaking that into Headquarters," Zero said.

"Very good, you can identify it," Theta said in a patronising tone she had picked up while talking with Eagle. "I’ve erased your com frequency. The Mavericks won’t be getting anything extra from me. Do with it what you will."

"Now this could be useful. But do I remember someone saying something about not helping us?"

"Consider it a freebie. Besides, I dislike the Mavericks more than the Hunters. Traitors are all right except when they start turning against me."

"All the more reason to help us here. Now I must admit the Hunters are quite a pain at times, but at least we would never shoot you when we have no more use for you."

"I had thought better of Vile. He’s rather rash to have me killed by Eagle at such a critical time," she said, walking back to the lab.

"Now wouldn’t it be nice to get some revenge?"

"Zero, listen. I see no reason to help you because there is nothing worth saving in these humans. I have been among them, I know."

"But surely…"

"Three years ago," Theta interrupted, "some unbalanced people blew up my lab, with my father and I inside. That’s how I lost my left arm. The fools looked for my body for days. I hid in the wreckage all the while, afraid of being seen by them.

"Then the Mavericks came along, completely destroyed the city, and Vile found me, half dead. I babbled like mad about how if he'd only spare my life I'd help him in any way I could. I told him about the projects I was working on in forcefields and robotics. It was the only way to survive, and I wasn't exactly at a point when my compassion for humanity was at its peak.

"Three years passed, I got a new arm, weapons, a position where my work was respected and needed. Now, I’m back where I started."

"And did Vile implant the power generator in your body to run your arm?" asked Zero, who was obviously missing the traumatic past aspect of her flashback.

"No," Theta replied, a little bitter that he ignored her traumatic past, "my father implanted it when he adopted me. It was first used to power my legs. I was born with very weak legs, so he strengthened my legs with robotics. We were very close, it was very sad when he was blown to pieces," she added as a hint to Zero.

"I can see you’re bitter," said Zero, who finally got the hint, but brushed it aside. "However, you must realise you can do so much more in a time of peace, working for progress, not destruction." As the words tumbled out of his mouth, even he had to admit that they sounded rather cheesy, and painfully like X. I must be spending too much time watching soaps with that sissy.

Theta was very annoyed that Zero seemed to find her flashback boring and irrelevant. "What you don’t understand is the madness and stupidity that runs rampant out there. When the Mavericks attacked, it was absolute anarchy. Instead of helping the wounded, people were looting the stores. There’s nothing worth saving."

Zero paused a moment in thought, do I sense a recurring motive in what she’s saying? But she’s got a point…I think she’s my type, but perhaps she needs some professional psychiatric help. Still, there's something cute about the way she rambles on. Zero obviously wasn't concentrating very hard on the crisis at hand. "But…," he stammered, trying to think of something to say. "You saved that kid in Elysia. Why?"

Theta was caught off guard. "He was just a child…I suppose…I didn’t want to be part of all of that…"

Zero smiled inwardly, seeing that he had finally found a foothold. "So you condemn the selfishness of humanity, but you’re willing to help others wipe out an entire civilian city. So it’s all right for you to help as long as you don’t have a direct hand in it?"

"I have no part in this matter. As for the civilians, whether they win or lose is not my concern," she stubbornly replied, trying to recover some ground.

Zero could see that three years of brain-washing by the Mavericks were falling apart. "But imagine all those poor, little infants, who have never so much as touched a weapon…So innocent, so helpless," Zero said, trying to apply the little knowledge he had about maternal instincts.

"Enough!" Theta ordered.

They had reached the lab. X and Dr. Cain turned in surprise as Theta somehow managed to give the impression of madly flinging open a door while striding through an automatic sliding door. She snatched her bag from a table, scooped up the forcefield cracker, and transported away.

Onwards to Chapter Seventeen
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