Prophecy -- Chapter 5

Disclaimer:  The TV shows Dark Angel and Supernatural, all of the characters that appeared on them, and everything else that has to do with the shows belong to their respective owners, not to me.  No money is being made off of this fic.  I only own the original characters (Dylan/X6-175, etc.).

Alec, along with most of the other transgenics that were present, stared at the television near the door of a large room inside Terminal City’s main building.  He scrutinized the man being interviewed.  Hard to tell if he’s Familiar that’s a pompous ass like White is sometimes or if he’s just a pompous ass.  Either way, he’s getting on my nerves.  I wish it was physically possible for me to reach through the TV and wring his neck.  Nah, too extreme and so far, this particular jerk is all talk and no bite.  Maybe I’d just screw with him.  That could be fun.  I remember one time…  Alec was yanked from his thoughts when Max sat down on the couch next to him.

“Did I miss anything?” she asked breathlessly.  “The meeting with Lori and Bain went longer than any of us had planned.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Alec replied.  “This guy’s been spouting the same anti-Transgenic crap that we’ve heard a million times by now.  I’m just trying to decide if he’s a Familiar or simply a moron.”

“Does it matter?” Wade sneered.

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Alec conceded.  “Does your opinion matter?”  He grinned in response to the dirty look that Wade shot him.  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”  Alec turned his head so that he was facing Max.  “That meeting did go okay, right?”

“Yeah, it did.  Don’t worry about it,” Max assured him.  “I’ll give you all the details later.  I promise.”

“…yes, that’s correct,” the man on the television said.  “There’s nothing remotely human about these creatures beyond a physical resemblance, and some of them lack even that luxury.  I can’t state enough how I feel that these things are nothing more than advanced animals.  I suppose that there would be people who would argue that particular phrase can be applied to normal humans, but we are normal humans.  Not unnatural science projects that happen to have a relatively long shelf life.”

“Show of hands.  Who here wants to cram this jerk into a small box and stick him on a shelf to see how long his shelf life is?” Alec asked.

Max shook her head.  “These morons.  They just keep on coming.  If only it was something as simple as some factory that’s producing them that we can just blow to high heaven.”

“I want to blow something up,” an X6 spoke up.  The girl fidgeted around in her spot on the floor.  “I haven’t done something like that in awhile.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have been the demolitions expert in your unit, would you?” Alec commented.

“Yeah, I was,” she confirmed.

A young anomaly sitting nearby the X6 frowned.  “I don’t get these people.  I mean, they like to run their mouths about how weird and freaky that all of us are, but have they taken a good look at themselves lately?  Some of them act so weird that it makes me feel borderline normal.”

“I don’t think anybody’s gonna disagree with you,” Max said.  “I’ve been out here for years and I still don’t completely understand people and I think that most people that think that they get other humans are full of shit.”  She shrugged.

“But we should understand our enemy, shouldn’t we?” Wade asked.  He smirked.  “Tactics 101, first or second lesson.”

“Why don’t you go find your pacifier and baby blanket and take a nap?” Max suggested.

“Thank you very much for coming into the studio today.  That’s all for this edition of the show.  Do not forget to tune in tomorrow when we will have more information about the transgenic situation here in Seattle.  Good night.”

Alec reached for the remote control and changed the channel to a ball game.  “Thank goodness that interview’s done and over with.  I’ve had enough of that guy.  So, anybody want to start putting down bets on who’s going to win?  Anybody?”  He turned to Max and saw her glaring at him.  “Come on, Max.  It’s not as if people haven’t placed bets on sports before.”

“True enough,” Max admitted as she got up off of the couch.  “I’m gonna head over to my crib and grab a bite to eat.  You want to come with me, Alec?”

“Sure, what the hell,” Alec said.  He got up and followed Max out of the room.  “How many anti-transgenic dimwits on TV that we’ve seen counting Mr. Pompous today?  At least twelve different people?”

“That sounds about right,” Max agreed.  “Another day, another idiot.”

“Twelve years and you’re still calling me an idiot after that prank?”

Max grinned and ran over to the young woman that had spoken and gave the new arrival a big hug.  “Audrey, I can’t believe it’s you!  How have you been?  Where have you been?”  She smirked.  “And believe me, I’ve come up with more creative names than idiot since the last time that I saw you.”

“Oh yeah,” Alec said.  “You should hear some of the ones that she calls me.  Hey, Max, introductions?”

Max smacked him on the shoulder.  “I was just about to do that, you ass.”

“That’s the one that she uses the most,” Alec added.

“Sad but true,” Max said.  “Alec, this is Audrey, one of my sisters.  She was one of the lucky ones that got away when we ran back in ’09.  Audrey, this is Alec.”  She noted the slightly confused look on Audrey’s face.  “He’s Ben’s twin.”

“Oh,” Audrey said.

“Nice to meet you,” Alec greeted her.  “It’s nice to see a sister of Max’s with a normal name.  How did you come up with Audrey, anyhow?”

“A nurse back at Manticore when I was little,” Audrey told him.  “I gashed the hell out of my knee one afternoon when we were doing a training exercise out in the South woods in Gillette, so I had to go right to the infirmary when it was over to get stitches.  The nurse that sutured my knee talked to me, just some random and harmless stuff, as she was doing it to distract me and one thing that she said was that she thought that I looked like Audrey Hepburn.  I didn’t know who she was talking about at the time, but I thought the name Audrey was really pretty, so I kept it.  Heck, I don’t know how she could have seen a resemblance to that actress in a kid who under normal circumstances should have been in pre-school.”

“Who knows?” Alec said.  He looked past Audrey, grinned, and waved.  “Dylan, come here.  Audrey, I’d like to introduce you to one of my buddies.  This is Dylan, the artist formerly known as X6-175.”

“Very funny,” Dylan remarked.  He looked at Audrey and found himself tongue-tied.  “Um…hi.”

Audrey smiled as she looked up at him.  “Hi.  It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too.  I mean…who are…how do you know Alec?”  Great, Dylan.  Just perfect.  You couldn’t have sounded like a bigger idiot if you’d tried.

“Actually, it’s Max that I really know,” Audrey said.  “I’m one of her sisters.  Max just introduced me to Alec.”

“Oh,” Dylan said.

Audrey smiled.  “Hey, you couldn’t have known that.  Cheer up.”  Her smile grew when she saw the gloom disappear from Dylan’s face.  “There you go.”

“Yeah,” Dylan said.

Max looked between the two of them.  “Audrey, do you have an apartment to crash at?”  When she saw Audrey nod in response, Max focused on Dylan.  “Can you be a huge help and show Audrey over to her place?  I’ve got to go over a couple of things with Alec.”

“Sure,” Dylan agreed.  “No problem.”  He motioned for Audrey to follow him and they started to leave.  “This place is pretty decent.  I’ve barely been here myself, really, but…”

“And what do you need to go over with me?” Alec wondered once Dylan and Audrey were out of earshot.

“I’ll tell you when we get to my place,” Max said.  Alec raised an eyebrow and Max sighed.  “Come on, you didn’t see how Dylan was looking at Audrey?”

“I did.  I’m not blind,” Alec pointed out.  “The kid’s got it for your sister.  He only gets tongue tied like that around girls that he likes.  Remind me to tell you about this one mission that he was on with me, Biggs, and a couple of others and we went to a club on our free time.  And Audrey is older than Dylan.”

“Not by that much.  Maybe two, two-and-a-half years, tops,” Max defended.  “Audrey’s one of the youngest X5s.  She’s only a couple of months younger than Jondy and Jack and just a few weeks older than Krit and me.”  She sighed.  “I wish Jondy, Krit, and the rest of them were here.  It’s just me and Audrey right now.”  She blinked and grinned teasingly at Alec.  “Since when do you have a problem with a younger guy possibly hooking up with an older woman?  Would you care to remind me who it was that I saw flirting with an X4 about two months ago?”

“Guilty as charged,” Alec conceded.

“You’re owning up.  I’m proud of you,” Max joked.

“Thank you.  I’m glad that somebody appreciates me,” Alec said.  He laughed when Max rolled her eyes.  “Oh, Maxie.”

TBC