Together -- Chapter 19

Disclaimer: All of the characters that were 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/X6-405, etc.).

“Finally!” Becky exclaimed as she dragged a couch into her new apartment. “I thought I’d never find my own apartment. No offense.”

“None taken,” Original Cindy assured her. She put a box down on the living room floor. “It was kinda crowded with three people in the place.”

“It’s only been a month since the fire,” Max teased as she put down a coffee table. “That’s pretty quick to get an apartment by Seattle standards. You got lucky that the skank who was living here before got caught having an affair with someone by the guy’s wife and skipped town.”

“Nice of her to leave her appliances here too, isn’t it?” Becky remarked, looking into her kitchen. “They’re in pretty good condition, too.”

“Where did you get this furniture?” Original Cindy wondered.

“Some yard sales,” Becky said, shrugging. “Plus some nice young men decided to help me out and give me some money so I could get that bed and this couch. They came up to me the other night as I was taking a walk and started a pleasant conversation with me. I offered to remove something from them that I thought was hindering their thought processes, and they repaid me by offering the money.”

“Did you get the blood off of your knife?” Max asked.

Becky shook her head. “Didn’t get any blood on it. They were sober enough to give me the money before I started cutting them off. At any rate, they’ll think twice about coming onto any girl for a long time.”

Max sat down in a chair. “Heard from your brother lately?”

“Yeah, I heard from Kyle yesterday,” Becky replied. “He’s over in Reno. He’s finally decided to stay more than a week in one place for awhile. I also got a call yesterday from my youngest sibling, my brother 058. He goes by Xavier now.” She shook his head. “He’s still an X-Men freak. Anyway, Zack actually spotted him just outside of Santa Fe. Zack saw Xavier's barcode so he gave Xavier my cell phone number.”

“He’s gotta be more careful if someone spotted his barcode, even if that someone was Zack,” Max remarked.

“I know,” Becky agreed. “That’s what I told him when he called. I told Xavier he should get out of there just to be safe and he said he would. He’s supposed to call me again tonight. I was thinking about heading out to wherever he settled down in to check up on him. Kyle, too.”

“Getting Normal to give you time off is gonna be a bitch,” Original Cindy pointed out.

“Screw him,” Becky said. “My family is more important than my job.”

“He might,” Max noted. “She’s been one of Normal’s better messengers since she started at Jam Pony. As long as she doesn’t be away for too long, he should give her some time off.”

Becky set the couch down on the living room floor and sat down on it. “I just wish I knew where more of my siblings were. I know where Kyle and Xavier are and I’ve actually seen Kyle since the fire, but I’ve still got four more sisters and four more brothers that are unaccounted for. I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing...I’m worried about them.”

“What are they like?” Max asked. “You’ve never told us much about your family yet. How many of you guys are there?”

“Eleven total right now,” Becky told her. “There were fifteen of us originally, or at least there were supposed to be fifteen of us. In order, it was me, 213, he was a guy, Kyle, 367, she’s a girl, 773, he’s a guy, 144, he’s a guy, 570, he’s a guy, 691, she’s a girl, 607, he was a guy, 392, she’s a girl, 956, he was a guy, 887, he’s a guy, 029, she’s a girl, 662, she was a girl, and finally Xavier. And about eleven years ago, they transferred this girl 284 into our unit, but she and 029 ended up having so many problems getting along that Lydecker and the trainers deemed it detrimental to our unit’s success, so they transferred 284 to another unit about a year-and-a-half after she was transferred to ours. 284 actually had problems getting along with a lot of people. She was transferred around three times before her final transfer to Unit 7. She seemed to get along with them the last time I heard.”

“Were guys and were girls?” Original Cindy repeated.

“They’re dead,” Becky said softly. She bit her lip and looked down.

“What about your other brothers and sisters?” Max asked, noticing the change in Becky’s mood.

“You’ve both met Kyle,” Becky began to say, shooting Max a grateful look. “I don’t know what 213 was like because he died when he was only five months old. Heck, I was only about seven months old myself when he died. I only know about him because they told me about him later. Anyway, 367 is our comm specialist. Do not get her started on anything that involves boy bands. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it has something to do with something that happened on a mission that she and a few of the others went on a few years ago when I was away on different mission. 773 is the joker in our family. No matter how serious the situation is, he always has something funny to say or do. Kyle you know is relatively quiet, but when he and 773 would team up, 773 could succeed like no other in egging Kyle on. 144 is our explosives expert. I think he loves his job just a bit too much, but who am I kidding? I love big explosions myself. 570 is a nice guy. He loves anything that’s even remotely mechanical and hates anything and everything that’s even remotely medical. He hates the site of blood which is really weird in our formerly forced upon profession, though he learned pretty quickly how to fake it until he could get to somewhere close to private to puke. 691 is our field med. She’s got a daredevil streak in her, even more so than a normal X-series. She’s normally quiet, but once in awhile she seems to get the urge to do something incredibly stupid that’ll give me a freaking heart attack. I really don’t know what 607 was like either because he was barely three years old when he died, though he did love it when 773 would mimic the trainers to us. 392 loves nothing more than to try to get a rise out of the guys, especially 773 and 144. 956 was a total motormouth. He was a great kid, but it was hard to get him to be quiet when we weren’t doing drills. 887 is best friends with 570. He loves explosives, but isn’t quite as good as the rest of us at disarming or setting them, though he’s still better than a regular soldier, and he hates martial arts but he’s one of the best in the unit at it and it sometimes frustrates him that he’s good in something he hates and he’s not as good in what he really likes. 029 is as feisty as you are, Max. She actually reminds me a little of you, now that I think about it. 662 loved to laugh. I think that was why she was one of 773’s best friends. And finally Xavier. He’s our computer specialist. Xavier got hooked on the X-Men comics when he picked one up when he was on a mission about a year ago. That’s where he got his name from.”

“Sounds like quite a family,” Max commented.

“They are,” Becky confirmed. “They drive me nuts sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Do you have any other friends?” Original Cindy asked. “Other than your sibs?”

“Sure,” Becky replied. “Twice, when I was on missions, I worked with one of Seattle’s X6 units, Unit 4. I got along great with them.”

“Why would you work with another unit from a different facility?” Max wondered.

“Seattle was the closest facility for me to report to on those missions,” Becky filled her in.

“Ever make any other friends, like when you were on missions and stuff?” Original Cindy asked.

“Yeah, once,” Becky said. “My first long-term away mission when I was sixteen, almost two years ago. One of the men that was part of the committee that kept an eye on Manticore was playing some hardball with some of the other members. I think he was thinking about splitting off and possibly starting his own project to rival Manticore. This guy was the commandant of a military school about sixty or so miles east of the Seattle facility. Me and one of the X6s from Seattle were being sent into the school to pose as students. The X5s were a little too old by that time for the mission and I was one of the few X6s that were ready to go long-term, and the only one from Gillette who was ready. 252 from Unit 4 in Seattle and I posed as stepsisters from a military family. My ‘father’ and her ‘mother’ got transferred and this was the closest military school to their base. We had to live in their barracks and everything. It was awesome, being able to be normal for awhile when we weren’t getting the data we needed. We laughed, we played jokes on other students, we even snuck out with our friends a few times.” She laughed. “I swear, if 252 and I hadn’t been taught how to get out of sticky situations since we could sit up, we all would have gotten caught and in so much trouble! We both had a lot of friends there and when the mission ended six months after it started, we were both sorry to leave.”

“I’m glad you got to experience the outside at least a little bit while you were still at Manticore,” Max said.

Becky nodded. “It made me want to get out more, but I think I knew I’d get out for good someday and my experiences on missions were just sneak previews of the real deal.”

“Well, I don’t know about you two,” Original Cindy remarked. “But I think this apartment needs to be properly broken in.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend to have sex with right now,” Becky said, amused.

“Not that kind of properly broken in,” Original Cindy assured the younger woman. “What is it with teenagers and sex? I meant a party. Friends, food, liquor...”

“Hey, Becky isn’t even eighteen yet, much less twenty-one,” Max teased.

“I’m a big girl,” Becky said, grinning.

“Well, if we’re gonna have an apartment warming party, we better get movin,’” Original Cindy commented. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number and started talking.

“Yep,” Becky said. “No time to waste.”

“None indeed,” Max agreed.

TBC