You and Me -- Chapter 15

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Tinga, 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 (Lana/X5-204, etc.).

Cody briefly frowned from his place in the surveillance van as he and the techs listened in on Tinga’s phone conversation before quickly wiping it from his face, not wanting the others that were present to see any kind of expression or emotion on his face. Great, a golden opportunity to grab my oldest sister and my nephew. Perfect. Now we’ve got to grab them and take them back to Manticore like good little boys and girls. He bit his lip. Something about Tinga’s friends…have I heard their voices before? This is really odd. He stood up. “Stay here and keep monitoring. I’m going to report this to X5-268.” He made sure that the techs had acknowledged him before he jumped out of the van and made his way over to where Allie was standing across the street from Tinga’s apartment building. “268?”

Allie turned to him and nodded. “Yes, 577. Report.”

“We’ve just intercepted a phone conversation from 656’s apartment, ma’am,” Cody said. “Two friends of hers from out-of-state. They had just gotten into the area and talked 656 into letting them take her and her offspring out to dinner later today. An ETA was not given, but I believe from the details that were given during the conversation as well as the background noises that I picked up on from the other end of the line that the two friends will arrive here at 656’s residence sometime between 1830 and 1930 hours.”

“It sounds like we have our time to execute the objective,” Allie said. “I’ll call 341 down from his post up above and then I’ll start prepping the ordinary members of our team. When these two people arrive for 656 and her offspring, I’ll take some of our ordinaries in one of the vans and you and 341 will stay back with the rest of them for several minutes before following me, as backup. I don’t think that I’ll be needing it because I will have my ordinary group, plus 656 will be slowed down by her progeny and the two humans. The child might be half-X5 and showing some abilities, but they aren’t trained. It certainly won’t be of any help.” She nodded and gestured to some innocent-looking vehicles that were parked nearby. “Choose your mode of transportation at your discretion. If you feel that it is necessary, you and 341 may travel separately from the ordinary members of your contingent.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cody said. She’s just as anal retentive as ever. I don’t think she was ever this bad before a training mission before we tried to escape all those years ago. Wait a moment, there was that one time the January before we tried to leave when we were about to go out on a training mission in the woods and Zack was trying to get us to help in planning it out but Allie had annoyed the hell out of Syl earlier that day and they wouldn’t stop…oh shit! Not this. I don’t need this!

Allie looked at Cody suspiciously. “Do you have a problem with my plan of action, 577? Is there something that you would like to share with me?” She glared murderously at him. “Are you thinking about abandoning the mission because of our previous association with 656? Tell me right now!”

“No, ma’am, I have no intentions whatsoever of abandoning this mission,” Cody said angrily. “I get pre-battle nerves before any and every mission, 268. You know that as well as anybody and I can assure you that it will have no effect on my performance during the actual execution of the objective. Whatever you ask of me, it will be performed to the best of my abilities and by the end of this day, we will have 656 back in Manticore hands and have her offspring as well.”

“You better see to it that what you have just said to me will be exactly what happens,” Allie hissed. “I have worked so hard for so many years to earn back the trust that Colonel Lydecker and the other people in charge once had in me. I have pushed myself to the limit and beyond to make myself stronger, faster, and a far better soldier than anybody could have dreamed of. The day that I went down for that mission briefing six years ago and I was told that I would not have to report to the infirmary for the implantation of any kind of tracer was the happiest day of my life. I was one of us again. They had faith in me and now they have given me command of a highly important mission and if you have any ideas of blowing this for me, you will be very sorry. Do you remember what Colonel Lydecker did three years ago to that X4 that had been trusted with a mission of similar magnitude and blew it? He had that soldier sent to Psy Ops and then when he had sent out X5-199 and X4-233 on the mission to salvage X4-539’s mess, they managed to salvage things and 199 returned safely, but 233 was killed while they were out because of how badly 539 had botched things the first time around. Do you happen to recall what happened to X4-539 after X5-199’s return?” She leaned forward and up slightly so that her face was only a hair away from Cody’s. “539 was executed. He was shot right here…” She pointed to a spot right between her eyes. “…and that was it for him. Do you want to end up like him, 577?”

“I have no intention whatsoever to end up like X4-539,” Cody said. His face and voice were as blank and steady as any Manticore soldier, but he was very nervous inside. What the hell has gotten into Allie? Either this is the ultimate case of performance anxiety I’ve ever seen or she’s actually standing on that diving board, ready to swan dive right into the deep end of the pool. “The only thing that I plan on doing is executing the objective perfectly, ma’am.”

“Good,” Allie said, backing away from Cody. “Wait here while I brief the ordinaries and then inform and relieve 341.” Cody saluted her and waited patiently after she disappeared, only relaxing when he saw Richie approaching him several minutes later. He waved Richie over and they stood over in sight but out of earshot of the ordinary soldiers.

“Did Psycho fill you in?” he asked quietly, low enough for only Richie to be able to hear him even though they were far enough away from the others.

“Yeah,” Richie said. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “This isn’t good at all, Cody.” He hesitated for a moment. “Max is here. I saw her last night up on top. Tinga must have managed to get word to her somehow. I remember how good Max was and probably still is, but I don’t think that she’s going to be able to pull this one off by herself.”

“She won’t be pulling this off all by herself,” Cody told him. “When I was listening in on that chat that Tinga was having on the phone with her friends, I could have sworn that there was something about the friends’ voices that sounded familiar. I placed it about a minute later when I was telling Allie. The friend who was going most of the talking was Lana and the other one was Syl. We’re dead even now, at least as far as X5s go. I guess the ordinaries will slow them down a little bit.” I don’t want them to be slowed down, but they will be.

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Max didn’t say anything to me about any other family members present. I can’t really blame her, though. Did you get anything from the conversation between Tinga, Syl, and Lana?”

“No,” Cody replied. “Those three aren’t stupid. I wouldn’t count out the possibility of more of us around, though.”

Richie sighed. “If there was only some kind of way for us to sabotage this mission without it looking too obvious. If all else fails, we could always rig it so that it looks like that the ordinaries tripped us up as we were trying to grab Tinga and her son and then say that the ordinaries slowed us down and allowed them to make a get away. What do you think?”

“I wish that we could pull that off, but you weren’t here went Allie went paranoid psycho on me,” Cody said. “You shouldn’t have just heard her, you should have fucking seen her, Richie. She freaking lost it or she sure as heck would have if we weren’t standing out in public with other people around. She’s scaring me, man. There is no way that I can think of that we can get around her. We’re as screwed as we can get and I don’t see anybody around who can and would be willing to bail us out of this mess.”

“So I guess that settles it. We’ve got to go and betray our big sister. Wonderful,” Richie said sarcastically. “Anything else we could do while we’re at it?” Cody shook his head and he and Richie exchanged a pained look.

There’s not much we can do and even less that we can say, he thought. We’ve got four of our sisters on one side and a psychopath who used to be our sister on the other. Just another Manticore sandwich made with two slices of brick wall for bread and us as the deli meat. Maybe it could be worse. We could be Tinga or her son. He sighed and followed Richie towards one of the vans.