A Taste of Everyday -- Chapter 15

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Zane, 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 (Rena/X5-120, etc.).

 

About seven years and seven months later...

 

I lay down on my bed and smiled.  I love summer nights here in Wisconsin.  It's a little humid because of how close we are to the Great Lakes, but it's usually not too warm and there's usually a breeze like there is tonight so I can be happy at night in my apartment with the windows open.  It's a pretty good deal.

I actually like Madison a lot.  I've been living here since a month after what Zack had told me later was the destruction of the DNA lab back at our old home.  After not hearing a word from Zack for a month after he didn't call when he usually did every month, I decided on my own to move.  I'd been living in Bloomington, Minnesota at the time and I'd contemplated moving maybe to Florida where it was warmer, but Zack had always kept me in the Midwest since I had left Texas and I eventually decided to come here to Madison.  After he had busted out of Manticore and had gotten back in touch with me and the others and then later visited me, Zack agreed to let me stay here for at least a few months.

I sighed and felt my mood slide downwards.  Zack hadn't brought just good news with him when he'd finally visited me here.  At one point during our conversation, I'd made a comment that sounded just like something Reese would have said.  I'd called myself on it and asked Zack how Reese was doing.  What Zack told me was devastating, to say the least. Apparently, Reese had died five years ago from some progeria-like disease that can afflict X-series transgenics.  Zack didn't know what it was at the time and he only found out later when Brin, who herself had been recaptured and turned by Manticore, had apparently come down with the same illness when he and Max had gone to rescue her from some old friend of Lydecker's.  I shook my head.  I had almost punched the shit out of Zack when he had told me about Reese's death.  I couldn't believe that he had kept that from me.  Zack had apologized to me and I still would have beaten the crap out of him, but I'd noticed that he stopped speaking after apologizing instead of actually adding on the "but..." that usually followed one of his apologies.  I'd looked at him and I knew that he genuinely meant it.  I guess he'd changed.  Spending three months in Manticore and in Psy-Ops for a good chunk of every day of those three months would knock something around in anybody's head.  But in Zack's case, it was definitely for the better.

Unfortunately, Reese wasn't the only member of our family that I found out was no longer alive.  Both Ben and Tinga had died not too long before Zack and Max had been recaptured by Manticore.  I could completely understand Tinga's situation, as much as I hated the now-dead Director Renfro for killing Tinga.  But when I heard about Ben and the circumstances with his death...holy shit.  I couldn't believe what he had gone through.  Looking back, I know now that Ben wasn't the most stable mentally.  I know, look who's talking there.  Then again, after Zack had split Zane and me up, he had recognized the difficulty that I was having and he knew that I needed some stability and he gave it to me and it made all of the difference in the world.  He had told me that after he had finally found and split up Ben and Reese about a year before Reese died, Ben never gave him any indication that he was struggling in any way and he never did until those last few murders in the months before Ben died.  I didn't and I still don't know who I felt the most sorry for:  Ben for the demons that he had been struggling with, Zack for his guilt about not finding out about Ben sooner, or Max for having to be the one to stop and then kill Ben when he had asked her to do it.  It was just a mess and I couldn't help thinking about 121 and 494.  Did they have problems?  As horrible as Manticore was, it was stable in its own sick way.  Did that help 121 and 494 stay relatively sane when they were going through puberty and adolescence?

I grinned.  At least it wasn't all bad news that Zack had brought me.  I wondered what Jace was--  I turned around when my thoughts were cut off by the Zack phone ringing.  I frowned and picked it up and answered it.  "Zack, what's going on?  Is something wrong?"

Zack sighed.  "Yeah, something's wrong."

"Shit," I swore.  "When do I have to move out by?"

"No, you don't have to move out of Madison yet," Zack assured me.  "You're not in any immediate danger."

I frowned.  Zack sounded really tired, kind of how I had felt after I had gotten into Kansas City after fleeing Texas.  I was pretty worried because Zack rarely, if ever, lets his guard down around us.  "Zack, are you okay?  What's wrong?"

I heard Zack sigh and then there was a pause.  "Rena...remember when you said to me to let you know if I ever found out that I had a sibling by blood that Manticore never let me know about?"

I shrugged.  "Yeah, I remember that.  I was being sarcastic.  You know that.  I was pretty pissed off at you at that particular moment.  Why?"

"Well...I do have a sibling by blood that Manticore never let me know about," Zack admitted.

"Huh?" This was out of left field.

"Eyes Only cracked the Manticore database earlier this month," Zack continued.  "I found out then, but...I should have told you then."

"It's okay, Zack," I said honestly.  "I know that you've been more loose since Manticore burned down, but I'm not expecting Rome to be built in a day."

"Thank you," Zack said.

"So, who's the poor bastard?" I asked, trying to cheer Zack up a little.

"It's Becky," Zack said.  "X6-405.  She was the friend that I'd made when I'd turned myself in to Lydecker that time.  I named her."

"X6-405," I mused.  The designation sounded familiar and I figured out why a moment later.  "Wasn't she the one who kicked yours, mine, Max's, Zane's, and Parker's asses from Wyoming to China that one day that they made our units spar against each other?"

"That's her," Zack confirmed.  He sighed.

Okay, he was really starting to worry me.  It takes a lot to make Zack lose his infamous control over his emotions and things like that by even the slightest bit.  Something really big must have happened.  "Zack, you're starting to freak me out.  What's going on?"

"I should start from the beginning," Zack said.  "Max and I are together.  We're dating."

Wow!  I couldn't help smiling.  I did see that one coming, even after Zack told me that Max was dating that Eyes Only guy when I'd asked about Max the same visit that Zack had told me about Reese.  Whenever I thought back to our life at Manticore from before we bailed, I could see the signs of a budding relationship between my oldest brother and youngest sister as plain as day.  I mean, yeah they were only nine and thirteen years old respectively when we left, but you know how kids are when they're in love or would be in love with each other later when they've grown up.  That was definitely Max and Zack.  That and when Zack mentioned to me about Max and Eyes Only, the look on his face didn't change, but I could definitely see in his eyes how pissed off and jealous he was.  I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

"Congratulations," I said.  "I had a feeling that you two were meant to be together."

"Thank you," Zack said.

"What about Eyes Lonely?" I asked, snickering at my own joke.

"I wasn't there when Max officially broke up with him and told him about me," Zack admitted.  "I'd went back to Becky's apartment which was where I was crashing.  Max told me that he didn't appear to take it too well.  I stayed away from him.  I knew it was the smart thing to do and I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize the friendship that Max still had with him.  He did do a lot for her and for all of us."

"I know," I said.  I definitely remembered the message that I'd seen on TV when I was watching after getting back to my apartment from work.  I'd gotten the hell out of Cincinnati before anybody could have blinked.

"Max had told me that he seemed to be getting better about it, but I still stayed away from his place," Zack continued.  "This is usually when I would go and check up on Syl."

I caught a slightly annoyed tone in his voice.  "What did she do?" I asked, unable to keep all of the glee out of my own voice.  Syl was always the one that I would fight with or annoy.  We're close, but sometimes she would get on my nerves so bad it would drive me crazy.  Then again, it seemed like everybody in our family had somebody that they would always fight with.  Zack and Ben, Jace and Jondy, Eva and Gale...hey, we are brothers and sisters.  Not by blood, but we are siblings and siblings fight with each other sometimes.

"She and Krit are living together now," Zack said.

There's another couple that I had a feeling about!  "That's cool," I said.  "I'm happy for them."

"So am I," Zack admitted.  He sighed again and I could feel myself getting worried again.

"What happened?" I wondered.

"Krit is away from his and Syl's apartment on business," Zack said.  "He was taking this painting that he and Syl had stolen from a museum to the buyer that he had found and he was out of their state and he won't be back for a few more days and Syl was running low on tryptophan and she couldn't get a hold of some.  I had found a source at my current location and I was going to get it when Becky offered to get it for me so that I could spend some more time with Max."

"That was sweet of her," I remarked.

"I know, it was," Zack agreed.  "Max and I started to go out but I had realized that I had left my money back at Becky's apartment so the two of us went back to get it and Max noticed the new laptop that Becky had gotten and this new program which happened to be a tap into the security cameras at Cale's penthouse."

"Huh?"

"Logan Cale.  He's Eyes Only," Zack clarified.  "Max had been worried about him after she broke up with him and had asked Becky to keep an eye on him and this was how Becky did it."

"Oh," I said.

I listened as Zack continued the story and my eyes widened in surprise and anger.  Eyes Only sold Zack out to the person who was hunting us transgenics down?  What the fuck was he thinking?!  How fucking dare he want my oldest brother dead!  As Zack continued the story, the anger faded a little and was replaced by almost complete shock.  How the hell could a non-transgenic be as fast as an X5?  How the hell could anybody, regardless of whether they were a transgenic or not, not feel any pain whatsoever?  Who the fucking hell was this guy?  I felt relieved when Zack had told me that Becky had landed in a dumpster and had survived that fall.

"...and Cale won't know what hit him," Zack concluded.

"Good," I said.  I sighed.  "Zack, are you okay?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly.

I didn't know what to say.  I felt really bad for him.  I mean, Zack finds out that he has another sibling and just weeks after he finds out about the relationship between him and Becky, he watches her almost die.  How cruel was that?  For the first time, I wondered how many times Zack had felt this way.  Did he feel this way when Reese died?  Did he feel this way when he saw Brin as sick as she had been?  When Max told him about Ben and Tinga?  Suddenly, I realized that it was a lot harder to be my oldest brother, to be in his position, than I had ever imagined it could be.

"Take care," I finally said.  "Let me know if you need me for anything.  I love you, Zack."

"Love you too, little sister," Zack said.

I disconnected and turned on my side and stared out the window.  "Poor Zack," I whispered to myself.  I closed my eyes and I fell asleep.

TBC