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He frowned as he crouched lower on the roof; he saw a shadow moving in the apartment that he had kept a long vigil on for the past week, located in the building across from the one he was currently on. A long blonde mane popped into view, followed shortly by head of short brown hair.

He relaxed.

It was only Syl and Krit. They seemed to be searching around the place, not finding what they were looking for, apparently, because their body language was both confused and frustrated. It only took him a quick jump to get on the roof of that building, and a moment for him to slide down the fire escape.

"Hey," he said, making them relax from the ready positions they had taken when they first heard his progress towards them.

"Andy," Syl sighed, her head dropping into one hand, the other claimed in Krit's. "Thank goodness."

"We tried the contact number, but it was changed," Krit frowned.

"I know," he nodded. "I'm the one who changed it."

Syl blinked, "Why?"

He knew what she was really asking. Why you? Every one of them knew that he was a secondary type, not a primary type like Zack. That's why he was the SIC, because he could support Zack whenever needed. They also knew that if it was needed, it was normally Elyssa who took charge, not him, even if he was older, because she knew the most about everybody, and he really wasn't all too fond of leading.

He let out a deep breath and replied, "I've cased this place for a week now. Elyssa hasn't come home; she was gone for a while before that. All signs say she left in a hurry; she was chased. Probability of hostiles - high."

"Manticore?" Syl breathed, eyes bleak.

He cursed inwardly. No one wanted to hear the conclusions he had no choice but to come to after a week of denial. News like this was always bad for morale; this was a heavier blow, since Elyssa had been their confidant, their diary, one might say, or journal. She had been the closest to a mother they had, and she loved and was loved by everyone. Even Ben, strange as he had gotten, had found it somewhere inside of him to love Elyssa with everything he had left in him, to the point where he would have given up everything for Elyssa, even his kills; if Ben were alive right now, he would be off, searching Manticore and all the sub-bases for a sign of Elyssa. But Ben was dead.

He nodded and said quietly, "Yeah."

Syl seemed to crumble into herself, her knees buckling. She fell to the floor, Krit going down right along with her, not involuntarily either. Both their faces were twisted with grief, and Kirt clenched his free hand into a fist, his lips thinned as he tried to stop himself from crying. Syl's eyes were already wet, but the tears had not fallen, and she wiped them away with a vicious jerk of her hand.

He narrowed his eyes. Elyssa had been loved, was loved, by everyone - he himself had adored his little sister by a few months to the point where he felt at peace just thinking about her soothing voice, but still had not been reduced to tears as he gathered the evidence of her capture. Something was wrong; something had to be wrong for his youngest brother and sister to lose control of their emotions like this.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, muscles tensing as he prepared for the worst.

"You know that Zack called us, right?" Krit began, voice full of pain. At Andy's wordless nod, he continued, "Well, it turned out that Max was in trouble. She got caught by Lydecker."

Andy closed his eyes briefly, and motioned for Krit to continue as he remembered the small little girl who had loved Ben's shadows, who had seen Jack dissected, who had gotten the shakes, who always thought of others, even when she was punished for it. The girl who he felt betrayal from, because she had killed one of them.

"Turned out that Manticore wanted Lydecker's head on a platter, so to speak," Syl shrugged indifferently. "So he let Max go, and she brought him to us, blindfolded."

Relief colored his thoughts as he opened his eyes to face his siblings. But...if Max had been freed, then what was the matter?

As if sensing his thoughts, Syl continued, "We were there already, and the four of us, plus Lydecker and Logan - "

"Who's Logan?" he interrupted.

The two on the floor exchanged glances with each other and sighed before Krit finally admitted, "Max's...uh, friend. He knows all about us and Manticore."

Immediately, he was enraged, "She told him?"

"Don't know," Syl shook her head. "Didn't have time to ask. We were too busy planning to take down Manticore."

That cut through Andy's rage more than anything, "What?"

Krit became agitated, "We thought we could do it. Lydecker was familiar with the layout, the codes needed, and Logan hacked into the surveillance video feed to guide us. Syl and I went one way, Max and Zack went another. They blew up the DNA lab, and we were on our way out when..."

Syl took up the narration, "They discovered us, apparently, because they released the X-7s."

"X-7s?" Andy echoed, as if in a dream. He wished it were, because he didn't like the way things were headed.

"You should have seen them, Andy," Syl nodded. "They looked like us, before we escaped. Made from our own DNA."

"But improved. They were faster, stronger, better. They even had hive minds!" Krit shook his head in denial. "Before we knew it, they shot Zack in the shoulder, and some of them dragged him off back to the base."

"When we got to the rendezvous point, Logan was an unconscious heap, and Lydecker told us that Max was...KIA," Syl finished bleakly.

KIA. Killed In Action. Max. And Zack, their CO, taken down by clones of them. Andy felt...he didn't know why, but he felt detached...almost indifferent, as if he were in a dream. Then he saw Krit and Syl's faces, and crashed back to reality. It hit him like a truck, and he slowly sat on the floor next to them, absorbing it all.

"Zack," he began softly. "Elyssa. Tinga. Ben. Brin. Max."

Krit and Syl were quiet, looking at him with something akin to sympathy, sadness, and eyes full of uncertainty.

"Twelve of us got out. Two of us are back there, and four of us are dead. There are only half of us left," he commented, in a daze.

"And Jace," Syl reminded him in a weak attempt to cheer him up, even just a little.

He looked at them, his youngest siblings, and realized that they were coming to him for reassurance now, for instructions. This had never been his specialty, but he knew that he was the only one left, and as the oldest alive, he had certain responsibilities. He might not like it, but he accepted it as a mission, one he would finish, to the best of his abilities...for them.

He stood up sharply, and rattled off a string of numbers. "The new contact number," he clarified when he saw their confused faces.

They nodded, and Syl tightened her grip on Krit's hand, "What are we going to do?"

"We survive, little sister," Andy replied, his face full of determination.

Krit nodded slowly, "Like we always do."

"Like Zack, like all of them, would have wanted us to," Syl agreed.

"What about the others?" Krit wanted to know.

Andy thought for a moment, before deciding that a message would be too impersonal, too cruel for such a triple blow like this.

"I'll go around and tell them," he told them. "You two just get somewhere safe."

They nodded, and Syl glanced around before asking, "What are we gonna do about Elyssa's stuff?"

He looked around as well, a pained look overcoming his pristine features as he saw the proof of her love for all of them in this one dingy apartment. The telephone, with a machine, so that she would never miss their calls, and the various items she collected, to remind her of each of them, she had said.

"Leave it," he said more gruffly than he had intended.

They knew what he felt, because they felt it too. They could never get rid of anything that had been Elyssa's, because that would feel like getting rid of their memories of Elyssa.

Andy sighed, and climbed out the window to the fire escape, waiting to make sure Krit and Syl had left no traces of their brief stay here before he dropped to the alley floor. It was time to take up Zack's old job, time to take care of his siblings.

Time to break the news to everyone.