All of Us -- Chapter 33a

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.).

Notes: Maybe slight spoiler-ish stuff for “Fuhgeddaboutit.”

“I’m glad that Jenny’s okay,” Dennis said to Caroline as they walked together through a park that night.

“Me too,” Caroline said.

“I’m jealous,” Dennis admitted. “You got to talk for a minute with Becky.”

Caroline smiled. “Maybe you will too sometime soon. You’ll be happy to know that her and Zack act like a brother and a sister should. Becky started to say something to me that was probably embarrassing about Zack and he heard her and I think they were fighting at least verbally and then Jenny apologized and said that they were being weird.” She laughed. “Family bonding at it’s finest.”

“Lucky kids,” Dennis said. “I wish that I had something like that growing up. I had friends, but I didn’t have any brothers and sisters that I grew up with.”

“I’m sorry,” Caroline apologized.

“It’s okay,” Dennis said. He looked around. “I don’t see any of those kids watching us, but they’ve known how to do this for most of their lives. I’d be worried if I did see one of them around.”

“Yeah,” Caroline agreed.

“Caroline?”

Caroline stopped in her tracks. Not him. Not him. Not him… It was a voice that she hadn’t heard in a long time and the one voice that she wanted above all else to never hear again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and tried to make herself calm down. I can’t go crazy now. Not in front of Dennis yet and definitely not in public. Just because nobody appears to be around doesn’t mean that you’re not in public. She turned around. “It’s been a long time. What are you doing here in Seattle?”

“Just passing through,” Lydecker said.

Dennis looked at Caroline suspiciously. There’s something going on here. I’m not sure who this guy is, but I think Caroline does and by the look on her face, there’s some big history between them and it isn’t pleasant at all, at least on Caroline’s part. He knew Caroline well enough to see past the apparently neutral expression on her face and see the hatred that was apparently hidden in her eyes. What is going on here? “Old friend of yours?”

“Something—“ Caroline was cut off as she was violently tackled to the ground. She tried to catch her breath and not only saw a masked woman dressed in black lying on top of her, but heard bullets flying over head. Oh my God, somebody’s trying to—Dennis! She looked to her left and saw that Dennis had been tackled to the ground by a masked man his size. She looked over to her right and saw that another masked woman had tackled Lydecker. The three people who had saved them looked up suddenly and exchanged hand signals. The man and the woman who had saved Dennis and Caroline got up off of them and the other woman motioned to them to get behind a nearby bench.

“Stay here until it’s safe,” the mystery woman ordered. Lydecker looked at her and Caroline could have sworn his face went pale. He started to say something, but the mystery woman cut him off. “Shut the hell up, Lydecker!” She looked around nervously. “Where are the others?”

“Right here,” a male voice said confidently and two more people, also masked, leaped over them and joined the first two.

Caroline looked up and her eyes widened at the sight. Oh my God, they’re amazing! The men that they were fighting were obviously the Familiars that Krit and Jeff had told her about, but the transgenics that were fighting them were spectacular as they took down all eight of the Familiars that had attacked.

The mystery woman looked up when she heard that the fighting had stopped. She stood up and motioned for Dennis and Caroline and Lydecker to get up and walked over to the other transgenics. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, Max, we got them,” the second man that had joined them told her. “Most of the rest of the X6s could have taken those last two.”

“Good job, Kyle,” Max said.

“What, no good job for me?” the first man who had joined in asked. The other two, the ones who had saved Dennis and Caroline, stayed silent.

Max rolled her eyes and smacked Alec upside the head. Caroline had to hold back a laugh at that. “Shut up.”

“What are we going to do about these guys?” Kyle wondered.

“I’ve got it covered,” Max assured him. She unzipped her leather vest and reached inside of a pocket that was inside it and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed a number and waited for a moment. “Hey, Mia? It’s Max. Yeah, I need a favor from you. Can you come over to Pine Road Park and do your thing? Yeah, that’s right. Great. Thank you so much, Mia. I’ll see you in a few.” She disconnected and put her cell phone away and re-zipped her vest. “Mia will be here in a few minutes to take care of these bozos.”

“A Psy-Ops unit?” Lydecker guessed.

Max glared. “I thought I told you to shut up.”

They were all quiet for a few minutes before a car pulled up to the side of the road near the park and a young woman got out and walked over to them, smiling cheerfully. “Hey there, Max.”

“Hi, Mia,” Max said. She gestured to the Familiars, who were just starting to regain consciousness. “Think you can take care of all eight of these morons?”

“No problem.” Mia looked down critically at the fallen men before glancing back up at Max. “I once had to work over an entire unit of X5s all by myself. I can handle these guys without a problem. In a few minutes, they won’t know that they even saw General Murphy and Colonel Robinson, much less tried to kill them. I’ll fill you in on all of the details later.”

“Excellent,” Max said. “You’re the best.” She and the other transgenics and Dennis and Caroline and Lydecker left the park. “Where did you guys park the van?”

“Just around the corner,” Alec told her. They turned the corner and got into the van that was parked there, just as Alec had said. Alec got behind the wheel and they drove over to the transgenics’ safehouse and parked the van there and went inside.

“Thank you for saving us,” Dennis said.

“It was nothing,” Max said. She took off her mask and Alec and Kyle did the same. The other two kept their masks on.

Caroline looked around. “Where’s Jenny?”

“She’s upstairs with two more of our guys,” Max assured her. She looked at the two transgenics who were still masked and her voice became even more assuring. “It’s okay for you guys to take them off now. Don’t worry.”

The two transgenics looked at each other nervously before they reached up and took their masks off. Dennis and Caroline stared in shock as they realized that they were face-to-face with their son and daughter for the first time.

TBC