Together -- Chapter 25

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/X6-405, etc.).

"Long ride," Becky said as she and Zack walked into their room at a motel just past the Nevada state line. She dropped her bag by the door, took off her riding gloves, tossed them onto a dresser, and flopped down on one of the beds.

"It's only eleven and you're already ready to go to sleep?" Zack asked.

"We spent all day on the road," Becky said. "Plus I do need some sleep. It's not like I'm like Max and I just get an hour or two once a week, if that."

"...and it's been a long last couple of weeks," Zack finished.

"That too," Becky agreed. "I'm just going to go in the bathroom and get ready for bed. I'll be out in a few minutes." She stood up, grabbed her bag, and went into the bathroom and shut the door. Zack put his own bag down and sat down on his own bed while waiting for Becky to finish in the bathroom. When she did, he picked up his bag and he went in the bathroom. When he was done, he opened the door and saw Becky lying silently on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Are you okay?" Zack asked quietly. He sat down on his bed and faced her.

"I don't know," Becky replied. "I'm not sure." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. Suzanne's death is still bugging me. I should be trying to be getting over it. I've gotten over losing 213, 607, 956, and 662. Okay, let's be honest. I'm not sure I'm over them at all. Well, maybe 213 because I don't remember him even the slightest bit."

Zack looked confused. "You don't remember him?"

"I don't," Becky repeated. "He was five months old and I was seven months old when he died. I know we have great memories and we remember stuff earlier than normal humans, but that's stretching it even for us. I still wish I remembered him and that he'd lived longer so I could have gotten to know him."

"How did he die?" Zack asked.

"Seizures," Becky said. "Lydecker told me that he'd had the same seizures that you guys do or did except that he'd had them worse."

"Oh," Zack said. "Did you ever have the seizures?"

"Unfortunately," Becky said. "I had one or two small ones that I was able to cover up before you guys left, and then I didn't have any until a few days after my brother 956 died." She shivered. "It was nasty. I got lucky that they were able to stop them that time. I got the permanent fix a few months later, once they were sure that it worked."

"My brother Jack almost died from seizures," Zack said. "He'd gotten lucky a few times. We were able to cover for him if it had happened during the day or if it happened with no guards around at night. But one day..." He had to pause to collect himself.

"I'm sorry," Becky said softly.

"The worst part...Max followed them after they dragged him away," Zack said. "They took him down to one of the operating rooms in the infirmary. She said that his seizures had stopped by the time they got there and that he was still alive and he was actually starting to regain consciousness. But they just put Jack on the operating table and they cut him open like he was a corpse. They just sliced him up and picked his brain apart to try to find out why he was having those seizures. They killed him. They killed him and they didn't care."

"We were just pieces of meat to them. They thought we were expendable lab rats," Becky recalled.

"I made the decision to escape right after Max had told me what they did to Jack. Everybody agreed with me. We decided to wait until the right moment to go, but no later than a week from then," Zack said. "We didn't have to wait that long. Max started having seizures the next day and the guards noticed and...we went for it. Lydecker caught us in the hall as we were getting Max away from the guards who wanted to take her. Jondy and I were supporting Max and Eva was leading us down the hall. She'd gotten one of the guards' guns. Lydecker spotted us and saw Eva with the gun and he just shot her. Right in front of us."

"Just like that bastard White shot Suzanne down right in front of me and Kevin and Maggie," Becky said.

"Exactly," Zack said. He sighed. "You guys were lucky, though. At least you three got a chance to say goodbye to Suzanne. We never got a chance to say goodbye to Eva."

"I'm sorry," Becky said.

"Thank you," Zack said.

"I remember that night," Becky said. "I was in my family's part of the barracks. We were sleeping or trying to sleep and I was sitting up on my cot and just watching the others. I think 367 was up too. She has the same Shark DNA deal that Max and Jondy have. We were talking quietly and all of a sudden we heard sirens go off outside and there were helicopters and we heard snowmobiles and we didn't know what to think. An hour or two later, the commotion died down and we went back to our cots and we or at least I went to sleep. I must have only been asleep for half an hour when our door just flies open and Lydecker himself comes in, quickly explains what just happened, and yanks me out of bed and straight to Psy Ops."

"They threw you in Psy Ops after we escaped?" Zack said, shocked.

Becky nodded. "When I got there, I recognized most of the other soldiers there. They'd taken all the commanding officers of the remaining X5 units and all of the commanding officers of the X6s, myself included, plus the member of your family that decided to stay back. I think they wanted to make sure that we didn't give our units any ideas of escaping like you and your family did."

"Why only the X5 and X6 commanding officers?" Zack asked.

"The X7s were only about a year old at the time," Becky said. "Their minds work differently than other X-series' minds, at any rate. The X3s and X4s were older and I guess they figured they were pretty set in their ways. Either that or they were easier to catch if they tried to escape. But us..." She shook her head. "We waited until they finally dragged us to those chairs and strapped us in and started in on us. The laser, drugs, the whole deal. They showed us picture of you guys and insisted that you were traitors, snakes, rats. It seems like they did everything they could to torture us physically and mentally. They only paused to feed us occasionally or to take us to the infirmary if we needed it and then hauled us right back to Psy Ops the second they said we were anything close to healed. It was horrible. It never worked on me, though. If anything, it only reinforced my belief that they were the real bad guys and what they were doing to us was wrong. If I ever found myself close to believing them, I just made myself remember 607 and how they let him drown when they refused to let him out of the tank early when I'd noticed that he was in trouble. I wasn't sure exactly how long I was in there. Time really does pass by differently when you're there and they decide to go absolutely full blast on you. I still guessed that I was in there for about a month or two. When they let me rejoin my unit, they told me that I'd been in there for six months."

Zack looked horrified. "Six months? They had you in Psy Ops for a half a year?"

"They did," Becky said. "All of the other C.O.s that they threw in Psy Ops were only in there for three months. In fact, the only other X-series that was in Psy Ops for as long as I was in there was your sister, Jace. It kind of made sense why they held her in there, no offense."

"None taken," Zack said.

"Lydecker said to me and to everyone when he'd talk to us after they released me was that the reason I'd been held in Psy Ops for that long was to make an example and to show how serious they were," Becky said. "For some reason, though, I never bought it. I don't know why. It was a perfectly plausible reason for keeping me in. I was one of the best commanding officers in Gillette and probably one of the most promising X-series there in general, or at least that was the impression that I'd been getting from Lydecker and the trainers. But I still didn't buy the 'making an example of 405' excuse. I swear there was another reason that I got the extended stay, but I was never able to find out what it was."

"Maybe they just in a bad mood one day at you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Zack offered. "That seemed to be the reasoning behind a lot of the trainers decisions."

"Like when 662 died," Becky said. "I don't know. The only thing I knew when I got sprung loose from Psy Ops was how badly I wanted to join you and your family on the outside. I knew that the rest of my family didn't want to leave, though, and I knew that they would go through what I had just did if I bailed on them. Maybe worse since they'd already given me the five-star service and thus expected me to know better. I couldn't do that to them. Never. I wouldn't wish a six month stay in Psy Ops on anybody, much less my own family."

Zack looked at Becky. "Get some sleep," he said softly. "You look like you really need it."

"I will," Becky said. She got under the covers and turned her head so she was facing Zack again. "Get some sleep yourself, okay?"

"I will," Zack said.

"Good night," Becky said. She closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep.

Zack just sat on his bed for a few minutes and watched her sleep. Six months. Six months in Psy Ops. She shouldn't have had to go through that. She was only six years old! How could they have done that to her? He stood up to go to the bathroom, but paused and looked down at Becky again. "Never again, Becky. I swear."

TBC