Welcome to Our Life -- Chapter 45: Zack (X5-599)

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Jondy, 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 (Elle/X5-164, etc.).

I saluted the trainers that had debriefed me and left the room. Once I was out of earshot, I sighed. Being back at Manticore after a few months away was hard, even though those months were spent on a mission for them. It could be worse. Despite all the crap, I was coming back to Max and the others and that counts for more than I can say.

I turned the last corner before reaching my block. I opened my cell door, walked in, and dropped my bag on the bunk. Before I could do anything else, I heard Max walk in, put her hands on my shoulders, turned me around, and pulled me into an amazing kiss. God, I love her so much. When we finally parted, I was smiling. “Hey, Maxie.”

“Hey, Zack,” she said. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” I said. I saw the slightly hesitant look in her eyes and narrowed my own. Something big had happened while I was away in France and I had a gut feeling that I was going to hate whatever it was. “Tell me, Maxie.”

“You asked for it,” Max said. I moved my duffel down to the floor and we sat down on my bunk before Max told me exactly what had happened while I was gone. I was shocked. It takes a lot to shock me, but this did the trick. The shock didn’t last for that long, and I was absolutely pissed when it had passed. Why did I even feel surprised that Manticore would drop as low as to throw Ben into Psy Ops when the reason why they had put Alec there was questionable at best? Max caught the look on my face and quickly filled me in about Mia and what she had done to get Ben released early and what she was still doing for Alec. “Ben seems to be doing okay all things considered. Rena especially is helping him get through this.”

“I’m glad,” I said. I thought of something and looked at my watch. 2355 hours. “Have everybody meet me in the closest rec room at 0030 hours. I’ve got something that we all need to see.”

“Gotcha,” Max said. She started to get up but stopped and gave me another kiss. “I missed you so much, Zack. I love you.”

“I love you too, Maxie,” I said softly. I pulled her into another kiss. God, I wanted to do so much more but I heard a guard patrolling nearby and if we got caught, we’d be in deep trouble. I reluctantly pulled away from Max. “I’ll see you soon.” I watched her leave the cell, stretched, and began to unpack. I might as well use the time before I wanted to meet with everybody productively. Getting my things put away didn’t take too much time, though, so I sat patiently at my desk once I was done. At 0020, I stood up and slipped what I wanted into one of my pants pockets before quietly leaving the cell. I went over to the rec room and waited as Max, our siblings, Becky’s siblings, plus Biggs and Sasha filed into the room.

“Where’s Becky?” I asked.

“Somewhere in Russia,” Kevin said. “She got sent out there a few weeks ago. She’s going to have to check in here every couple of weeks so she might be back here soon enough for a few days before she goes back to freezing middle-of-nowhere again.”

I nodded. “Gale, Jack, Brin, Suzanne, Felicia, Ralph, Brent?”

“All out on missions,” Matt said.

“So, big brother,” Wayne said. “What’s the reason behind this little get together?”

I reached into the pocket and withdrew the two cell phones that I had put in it before I’d left my cell. “This is the reason.”

Krit whistled. “Whoa, Zack. That’s a hell of a lot of balls to sneak cell phones into here.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I only snuck in two.” I looked around at everybody. “I got these phones in case of emergency. I know that it’s probably a useless gesture because even if somebody is out on a mission and runs into trouble, the odds are slim to none that one of us will actually be able to go out and assist, but these could also be used for one of us here to warn somebody else that is out about something that’s happening and vice versa. I had a stopover at the old Syracuse facility on the way back here and I actually had a day to go into the city itself. That was when I got these.” I gestured to one of the phones. “I wish that I could have picked up one of these for everybody, but that would have been far too great of a risk. We’re going to have to work out who should use these phones and when depending on who gets sent out where, for how long, and what the mission involves.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Tinga said. She took one of the phones and examined it. “This looks pretty good. I’m assuming that it’s got excellent encryption on it to begin with or are we going to want Parker and Xavier to play with them first before they’re put into use?”

“Let me see it,” Parker said. Tinga handed him the phone and he gave it a more thorough visual examination. “Hmmm…yeah, this is an excellent model. Give me and Xavier a day or two with them and we’ll tighten the encryption so well it’ll be absolutely impossible to crack.”

I handed Parker the other phone. “Here you go, little brother. Do your magic.”

“Thanks,” Parker said. He handed the phones over to Xavier so that he could have a look at them as well. “We’ll let you know when we’re done with them.”

“Excellent,” I said.

“That is a hell of an idea, Zack,” Ben said. “How did you come up with that one?”

I shrugged. “Random chance, actually. I was out on the street in Marseilles one afternoon a few weeks ago waiting for my target so that I could tail him when he went to his next appointment when I saw this woman standing on the street corner. She took out a cell phone and called somebody and it turned out that she was checking up on her young son at home and that was when the idea hit me.”

“Sometimes strokes of brilliance happen at the most random of moments,” Zane said.

“Are you turning into a philosopher, Zane?” Wayne teased.

“Yes, just like you’re turning into a genius,” Zane said.

“According to my 187 IQ, I already am a genius,” Wayne said smugly. I mentally rolled my eyes. Here we go again.

“I bet you really missed this, huh, babe?” Max whispered teasingly. I couldn’t help laughing a little.

“Yeah,” I said. I really did miss this.