Heat Induced
Author's Note: No, this isn't the next chapter of Time and Again. I hope to put one out before the end of the year, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you. This is also not my NaNoWriMo story, despite the fact that it is over 50,000 words long and was written in the space of twenty days. What this is, is a manifestation of a sudden bout of Jensen Ackles fangirlishness. It attempted to manifest itself in various ways (don't be surprised if you see a new Supernatural story before the next T&A) before settling into this.
I'm going to attempt to post one chapter per day. I'll try for a twelve-hour gap if the chapter is on the shorter side. I read the Dark Angel books by Max Allan Collins, so parts of those may have seeped into my writing, though there are no real spoilers. This hasn't been beta-ed so it's likely to be full of randomly incoherent bits. Oh, and this is my first attempt at Dark Angel fanfiction and I actually haven't watched most of it since it aired so my perspective's probably a little skewed. Oh, and even though it's third person, the POV's a little out of whack at times.
This story is a season two rewrite and each chapter is based on an episode (barring the last two), so the chapter lengths do vary a fair amount. I tried not to rewrite too many scenes, so at times it might seem a little disjointed. You can imagine that anything I haven't written happened exactly as it did in the show, unless it has been directly contradicted. If you're having too much trouble imagining things for yourself, I am going to be taking requests for deleted scenes to fill in the blanks.
And I think that's all I need to warn you about before you actually read this.
Chapter 1
"Do you understand your assignment, X5-494?" Director Renfro asked the transgenic male standing at attention in front of her.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I am to copulate with X5-452 until she becomes pregnant, and to use the time spent with her to ensure that she remains at Manticore by any means necessary."
"Precisely," said Renfro. "And I needn't remind you of the consequences should you fail."
"No, ma'am," he said.
"Dismissed."
x x x
Max was on fire. She wanted so badly for something she couldn't get in this tiny, empty cell that Manticore tried to pass off as a bedroom. She tried to take out her frustrations on the brick she was removing, but it did nothing to help. She heard a noise and quickly got her bunk back in order.
No matter how she was feeling, she couldn't just ignore her great escape plan. The light flicked on and the door opened.
"Ben," she said, looking at the man who entered. He could be the answer to her problem. On the other hand, he was her brother and she wasn't that desperate, was she?
"What?" he said.
A sultry smile crept over Max's face. Not Ben, then. This she could work with. "Hello there," she said, stretching as she stood, showing off her form to its best advantage in her Manticore uniform. She wished she could be prettier, but Manticore wasn't about to give them beauty products, sexy underwear and skintight dresses. She had to make do with what she had.
He smiled at her. "Hello to you, too."
She stalked toward him and pulled her arms around his neck, breathing in his scent. He smelled good. He was going to do very nicely. "So, what do they call you?" she asked.
"My designation's 494," he said.
Max nodded to herself. Ben's twin, then. "Doesn't quite roll off the tongue," she said, and watched as his eyes followed the movement of her tongue. "I think I'll call you... Dick, instead." And she grabbed him through his pants.
494's eyes widened and he sucked in a breath. "Well," he said. "No time like the present." He grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head.
Max smiled as his tanned skin revealed itself. This was working out very nicely indeed. A very small part of her, the part that had remembered to cover up her escape attempt, was suspicious of this man and Manticore. But the feline part of Max wanted one thing. And who was she to deny herself when it was being offered to her in such a delicious package? She raised herself onto her toes and kissed him, losing herself in the sensation before the rest of their clothes even hit the floor.
x x x
X5-494 was surprised at the way this assignment had gone. 452 was a flight risk. She was supposed to be anti-Manticore. The director herself had warned him about her, but she had stood before him, apparently completely happy to go along with the order to copulate. And though he had questions, 494 was a red-blooded male presented with an attractive female... his orders were rarely so pleasurable to carry out.
Max stood beside X5-494, knowing she was supposed to be reporting something. Instead she was full of shame because she'd just had sex with a random man. An X5 had been sent to her room. She'd had sex with him, and then he'd left after chatting up the guard. It made her wonder if the heat cycle she'd experienced at the time had anything to do with Manticore.
"Report," said Renfro, looking straight at Max. Her Manticore mask threatened to fall, but she couldn't form the words. Luckily her partner had no such compunction.
"Successful copulation between myself and X5-452, ma'am. Twice." There was no trace of a smirk, no bragging tone, but somehow Max sensed that he was proud of himself. Mission complete. Though Max wished that it wasn't true, but it was.
"Excellent, 452. What would your boyfriend say?"
What would she say to Logan? She focused on keeping her face impassive. No matter what, she was not going to let Renfro get to her. Her heat was over. It was never going to happen again.
x x x
X5-494 was sitting on 452's bunk, waiting for her. He'd have to report that she was missing later, but for now he would wait for her to return. While the first part of his current mission was complete, he seemed to be failing the second part. If 452 could get out of her cell, it wouldn't take much more effort on her part to escape the facility entirely.
He heard shifting, then 452 was crawling out from the hole she'd created under her bunk.
"Forget we had a date?" he asked.
"So when do the stormtroopers bust in?" she asked.
He only vaguely grasped the meaning of her statement. "Don't worry. I didn't set off the alarm. Not yet."
"What do you want?"
"I'm not looking for trouble. What you do is your own business."
He stood up and watched her clean up after herself, remembering the details of the piece of metal she'd used to remove the mortar. It was something else to add to his report.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" she asked him.
"I thought orders were plain enough," he said. "Copulate every night until you get pregnant."
"That's sick!"
This was what 494 had expected to encounter the first time he entered this cell. He guessed 452 really had been in heat when he'd first met her. That didn't matter to him. If his nose was right, copulation was successful in more than one way. The director would never have to know he hadn't succeeded beyond that first day.
"It's your own fault. If you and your friends hadn't blown up the DNA database, they'd still be whipping up embryos and putting them into surrogates." Except that wasn't entirely true. Manticore still had the resources to take sperm and egg samples and implant them, though funding for surrogates had been cut. The entire breeding program was a way to get stubborn females under control. To give flight risks a reason to stay. And if 452 wasn't the most stubborn and flighty transgenic in all of Manticore, 494 would gladly walk back into Psy-Ops for another six month stay.
"Get out of my cell."
"I'm gonna be out of here in five minutes to go back to my cell, and you'll get rid of me for the night. Okay, 452?"
"My name's Max." He hadn't expected that. Hadn't expected her to want him to call her by name. He'd called her all kinds of generic endearments while they'd been copulating and she hadn't complained. He hadn't gone anywhere near his best lines.
"Whatever you say."
"You should have a name, too," she said, seemingly analysing him to determine which name would suit him best.
"Can't say I liked the name Dick."
Was she actually blushing? "As accurate as that was, we could do better. I'm gonna call you Alec."
"Alec?"
"As in smart aleck."
"I can live with that."
"Good. 'Cause you know what my second choice was."
Alec made his way out of her cell. Like the lack of copulation, the names weren't going to make it into his report.
x x x
Alec couldn't make his report until the next day as Renfro was busy. Even when he was summoned, Alec was forced to wait at attention while she finished reading some reports before she deigned to listen.
"Report," she said.
"X5-452 has successfully gained access to the Manticore basement from her cell. She has not yet successfully been able to access the grounds outside."
"And how did you let her get that far?" asked Renfro. "I thought you were under strict orders to ensure she did not escape by any means necessary."
Alec did not flinch. The only thing he hated more than failing an assignment was the punishment that came after it. "I-"
"Never mind," said Renfro, cutting him off. "You have new orders. You are to facilitate X5-452's escape from Manticore, preferably without drawing attention to yourself. Ensure that she makes physical contact with the civilian known as Eyes Only. She will have been infected with a genetically targeted retrovirus. Physical contact between the two will activate the agent. When symptoms present, inform X5-452 that he will soon die and that I will provide the antigen on the condition that both she and Eyes Only return here. I want to know what he knows and who he's working with. Is that understood, X5-494?"
"Yes ma'am," said Alec. But his mind was whirling with this new mission. Though it was a convoluted plan, he wasn't about to argue with it. But that didn't mean he didn't have questions. "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"
Renfro eyed him suspiciously. Since his latest stint in Psy-Ops, 494 had been the model soldier, as far she she knew. Perhaps he only wished to compensate for his failure to stall X5-452's escape plan. Whether he was planning a rebellion or not, it would be unwise not to let him say what he thought needed to be said. "Granted."
"X5-452 is pregnant," said Alec. "Would it be wise to infect her in that condition? The foetus may have an adverse reaction."
That wasn't what Renfro had been expecting. "Are you actually concerned about your offspring? You do know that the baby isn't actually yours, don't you?"
"Of course, ma'am," said Alec. "The baby belongs to Manticore."
"Then let Manticore take care of itself."
"Yes ma'am," said Alec.
"Dismissed."
x x x
Alec left the director's office feeling completely out of sorts. He was feeling things he'd never felt before. The only one he clearly understood was a fierce hatred of Manticore, although he wasn't entirely certain what had set it off. He was a soldier. He'd been told to copulate. So he had. He'd known that 452 would get pregnant. He'd known that he and 452 would not be raising the baby like a civilian couple. He'd known that it would be raised the way he had. That it would probably never know that he was its father. But that had been fine for him, why would it be any different for the baby? Why did he now feel like he couldn't go through with it?
Actually, it felt like this had happened before, but for the life of him he couldn't remember when or why. The ghost of a memory fluttered across his lips. It didn't matter. Manticore looked after Manticore and Alec... was no longer X5-494.
Decision made, Alec went into mission mode. He had to get Max out of Manticore before they infected her. He could use her escape route, but there were still the X7s outside to deal with. With a grin and a promise, he found out that Max was being held in Psy-Ops. Not exactly the easiest room to break out of, but if they were torturing her for information they wouldn't have infected her yet.
Renfro was already in the room with Max. She was strapped to the chair and struggling. But Renfro couldn't know that they were escaping or they'd never get past the basement. Alec revised his plan. If they'd created a retrovirus to infect Max, it was either in the room with Max and Renfro, or in the lab. He was seriously hoping for the latter. X5s weren't allowed in the lab and Alec didn't have any special friends in that department, but he wasn't a master of infiltration for nothing. So often Manticore forgot that the skills they gave them could be used against them.
Alec knocked out a lab tech as he was leaving, so quickly the man would never know who had attacked him. He used the man's keycard and, lifted the man bodily to use his eyeball in the retinal scan. The lab wasn't empty, but in a labcoat, and with the tech firmly hidden, no one gave him a second glance. They didn't actually expect that someone who wasn't allowed access could gain entry.
A quick sweep of the place didn't jump out at Alec. He sauntered over to the nearest tech as though he owned the place. Confidence was enough to make anyone look like he wasn't in the wrong place. He was taking a risk in helping Max escape from Manticore. He could take another risk here.
"Director Renfro is requesting the retrovirus for X5-452."
The lab tech didn't even look up. "Do I look like Reece?" He gestured to the other side of a room where a woman was looking up, having heard her name.
This time Alec took a second to read her ID badge before speaking. "Dr. Reece?"
"Yes," she said. "You're here for the retrovirus?"
"Director Renfro is ready for it now."
She unlocked a cupboard and handed him a test tube rack with four test tubes in it.
Alec pretended to drop it accidentally. The tubes smashed and spilled on the floor. "Please tell me that wasn't all of it," he said.
Reece stared at him in horror. "That was it. It'll take me another two hours to synthesise more."
Thank god. "Renfro is going to have my head," he said. "I'd better go inform her before she has time to get pissed."
"No," said Reece. "Don't. She'll have mine too for not making more. Stall her."
"Okay," said Alec, and exited the lab. He had no intention of stalling Renfro. He wandered back to Psy-Ops and waited for Renfro to leave. Two techs were in the room with her. When one left, Alec could only assume he was being sent for the virus, so Alec incapacitated him. When the second left, Alec did the same. He left them both locked up in his cell. Renfro called two guards in to stay with an unconscious Max, and left the room.
Manticore guards were never a match for an X5 unless there were four of five of them, armed. Only the fact that Max was currently unconscious would lead Renfro to leave fewer. They were too startled by Alec's sudden appearance to even grab their tasers before Alec took them down. He went to Max and shook her. "Wake up."
Her eyes opened but he could tell she was drugged. This was going to be the worst escape in the history of escapes from Manticore. Thankfully there was only one to compare it to. There was no way Alec was going to make it to Max's cell with an unconscious Max. He needed her functioning. He scanned the drugs that had been laid out but didn't see anything that could help. Seeing no other options (he was in too deep already), Alec lifted Max and began carrying her out of the Psy-Ops wing. The first part was easy enough. He'd already taken out every guard nearby.
Alec tried to think of alternate escape routes. He didn't have to use Max's route, but everything else seemed a too obvious. Alec knew that no one from Manticore went down into the basement if they could help it. Only the door was guarded. But to get past the X7s, Alec had to make one more stop.
The good news was that Max seemed to be waking up. The bad news was that she was not trying to fight him.
"Get away from me!"
"Max calm down," said Alec. "I'm trying to help you."
"I don't need help from you, ass." She reached out her hands to push him away, but just ended up falling onto him as she unbalanced.
"Renfro was interrogating you, remember? I'm getting you out. I am not the bad guy here."
Max looked up at him with slightly clearer eyes. "Alec?"
"Yes, Alec," said Alec. "We're blowing this popsicle stand tonight."
None of this seemed to make any sense to Max, but at least she stopped fighting him. Alec quickly found the right storage closet. It was keypad locked, but like a simple padlock, that was the only thing keeping the average person from accessing it. There was no alarm. Undoubtedly Manticore was cost cutting because although this storage space held equipment only used for missions outside Manticore's walls, it didn't contain weapons. The only thing Alec wanted was a signal jammer. He reached for the black box, and then they were on their way.
Now that Max was upright, they could walk through the halls as though they were exactly where they were supposed to be, and Alec quickly led Max to her cell, then had the guards lock the door behind them. He quickly reached down and pulled out the loose bricks. Not trusting Max in her condition, he went first.
"Come on, Max," he called when she didn't move quickly enough.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm getting us out of here."
"Why?" She paused. "How do I know this isn't some kind of trap?"
Alec let out a frustrated groan. "They wanted to infect you with some kind of virus to kill that Eyes Only guy."
"What?"
"Do you want Eyes Only dead or not? Let's go."
Max slid out and Alec caught her, setting her on her feet gently.
"So where was your big escape plan from here?" Alec asked.
"That window," said Max, indicating a barred window.
Had Alec known he might have stopped for a blowtorch, too. "That's going to take all night."
"Max outside?" a strangely accented voice questioned.
Alec turned, then stepped back in surprise as he glimpsed a dog-man. "What the hell are you supposed to be?"
"Joshua first. Special."
"Hey big fella," said Max. "Wanna help us get out of here tonight?"
"Max outside. That's the plan."
"Great," said Alec, still warily watching the dog-man. He sized him up. "Help us out with the bars?"
Joshua stepped up onto the crates and easily pulled the bars from the window.
"Well that was easy," said Alec. He picked up the signal jammer and turned it on. It emitted a high pitched noise then went silent. Alec twisted the knob a little more.
"What's that for?" asked Max.
"X7s can't communicate supersonically now. They're as useless as very strong children now."
With the X7s unable to organise a coordinated attack, it was easy for Max and Alec to take them on one at a time. Making their way to the fence and jumping over it easily.
"Where to next?" Alec asked once they'd run far enough away from Manticore to be considered ordinaries.
"I don't know what the hell you're going to do," said Max. "But I'm going home."
"And that would be?"
"Seattle," said Max.
"Hey that's not too far from here," said Alec. "I was thinking of going the same way." Actually, Alec hadn't been thinking anything at all beyond escaping Manticore. Protecting Max seemed important, but on the other hand, Max could take care of herself. After all, she'd been living out here for more than ten years. Despite the wad of cash in his pocket and a couple of solo missions under his belt, Alec wasn't really sure how to survive on his own. Oh, he was sure he could do it. He wasn't sure that he wanted to, though. Up until an hour ago he'd still been well ensconced in the Manticore machine.
"We're less likely to get caught if we split up," said Max.
"And I will be out of your hair in no time," said Alec. "All I'm saying is, the least you could do for a guy who just helped you escape a clandestine government facility is put him up for a night."
"All right, fine," said Max. "One night. Then you go on your merry way and we pretend we never met each other."
"Sure, sweetcheeks," said Alec. "But I'm guessing it'll be harder for you to do that than me."
x x x
It was laughably easy to travel the rest of the way to Seattle. Max pretended to be a hitchhiker and the two of them hijacked a car. They dumped it just outside Seattle, then used their Manticore-given abilities to make their way through the sectors undetected.
Max paused at the bottom of a fancy apartment building. It wasn't the sort of place Alec would have expected her to live in. If only because places like this probably wanted to know everything about who you are. There was no way Max could live like that.
"This the place?" he asked.
"No," she said. "I just need to see a friend first."
Alec rolled his eyes. A friend, right.
"Wait here," she said.
Fat chance of that. But Alec decided to let Max think she'd gotten him to obey before following her up to an apartment.
He noticed that Max didn't knock on the door, she just picked the lock and waltzed in like she owned the place. Hell, maybe she did. Maybe Max was Eyes Only. It would make sense for someone like Eyes Only to disguise her gender as well as her identity.
Alec watched as a man played an Eyes Only message on his computer. Alec watched as the man noticed that Max was there. He watched the emotions play through the eyes that had just been displayed on the monitor.
And then Alec watched them kiss and it was as though someone had twisted a knife in his gut. As though someone had sucked all the air out of the room and he'd forgotten how to breathe.
"Well isn't that touching," said Alec. He looked at Logan. "I'm guessing you're the great Eyes Only." Luckily for him Alec had decided to interfere. It looked like Renfro's plan would have been right on the mark.
"And you are?" asked Logan.
"The guy who just saved your life," said Alec.
"I told you to wait outside," said Max.
"And I didn't say that I would," said Alec.
Max rolled her eyes. "Logan, this is Alec. He helped me escape."
"I wouldn't be bragging about that," said Alec. "Those were my orders."
Max was on him in a flash and Alec made no move to defend himself.
"I wasn't supposed to tell you about the virus," he said. "How else did you think he was going to get infected?"
Max released him. "Go home," she said.
"Can't," said Alec, looking around the apartment. He let out a low whistle.
"These are nice digs. Who'd you have to kill to get them?"
The other two people in the room were silent.
"That was a joke," Alec said.
"Ha ha," said Logan.
Max sighed. "We'd better get going. I told this one he could crash at mine for the night." She went over to Logan and put her arms on his shoulders. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Logan leaned forward and kissed her, and Alec looked away. "Hey, I just wanted a roof for the night. This place is huge. I bet you have a spare bedroom."
Max eyed Alec. "If you think I'm letting you out of my sight while you're still in the city, you're even more messed up than I thought."
"Aw Max, I didn't know you cared."
Logan's computer beeped.
"I have to finish my broadcast," said Logan.
"What broadcast?" said Alec.
"The one that finally exposes Manticore for what it truly is," said Logan. "Most importantly where it is."
"No," said Alec. "You can't do that."
"Why not?" asked Max, suspicion evident in her gaze.
"Just because I decided that what I wanted was more important than what Manticore wanted for once in my life doesn't mean everyone else there wants the same thing. You know what they'll do, Max. They'll kill everyone."
"Hold off for half an hour, Logan," said Max. "We've got some transgenics to save."
"What?" said Alec, as Max dragged him from the room. "I didn't agree to this."
"It was your idea," said Max.
"Oh no," said Alec. "I am not taking the fall for this one. When a thousand transgenics come out of Manticore's gates, you're looking after them."
"Be careful," Logan called after them. But Max didn't hear as Alec continued ranting at her as they made their way over rooftops to the vehicle they'd stashed only an hour ago.
x x x
That there were no X7s in the yard was the first clue that Logan had succeeded in spooking Manticore. Manticore was built to keep transgenics in, not to keep them out, so it was just as easy to get back into the building as it was to sneak into Seattle.
They knocked out a few guards on their way to the security room where all the locks could be accessed. It took Alec only a second to get all the doors unlocked. Another second to make sure they couldn't be relocked.
"You get the Xs," said Max. "I'll get the basement."
Alec rolled his eyes. But sometime today he'd started taking Max's orders, and he couldn't stop himself now. He went down the nearest corridor shouting, "This is not a drill. This is not an attack. Go to ground, people. Because Manticore no longer exists." Soldiers began exiting from their cells, jogging down the halls in an orderly fashion. "Escape and evade."
Max turned in the other direction to find the single door that led to the basement. Renfro came around the corner and stopped in front of her.
"We've got to get out of here, 452," she said.
"My name's Max," said Max. She saw the silver case that Renfro was carrying. The one she'd had earlier when she told Max that all they needed was the database to start all over again. Max couldn't let her do that. "And I want that database."
Though Renfro was military trained, Max was easily able to snatch it from her. Renfro pulled out a pistol. "You're coming with me," she said.
"No," said Max, kicking the gun out of Renfro's hands. "I don't think so."
She knocked out Renfro, then opened the briefcase. She pulled the database disks out and abandoned the rest. She didn't need to be slowed down at this point.
Remembering her self-appointed mission, she continued toward the basement. When she got there basement door it was already open. There was no movement within. Time to get out of here, then.
x x x
Max met Alec on the hill outside Manticore. They watched Manticore burn with different emotions playing over their faces.
"Come on," said Max, taking a step away. "I still owe you a roof."
Alec shook his head as he continued to watch. "My life's not back in Seattle," he said.
"I thought we agreed that it was for a night," said Max.
"Afraid you'll miss me?" asked Alec, a teasing smirk on his face.
"Not in this lifetime," said Max.
"Take care of yourself," he said seriously before walking away.
"You know where to find me when you get into trouble," she said.
He turned, but continued walking away backwards. "Trouble? Me?" He grinned at her. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and jingled them to get her attention. "I'm not the one who doesn't have a ride."
"Alec!" Max took off after him, but with the head start, he took off in the red convertible before she could catch up. Even transgenic speed was no match for a well maintained automobile.
Unable to hijack another car, Max had to walk back to Seattle, cursing blond-haired, hazel-eyed transgenics all the way. But when she got to
Logan's apartment, he still was waiting for her. "How did it go?" he asked her.
"Exactly as planned, up until the point where Alec ditched me." Max sank back onto Logan's couch.
"Why would he do that?"
"Who knows why he does anything? Good riddance." She pulled the database from her pocket and she threw it at Logan. He caught it easily. "Manticore's entire database."
Logan's eyes widened. "You know what we could do with this?"
"Grow our own transgenics?"
"This is proof that Manticore existed," said Logan. "I bet it has everything we need to know about who started Manticore and why. We can take down everyone who was ever involved in this project. Stop them from every trying it again."
Max smiled at him. "Still the same old Eyes Only. Trying to save the world one bad guy at a time." She kissed him gently on the lips. "I think that's what I always loved about you."
Logan pulled back and looked Max deep in the eyes. "I love you too, Max."
And from there, it seemed there was only one direction to go: Logan's bedroom.
x X X x
A/N: So that's the first chapter. Let me know if there are any missing scenes you might want to see. Let me know anything, really.
