For title, author, rating, spoilers, summary, disclaimer, etc., see Chapter 1- Viaje del Camino.


VIA MEMORIUS - DURAS VERDADES

"Zack, wait!" Max shot out of the apartment after telling Cindy to phone Logan just in case. Her brother was already halfway down the hallway. He paused and let her catch up to him. "Where are you going?"

"You'll just try to stop me." he muttered, continuing down the corridor.

"Why? What are you trying to do?" she grabbed his arm, halting him. He looked at her; his eyes were filled with pain.


"Traitor!" Zack screamed at Logan, holding a gun on him. The man lay on the floor, waiting for the inevitable. Why wasn't he fighting...? Because he couldn't walk, the revelation hit Zack.

Suddenly, he was struck to the ground by someone on a motorcycle. The gun went flying from his hand, but when he regained his feet he headed for it quickly. Someone kicked him from behind, sending him tumbling to the ground a second time. He turned on his attacker. Max. Why?

"Zack don't do this!" she cried, grabbing him. What was she doing? Why was she protecting him? He betrayed them both! And now Max was betraying Zack. Why?


"You know." he said to her. Her eyes were desperate.

"Zack, there's a lot you don't understand. I'm sure this is very confusing for you, but we have to talk about it."

"Why are you trying to stop me, Max? He's the reason the assault on Manticore went sideways! He's the reason you and I died, and we don't even know if Krit and Syl got out okay!"

"They're fine." she said. He hesitated for a moment as relief flashed through his eyes. Then his expression hardened again and he resumed walking. She grabbed his arm, took his hand.

"Max, don't try to stop me!" Why didn't she understand? What was wrong with her?

"Please, Zack. Not everything you're remembering is right."

"I know what I remember. I know what my mission is."

"Your mission is to protect your brothers and sisters, Zack. I know that." She had to get through to him, make him understand. She couldn't lose him again.

"That's what I'm doing! Logan's a threat to all of us! He already got both of us captured, Max! We died because of him, how can you not see that?"

"No, that's not true." She touched his face but he pulled away. "Logan's a friend."

"I remember." he hissed.


"The biggest threat to her safety is you."

"Back off."

"You and Lydecker ran the operation while we went in."


"But not all those memories are true, Zack." Max said gently. "Trust me. I'm your sister, I wouldn't try to stop you if Logan was going to hurt the rest of us. You know I love them as much as you do.You know that, please."

"If it's not true then why do I remember it?"

"I don't know what they did to you at Manticore, Zack, but I'm sure must have messed with your head."

"My head is perfectly clear." he said icily.

"Zack..." she hesitated, then took a breath and looked away from him. "You've already remembered one thing wrong."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ben." she whispered. He stared at her as she raised tear-filled eyes to look at him. "Zack, Ben's not okay."

"The doctor said he'd be fine, what are you talking about?" He didn't want to hear this. She was trying to trick him. But he did know that she loved them. Why would she trick him so he wouldn't be able to protect them? His mind whirled with confusion.

"That wasn't Ben." Max was crying now and it scared him. "That was Alec."

"What are you talking about? Who's Alec?" Zack narrowed his eyes at her. "That was Ben, I recognized him."

"Alec is X5-494. Ben was 493. They're twinned. I'm sorry. I didn't want to lie to you." For a moment Zack said nothing; then his eyes narrowed. "I just-"

"No."

"Zack-"

"No! You're working against me. You're trying to protect him!"

"Logan didn't do anything wrong! He's your friend, Zack, you have to trust me. You don't know what Manticore did to you!"

"Whatever they did to me, they did it because of-" Zack stopped as a lump formed in his throat. He swallowed. "Because of Logan." Max was looking at him strangely.

"You mean... because of me?" she breathed. Zack averted his eyes.

"No." He looked at her, touched her cheek. "I love you, Max."

"I know. But that doesn't mean you can't blame me." Zack turned away; he didn't want to be having this conversation.

"I don't blame you. It wasn't your fault, it was his."

"Zack, it's okay. I blame me, too."

"No!" He grabbed her shoulder; his eyes were wild. "No, Max, it isn't your fault!" "It's not your fault, either." she whispered. He let go of her and started to walk away.

"Zack!" she went after him; he ignored her. "Zack, please! Come with me somewhere. I can prove to you about Ben if you just come with me." He stopped walking, half-turned to look into her desperate eyes.

"Okay." he said slowly. "I'll go with you, Max." Relief flooded her features, and he slowly followed her out to where her motorcycle was parked, not knowing which thought he dreaded more: Ben no being safe after all, or Max lying to him.


"This is where he brought his victims." she said as she stood with Zack in the ruined interior of the abandoned warehouse. She and Zack had driven the entire way in silence. The place made her hair stand on end.

"Victims?" Zack swallowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Come with me." she said softly; he followed her further into the structure, until she led him to a room littered with debris. She pointed to one of the walls. A lump caught in Zack's throat as he read 'Duty,' 'Mission,' and 'Discipline' spray-painted on the rusty metal of the wall. He dropped to his knees in front of it and touched the words with a shaky hand.

"He never left." Max said softly. "All the time he was outside, he wanted to go back there."

"No." No, Zack had done the right thing getting them out of there... hadn't he?

"Yes." she insisted. "He told me."

"You saw him?" Zack turned to her. "You know where he is?" Her eyes had filled with tears; she was hugging herself.

"Zack," her voice shook. "Ben is dead."

"No." He couldn't face what he was hearing; he fell back against the wall. Ben, dead? "No."

"I'm sorry." Max was saying "I'm so sorry." Zack felt sick to his stomach and let his head fall into his hands. She dropped to her knees in front of him; after a moment, Zack registered that she was still sobbing. He reached out and pulled her into his arms.

"Ben is dead?" he whispered. Max nodded against his chest as she cried; his shirt was getting wet but he didn't care.


"We didn't go to the High Place tonight."

"The Blue Lady will understand."

"I don't think she will." So full of faith.


"Tell us the story, Ben."

"Only the best soldiers get to go to the Good Place. The ones who fail... you know what happens to them?"

"They disappear."

"To the Bad Place." So imaginative.


"They'll take him to the Bad Place and drink his blood. Then the nomlies'll take him away."

"The Blue Lady- why doesn't she protect him?"

"I'm going to the High Place. I'll ask her." So frightened.


Ben...


"What happened?" Zack managed to gasp. Max pulled back from him and wiped at her wet cheeks.

"I'm so sorry." she choked out. "I couldn't- I didn't want to. But I had to. They were coming. He begged me." She dissolved into tears again. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't remember him dying." His voice shook. "Why don't I remember, Max?"

"You weren't there." she sobbed; horror hit him. He should have been there. He should have been there to help Ben. Where had he been? Why couldn't he remember?

"Where the hell was I?" he asked, more harshly than he intended.

"I don't know." she choked out. "You never mentioned him, not once. I don't even know if you ever knew he'd made it out of Manticore."

"I knew." he whispered, suddenly remembering.


"Long time no see, Ben." That was it, all he said as the sixteen-year-old entered his bedroom, where Zack had been waiting for the past three hours. If his brother was surprised at his sudden appearance after- what had it been, five years?- he didn't show it. Zack was eighteen.

"Do you ever think about the Blue Lady?" Ben asked, sitting down on the bed next to him. Zack looked him over; he had grown a lot. He'd had left this reunion way too long, but he'd been busy with Syl for almost four years trying to get her away from her abusive foster uncle. He still shook with rage every time he thought of the bastard that had done more than just hit his sister; she hadn't known how to deal with what had happened to her and he didn't have a clue either. They'd never taught him about that particular human sickness in Manticore. But he'd stayed with her for three years until she got old enough to not have to go back into foster care. Then he'd left her because he'd neglected the others for far too long.

"She was just a story." Zack said, answering Ben's question even as his eyes warily surveyed the various Virgin Mary icons gracing the walls of over Ben's bed. They worried him. "Are your foster parents treating you alright?"

"Yeah, they're fine." Ben said after a moment; he turned to his brother, and there was something in his eyes that Zack had never seen before.

"She was just a story." Zack repeated; Ben gazed at him for a moment, then glanced away.

"Are you here to tell me my position's been compromised again?" he asked; Zack heard a slight shake in his voice and cringed at the sound. He knew that having to leave Arizona when he was eleven had been the hardest thing Ben had ever had to do. But Lydecker had been on to him. Zack cursed himself; he should have checked up on him before now! He looked at the Virgin Mary pictures again and shivered slightly.

"No, I just came to see if you were okay." Zack said; Ben turned to beam up at him, looking for a moment like the eleven-year-old boy Zack had last seen him as.

"Really?" His eyes were so full of hope, but that something else was still there too. It scared Zack; what was it? He clapped his little brother on the shoulder.

"Of course."


"I always watched out for all of you, Max. I checked up on Ben periodically like all the others. I saw him about a couple of years before he started-" he hesitated, looked away. "Before he started killing people." Zack finished softly. Max's eyes spilled over again.

"I couldn't tell you. I didn't know how you'd react. I wished you could have been there with me, Zack. Together we could have gotten him out of there. I should have tried. But I couldn't. I was so scared. He begged me. His eyes..."

"Max, what happened?" he asked softly, not knowing if he really wanted to hear. Slowly, through her tears, Max related the entire awful story to him. By the time she was done, Zack was crying, too.

"I'm sorry." Max said again. "I'm so sorry." Zack touched her face.

"They would have killed him." he said. "It was good of you to let him die with someone who loved him."

"I did love him." she said desperately. "But I never told him."

"He knew." Zack said firmly. Max fell into his arms again.

"I'm so sorry." she sobbed.

"Shhh." he stroked her hair. "It's okay." Suddenly, another flashback hit him.


Zack was hugging Max. It was night, they were by the ocean, the stars were out. He held onto her tightly and felt almost content. Her hair smelled like strawberry and something that was distinctly her.


It was night again. They were in a cave. He was cold, he was dazed, afraid, but she was helping him. She was so happy to see him.

"You called me, right?" Max was trying to make him feel better about something. "You remembered my number." What? Oh no- his present-day self suddenly realized. No, no, no, no, no. He'd forgotten everything about the others- he didn't know where they were, how to protect them. He'd failed them all!

"It's not the same." his memory-self told Max, agitated.

"Yes, you can do it if you try."

"No, it's different with you." Didn't she understand? "I mean, how could I forget..." he looked at her. "A single thing about you?" He gazed at her. "How could I?"


He leaned in to kiss Max, but she pushed him back. His memories were clouded; he didn't understand.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking at her face. Was that fear in her eyes, or... disgust? "I love you. I just want things to be the way they used to be with us."


Zack was in a cabin with Max; he had poured them both wine and now he was sitting facing her. He felt happy for the first time in years. She looked sad, and he wanted to cheer her up.

"I remember the morning of the escape getting into Cheyenne around 7:00 AM." He had never told Max anything about his life after the escape before, and he sensed that she knew this moment was rare, sacred. He got a far-off look in his eyes thinking of that day. "The streets were just starting to fill with people. Not soldiers or doctors, just regular people on their way to work. It scared the hell out of me. As far as I was concerned, they were all the enemy and I was completely outnumbered." Max smiled.

"I know the feeling."

"I climbed up onto the roof of an office building in downtown to lay low just as the sun was coming up. It was my first morning as a free man. The whole world looked different."

"It was like it was in colour all of a sudden." Max said, echoing his thoughts. He looked at her; she had always understood him. He reached out a hand to sweep a loose lock of hair from her face. She was gazing at him softly, her beautiful eyes thoughtful. She loved him, he could see it.


Zack pulled away from Max, uncomfortable. What the hell was that? he wondered. She was his sister, wasn't she? Not biologically, he knew, but... he shook his head, not meeting her eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing." he stood up, still not looking at her. She stood with him, touched his arm.

"Zack-" He pulled away, startling her.

"I have to go."

"I can't let you. Logan-"

"I know." Zack cut her off. Then, more gently, "I know. They did something to my head."

"That's right." she said cautiously. He looked at her, finally, and swallowed hard. Zack reached a hand out to touch her hair, but stopped himself. He cleared his throat.

"It messed me all up."

"Yeah." This was going a lot better than she'd thought it would. It was going too well.

"I love you, Max." he tested.

"I love you, too, Zack." she said; this confused him even more.

"I have to go." he repeated. She hesitated, then slowly nodded. She watched him leave, and wished desperately that she knew what was going on inside his head so she could help him.


Leaving the abandoned warehouse, Zack wasn't paying attention to where he was going and collided with someone as he exited the structure. He glanced up, and his face paled slightly.

"Alec." he managed. The man looked surprised.

"Uh... yes?" He sounded uncertain.

"You're Alec, aren't you?" Zack said.

"Um... sure." What was he supposed to say? He'd shown up here because Cindy had said that's where he could find Max, though he didn't know why she want to come to this place He wanted to get this whole Ben thing cleared up. But now here was Zack, calling him Alec. Names were annoying.

"Sure?" Zack repeated; he sounded suspicious. "Either you're Ben or you're Alec." "Oh, I don't know..." he almost whined it. "Call me whatever you want." Zack thought about this for a second, then glanced back at the warehouse, where he'd left Max.

"Does Max- I mean, do we..." he hesitated. "What was it between me and Max? I mean, before I lost my memory and everything." Alec smirked.

"Oh, she digs you, man. Besides, she and Logan can't touch. You should go for it." He slapped his shoulder congenially. What he'd said didn't make a whole lot of sense to Zack, but it seemed like he was telling him something that he wasn't sure he knew what to do with.

"So... we're not brother and sister?"

"Nah. Max just likes to call people that. I don't know, gives her the warm fuzzies or something." He shrugged. "Who knows what goes on in that crazy mind of hers, huh?" Zack took this in, and nodded slowly.

"Thanks..."

He looked at Alec or Ben or whoever he was with suspicion. Had Max been lying to her about Ben? This guy didn't seem to know if he was Alec or Ben, as though he'd been told to call himself something he wasn't and couldn't remember the specifics of the order... And now he was going to see Max. That was just a bit too supicious. But why would Max lie to him? He knew she was protecting Logan, but what did Ben have to do with that? It seemed an elaborate act, pretending to have murdered your own brother, just to convince Zack that he might not be right about Logan. "Sure. No problem." Zack turned away and moved past him.

"So, where are you going?" the guy called; Zack paused.

"Logan's." he said, and continued on. Behind him, Alec nodded to himself.

"Sounds good!" he called to Zack's receding form. Getting no response, he shrugged and went into the factory.

Zack turned from the warehouse, and headed for Logan's. Maybe he could ask the guy for answers, and if he gave the wrong ones then he'd kill him. He remembered the name of the place, almost- Fog Tower, Foggle Tower, Fogle Towers? He stopped at a payphone and opened the directory, scanning the listings. That was it! Fogle Towers. He read the address, stopped someone for directions, and then set off. His was much more content with a clear mission in place, and he didn't want to think about his newly-recovered memories of Max, which seemed to indicate that he wasn't her brother at all, but something more.


When Zack reached Fogle Towers, he entered through the door because he couldn't remember which condo was Logan's, and he didn't want to be jumping into a thousand windows looking for the guy. Luckily there was only one Logan listed on the sign outside, one Logan Cale, with the biggest apartment in the place. Zack went inside and headed up to the penthouse.

Slowly and noiselessly, Zack pushed the door open and surveyed the place. It was well-decorated, neat, and ritzy. He moved through the foyer into the living room, and caught sight of the shape of Logan, sitting with his back to Zack at his computers. Zack had an urge right then to kill him, but if what Max said was true then she would never forgive him for it, and he couldn't deal with that. He noticed that Logan was on the phone, and waited impatiently for him to finish.

"I want to know exactly what's done in those types of situations." Logan was saying to whoever it was he was talking to. "I want to know the procedures, the medication given during the procedures, and how to reverse the effects." He paused and waited for an answer. "There has to be a way... Well, think of something." He waited again. "No, you don't need to know that. Because I said so. Just do this for me and Max will be willing to meet with you. I'll convince her to trust you. And Lydecker-" Zack's eyes widened as rage filled him. He clenched his fists. "This is to be done covertly." Logan paused. "I know, but it's gotta be said. Yeah. Bye." Logan hung up the phone, and Zack cleared his throat; Logan turned around and his eyes widened in fear.

"Zack-" What was he doing here? Max had just phoned him to say that Cindy's call had been a false alarm.

"Making a little deal with the devil?" he said icily, taking a step toward the frightened man.

"Oh no, Zack, you don't-" Logan started, but Max's brother grabbed hold of Logan's neck.

"Traitor." he hissed.