Dysfunctional -- Chapter 26

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Alec, Biggs, Renfro, 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 (X5-121, etc.).

494, 511, and 941 sat quietly in a van several days later as it drove through Seattle. When the vehicle stopped just outside of the city, the three of them shouldered the backpacks that they had with them and exited onto the sidewalk. 494 stepped to the curb and waved his hand when he spotted a taxi approaching. It slowed, pulled up to the curb, and the driver got out and helped to put the suitcases the boys had on them into the trunk before they all got inside and the driver pulled away from the curb.

“Airport, please,” 494 instructed.

“Yeah, sure,” the cab driver muttered. He headed towards the airport, getting the three transgenics there fairly quickly. The driver dropped them off at the correct terminal and 494, 511, and 941 went inside and up to the right counter. They checked in, got their boarding passes and then made their way to their gate.

“Have you ever taken a commercial flight before while on a mission, 941?” 511 asked as they sat down next to each other.

“Yeah, twice before,” 941 replied. “Once was to Spain and the other time was to Ottawa. I didn’t mind it either time.”

“Okay, boys, it’s time to get our I.D.s,” 494 said, grinning. "You know the drill. We get to call ourselves by the charming aliases that the good folks at Manticore dreamed up for us while we're in public and not doing the dirty work on this assignment until we're safe and sound back home." He opened his backpack, took out a manila envelope, and removed three wallets from it. He handed one each to 511 and 941 and kept one for himself before he put the envelope back in the backpack and closed that up. 494 opened the wallet and looked at the driver’s license that was inside. “It looks like I’m gonna be Nicholas Wright for the next two weeks. What did you guys get?”

511 opened up his wallet. “Daniel Grey.” He shrugged. “I can live with that. What about you?”

“Let me see,” 941 said. He opened up his own wallet. “Jeffrey McGrath.” He smiled. “I like it.” The teenager's smile became wider. “Hey, they even made me eighteen on here! I’m not even seventeen yet. Nice.”

“You can pass for eighteen…enough,” 494 teased. “Seriously, kid, let’s go over our intel while we’ve got a minute.”

“Coming right up,” 941 told him. He opened his backpack and took out a three-ring binder, the kind any normal student would have. He passed the binder over to 511, who was sitting in the middle, and then he and 494 leaned over so that they could get a better look at the binder’s contents. They went over the information for awhile and only paused when 941’s stomach made noise, which made 941 look slightly embarrassed. “Well, we did kind of miss breakfast.”

“And a growing boy like you needs his nourishment,” 511 commented, laughing. “We’ve still got plenty of time before we have to board the plane and there’s a fast food place over there. I’ll be right back.” He got up and walked away and returned a few minutes later carrying a paper bag in one hand and a cardboard holder containing three cups of coffee. “Enjoy, guys.”

“Thank you,” 941 said gratefully. He took one of the cups of coffee from the holder and waited for a moment while 511 sat back down before taking one of the breakfast sandwiches from the bag. He unwrapped it and took a big bite. “Damn, this is good. I’ll take this over flavorless oatmeal, flavorless random sludge, or the cardboard cold cereal that we have for breakfast back home any day of the week.”

“Especially since it won’t do a damn thing to our physiques,” 494 added. “Hey, I’m single and the ladies love a man with a six-pack.”

“Yeah, 121 sure does love…” 511 trailed off when he saw the curious look on 941’s face. “121 and I are dating. Well, we’re dating as much as two people can date back home.”

“Oh,” 941 said. He smiled, though it seemed a little tense. “That’s cool.” He saw the looks that 494 and 511 were giving him. “Seriously, it is really nice that you found somebody.”

“I know what you mean,” 494 said understandingly. “I told you the kid’s intimidated by 121, didn’t I?”

511 slapped his forehead. “Right, Nicholas, I forgot.”

“Just call me Nick for the next two weeks. Nicholas is a little bit too long,” 494 told him. He drank some of his coffee then almost spit it out and made a face as he swallowed it. “Note to self: remember to wait until the crap actually cools down enough for you not to burn your tongue.”

“Sad, isn’t it, little buddy?” 511 remarked to 941, winking. “An IQ above genius level and he still can’t remember not to let his coffee cool down before he drinks it.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” 941 commented. “Um…could you please not call me little buddy? I don’t like it.”

“No problem…little buddy.” 511 added the last two words under his breath, but he was still smiling. 941 mock glared at him, though he knew that 511 was only teasing him. “Sorry, Jeffrey.”

“It’s okay,” 941 assured the older transgenic. “You can call me Jeff for the next few weeks.”

“Okay,” 511 said. “So, Jeff…tell us about yourself? We know your stats and that kind of shit from the briefings we got yesterday, but what about everything else?”

941 laughed. “Sure. On the chances that I get to eat real food when I’m out on a mission, I like pretty much any Oriental kind of cooking and I also like pizza and burgers and stuff like that. I haven’t gotten the chance to ride a motorcycle outside of when I was taught how to ride one in mechanics and I can’t wait for my first real opportunity. I think 224 is an arrogant prick and I wouldn’t mind beating the crap out of him which I usually do when they have the two of us spar against each other.”

494 looked amused at the expression on 941's face. “Somebody’s competitive, huh?”

“He pisses me off,” 941 explained. “He’s good, but he rubs it in everybody’s faces pretty much all of the time. I’m just happy that he’s got his own unit and I’ve got mine and that we don’t have to deal with each other all that much.”

“Speaking of units, what about yours?” 494 questioned. “From what I’ve observed, you guys seem to get along really well. You’re definitely closer to each other than mine and Daniel’s unit.” He shrugged. “Not that it’s a hard feat to pull off, but…”

941 laughed again. “I know. 252 is pretty feisty sometimes. She’s very nice and she’s got a good head on her shoulders, but I sometimes have a hard time getting her to cool her temper down when somebody pisses her off. She’s top-rated, like I am. Then there’s 312. He’s a great guy and he’s funny, but he also like to take advantage of the fact that he only sleeps every other night and pulls the occasional prank on me or somebody else in our unit.”

“Does he have shark DNA?” 511 asked.

“No. I’m not sure what extra DNA he’s got in him, but it’s not shark,” 941 replied. He continued on. “…and 646 is the youngest among us. She’s a sweetheart and she’s also our explosives specialist.”

“What about that blond girl?” 494 wondered. “The one that I saw with your unit on the day last year when 121 and 786 had that fight, the one that stared down 786 and blocked the attempted slap?”

“Oh yeah, 405,” 941 said. He grinned. “She’s actually the C.O. of her own unit back in Wyoming and she was attached to our unit when she’d been assigned to go on a mission with 252 last year. I think they had to infiltrate a military school east of here. She was the one who let me use the gun that she’d swiped from there. She’s got no fear at all. I don’t mean that she’s the type to go out and do something like going bungee jumping off of the top of the Space Needle for the heck of it, it’s just that nothing scares her.”

“Do you have a crush on her or something?” 511 teased.

“No,” 941 said immediately.

“Jeff, you’re blushing,” 494 pointed out. “Considering that Daniel and I know how to read body language even better than you do…”

“I…I guess I do,” 941 admitted. He shrugged. “She’s beautiful. She’s smart. We have a lot in common. She’s got a great sense of humor when she does smile, which isn’t that often. Then again, she is from Wyoming and you guys have seen Colonel Lydecker when he’s visited here. Would you want to smile a lot if you see him day in and day out?”

“Not really,” 511 said. “That guy is a hard ass and then some.” He thought for a few minutes. “I’d still rather serve under him than under Director Renfro. If I had a choice of whether I wanted my commander to be a hard ass or a probable psychotic bitch, I’d take hard ass any day of the week.” He turned back to 941. “Why didn’t you tell her how you felt?”

“I didn’t know exactly how I felt back then,” 941 said. “Even if I did, I don’t know if 405 felt the same way about me. I mean, we got to be really good friends when she was attached to my unit and when she came back to our home to check in and train on weekends, but it never occurred to me to ask. Even if I did, 405 is also one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met. If she won’t admit to something, she won’t admit it.”

“I bet she scored high during resistance training,” 494 remarked.

“Oh, she did,” 941 said with a laugh. He looked down. “Unfortunately, it still doesn’t matter. She went back to Wyoming once her and 252’s mission was completed. The odds aren’t that good that I’ll even see her again, much less get a chance to tell her how I feel.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it, Jeff.” 511 put a friendly arm around 941’s shoulders. “If it’s meant to happen, then it’s going to happen and you will be seeing 405 again one of these days and then when the time is right, you will tell her how you feel. It might be when we get back, it might be two months from now, it might be years from now, but it’ll happen when it happens if it’s meant to be. Just don’t lose hope.”

“I won’t,” 941 promised. “I’ll never lose hope. 405 is worth it.”

494 looked at 941 and smiled. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, kid.”

“Thanks, Nick,” 941 said.

“Okay, wait a second here,” 511 protested. “You get to call him kid, and yet I can’t call him little buddy? Where’s the justice in that?”

“Hey, you can call me kid if you want to,” 941 said, smiling impishly.

494 and 511 both laughed. “I think we’re going to get along just fine,” 494 declared. “If we had a club…welcome to it, Jeff.”

“It’s good to be a part of it,” 941 said.

TBC