Welcome to Our Life -- Chapter 8: Elle (X5-164)

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.).

Notes:  Maybe some spoiler-ish stuff for “Fuhgeddaboudit.”

“I can’t believe that we’re finally getting our seizures fixed,” Gale said. She grinned. “This has to be one of the best days of our lives.”

“Yeah, not to mention the fact that we’re all going to be down for a full week after the treatment,” Kenny teased, but I could tell that he was nervous.

“Oooh, is somebody nervous?” Krit teased.

“Well, they are going to zap or slice my brain in the next few minutes or hours,” Kenny said. He shivered nervously. “This will work, won’t it?”

“It apparently worked for the two X3 units and the one X6 unit that went before us,” Zack said. “After they were cleared for active duty again they all seemed to be fine. I haven’t noticed any of them having seizures since, but I think all of us try to hide our seizures when we do have them, not just us.”

“We’ve had some good ones, haven’t we?” I said sarcastically.

“We’ve definitely had some close calls,” Max said. “Like the night before Unit 7 tried to make their break from here, Jack’s seizure?”

“I still can’t believe that I managed to keep it under control until we got to the barracks,” Jack said. He shook his head. “I was on the ground the second that Zack shut the door behind us. How long was it before the seizure stopped? It must have been a good five or ten minutes.”

“And then you slept really well that night,” Wayne said. “I had a harder time getting you out of bed the next morning than we normally do with Krit.”

“It must have done some good because I’ve only had one mild seizure since then,” Jack said. He grinned. “And now I won’t have any more.”

“Does anybody have any idea how this will work?” Rena asked.

Zack shrugged. “I don’t know. Wayne, do you have any idea how this is going to work?”

“I’ve got as much of an idea as you do,” Wayne said. “I even asked one of the X3s who’d had the treatment and she told me that they put you under before they do the treatment who nobody outside of the medical staff knows how this is going to work.”

“That’s good to know,” Syl said.

“Would you rather be awake when they could possibly be performing brain surgery on you?” Wayne pointed out. “You know, there are actually some forms of surgery of other treatments where the skull is opened where you’re completely awake. I read about it in one of my medical textbooks. It’s actually pretty cool.”

“Speaking of cool, thank you so much for the contraband that you snuck back here from your last mission, Tinga,” I said. I grinned. “I love that magazine.”

“You’re welcome,” Tinga said. “I thought that it would be something that you’d like.”

“I don’t get those things,” Parker said. He made a face.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s a magazine for girls, you moron. You’re not supposed to get it.”

“Are they going to do this treatment on all of us at once or are we going in one at a time or a few at a time?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Max said. “I guess we’ll see when we’ll see.”

A doctor stepped into the infirmary waiting room with a clipboard. “We’ve got the first several tables set up.” She looked down at her clipboard. “X5-599, X5-656, X5-987, and X5-205, please come with me.”

“Good luck,” I said to Zack, Tinga, Kenny, and Zane as they stood up and went to follow the doctor.

“Thank you,” Tinga said. The boys just smiled nervously and then they went into another room in the infirmary with the doctor.

“Are you sure that you’re not really a Psy Ops soldier prototype, Maxie?” Krit teased.

“No, you moron,” Max said. She stuck her tongue out at Krit. “If I could do that whole telecoercion deal that I heard that some of them can do, you would be shutting up right now.”

“Are they being used in Psy Ops yet?” Syl asked.

“Not that I’ve heard,” Eva said. “I think that I heard that they’re still training and they’ll be ready to be used in Psy Ops and in field interrogations starting sometime in 2014.”

“How old are they?” Jondy wondered.

“I think that they’re close to our age,” I said. “I wonder why they haven’t been used in Psy Ops yet.”

“Who knows? Maybe that kind of training is different than ours,” Ben said.

We were quiet for a few moments. “Well, I don’t hear any of them screaming in there. That’s got to be a good sign for us,” Parker said helpfully.

I rolled my eyes but I couldn’t help laughing a little. “Yeah, that is a good sign.” We did hear a faint scream and we all briefly tensed, but then we relaxed. “Phew. That wasn’t them.” I made a face. “They’re probably doing an experiment with one of the X6s.”

“Poor guy,” Rena said. “Thank goodness that they’ve slowed down the experiments with us.”

“I know,” Max said. “They haven’t done any experiments on me in about seven months. I’m grateful.”

“I think we all are,” Ben said. “Thank the Blue Lady.”

We all nodded and looked over as another doctor entered the room. “We’re ready to start with the next group. X5-164, X5-493, X5-552, X5-120, and X5-369, please come with me.”

Ben, Reese, Rena, Wayne, and I stood up and looked back at the others. “We’ll see you guys in recovery later,” Reese said.

“Good luck,” Jack said.

“Thanks,” I said. We followed the doctor into another room. He split us up and led me over to a curtained-off section of the infirmary and gestured for me to lay down on the operating table that was in the middle of the section.

“Thank you, 164,” he said. He set up the IV and put a rubber mask over my nose and mouth. “Start counting backwards from a thousand. By the time that you wake up in recovery, your seizures will be a thing of the past.”

“I hope so,” I said nervously. The doctor smiled and walked over to speak to another doctor. I began to count to myself. One thousand…nine hundred ninety-nine…nine hundred ninety-eight…

TBC