Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or any of its characters.
Timeline: First Season, AU (really AU)
Chapter OneMax walked into the office and tossed her backpack onto the nearest table. Rolling her head, she tried to work the kinks out of her neck. Stupid prick, she thought angrily, sending her thoughts raging into the dark abyss. Dumbass. Men are dumbasses.
"Max, glad you're back," Zack said as he strolled into the outer office. Looking up from the file he was reading, he took note of her foul mood. "Bad assignment?"
"How could you tell?" She snapped, removing the holstered knife from her thigh and pulling another blade from her boot.
"Look, I'm sorry about Devareaux, just tell me you didn't kill him."
Blowing a stray curl from her face, Max straightened to her full 5 feet and 8 inches, quickly moving to stand toe-to-toe with her employer and brother. "If you ever," she began in a deadly quiet voice, punctuating each word with a stabbing finger to the chest, "assign me to baby-sit another dumbass playboy, you will be the only one who needs to fear for his life." A subtle sweep of her foot had Zack on his ass looking up at her, "To answer your question, Devareaux is fine. He should only be singing soprano for a few days. Now," Max smirked, holding a hand out to her brother, "get the hell outta the floor."
"Better than permanently," Zack grinned, taking the proffered hand. "So, how bad of a phone call should I be expecting?"
Max ignored him and began walking down the hallway, past the ops center to the locker room. Pausing for a second to listen to the roar of voices coming from the room—room, yeah right, more like the size of her apartment—it sounded like someone was checking up on one the many backgrounds available for the agents. Continuing her walk down the hallway, she had to admit her siblings and she had created a pretty impressive security agency. Thanks to their military upbringing, they had been able to bring stability to the lives of many of Seattle's upper echelon. Protecting people was a hell of a lot easier than stealing and hocking merchandise on the street.
Max shuddered thinking back to her early days on the street, before Zack had reunited his scattered siblings. She had been nine-years-old when the Pulse hit, effectively crumbling Project Manticore, the government's answer to the creation of super soldiers. The X5's were the lemons of the project anyway, they were slower than the X7's and technologically inferior to the X8's, in short they were expendable. The Pulse had threatened the funds coming into the project, so instead of being terminated, which would have cost megabucks, the X5's had been set free. Since Zack had reunited the group and formed Fifth Generation X International, they had taken several commissions from the government. The old adage of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer was truly paying off. As long as they made themselves available and proved they were not a threat to the population, the government was perfectly happy denying their existence.
Max smiled when she saw the disarray of the locker room. Doors left open, clothes spilling out from various lockers, towels left on the bench, she was home. Spinning the dial on her locker, she pulled the door open and retrieved her helmet and keys to her "Baby." Slamming the locker shut, she turned her head to look at Zack who was casually leaning on the locker next to hers, after following her down to the room. "I'm going home."
Sighing, Zack assessed his sister's appearance—the ultimate bad girl from the helmet in her hand to the toes of her scuffed boots. The come-fuck-me lips and the soulful eyes made her look like sex-on-a-stick, which was an advantage for Max because while men were busy underestimating her and thinking with their dicks, she was pulling the rug out from under them.
"Okay, Big Brother," Max grumbled, "why are you staring at me like a slab of meat?"
"Tinga had a little chat with me," Zack replied, "and now I have some good news and some bad news."
Max stared back at him, unwavering.
"Good news, Tinga is pregnant."
A smile pierced the glum expression on Max's face, "Seriously?"
"Yeah, I know," Zack grinned, "our baby sister. A definite 180, going from busting heads to mending boo-boos."
"A 180? Don't you mean a 360? Changing diapers and singing nursery rhymes," Max replied, her calm expression hiding her envy. Who woulda thunk it, Max thought wistfully, I'm jealous of my little sister.
"I could believe it when she told me, but that meant I had to remove her from active duty."
"Which brings us to my bad news, correct?"
"Afraid so, Sis." Handing her the file he had been reading earlier, he pointed to a black-and-white glossy, "Meet Logan Cale, defender of the downtrodden and all that. Blah, blah, woof, woof."
Taking the file, Max perused the information. "Cale," she paused reading a line, then snapped the folder shut and looked up at her brother, "no. I said no more Richie Rich's. Send Jace, I'm not interested. 'Sides she's better at stroking the male ego than I am."
"I did send Jace, that's why she's flat on her stomach at Mercy."
"What happened?"
Zack shrugged casually, "She wasn't fast enough when push came to shove. Nothing serious." From the look on her face, Zack could tell Max wasn't satisfied with his response, "A few flesh wounds on her back and one clean shot in the leg. She needs some time to heal."
Turning on her heel, Max yanked on the lock breaking it free from the locker door and angrily shoved her gear back inside. Taking a deep breath she mentally counted backwards from ten…in Latin…twice. "So who did this guy piss off?"
Breathing a sigh of relief, Zack glossed the file. He knew he could pull rank and order her into the field, but Max was at her best when she made the decision to take a job on her own. "Russian mafia and his rich uncle." Seeing her questioning look, he continued, "The guy is some hack reporter. Freelances for whatever rags are left in this country. Anyway, he dug too deep."
"What's the package?"
"The works."
Rolling her eyes, she kissed any thought of sleeping in her own bed goodbye while the night security patrolled his house. The works meant 24/7 for as long as it took. "Hope his check cleared."
"Cash."
"Excuse me?"
"Cash," Zack repeated sounding the word out for her. "He paid in cash."
"Five hundred thousand?"
"Told ya he's loaded. It's all in the file," he replied pointing at the folder in her hand. "You've got one hour to get your gear ready."
~*~*~Author's Notes: I know this story is a little out of the ordinary, especially for me, but I wanted to try something different. If you feel moved to respond to the story, hit that little button at the bottom of the screen and leave a review. If not, thanks for reading anyway.