Welcome to Our Life -- Chapter 48: Mia (P2-400)

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 read over my notes and smiled. Things have definitely been better for me since Alec had been released from Psy Ops three days ago. I really feel as if a weight the size of a boulder had been lifted from my shoulders. I was also pretty happy that I didn’t have to be on duty in over there today. I’m really enjoying the time to focus and brush up on my other skills. It might have taken a little bit longer than the X5s because I had to train my special skills and use them in Psy Ops, but I was considered to be as trained as they are. I hoped that maybe I would go on an actual mission one of these days. It’s not as if I haven’t been on missions before, but for most of them my purpose was to perform field interrogations. One time last year, I had been a last-minute replacement for an X6 that had been scheduled to go out with his unit to destroy a rebel military compound in Columbia, but had suffered an injury two days before they were supposed to leave and couldn’t go so they threw me in. It was fun! I did end up having to perform a field interrogation just by chance, but I actually got to go in and take part in serious military action! I did really well.

“P2-400?” I looked up from my notebook and saw a guard standing next to me. This was odd. “Director Renfro needs to see you in her office immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, giving the soldier a salute. I put my notebook down on the table and marched out of the library, curious like you wouldn’t believe. I really hope that I won’t have to go work in Psy Ops today after all. What would Director Renfro want with me? I reached her office and saluted the guards outside of her door. “The director wants to see me. I’m P2-400.”

The guards returned the salute and opened the door. “Go right inside.” I marched inside and to my surprise, saw Max standing at attention in front of Director Renfro’s desk. The director herself was behind her desk, holding a mission folder. I managed to contain the sudden surge of butterflies in my stomach and saluted her. “P2-400 reporting as ordered, ma’am.”

“Both of you, at ease,” Director Renfro ordered. Max and I stood at ease and then she began talking. “The two of you will be sent out on a mission to metropolitan Seattle. Cale Industries, a company specializing in high-end computer equipment and sophisticated technology-based equipment such as the hoverdrones that are in use in the city, has provided us with several important upgrades for our equipment, including one that we received only last month. Currently, they are working on an improvement to their line of computer chips that we are very interested in and are in negotiations on a deal for. The acquisition of these new chips would mean a vast improvement in the computer systems here and as such, we want to make sure that everything runs smoothly and that nothing, and I mean nothing, goes wrong either with the production itself or that it be threatened by others. 452, 400 will be accompanying you on this mission because in addition to her unique skills, she tested extremely highly in both espionage and infiltration.” She handed the mission folder to Max. “Your objective, as I stated before, is to make sure that everything runs on schedule. If production is threatened, take whatever steps are necessary to rectify the situation. All the information that you require is in the folder and the two of you will be deployed in three days. Do not forget to report in for your final preparations immediately after breakfast in two days’ time. Dismissed.”

Max and I left the office after giving Director Renfro one more salute and she started to walk back in the direction of the library with me. “I’m glad that you’re going to be on this mission with me,” she said. “Just from what Renfro said, it sounds like it’s going to be boring as hell. Another person will at least give me somebody to bitch to.” She shrugged. “Then again, it’s not like anything that comes out of Renfro’s mouth sounds fun. She could make a Mexican vacation sound like the world’s biggest chore.”

I laughed. “You hit the nail on the head. I’m happy that I’m actually going out on a real mission where my primary function won’t be to perform a field interrogation. I don’t think that I’ll mind the boring parts too much, at least at first.”

“I hear ya,” Max said. “I’m gonna need to drop this off in my cell and then I’ve got to meet the rest of my crew over by the obstacle course. All this and I still have to make my run on it. I’ll meet you over by Computer Lab A at 2130 hours and then we’ll find a spot to sort through this stuff. Does that work for you or do you need a different time?”

“No, that will be fine,” I said. “I might be a minute or two late meeting you because my last activity gets out around then, but it’ll work well enough.” I smiled and waved as we reached the library. “I’ll see you then, Max.”

“See you later, Mia,” Max replied.

I don’t know how I managed to contain my smile and my news though the rest of my time in the library and through lunch as well, especially considering that several of the P1s eat lunch at the table that I do, but I did. I guess that I should be happy that they like to give their brains a rest during meal times. After I finished my less-than-thrilling sandwich and juice, I headed down to the gym with a couple of other Psy Ops soldiers for a workout and to keep my martial arts skills sharp. Once the trainer was satisfied that we had warmed up sufficiently, he split us into different pairs and ordered us to spar while he walked among us to see what, if anything, we were doing wrong. I ended up being paired with P2-575 and he and I got to work immediately. We were relatively silent for a few moments as we traded blows until 575 spoke up.

“I heard that you had been summoned to Director Renfro’s office,” he said. “May I ask what that was about?” I kept a smile off of my face. I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to get through the rest of the day without at least one of my fellow Psy Ops transgenics questioning me about my little trip to Director Renfro’s office.

“You may, 575,” I answered graciously. I ducked a kick and did a leg sweep, sending him to the ground. “Director Renfro is sending me on a mission with one of the X5s.”

575 flipped himself back up and we circled each other. “That’s interesting. Which X5 will you be deployed with?”

“X5-452.” I took a half-step back to avoid a punch before moving in close and landing a few punches of my own. A kick to the stomach had 575 back down on the mats. “We’ll be leaving for our target in just a few days.”

“Lucky you,” 575 gasped.

“P2-575! Get your ass up off that mat right now!” the supervising trainer yelled. “How many times have I told you that just because you’re technically not an X-series is no excuse for you not to be on point? Move your lazy rear end over to the side right this instant!” He pointed to the other side of the room where two pairs who had finished their rounds were standing and nodded to me. “Excellent job, 400. You may wait with the others.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” I saluted the trainer and marched over to where he had indicated. I calmly watched the rest of the pairs finish up their rounds, and we were dismissed soon afterwards. The rest of the day seemed to go by quickly and it was time for me to meet Max in the computer lab we’d agreed on practically before I knew it. I quickly made my way over there, opened the door, and nodded in greeting when I saw her sitting at one of the computers. “Hello, 452.”

Max didn’t blink an eyelash at my use of her designation rather than her name. The trainer that I’d spotted close by in the lab was in her field of vision as well. “Hello, 400. I’m glad that you were able to make it.” I walked over and took a seat at the terminal next to her. As soon as the trainer was out of earshot, Max dropped the formality like a brick. “What’s up, Mia? Ready to look over this stuff?”

“Absolutely,” I answered. “What do we have?”

“Well, behind door number one…” Max said as she opened the mission folder. “Okay, looks like we have two primary targets here.” She took out a photo of an older man and handed it to me. “Numero Uno: Jonas Cale. Co-owner and CEO of Cale Industries. To his credit, he likes to take a pretty active role in the running of the company and thanks in large part to him, Cale Industries has been making obscene profits over the years, even after the Pulse. He’s the one responsible for pushing the upgrades that Renfro wants us to baby-sit.” She shuffled through some of the papers in the folder. “I’m going to guess that the basic idea with him will be to get close to him to get information and maybe keep him sweet if necessary. We’ll find out if I’m right or not when we hit mission prep in two days.” She made a face. “If they ask me to cozy up to this guy and he turns out to be another fifty-something horn dog, I’ll just kill him and make something up to Command.”

“Have you ever encountered somebody like that on a mission before?” I asked.

Max shrugged. “Yeah, once. It could have been worse. It was only a guy in a bar that I was at because I was tailing my target around.” She looked back at the folder. “Our next contestant is Logan Cale, Junior, the other co-owner of Cale Industries, and nephew of Jonas Cale. Unlike his uncle, Logan does not have any actual daily role within the company. As a matter of fact, he’s a freelance journalist, graduated with honors with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Yale in May of 2011, and more or less lives off of the family money. He only inherited his half of the company when his father, Logan Senior, died about sixteen years ago.”

“Is there a picture of him?” I asked. Max nodded and handed me another picture. I accepted it from her and looked at it quizzically. “He’s pleasant-looking enough for an ordinary, but if he’s as rich as I think that he is, shouldn’t he be able to afford a decent barber? I’ve seen some X-series males with hair that’s in a similar style, but those guys look better with that hair than Mr. Cale does.”

“Good call,” Max agreed, taking the photo back from me and getting a good look at it herself. The man in the picture was a nice enough looking guy in his early thirties with glasses and spiky hair that looked somewhat unkempt. “The reason we have to watch Junior is not necessarily because he’s co-owner with his uncle, but because the older Mr. Cale has mentioned in casual conversation that his nephew is rather, to use a quote that’s attributed to Jonas, ‘liberal.’ You know, kind of like those hippies that we’d read about in American History back when we were little.” Max shrugged. “I guess that would explain the hair.” She grinned and I giggled. “So basically, Renfro and company are worried that Logan will try to make some noise to get this thing stopped.”

“It seems pretty straightforward so far,” I said. “Hopefully when we’re done with mission prep in a few days, it will still be that way.”

“Oh yeah.” Max nodded in agreement. She started to say something else, but stopped when she saw a group of transgenics enter the lab. “Do you wanna move this somewhere else?”

“Yeah, it’s starting to get a little crowded,” I said. I got up and followed her out of the room. “I hope this mission goes well.”

“I don’t see why not,” Max commented. “We go in there, make sure everybody behaves like adults, then blaze when it’s done. We can pull something like this off in our sleep, Mia. Well, you can in your sleep because you’re the one who actually gets that. It’ll be a snap.”

I grinned. “Absolutely.”