What's Next? -- Chapter 34

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, 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.).

Alec sat at the head of the table in one of the conference rooms in the main building in Terminal City. He looked over at Biggs and Sasha, who sat on either side of him, and then down the table at nearly every other member of his old unit that was living in the area: 532 who was now known as Dina, 967 who was now known as Kai, 859 who was going by Ted, 295 who called himself Reg, 304 who was now known as Lori, and 013 who was going by the name Bryan. He looked up as the door opened and Diane and Melanie entered the room and sat down next to each other at the table. Almost everybody except for 237—I mean, Cam. “Does anybody know where Cam is?”

“He’s still at work as far as I know,” Bryan said. He shot Alec a nasty look. “He sometimes is kept late. Can we get to the point? Some of us have better things to do than to be stuck in a room with your sorry ass.”

“I think that all of us need to know why you asked us here,” Diane added. “And speaking of Cam not being here, where is Brandi? Shouldn’t she be present as well?”

“I’ll be getting to that,” Alec said. He looked around the table once more, feeling even more uneasy than ever. Maybe I should have told Biggs and Sasha about Brandi before this meeting. Telling the whole gang at the same time, what the hell was I thinking? He took a deep breath. “All of you have been told at some point over the past two days about the murder that occurred up in Canada, correct?” He saw all of his teammates nod. “The blood samples belonging to the perp arrived here yesterday morning and after their arrival, DNA testing was performed to try to find a match among the transgenics. Earlier tonight, I was notified that a match had been found.” Alec’s voice and expression were grim. “The blood belonged to Brandi.”

“What?” Diane exploded. “You’re fucking kidding me!”

“Hold on a second,” Sasha spoke up. “Back the truck up here, Alec. You’re telling me that Brandi was responsible for that sick attack on that poor man up in Winnipeg? She did that shit?”

“Like you’ve all heard before, blood that was determined to be transgenic was found both on and near the victim,” Alec said. “Based on that and other evidence that was found at the crime scene, the police in Winnipeg determined that it was that transgenic that had committed the murder. They contacted Terminal City two days ago and arranged to have the samples of the transgenic’s blood sent down here so that they could be analyzed by our people and so that once the identity of the mystery person was determined, we could take appropriate action. The results of the testing conclusively proved that the blood belonged to Brandi. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Case closed.”

“No,” Melanie said, shaking her head. She, and Diane as well, looked stunned. “This can’t be right. This can’t be happening. Brandi wouldn’t do something like this. She couldn’t have. There has to be a mistake.”

“Unfortunately, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for Brandi to have done something like this,” Biggs pointed out, though slowly as if the information was just sinking in, as it was with all of them. “We all remember what Brandi was like back at Manticore. She was clearly not as mentally stable as she should have been and she did fly off the handle at people when she was pissed off. Not as frequently as Cam did, but it was worst most of the time when Brandi did it.” He turned to face Diane. “Remember the day that Brandi got her eight-month stay in Psy Ops, Diane?”

Diane nodded. “She lost it on 380 in Culture class. She just completely lost it and beat up 380 pretty good until the trainer was able to get Brandi off of 380 and even then it was only because he used the emergency Taser that was in one of his desk drawers.” Her expression grew bleak. “Even I couldn’t get her to stop.”

“In Layman’s terms you’re telling me that Brandi went all Psycho-fuck like 493 did?” Bryan said.

Alec closed his eyes and took a deep breath and fought the urge to strangle Bryan. “More or less, Bryan, though I wouldn’t exactly use those words to describe the situation.”

“So, what is the situation?” Kai asked. Her expression was somewhere between shocked and annoyed. “Why exactly do you want all of us here besides letting us know about Brandi’s latest detour from the land of the sane?”

“Because I need your help to make sure Brandi gets here to the main building for questioning and confirmation,” Alec replied. “We need this to happen within three days and after that we need to punish her.”

“You mean kill her,” Diane said angrily, though she was clearly fighting tears.

“You know what she did, Diane,” Reg reminded her, though his voice was much more subdued than normal. “She has to face the appropriate sanctions for her actions.”

“Reg is right,” Sasha agreed. “As much as it hurts you and hell as much as it hurts even me, we have to do what needs to be done.”

“This is…this is just unbelievable,” Lori said.

“I always knew Brandi was a time bomb,” Dina said quietly. “She was always so nasty especially after ’09.” She ignored the looks that Diane and Melanie were giving her. “I’m not even mentioning the net amount of time that she spent in Psy Ops. Something was waiting to happen and it did.”

“I wonder why she didn’t explode like this sooner,” Diane commented somewhat distantly.

Brandi slipped silently from the corner where she’d been listening in on the meeting, furious. I can’t believe that I was found out. I could have sworn that I’d hid the evidence better than that! Damn. That fucking ‘09er twin scum and his pal and the tall freak ‘09er twin scum. They need to pay, all three of those miserable little bastards. She made her way through the building and left and started to walk through the streets until she stopped and saw Cam. She smiled a little and waved. “Hello, Cam.”

“Hello, Brandi,” Cam greeted her. “What’s going on?”

“You’re not going to believe it or like it,” Brandi told him. She filled him in on what had just happened. “And now that psycho twin has convinced not just his pathetic sidekicks to try to turn me in but everybody including my best friends! I mean, I’m reasonably sure that Diane and Melanie will hesitate and maybe even tip me off but even so. Alec, Biggs, and Sasha deserve to suffer, die, or both.”

Cam thought it over before nodding in agreement. “I’m with you on this one, Brandi.” He motioned to her and they started to walk off. “You can hide at my place at least for awhile. Is there anything else that I can do to help?”

“Thank you, Cam,” Brandi said. She thought about it for a few moments before she smiled again. “As a matter of fact, there is.” She whispered her idea to Cam, who laughed.

“Nice,” he said. “One down and the other suffering like mad. You are a genius.”

“Born and bred, baby,” Brandi agreed.