Max Guevara

Max Guevara, also known as X5-452, was a transgenic X5 series who, along with eleven others, escaped from the Manticore facility in 2009. Years later, she became the leader of a group of transgenics living in the dangerous Terminal City.

Childhood

Life at Manticore

Born to a surrogate mother sometime around the turn of the twenty-first century, Max was raised and trained as a soldier from a very young age by military handlers, under the command of Colonel Donald Lydecker, at a facility located in Gillete, Wyoming called Manticore. During this time, Max developed a close bond with her unit-mates, particularly Zack, the unit leader.

From the beginning, the X5's training was harsh and rigorous, sometimes downright brutal. In addition, they were subjected to powerful psychological conditioning, as well as cruel medical experiments. As Max would later say, they didn't think to escape because, after all, they didn't know there was anything else to escape to.

Throughout their lives, the X5's were plagued by a design flaw: a neurological disorder that caused random and violent seizures. Max once witnessed a fellow X5 who suffered a seizure during a drill and was taken away, never to be seen again. To temporarily suppress the seizures, they took Tryptophan, a neurotransmitter that replaced the serotonin that their brains were unable to produce.

During this time, there was one incident that haunted the memories of the young soldiers: a training exercise requiring them to hunt down and kill a prisoner. They accomplished this with such ruthless effectiveness that even Lydecker was alarmed by their exhilaration and savagery. Afterwards, Max was greatly disturbed by what had happened and tried to forget about it, but never could.

Escape

Eventually, the X5's decided they'd had enough, and escaped from Manticore. After one member of the unit, Eva, was shot by Lydecker, her "siblings" finally realized that they truly meant nothing to their CO; they were just materiel to him. Led by Zack, they broke out of Manticore and fled into the forest. After rendezvousing in a clearing a safe distance from the building, Zack split the group up and sent them in different directions. Max didn't think separating was wise, but complied, and, as Zack stayed behind to hold up their pursuers, climbed the fence and disappeared into the night.

While trying to decide what to do, Max was discovered by a Manticore nurse who offered her help. Max, somewhat suspicious, accepted, and stayed at the nurse's cabin for several hours before continuing.

The Pulse and Beyond

Max eventually was taken in by a foster family living in Los Angeles, and lived there for several months. During this time, she and her foster sister, Lucy, had to put up with Lucy's abusive, alcoholic father, which eventually convinced Max to leave. Around this time, disaster struck on a global scale: terrorists detonated a nuclear weapon in the sky high above the United States, producing a powerful electromagnetic pulse which destroyed virtually every electronic device within thousands of miles, immediately plunging the country into total anarchy. Not much is known of what Max did during her teenage years, other than that she was living in Seattle by the time she was nineteen.

Adulthood

In Seattle, Max worked as a bike messenger for a delivery service called Jam Pony. She became friends with several other messengers, mainly Cynthia "Original Cindy" McEachin, Herbal Thought, and Calvin "Sketchy" Theodore. For years, Max had wanted to find her missing brothers and sisters from Manticore, and so hired a private investigator in Seattle to help track them down. In order to fund the expensive search, Max supplemented her income with a secret life as a cat burglar, using her deliveries as opportunities to scout new targets.

During one of these burglaries, Max met Logan Cale, the underground cyber-journalist known as Eyes Only. Cale noticed his visitor's unusual abilities and, after investigating further, discovered her identity as an X5. He proposed a deal: he would help Max track down her sibs, and she would help him bring down criminals. Max at first refused, unwilling to expose herself to notice by Manticore, but eventually agreed after taking pity on one of the people Logan was helping.

Not long after this, Logan located the nurse from Manticore, named Hannah Sukova, who had helped Max years ago. Max went to see her and ended up saving her from Lydecker, who had discovered Hannah's connection to Max. Max also learned from Hannah about her surrogate mother, whom she had wondered about for years.

Throughout this time, Logan had also been following leads on Zack, who was living in Seattle temporarily. Max was then finally reunited with her long-lost brother, only to discover that he wasn't what she had expected. He still considered himself a soldier, and to maintain secrecy he refused to tell Max where the other X5's were.

Over the course of several months, Max and Zack would find themselves working together to help the others. Once, they were left no choice but to turn in one of their fellow X5's, Brin, to Manticore lest she die from a deadly syndrome that plagued many transgenics.

At one point, Lydecker enlisted the help of the Seattle Police Department to capture Max, claiming that she was wanted for murder. When she was taken into custody by the police, Zack turned himself in to save Max, and was taken back to Manticore.

Later, in order to try to get information from Zack, Manticore let him escape and link up with Max, hoping that he would tell her where the other X5's were, and, in turn, unwittingly tell Lydecker as well, as he was eavesdropping with a transmitter implanted in Zack's head. Zack did, indeed, tell Max where several other escapees were, however, they then realized they had been set up and were able to warn the others via an Eyes Only broadcast, giving them time to evade the subsequent search.

Some time later, Max encountered an X5, named Jace, who had not escaped when the others did and was in Seattle on a mission to assassinate a former employee of Manticore, Adriana Vertes. Max stopped Jace from killing Vertes (even though she despised anyone who had worked for Manticore), however, the situation became more complicated when it was learned that Jace was pregnant. Max eventually convinced her to stop serving Manticore and, despite Vertes' betrayal of them to Lydecker, the two evaded their pursuers and Max helped Jace escape to Mexico.