All of Us -- Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Becky/X6-405, etc.).

Max waited patiently by one of the gates in Terminal City. Brin, Wayne, and Syl had gone out to pick up stuff from her and Syl and Krit’s old apartments. She looked over at the X7 who was standing next to her on sentry duty. She must have been one of the Wyoming ones. It might be twelve years, but I’d never forget Gale’s face. “Hey, there.”

“Hey,” the clone said.

Max was surprised. “You talk?”

“Yes, the Wyoming and New York X7s talk,” the clone said. “We were known as the X7 Alpha series. The Seattle X7s, the Beta series, communicate solely ultrasonically. We can communicate with both methods.”

“Wow,” Max said. “I’ve seen the database before, but I haven’t read much about the X7 series. Your designation is X7-831, right?”

“X7-831,” the clone confirmed. “I was cloned from an X5 in your unit.”

“X5-831,” Max said. “Her name was Gale. She died when she was two years younger than you are now.” She paused. “Do you know if X7-452 survived the fire?”

“X7-452 did not survive,” 831 informed her. “She had been ill with progeria and recovered and was sent out on sentry duty the night of the fire and we had been under orders to terminate any and all soldiers who reached the fence, orders that had come from Director Renfro whom we now know betrayed us. X7-452 was shot and killed by X4-243 as 243 fled the facility.”

“Oh,” Max said. How am I supposed to feel about that one? Should I feel happy because she almost killed me a year ago? Should I feel sad because she and I are genetically nearly identical? I wish that I had an answer to that one. “So, 831, do you have a name?”

“I have been using the name Blair when interacting with ordinary humans,” she replied. “I suppose that it would be what you would call my name now.”

“It is,” Max said. She and Blair looked up and saw the truck approaching. “They’re back.”

“It’s all clear,” Blair reported. “You can open the gate and let them in.”

“Thanks,” Max said. “I guess I’ll catch you later, Blair.” She walked up to the gate and opened it and waited for the truck to drive in before she shut and locked it. She walked up to the truck. “I was wondering when you guys would show up.”

“Funny,” Wayne said. “Your old apartment was wired. We had to go about getting the rest of your stuff carefully. Original Cindy says hi and she misses you a lot.”

“You guys didn’t get spotted on a camera, right?” Max asked worriedly.

“There was one camera hidden near the entrance to the apartment,” Brin said as she turned off the engine and got out of the truck. “That’s why I went along, remember? White’s never seen my face before. I went in, pretended like I was buying the stuff off of Cindy, and darn it if Wayne and Syl’s company baseball caps obscured their faces as they were taking the stuff out of the apartment and to the truck.” She smiled. “There were listening devices spread out everywhere. We couldn’t remove them without suspicion on White’s part, but we let Cindy know that they were there.” She yawned. “I need to get to bed. This was the first time that I’ve gotten out and actually done something at least somewhat significant since Anthony was born.”

“Don’t sweat it, Brin.” Max gave her older sister a reassuring smile. “When we get back to the building, you can just go straight back to your apartment.  You don’t have to help with the furniture if you’re not feeling up to it.”

“Thanks, Max,” Brin said gratefully.

“Hop in, ladies,” Wayne said, sliding over to sit behind the wheel of the truck. “When we get to the building, we’ll get your stuff taken care of and then we’ll do Syl and Krit’s things.”

“Works for me,” Max agreed. She opened the passenger side door and waited for Syl to slide over before she got in and shut the door and Wayne restarted the truck and they drove over to the apartment building that Max and Zack as well as Syl and Krit were living in. They got out and opened the back of the truck and after Brin had gone inside to her apartment, started to unload the truck. Max blinked in surprise. “O.C. gave me the couch! She didn’t have to do that! That was the only couch in the apartment.”

“She said that it was your couch and you should have it,” Syl said. She looked upwards. “Hey, Zack, get your lazy ass out of the ap—“ She stopped when she saw Zack coming out of the building. “Never mind.”

“Lazy ass?” Zack repeated.

“I’ll have you know that his ass is not lazy,” Max informed Syl. “It’s perfect, but not lazy.”

“That was too much information,” Wayne joked. “But speaking of lazy…” He looked up. “Krit, I have a paintball gun back at my place and I know which apartment is yours. I will sniper you with it while you’re sleeping tonight if you don’t get out here and help us with the stuff.”

“Hold your horses, I’m coming,” Krit snapped impatiently. A minute later, he also walked out of the building. “I’m sorry that I was in the bathroom when you guys got here, okay?”

“You should be apologizing to Syl,” Wayne said, snickering. “She’s the one who lives with you.”

“Grow up,” Syl said, slapping Wayne upside the head.

“Besides, I don’t see Rena and Brin here,” Krit pointed out.

“Rena drew helping on sentry duty by the main gate from one to four in the morning and Brin’s exhausted from taking care of Tony,” Wayne said. He flipped Krit off. “Remember?”

Syl rolled her eyes. “Come on. Let’s just get the stuff unloaded and into our apartments and then you can go off to your place and be an immature asshole in private.”

“You’re such a loving sister,” Wayne said.

They got to work and moved the stuff into the apartments without any problems, other than when Max nearly beat the shit out of Krit when he almost threw a lamp of hers at Wayne. They finally finished moving the things into both apartments and sat around the living room of Syl and Krit’s place. Syl went into the kitchen and got them some water and passed the bottles around. “I am so happy that I got that fridge working.”

“Let’s hear it for the X-series and transhumans who got the city generators running,” Krit agreed, raising his bottle of water in a salute before chugging it down. “Nothing like a cold bottle of water after some heavy lifting.”

“You really are lazy,” Max said. “That was not heavy lifting. We can lift much heavier things without breaking a sweat.”

“I know,” Krit said, smiling innocently. “Do I look like I’m sweating?”

Max grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. “Sometimes I can’t believe that I’m related to your sorry ass. I guess it’s obvious who got the brains between the two of us.”

“Give it a rest,” Syl told her. She sighed. “Man, this has been a long week.”

“I’ll second that,” Max said. “Busting Zack and Becky and Jeff out of the hostage situation, moving into Terminal City…that would drain anybody. Sometimes even I wonder how we manage to pull things like this off time after time and just bounce right back from them.”

“It beats me,” Wayne said, shrugging.

Zack leaned forward and looked at Wayne. “How did you get that bruise on your face, Wayne?”

Wayne sighed. “I hit on a chick from an X5 unit from here in Seattle and she literally hit me.”

“Who was it?” Syl asked.

“I think it was…” Wayne paused while he tried to recall the designation of the woman. “…786.”

“Ouch,” Max said. “She was in Alec and Sasha’s unit. Alec hasn’t said too much about the rest of his unit yet save for Sasha and 511 and I haven’t talked to Sasha about it at all, but Jeff said that from what he observed back at Manticore, she and Sasha didn’t get along at all. Do you think Sasha knows that 786 is here in Terminal City?”

“I don’t know,” Wayne said. “It’s just as well that she turned me down. She went psycho on me a little after I tried to pick her up. It’s not the smacking me in the face part, but she has a worse ‘hate the ‘09ers’ complex than Sasha did. That’s kind of a turn off when you are one of said ‘09ers.” He shrugged. “Plus she was a complete bitch. Not like Max…” He ducked, anticipating some kind of assault from Max. “…but like the kind that you wouldn’t want to spend more than two minutes in a room with, if that.”

“Screw her,” Krit declared. “If she’s still hung up on that twelve-year-old bullshit, then she can go take a nice long trip off that short pier on the beach.”

“Thanks, bro,” Wayne said.

“Awww, isn’t that sweet,” Syl said. “They’re getting along now!”

“You should talk,” Wayne pointed out. “Do I have to remind you about how you and Rena were getting your aggressions out on each other for that last joke that you played on Rena in retaliation for how Rena let you know that she was in Seattle back in February?”

“She covered my bathroom in slime,” Syl reminded him. “Besides, you weren’t there and we made up afterwards. We’re cool now.”

“I know that, but I was the one who had to put Rena’s right elbow back in it’s socket in the med bay this evening before dinner,” Wayne said. “Oh yeah, you didn’t pop any of those stitches tonight, did you?” Syl flipped him off and he laughed. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“Wayne…” Zack said.

“Okay, I’ll be quiet now,” Wayne conceded.

“When’s Zane getting in?” Krit asked. “Do you have an ETA for him yet?”

“The afternoon sometime,” Zack said. “He’s going to call when he gets into Seattle.” He glared at Krit and Wayne. “Whatever ‘welcome’ prank you’ve got planned, save it.”

“You have to suck the fun out of everything, don’t you?” Wayne remarked.

Zack smirked. “That’s my job.”

TBC