Together -- Chapter 16

Disclaimer: All of the characters that appeared on the TV show Dark Angel (Max, Zack, Logan, etc.) belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic.  I only own the original characters (Becky/X5-405, etc.).

Notes: Some spoiler-ish stuff for the season 2 episode “Proof of Purchase.”

A man walked down a hall of the Federal Building in Seattle to his temporary office. The look on his face was all business as he turned his head to look at the assistant that was following in his wake. “Anything new?”

“We’ve managed to catch several trangenics yesterday, Agent White,” the assistant reported. He opened the file he was carrying. “One transhuman, two anomalies, two X8s, and one of the X9s that managed to make it out. We were lucky that the X9s were so young, we estimate that at least half of them were killed in the fire, and that’s only if every X9 that was at least two years of age made it out, which means that it’s more likely than not that most of that generation is gone.”

“Good,” White said. “Makes our job easier.” He opened the door of his office and he and the assistant went in. “Anything else?”

“Our men finished combing all three sites as you ordered,” the assistant continued. “We didn’t find anything at the site at Gillette and at the site north of Syracuse, which was what we expected. Manticore did a good job of cleaning out those two facilities when they consolidated everything to the Seattle facility. Again, we pretty much found what we expected to find at the site of the fire. Transgenic remains, a few human remains that we assume are personnel that weren’t able to evacuate the area in time, some equipment that hadn’t completely burned but is in no shape to be used again any time in the near future, some medication in the area where the infirmary was located. And we did find some remains that we determined were that of Director Renfro’s through dental records. We’re running tests on them, but the preliminary reports indicate that she was already dead by the time the smoke or the fire could have killed her.”

“What about the Manticore database?” White asked. “I’m assuming it was kept on file in the records or on a disk of some kind.”

“It was kept on a CD and there was only one copy, apparently for security reasons,” the assistant replied. “Director Renfro had the copy at the time of the fire, and there was no trace of the CD found, so we assumed that it also burned. We did, however, find this.” He put a steel briefcase on White’s desk. “It was found in the area where Director Renfro’s office was located. We haven’t opened it yet because we thought you would like to have the honor.”

“Thank you,” White told him. He flipped open the briefcase. “It’s a CD dated the day of the fire, either personal or data not yet inputted into the database. Or it could be another copy of the database that wasn’t on record.”

“Well...yes, sir,” the other man said gradually.  White slowly turned his head to glare at the assistant, who winced.  “I’m sorry, sir.”

Where the hell did the NSA find these new agents?  If these are the people who are working for me on this operation, those transgenic freaks are going to be running around forever. “See that it doesn’t happen again.  You’re lucky that I’m in a good mood right now.”

“Yes, sir,” the assistant apologized, contrite. “Do you need anything else?”

“No.” White shook his head and waved one of his hands towards the door. “Keep me posted.”

“I will, sir,” the assistant swore. He quickly left the office.

White took out the CD and popped it into his computer and looked at the file directory that popped up on his monitor. “599 Psy Ops Report, 452 Psy Ops Report, Breeding...all dated that day. Looks like it is fresh information that she didn’t get a chance to put into the database yet.” He continued scanning the directory until one folder name caught his eye. “452 DNA?” He clicked on the folder and clicked on the file marked ‘452 DNA report’ and began to read.

“’The completed DNA workup of X5-452 shows unusual results. While she has all of the standard X5 code sequencing, the detailed analysis revealed a complete lack of any junk DNA. 452...’” White continued to read silently until he finished reading the report, then closed the file and clicked on the one that had the graphical representation of the results. He nodded. “My, my, my...I might just have to see this one to believe it.” He clicked on the 452 Psy Ops report and had just started to read that when his assistant burst into the office again.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we just had a development,” he said, breathless.

“What is it?” White asked.

“One of our men just outside of Seattle just phoned in,” the assistant answered. “We have a possible transgenic sighting.”

“Only a possible one?” White raised an eyebrow and gave the other man another scathing look.

“The agent bumped into a man in a diner while he was having breakfast," the assistant informed White, trying hard to ignore the expression on his superior's face. "The man had apparently attended one of those underground cage fights last night and was so enthusiastic about it that he gave our agent a full description of last night’s events and fighters, including a young man in his early twenties with a tattoo that looked suspiciously like a barcode on the back of his neck. The young man had beaten several other men twice his size. He won a considerable sum of money. Our agent asked around and it looks as if the young man will be returning to fight again tonight.”

“Good work,” White commented. “I’ll take a team out tonight. Do you know the time and location of these fights?”

“Yes, sir,” the assistant said.

“Excellent,” White declared. “Good work.”

“Thank you, sir.” The assistant nodded in acknowledgement before he left the office.

“You might have to wait, but it won’t be long,” White said to himself as he looked at the picture of Max that was attached to the report he was reading. “Not long.”

TBC