Author: || Karen Murray ||
Disclaimer: || I own not Dark Angel, but I do own Ty, Bronze, Roan- Sullivan, Enrique, Mikaele, Lezli, Martin, Alan, Frances, all other PA-1s, all MA-1s, and the damn cats. ||
Spoilers: || T1 spoilers from I & I and Camera ||
Author's Note: || I'm excited; we're getting to better and better chapters. ||
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Part .20
I saw Alan the next day. It was by far the easiest one I did. I just walked up to a playground at a school and looked for him and saw him. He was so beautiful that it took my breath away. I have never seen anyone to rival his comeliness. Alan just has something to him that makes you want to love him. You see him and think to yourself that you will follow that beauty for years without rest.
When Alan saw me, he knew me right away. It was really something to have him look across the playground where he was speaking to a group of boys around his age and have him smile at me. He came looping toward me, quickly, a big tall boy of almost seventeen years old. I couldn't help but get some tears in my eyes and I thought of the last time that I had seen him. I was barely scraping five-foot at age fourteen and here he was three years older, at least a foot taller than I was. I smiled through the hazing in my eyes and looked at him and saw something I treasured and feared at the same time. I saw a willing soldier.
I took his hands in my own and pressed his fingers to my lips. "I thought you were dead," I said quietly. "My brother," I said. "You are so comely." I grinned and gave him a mock swoon. "If I had come three days ago, you wouldn't be safe from me," I teased. I saw that the jest was not lost on him and he raised his eyebrows, appraising me. I felt thrillingly cheap.
I chided myself. This was not the thing to do. You do not develop crushes -- no matter how menial and no matter how soon after heat -- on your unit siblings. It just isn't done. Relationships within a group can lead to problems. I sighed and settled back on the present times. I knew that if I actually got to know Alan that I probably wouldn't give him a second thought. He hadn't been particularly interesting to me as a child, except for his ethereal beauty. Well, maybe a second thought, but most certainly not a third.
"Can we get outta here for a while?" I asked, glancing around at the people who were slowly but surely edging their way into the conversation. Norms are just so damn curious and they show it. It's actually kind of cute, when you think about it. There is this norm, pretending not to listen, when that's actually what he's doing really, really hard. The sad part is that he doesn't hear half of the conversation.
"Sure," Alan said, in a real easy drawl that had me gasping. He sounded so New Orleans that it turned my blood. Just where had this man-child spent his boyhood? He turned and tossed someone some keys to some girl standing near the edge of the circle. "Eli," he said, "tell Mama I'll be home as soon as possible. Got some old business to take care of. You can drive the car home."
Eli stared at me suspiciously. She had dark, wavy hair that I envied greatly. Her eyes were an uninteresting brown without sparkles. I find that unless you have sparkles in brown eyes they just don't have the same effect that other eye colors have. My mother has sparkles in her brown eyes.
"Eli," Alan said, "this is Ty. I've told you about Ty, remember?" Alan seemed slightly embarrassed that this Eli girl was giving me the eye of the basilisk just because I'd said something about how comely he was. Sheesh. Good job, Alan.
"I'm his little sister," I said after a minute's pause. She didn't waver in her gaze at me. It looked true enough, from one point of view, though it was apparent that I had gotten none of the good genes that had graced Alan. "What's the matter, kid, don't believe me? What, do you think I want to sleep with him?" I laughed. "How old do I look, sistah?"
Eli gave in, just a little bit, but I could see that I had won by the slight curving of her lips and the way that she relaxed her body. "Tell Mom and Pop that you aren't the only foster sister that Ally is graced with. Dear old Ty is here and ready rumble. But we gotta talk."
Alan looked at Eli for a minute; the girl was very obviously wavering. Deciding that Eli was going to follow his request, Alan set off walking towards the gate. I hastened after him. How had all of my brothers and sisters gotten all of this extra confidence? First in Martin and his sudden appearance in the role that I had filled but left; then there was Frances and her . . . destroying of the car, which was actually kind of funny in an odd way; then there was Alan and his obvious knowledge that he would people following him. Was it because he was a natural leader among the norms, or just because he was beautiful? I didn't know him well enough to test.
As we walked, side by side now that I had managed to catch up with him, Alan spoke. "You aren't the only one who assumed the other was dead. For a moment there I thought I was seeing some sort of ghost, or clone, if you will. Then I just . . . I just knew it was you. You know?" He glanced at me with his eyes bright with question. His eyes had darkened with the passing years, but his hair was brighter.
"I know," I said simply. I did. It was something I worked against, but his door had been open and he'd known. It gladdened me. "I know exactly what you're talking about." I stopped walking and faced him, all business. Time for twenty questions, o brother of mine.
"Where're we going?" Alan asked me. I blinked. What had happened? Had I spoken out loud? Had he heard my thoughts? I did a split second scan of the door blocking my thoughts from being view. There they were blocked. He could only get a vague emotion from me, unless he had gotten amazing in later years away from Manticore and its constant practicing. How had he turned my own game against me?
I frowned. What was the question again? I did a replay in my mind, opening my drawer quickly and shutting it. "What do you mean?" I asked. From the time he asked the question to the time I answered I was certain that only a few seconds had passed.
"That's what you came here for, isn't it? Relocation. You were always a stickler for that, six-six-six," Alan teased me by using my designation number. " You were always quizzing us on our classroom subjects and you said that when enemy territory it was best to keep moving."
He was such a perfect soldier. Where had I seen that before? The eagerness to please, even if it meant losing his family?
"Ally," I began. Alan interrupted me and informed me that it was Al. Eli was Eli and Alan was Al, not Eli. I smiled at that and started again. "Al, you have a family here. That's all I'm really doing, you see. I'm taking everyone to a family, getting them out of the government really. I go in and delete your records, giving you the new hard copies that Dad and I made for you, then I make sure that you've got a home."
"But you're my sister, Ty. I'll leave right now if you think it'll be safer for me to start all over." I could see that he didn't really want to mean it, even though each word was said sincerely. He was willing to give up everything to please his CO. I had been the same way as a little child, and as a young adult. Isn't it odd how we imitate our leaders?
I reached out and impulsively gave him a hug. "You've got a home." I looked him in the eye. "Remember all your homes, Alan. You have to. If you don't, what experiences will you draw from?" I took out the folder with his information on it. "Just have your parents sign that, Al," I said, turning.
"Wait," cried Alan, grabbing my arm. "Aren't you at least gonna come to dinner?" He added a brilliantly dazzling grin to his request and for half a second I was severely tempted. It would be a simple dinner. I would meet his parents and then I could smile and play the adoring little sister and Eli would laugh with me and it would be so easy to fit in with this family. Then I came to my senses.
"I can't," I said hopelessly. "I've went through this before, Al." We both knew that what I was referring to wasn't what I was referring to, in the best sense, but neither one of us was sure what I really meant. "You can't depend on me too much. Independence. Martin's got it down pat. There's a number in there -- you call it if you ever have any trouble."
I turned from him and started walking to the hotel, where my things were. Behind me I could see Alan if I looked at nothing hard enough; I could see him standing there, with his cherub-like beauty grown into something more, worried and trying to decide whether I really meant what I had said. Almost unwhispered, I said to myself, "I meant every bit."
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The plane trip back home was monotonous. Unfortunately, I was not in heat and therefore I assume that the steward was wasted on me. He was cute, in his own way, but no cuter than the usual stewards that attended aircraft were. I had only one drink, mostly because the stewardess gave me several glares when I requested the drink and it was only by the powers of my glare that got me my watered down drink in the first place. I wanted to hurt her, but she was only doing her job and I wasn't in the mood to get drunk anyway.
I don't know if I've ever explained this, but flying in airplanes has always been something of a treat for me. When they're in the air and I'm down on the ground I like to think of how the airplane flies; how the engine works; how the position of the wings matter. It's something that's fun to think about for me. I dunno if it'd be fun for you, though. You might be bored to tears.
I fell asleep on the flight. Pretty silly of me, isn't it? I mean, I can probably go days without sleep if I trained my mind -- well, tricked is more like it -- into thinking that it didn't need sleep. If the mind doesn't think it needs sleep, the body is less likely to recognize the facts that say it does.
I woke in the middle of a layover. My seat mate had to slide over me and managed to spill something on me. I'm not sure what it was. I was half- asleep when I threw it at him. I just know that it left me smelling like peppermint, which I don't like. I was a wee bit shamed to see that I had slept, so I decided to stay away. To keep me busy, I cast glances around the plane, looking at people.
There was this really ugly kid with an okay looking mom and dad in the row behind me. He had a snub nose -- I touched my own nose, rather snub, if truth be told, in my younger years -- and too many freckles. His teeth were crooked and his smile was lopsided. His hair looked like it couldn't decide between brown and blonde and his eyes were a dull blue. Uninteresting. Across the aisle from me, on my left, was a very pretty looking woman with several magazines open in her lap. A classic bimbo. My mother looked like one of these. I wondered if she maybe was hiding behind the pretty face? I looked at the magazines. Nope. Nice to know that they still existed in this world of genetically engineered supersoldiers. Immediately to my left and in front of me was Colonel Lydecker.
I blinked. That wasn't right. I was overreacting, like that time at the train station when I had been on another search for a sibling. It wasn't Lydecker, it was my imagination. I have a very active imagination. Sometimes it gets a little carried away and I can't stop it from flying out of control. That's why I keep very tight reigns on that door, because even the smallest breath of wind in the corridor sets it loose.
I wasn't imagining it, though. It was Deck. I was so screwed it wasn't even funny. I closed my eyes and slunk back in my seat, letting my head loll to the side, so that he wouldn't be able to get a good view of it. Then I brought my arm up, slowly, over my face and obscured it even more. I was very careful to keep my breathing even and regular. Now wasn't the time to panic.
It was times like these that I needed to open the door. Maybe just a little bit. I looked into the corridor and saw the door. Walking up to it, I saw several strong locks on it. Boy, I really didn't want to get back in here. Was it worth it? He would most definitely know I was here if I messed up. But if I didn't try, there was the chance that he wouldn't see me. Don't norms take chances like that all the time? I'm asking because, see, I don't take those chances. If there's a place where I'm hopeless, then I get out of there. I pulled frantically on the handle; nothing. Thud . . . I tried again, but I got the same result. Where had I hidden that damn key? Thud . . . I searched m pockets, but I knew it was a fruitless gesture.
Thud. Thud. Thud. What was making that noise? It sounded almost as if there were boots walking together in a hallway. Was there someone in my corridor? I turned my head side to side, looking for intruders. There should be no one in here! I saw nothing, so I warily opened my eyes.
I was confronted with the backs of four men standing next to Lydecker's seat. I could tell they were special ops because, even though they were dressed in civvies, they had on the boots of soldiers and, even if some of you might not know where to look, I could see on the back of their necks that there was a serial number tattooed. Human soldiers were Arabic numerals on their necks that can easily be removed. Who were you expecting, Santa Claus?
I was up the creek without a paddle, that was for sure.
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Disclaimer: || I own not Dark Angel, but I do own Ty, Bronze, Roan- Sullivan, Enrique, Mikaele, Lezli, Martin, Alan, Frances, all other PA-1s, all MA-1s, and the damn cats. ||
Spoilers: || T1 spoilers from I & I and Camera ||
Author's Note: || I'm excited; we're getting to better and better chapters. ||
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Part .20
I saw Alan the next day. It was by far the easiest one I did. I just walked up to a playground at a school and looked for him and saw him. He was so beautiful that it took my breath away. I have never seen anyone to rival his comeliness. Alan just has something to him that makes you want to love him. You see him and think to yourself that you will follow that beauty for years without rest.
When Alan saw me, he knew me right away. It was really something to have him look across the playground where he was speaking to a group of boys around his age and have him smile at me. He came looping toward me, quickly, a big tall boy of almost seventeen years old. I couldn't help but get some tears in my eyes and I thought of the last time that I had seen him. I was barely scraping five-foot at age fourteen and here he was three years older, at least a foot taller than I was. I smiled through the hazing in my eyes and looked at him and saw something I treasured and feared at the same time. I saw a willing soldier.
I took his hands in my own and pressed his fingers to my lips. "I thought you were dead," I said quietly. "My brother," I said. "You are so comely." I grinned and gave him a mock swoon. "If I had come three days ago, you wouldn't be safe from me," I teased. I saw that the jest was not lost on him and he raised his eyebrows, appraising me. I felt thrillingly cheap.
I chided myself. This was not the thing to do. You do not develop crushes -- no matter how menial and no matter how soon after heat -- on your unit siblings. It just isn't done. Relationships within a group can lead to problems. I sighed and settled back on the present times. I knew that if I actually got to know Alan that I probably wouldn't give him a second thought. He hadn't been particularly interesting to me as a child, except for his ethereal beauty. Well, maybe a second thought, but most certainly not a third.
"Can we get outta here for a while?" I asked, glancing around at the people who were slowly but surely edging their way into the conversation. Norms are just so damn curious and they show it. It's actually kind of cute, when you think about it. There is this norm, pretending not to listen, when that's actually what he's doing really, really hard. The sad part is that he doesn't hear half of the conversation.
"Sure," Alan said, in a real easy drawl that had me gasping. He sounded so New Orleans that it turned my blood. Just where had this man-child spent his boyhood? He turned and tossed someone some keys to some girl standing near the edge of the circle. "Eli," he said, "tell Mama I'll be home as soon as possible. Got some old business to take care of. You can drive the car home."
Eli stared at me suspiciously. She had dark, wavy hair that I envied greatly. Her eyes were an uninteresting brown without sparkles. I find that unless you have sparkles in brown eyes they just don't have the same effect that other eye colors have. My mother has sparkles in her brown eyes.
"Eli," Alan said, "this is Ty. I've told you about Ty, remember?" Alan seemed slightly embarrassed that this Eli girl was giving me the eye of the basilisk just because I'd said something about how comely he was. Sheesh. Good job, Alan.
"I'm his little sister," I said after a minute's pause. She didn't waver in her gaze at me. It looked true enough, from one point of view, though it was apparent that I had gotten none of the good genes that had graced Alan. "What's the matter, kid, don't believe me? What, do you think I want to sleep with him?" I laughed. "How old do I look, sistah?"
Eli gave in, just a little bit, but I could see that I had won by the slight curving of her lips and the way that she relaxed her body. "Tell Mom and Pop that you aren't the only foster sister that Ally is graced with. Dear old Ty is here and ready rumble. But we gotta talk."
Alan looked at Eli for a minute; the girl was very obviously wavering. Deciding that Eli was going to follow his request, Alan set off walking towards the gate. I hastened after him. How had all of my brothers and sisters gotten all of this extra confidence? First in Martin and his sudden appearance in the role that I had filled but left; then there was Frances and her . . . destroying of the car, which was actually kind of funny in an odd way; then there was Alan and his obvious knowledge that he would people following him. Was it because he was a natural leader among the norms, or just because he was beautiful? I didn't know him well enough to test.
As we walked, side by side now that I had managed to catch up with him, Alan spoke. "You aren't the only one who assumed the other was dead. For a moment there I thought I was seeing some sort of ghost, or clone, if you will. Then I just . . . I just knew it was you. You know?" He glanced at me with his eyes bright with question. His eyes had darkened with the passing years, but his hair was brighter.
"I know," I said simply. I did. It was something I worked against, but his door had been open and he'd known. It gladdened me. "I know exactly what you're talking about." I stopped walking and faced him, all business. Time for twenty questions, o brother of mine.
"Where're we going?" Alan asked me. I blinked. What had happened? Had I spoken out loud? Had he heard my thoughts? I did a split second scan of the door blocking my thoughts from being view. There they were blocked. He could only get a vague emotion from me, unless he had gotten amazing in later years away from Manticore and its constant practicing. How had he turned my own game against me?
I frowned. What was the question again? I did a replay in my mind, opening my drawer quickly and shutting it. "What do you mean?" I asked. From the time he asked the question to the time I answered I was certain that only a few seconds had passed.
"That's what you came here for, isn't it? Relocation. You were always a stickler for that, six-six-six," Alan teased me by using my designation number. " You were always quizzing us on our classroom subjects and you said that when enemy territory it was best to keep moving."
He was such a perfect soldier. Where had I seen that before? The eagerness to please, even if it meant losing his family?
"Ally," I began. Alan interrupted me and informed me that it was Al. Eli was Eli and Alan was Al, not Eli. I smiled at that and started again. "Al, you have a family here. That's all I'm really doing, you see. I'm taking everyone to a family, getting them out of the government really. I go in and delete your records, giving you the new hard copies that Dad and I made for you, then I make sure that you've got a home."
"But you're my sister, Ty. I'll leave right now if you think it'll be safer for me to start all over." I could see that he didn't really want to mean it, even though each word was said sincerely. He was willing to give up everything to please his CO. I had been the same way as a little child, and as a young adult. Isn't it odd how we imitate our leaders?
I reached out and impulsively gave him a hug. "You've got a home." I looked him in the eye. "Remember all your homes, Alan. You have to. If you don't, what experiences will you draw from?" I took out the folder with his information on it. "Just have your parents sign that, Al," I said, turning.
"Wait," cried Alan, grabbing my arm. "Aren't you at least gonna come to dinner?" He added a brilliantly dazzling grin to his request and for half a second I was severely tempted. It would be a simple dinner. I would meet his parents and then I could smile and play the adoring little sister and Eli would laugh with me and it would be so easy to fit in with this family. Then I came to my senses.
"I can't," I said hopelessly. "I've went through this before, Al." We both knew that what I was referring to wasn't what I was referring to, in the best sense, but neither one of us was sure what I really meant. "You can't depend on me too much. Independence. Martin's got it down pat. There's a number in there -- you call it if you ever have any trouble."
I turned from him and started walking to the hotel, where my things were. Behind me I could see Alan if I looked at nothing hard enough; I could see him standing there, with his cherub-like beauty grown into something more, worried and trying to decide whether I really meant what I had said. Almost unwhispered, I said to myself, "I meant every bit."
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The plane trip back home was monotonous. Unfortunately, I was not in heat and therefore I assume that the steward was wasted on me. He was cute, in his own way, but no cuter than the usual stewards that attended aircraft were. I had only one drink, mostly because the stewardess gave me several glares when I requested the drink and it was only by the powers of my glare that got me my watered down drink in the first place. I wanted to hurt her, but she was only doing her job and I wasn't in the mood to get drunk anyway.
I don't know if I've ever explained this, but flying in airplanes has always been something of a treat for me. When they're in the air and I'm down on the ground I like to think of how the airplane flies; how the engine works; how the position of the wings matter. It's something that's fun to think about for me. I dunno if it'd be fun for you, though. You might be bored to tears.
I fell asleep on the flight. Pretty silly of me, isn't it? I mean, I can probably go days without sleep if I trained my mind -- well, tricked is more like it -- into thinking that it didn't need sleep. If the mind doesn't think it needs sleep, the body is less likely to recognize the facts that say it does.
I woke in the middle of a layover. My seat mate had to slide over me and managed to spill something on me. I'm not sure what it was. I was half- asleep when I threw it at him. I just know that it left me smelling like peppermint, which I don't like. I was a wee bit shamed to see that I had slept, so I decided to stay away. To keep me busy, I cast glances around the plane, looking at people.
There was this really ugly kid with an okay looking mom and dad in the row behind me. He had a snub nose -- I touched my own nose, rather snub, if truth be told, in my younger years -- and too many freckles. His teeth were crooked and his smile was lopsided. His hair looked like it couldn't decide between brown and blonde and his eyes were a dull blue. Uninteresting. Across the aisle from me, on my left, was a very pretty looking woman with several magazines open in her lap. A classic bimbo. My mother looked like one of these. I wondered if she maybe was hiding behind the pretty face? I looked at the magazines. Nope. Nice to know that they still existed in this world of genetically engineered supersoldiers. Immediately to my left and in front of me was Colonel Lydecker.
I blinked. That wasn't right. I was overreacting, like that time at the train station when I had been on another search for a sibling. It wasn't Lydecker, it was my imagination. I have a very active imagination. Sometimes it gets a little carried away and I can't stop it from flying out of control. That's why I keep very tight reigns on that door, because even the smallest breath of wind in the corridor sets it loose.
I wasn't imagining it, though. It was Deck. I was so screwed it wasn't even funny. I closed my eyes and slunk back in my seat, letting my head loll to the side, so that he wouldn't be able to get a good view of it. Then I brought my arm up, slowly, over my face and obscured it even more. I was very careful to keep my breathing even and regular. Now wasn't the time to panic.
It was times like these that I needed to open the door. Maybe just a little bit. I looked into the corridor and saw the door. Walking up to it, I saw several strong locks on it. Boy, I really didn't want to get back in here. Was it worth it? He would most definitely know I was here if I messed up. But if I didn't try, there was the chance that he wouldn't see me. Don't norms take chances like that all the time? I'm asking because, see, I don't take those chances. If there's a place where I'm hopeless, then I get out of there. I pulled frantically on the handle; nothing. Thud . . . I tried again, but I got the same result. Where had I hidden that damn key? Thud . . . I searched m pockets, but I knew it was a fruitless gesture.
Thud. Thud. Thud. What was making that noise? It sounded almost as if there were boots walking together in a hallway. Was there someone in my corridor? I turned my head side to side, looking for intruders. There should be no one in here! I saw nothing, so I warily opened my eyes.
I was confronted with the backs of four men standing next to Lydecker's seat. I could tell they were special ops because, even though they were dressed in civvies, they had on the boots of soldiers and, even if some of you might not know where to look, I could see on the back of their necks that there was a serial number tattooed. Human soldiers were Arabic numerals on their necks that can easily be removed. Who were you expecting, Santa Claus?
I was up the creek without a paddle, that was for sure.
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