I've just read the 3rd book of the Dark Angel Series: After the Dark. I'm not particularly impressed with it.
The book ends with Max finding Lydecker in the Conclave Asylum where CJ was, escaped and was taken back again. When Max finds Lydecker, she initially decides to leave him there to die but then he says that he can help her find her mother and Max very reluctantly then saves his life. But the relationship that is portrayed between the two in the last book does not line up with the relationship that Season 1 clearly hinted at and paved a way for. So, I'm just going to use the end of the book as a run down of what happened and then continue on with it with my own story.
Here's some background from the book to the run up of my story:
Epilogue
Max and the gang, which is Alec, Joshua, Mole and a few others are making their way to what seems to be a Conclave location. White had kidnapped Logan and told Max that he will trade him for his son, Ray.
After finding out that White's son has been killed, Max and the others are bringing the boy's body to his father and to tell him that it was his own conclave brothers that had betrayed him and killed his son.
They have discovered this location, which is referred to as the 'Conclave Stronghold', and they are trying to infiltrate and sneak up on White without him knowing that they are coming.
Here's a snippet from the book:
Still in the woods, Max reached the top of a short hill and peeked around a tree to see what lay beyond.
Down the other side, past another patch of trees alone in the middle of a wide, well-trimmed, sparse landscape sat a three-story white stucco building and two outbuildings.
Even from this distance she could see that bars covered the windows, and something CJ, the nutty brother of Ames White and evidently her half-brother, had told her when was it, a year ago?, came back to her.
"I'm not going back to their loony bin." CJ had said.
Max and the gang eventually meet up with White and he is of course furious that his son has been murdered by his own brothers. But White's ambition is to lead the Conclave, so his plans to kill Max and the other transgenics does not change. A battle ensues, Joshua kills White and other conclave members are either also killed, injured badly or made a run for it. So Max and gang won the battle and saved Logan.
The building turns out to be the 'looney bin' that CJ had referred to.
Another snippet:
Once they were up the short flight of steps, Max, Mole, and Alec went inside unimpeded. For all the frenetic and violent activity outside, the asylum itself seemed deserted. Initially, they found themselves in what had once been a reception/waiting room area, with a double- door elevator, but no chairs lined the walls, and the nurse/receptionist window was vacant; otherwise, it was just a big empty slab room, cut through the middle by a long hallway.
Though voices could be heard, the cries of prisoners, these did not emanate from this floor, in fact, they sounded more like they were coming from the walls. The effect was ghostly, troubling, but this floor was clearly administrative, small tidy offices with computers and desks and chairs and files, as you might find in any institution of this type.
The thought of the inhabitants of these neat offices being cultists with pagan facial markings, parading in flowing hooded robes, chanting ritual gibberish, seemed utterly absurd... or would have, if they hadn't just pushed their way through a throng of them out on the battlefield that the asylum grounds had turned into.
The building was old and badly in need of renovation, yet the place was neat, floors dust-free, no cobwebs, the walls and ceilings clean, the entire facility smelling of pine cleaner and disinfectant.
Moving cautiously, Max signaled for them to split up, Alec and Mole each taking one of the side halls while Max went down the middle.
Max found fire stairs at the end and started up.
On the second floor was cells and cries for help, shouts for attention, echoed down the hallways. No guards were around, no robed Familiars, no one home but the inmates.
She had a good idea who they were:
prisoners of the Conclave, perhaps ordinaries who'd tipped to the evil practices and intentions of the Familiars, or betrayers among their own ranks, possibly even transgenics mixed with the real mental patients who'd provided the cover.
She pushed through double doors down a short corridor of examination rooms and more small tidy offices. The medicinal scent was strong, making her nose twitch, but that was well in keeping with what seemed a clinic of some kind.
After another show down with the priestess, the self-destruct button is pushed and they only have 5 minutes before the building blows up. Max decides that the people locked up in there doesn't deserve to die like that, so she of course tries to get everybody out.
Another snippet:
With the water coming down, her hair was well-matted by now. She had released four prisoners when she finally heard the locks all click open. All the doors thrummed open slightly and the prisoners needed no further encouragement than that. They flew down the hall, splashing, barely aware of Max waving them toward safety.
She stayed on the floor, going from cell to cell making sure everyone got out. She saw no other inmate or prisoner until she got to the last door, which she opened wide, and looked in to see a lump in the middle of a padded cell whose stuffing was largely hanging out of gaping tears.
"Get on your feet!" she said. "Building's gonna blow!"
The lump rolled over to reveal a sickly, emaciated man who had obviously undergone a great deal of torture, a man who stared at her with beady dark eyes...
... a man she had known all her life.
And from here on out is where I pick up my story. I still use what happened in the book but I've tweaked it a bit.
So, here goes my story…
Chapter 1
Stepping into the cell completely stunned, Max frowns. "Lydecker?"
"Max?" A weak whisper. Lydecker looks confused, he's not sure if any of this is real, if Max is really there, if one of his kids are really there, or if it is just another hallucination.
Whether it's real or not, it doesn't matter as he reaches out towards her with a shaky hand. "Help me." A weak version of that once strong voice pleads with her. "Please." Begging actually…
At that moment the events that happened at that genetics conference about two years ago runs across her memory. When he was down on the floor and he was about to take a bullet to the head…she just couldn't let him die. And that's the same feeling that she has now.
Without another seconds' thought, Max makes her way over to Lydecker, ducks down and scoops him up with his arm over her shoulder. He groans out in pain but Max continues on out the door, there's no time to do an inventory of injuries.
"Building's gonna blow," she yells as she makes her way down the hall towards the front entrance, "any second now! Run!"
They make it out of the building towards the edge of the forest where the others are waiting as she is hauling Colonel Donald Lydecker to safety with them.
As they get to the edge of the woods the building explodes. It started with three small explosions and then the whole building crumbled.
Logan comes up next to Max and he takes a second glance at the person that Max has helped out, he looks familiar. A moment later he realizes that it is the withered form of Lydecker, shivering and coughing.
Turning back to look at the building in ruins, Logan doesn't know what to say or to comment. They thought that he was dead. How did he end up here and what did they do to him?
Alec notices Lydecker's disheveled presence. "What's he doing here?! I can't believe this bastard is alive!" He is clearly upset.
"I can fix that." Mole says as he starts pointing his shotgun into Lydecker's direction.
Max steps in between the two. "No, I need him alive." She's not sure what reason to give them. Just because for some reason she couldn't let him die, doesn't mean that the others are just going to accept that as a legitimate reason to let him live.
"But it's what I want for Christmas." The reptile face wrinkles further and words comes through clenched teeth.
"I'll get you a tie." Max sarcastically answers back with a tone that indicates that this conversation is over.
From the outbuilding Dix had managed to get some trucks running and loaded the patients in that had just escaped the demolished building.
Mole and Alec placed Lydecker in the back of another truck. Max and Logan are going to take a separate vehicle after she instructed Mole to take Lydecker back to Terminal City, alive and in no worse condition.
"Call Dr. Carr and get him some medical help." Max tells Mole. "And keep him separate and safe from everyone else until I get there." She knows that everyone there would like to have a piece of him but she doesn't have anywhere else to take him.
"You're putting me in charge of him?" Mole asks as he lights up a cigar that he got - heck knows where.
"Yes because I trust you." She and Mole may have had their differences in the past but over the last few months they have all come to respect her and she knows that she can now trust Mole with anything and everything.
Alec hops into the back of the truck where Lydecker has been propped up and seems half out of it. Joshua gets into the front next to Mole to ride shotgun.
As they pull away Alec watches Lydecker. His physical appearance clearly tells that he has been severely tortured over a very long period of time. His eyes are lifeless and staring into nothing like he doesn't seem to even be aware of what is going on around him.
He deserves it…Alec muses.
"Why do we need to keep in alive?" Alec asks still watching the man that he hates the most on this planet.
"Because Max said so." Mole replies leaving no space for discussion.
TBC...
This story will have short chapters and updating may be slow in the future.
Thanks for reading :)
Reviews are welcome...