Together -- Chapter 61

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Logan, 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 (Becky/X6-405, etc.).

Notes: Spoiler-ish stuff for whichever episode it was revealed in about the Familiars and the fact that White was one of them. I missed watching almost everything between “Boo” and “She Ain’t Heavy,” so I don’t know exactly which episode it was.

“Sign, please?” Max said to the secretary who she had just delivered a package to. She held out her clipboard and tried her best to look patient and something close to perky.

“Yeah, whatever,” the woman said. She took the clipboard and scribbled her name on it and handed it back to Max. “Stupid freakin’ kids.”

“I guess a nice tip is out of the question,” Max remarked.

“Just get out of my face,” the secretary snapped.

“Somebody’s not having a good day,” Max muttered to herself as she put the clipboard back into her backpack and walked off. I haven’t seen anybody that crabby since Tinga had her first heat cycle about two years before we all left Manticore. She was really annoyed that Eva and Jondy stopped her from jumping Kenny. She sighed at the memory of her brother, the third oldest person in her family after Zack and Tinga. I wish that he’d made it out that night. Him and Elle and Parker and Gale…they’re all dead, just like Dash and Jack and Eva and Tinga and Reese and Ben. Half of my family is gone now.

Max got onto her bicycle and started to ride back to Jam Pony. Cheer up. That means that you still have half of your family alive and well and we’re going to be together again one of these days. I have to keep hoping and believing that will happen. Yeah, cynical ol’ Max, actually hoping for something. What can I say? I guess when you care about something enough, you can’t help but have hope.

She stopped her bike while she waited for some kids playing to get out of her way. When will kids learn not to play in the sidewalks? Hell, I’ve got to admit that it’s better than them playing directly in the streets. At least they’re out in public where they’ll be witnesses if someone snatches one of them. I bet that’s what their mothers are thinking. Hey, there’s the cynical old me! She started to laugh but stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead, her eyes quickly zooming in on two figures farther into the crowd.

White walked up to the man who was standing outside of the grocery store and nodded to him. “From my father before me, for my sons.”

“From my father before me, for my sons,” the man greeted. He smiled and gave White a hug. “It’s been much too long, Ames. When was the last time that we saw each other?”

“Probably at my wedding about five years ago, Stephen,” White said.

The other man nodded. “How’s Wendy doing? You guys ready for your first yet?”

“Soon,” White said. “Very soon. Wendy had miscarriage number two a few months ago and just yesterday the doctor said that we can start trying again and Wendy has made it pretty clear that she wants to try again as soon as possible. I want more than one child, but if the Conclave wishes it for me to have only the one, then so be it.” He grew very serious. “We need to get down to business.”

“Absolutely,” Stephen agreed. “Tell me about this transgenic freak.”

“Her designation is X5-452, but she actually prefers to be called by the name Max,” White said. “She and her unit attempted to escape Manticore back in March of 2009 and she was one of the ones who made it out. She got recaptured when she and a few others destroyed Manticore’s DNA lab and when Manticore burned down back in June; she made it out then as well. One of my teams came across a CD that had belong to Elizabeth Renfro, the facility and project’s director, which contained some fresh data that she had not had time to enter into the project’s database, which is missing and presumed burned in the fire. Among the files on this report is a complete DNA analysis that had been carried out on 452 shortly before the fire.” He paused and looked his friend in the eye. “452 has no junk DNA whatsoever.”

“Damn,” Stephen said. “Do you think that she could be…?”

“We don’t know yet,” White said. “This is why it is imperative that 452 be brought in so our own people can do all of the necessary testing. She’s been lucky and has evaded any and all attempts so far. I haven’t been able to personally make as many attempts as I would have liked to make because of my job constraints, but things are working in the direction that I want them to right now.”

“Good,” Stephen said. “You got a picture of this 452?”

“Of course,” White said. He reached into the pocket of his trench coat and took out a picture of Max that he’d printed off of the Psy Ops report. “Here she is.”

“If she wasn’t a freak…” Stephen said, whistling. “It’s sad that this much beauty was wasted on these things.”

“I know what you mean,” White agreed. “They engineered the X-series specifically to be good looking.”

“So, do you have any kind of current location on 452?” Stephen asked.

“Not exactly, but from what information that I’ve been able to get, she’s been residing in Seattle for a while, more than two years, and seems to be quite attached to her life here,” White said. “My gut instinct tells me she’s still living in this city.”

“Your gut instinct is usually right,” Stephen observed. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small set of binoculars and handed them to White. “And how many times did you give me grief when we were in college for me always carrying a pair in my pocket?”

“I promise not to make fun of you for that again,” White deadpanned. “Thank you.” He took the binoculars and held them up to his eyes and looked in front of him. He raised an eyebrow and whistled and handed the binoculars back to Stephen. “What do we have here?”

“What? Do you see 452 already?” Stephen asked.

“No, but a possible means of getting 452,” White said. “The blond man in the leather jacket up the block from us. He turned his head for a moment and I got a look at his face. That’s X5-599, the leader of 452’s unit. He was also one of the freaks who escaped in 2009. From what I’ve read, he and 452 were close back at Manticore.” He grinned nastily and took out a tranquilizer gun and loaded a dart into it. “If there’s one thing that I’ve observed about 452, it’s that she never fails to come to the rescue of her fellow freaks. She won’t be able to resist this.”

Zack felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and resisted the urge to turn his head around and look behind him. I’m being followed. I know I’m being followed. Damn, I hate being in crowds. It’s hard sometimes even for a transgenic to be able to clearly hear one voice over another. Just stay calm and act like nothing’s wrong. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and he grabbed it and looked at the caller I.D. and answered it. “Yeah?”

“Run now,” Max ordered.

He disconnected and started to walk quicker. He could hear two voices more distinctly now and recognized one of them almost immediately and almost froze. White. He better not have seen Maxie. He discreetly looked around and turned onto a deserted street and started to pick up speed. He’s going to see her, though. Any second now…

“They want you as bait,” Max said breathlessly as she pulled up alongside Zack and they ran faster. They turned around and saw that White and Stephen were keeping up with them. “Shit, there’s more of whatever the hell he is.”

“And there’s no more room for you to run,” White said calmly as Max and Zack stopped at the dead end of the street. “Why don’t you make this easier for everybody, 452, and just come with us? We’ll even let your friend over there go.”

Max narrowed her eyes. Any idiot who’s at least seen a pre-pulse action movie would know that White’s lying through his teeth. There’s no way that he’s going to kill Zack. No way in hell. “Come on, I’m a grown woman. You don’t have to lie to me.”

“You,” White said, slowly advancing towards Max and Zack. “Are a freak of nature.”

“Try telling me something that I don’t know,” Max snapped. White and Stephen just looked at each other and attacked the two transgenics. Max and Zack fought back, but barely. White and Stephen were easily a match for them. Max managed to block a punch and shoved White back. “What I want to know is who the hell are you people?”

“Oh, does the little freak want to know?” Stephen taunted.

“We do, especially considering that you’re trying to kill us,” Zack shot back.

“We are the future of the human race,” White said. “You are just an aberration.”

“Would you mind elaborating?” Max asked.

White smirked. “Certainly. We’ve been bred for over a thousand years to be perfection. Naturally bred, not created like you freaks were. The Familiars are the true future of the human race. The Coming is soon and you freaks and the so called “normal” humans will be wiped from the face of the Earth. There’s so many more of us, and we’ve all got our own purposes, like you freaks in a way. There’ll be no stopping us.” He laughed. “Your friend X6-405 found that one out the hard way. It would have been nice to slice her body up…”

“Did you think that I would actually leave her body for you bastards?” Zack hissed. He caught Max’s eye and gave her a look.

Max knew what the look meant. “Chasing an innocent teenager to her death. Real nice of you assholes. The least we could do for her was to take care of her body the proper way.” She heard something and glanced at Zack out of the corner of her eye. Zack gave the smallest of nods and looked back at White and Stephen. They didn’t appear to have heard the noise. I guess they can’t hear or see as well as we can.

“She might have been a teenager, but she wasn’t innocent,” Stephen said. “She was one of you. None of you freaks of nature are innocent. How could something abnormal be innocent?”

“You were babies once, weren’t you?” Max said sweetly. She could see Zack look a little annoyed with her for smarting off, but she squeezed his hand. I know what I’m doing. Trust me.

“It’s nice to see that you haven’t lost that wit of yours,” White said almost cheerfully. “I’m going to repeat myself again. You can make it easier for everybody if you willingly come with us, 452. If you don’t, you and 599 will be taking the short route to hell. Which is it going to be?”

“Let me think about that for a minute…” Max said sarcastically. She looked at Zack for a moment and then turned back to White. “I’ll take option C.” She and Zack bolted back up the street past White and Stephen and ran to the convertible that they’d heard stop along the side of the road and jumped in. Max quickly hotwired it and they tore off.

Zack turned around in his seat and took out his gun and swore. “They’re following us. Can you go any faster?”

“Yeah, if I wanted to get into an accident,” Max said as she whipped around a turn. “This isn’t exactly my Ninja, Zack. And why the hell didn’t you use that thing before?”

“You were there,” Zack said. He tried to get a good aim on White and Stephen, who were still chasing the car. “I wasn’t able to get the chance to…son of a bitch!”

White and Stephen jumped on the car and White knocked the gun out of Zack’s hand. “Oh, is 599 upset because I took away his toy?”

“No, Zack is upset because you want to kill him and Max,” Zack growled as he threw a punch at White, only for White to block it and Stephen to backhand him.

“Not Mr. Bigshot Freak when it’s two-on-one, are we?” Stephen taunted. He reached towards Max.

Zack narrowed his eyes. Never, EVER, think about hurting my Maxie! He managed to push White aside enough to viciously elbow Stephen in the side of the head. Stephen lost his balance and fell off of the moving car. “Rule number one. Never hurt or want to hurt the people I love. That’s for wanting to hurt Max.”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” White said sarcastically. He threw another punch at Zack, but this time Zack blocked it and held onto White’s wrist in a death grip and stared him down.

“And this one is for killing Becky,” he said coldly. He punched White hard in the face, sending White tumbling off of the car.

“Holy crap,” Max said as she drove off. “Are they dead?”

Zack stared behind them and shook his head as he saw White and Stephen slowly getting up but not making any moves to try to catch them again. “No. I don’t think that they’re in any shape to catch us.” He turned back around and sat down. “Maxie, thank you for giving me the heads up back there.” He smiled a little. “You’re always saving my ass these days.”

Max smiled back. “If it wasn’t for you just now, that weird buddy of White’s would have gotten me and I would have been toast. You saved me.”

Zack put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “We make a perfect team, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Max said. She grinned. “We do.”

TBC