James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned, or any other, copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.
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Author's Note: This is it – the last chapter.
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XV – The Horsemen ComethZack looked down at the foamy ocean around his submarine, now floating along the surface, cruising into Vieques' bay, the water around the hull glowing with the bioluminescence of countless microorganisms. I've never seen anything like it, Zack thought with amazement as he stared at the waves lapping at the hull. The blue-green light seemed to grow brighter the longer he looked at it, and Zack found himself struggling to resist the urge to dive overboard and see what it looked like underwater.
But that's not what I'm here for, he reminded himself. I told Set I'd come here to wage war against our enemies, and that's what I'm gonna do. We will have our first notable victory.
"How's it look?" Brin asked as she joined her captain. Her gaze was also immediately drawn to the water. "Bioluminescence?" she asked. Zack only nodded absently, hoping his second-in-command would never guess how amazed he had been at the sight.
I'm a soldier, he reminded himself. I'm here to do what I can to protect my people. They're my responsibility.
"It's a nice night," Brin commented. Again Zack nodded, though he wondered if there was any particular reason Brin seemed interested in making small talk. It was very unlike her. "You know, I've read about tropical air, but this is the first time I've felt it. Even after the escape, I don't think I ever went farther south than Savannah, and I was only there for a couple of weeks during a winter. It feels so good."
"Uh-huh," Zack muttered.
"No, seriously, Zack – take a deep breath."
"It's fine," Zack muttered, not seeing what Brin's fascination was with the air. We're about to go into battle, and she's thinking about how pretty the water is and how fresh the air is. I don't believe this…
"Do you really think this is going to be a relatively soft target?" Brin suddenly asked, almost bringing a smile to Zack's face as her attention shifted to the task at hand.
"The satellite photos we took showed only a few heat signatures," Zack replied uncertainly. He had his own rather serious doubts about the situation. If their suspicions were right – if this was indeed a bio-weaponry research facility – there should have been far more people present. They had counted hardly enough bodies in the labs to account for the researchers themselves, to say nothing of support staff and security personnel. Part of him feared that his people were about to stumble headlong into another trap, while his instincts were certain that they were in the right spot, but at the wrong time.
Kilroy's people got their hands on this info during one of their strikes, Zack knew. That means the Familiars likely had time to piece together what had happened and make an educated guess as to what intelligence had been compromised. Maybe they would have set up a trap, hoping we would come calling. Then again, they might simply have moved the bulk of the operation to a more secure location.
"I hope we're not too late," Brin commented, seeming to read her commander's mind.
"You think we are?"
"Dunno," Brin admitted, "but I have to admit I'm worried."
"Why's that?"
"When we surfaced I started listening to a Puerto Rico radio station," Brin explained. "There was a news report updating the most recent crisis in the Middle East."
"And what is it this week?"
"Troops have massed on both sides of the Jordan River, in the Golan Heights, and Sinai," Brin said. "The UAR and Israel are both accusing each other of preparing bio-weapons for use against the other. They've also both come right out and said that they won't hesitate to use non-conventional weapons if the other initiates a conflict."
"Great," Zack grumbled. "I can just imagine one of our enemies being brazen enough to supply one side or the other with all the germs they could ever want."
"That's exactly what I was thinking," Brin answered. "It's right up the same alley as The Coming, except they'd get someone else to release the agent for them. It'd be harder for us to intervene."
"We're almost at the launch point," Zack stated coldly, almost indifferently. "Get everyone together. Make sure they understand the situation. We're going in hard and fast. If we can take prisoners, fine. If not… well, let everyone know I'm not going to be asking too many questions about enemy casualties."
"Understood, sir."
"With any luck, this'll be just what we need to open a few more doors on enemy targets," Zack commented. "We'll take some prisoners and interrogate them for intel. We'll find some documents, too. I'm sure of it. We'll identify new targets, whether they're people or places, and we'll take this fight to our enemies. We'll wipe them all out, Brin. We'll bring them to their knees."
"I know, sir," Brin acknowledged, not a hint of doubt in her voice. "There's no way they'll ever win. This is war – it's what you do best, it's what you were born to do."
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Alec moved silently down the hallway of the north wing of the airport Hilton's seventh floor, listening for the slightest indication that Special Agent Ames White had the slightest idea that he was about to get a visitor. Nothing, Alec thought with relief. Not the faintest sound. Alec had been in his ninth floor room at the airport Holiday Inn for the previous six hours, watching White's room through ultra-sensitive infra-red binoculars. Two hours earlier White had finally laid down, and an hour after that his temperature had started to drop. Twenty minutes earlier, White's temperature had hit 96.9 degrees. That had been all Alec needed to become convinced that his target had fallen asleep.
He looked at the number on the door that he passed on the right – 725. Next one should be it, he decided. Room 723 was his destination. He reached room 723 and immediately took a small hose and a canister of compressed ether from his duffel bag. Seconds later, the gas was being released through the hose, slipped between the floor and the bottom of the door. This was very likely the most dangerous part of his plan – for the next five minutes Alec would be standing out in the open. He could only hope that the security camera at the end of the hall had been properly looped and that there were no other security devices that he'd overlooked.
The five minutes passed agonizingly slowly, and at the end Alec picked up the canister and walked back the way he had come, reaching the stairwell and descending to the basement parking garage where a stolen Ford Explorer was waiting for him. The duffel bag was thrown inside the vehicle, and Alec took the ticket from the garage and paid it at a nearby credit card payment machine. He hated these pre-pay systems. For some reason, he had always felt that having a parking attendant on duty to collect the money was a nice, even classy touch. Then again, a parking attendant would be a potential witness, he acknowledged. Once the money was paid, he knew his escape route was cleared.
He double-checked the tires on the Explorer as he walked back past the vehicle, the anal retentive soldier in him needing to make certain one last time that everything was going according to plan. Then he was on his way back up to the seventh floor, confident that the ether had had plenty of time to do its job. He checked his watch on the elevator – 12:58 a.m. He was overdue by 58 minutes now, and Max was likely beginning to worry. And the fact that I turned off my cell probably isn't helping to relax her at all, he noted. Well, it's not my fault White got interested in the nine o'clock movie. Like 'Batman vs. Superman' was even that good…
Once again he felt a pang of guilt as he remembered Max's position on White – there was, as of yet, no official position. She wanted him dead, that much was certain, and there were certainly good tactical reasons for the hit. Still, she couldn't bring herself to order a man's death. Not yet. And that's where I come in, Alec thought grimly. It needs to be done, and Max knows it. Eventually she'd make the right decision, but we really can't wait. This way, she won't have to do it. She won't have to look herself in the mirror after having had a man killed.
The doors opened again at the seventh floor, and he walked quickly out of the elevator, his long strides taking him to White's hotel room door within seconds. He slipped the housekeeping passkey into the lock, and was surprised to find that the deadbolt hadn't been done. Alec hadn't though White the type of guy that would be so careless. He strode in and immediately checked White's pulse with his left hand, the right holding a Colt 1911 at the Agent's left temple. Satisfied that his target was out for the count, Alec lifted the Familiar into his arms and carried him to the elevator. As the doors opened, he pushed a button on a small hand-held transmitter, and hoped that the camera's power supply had just been cut off as he had planned. There was no sign of trouble by the time he reached the garage, and he shifted the unconscious body in his grasp, slinging White over his left shoulder to make it easier to open the SUV.
Only when Alec was out of the parking garage and into traffic did he begin to breathe more easily. I don't think anything went wrong, he thought in amazement. I can't believe it. I mean, something always goes wrong. He was still trying to figure out his good luck when he reached the waterfront. He took White out of the vehicle and again slung him over his shoulder, grabbing the duffel bag once more in his free hand.
And now comes the fun part, he thought nervously. He saw his destination in front of him – the Kobayashi Maru, a cargo freighter scheduled to leave at 4 a.m. All of the containers had already cleared customs, which made for the perfect setting for what Alec had in mind. He dashed up the gangplank onto the deck, and raced past several crewmen that were regaling each other with sordid tales of Seattle's less expensive prostitutes.
All things considered, though, this was far easier than I thought it would be, Alec decided. He opened a container that was only half-full of computer software bound for Sydney, and walked in, dropping White to the cold steel floor. He then went to work quickly, binding the Familiar's hands behind his back with handcuffs and duct tape, and repeating the process on his ankles. Then he turned on a small penlight, which provided all the illumination he figured his prisoner would need.
Lastly, he started taking the necessary supplies out of the duffel bag – two hypodermic needles, a jar of sulfuric acid, pliers, and a custom-made Desert Eagle with a silencer. Using the first hypodermic needle, he injected a stimulant into White's arm and then waited for a few moments until his prisoner began to move.
"Wake up," Alec growled impatiently.
"Go to hell," White countered, apparently having figured out already that he was a prisoner. The Familiar opened his eyes, passing his gaze over the items arrayed on the floor around him. The implication was obvious.
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me what your people are up to lately, are you?" Alec asked, though he didn't expect an answer.
"Not a chance."
"Didn't think so." Alec was disappointed, though not surprised. He knew White was tough; he had to give the man that much, at least. Alec thought it inconceivable that the threat of torture and death alone would be enough to get the Familiar to talk, but he had tried all the same. Maybe one of my siblings would be able to break him, he mused, but I doubt I could do it. I just wasn't trained too much in interrogation techniques. Al I know is pretty much limited to resisting the effects of torture, without any instruction on how to actually dole it out.
"You might as well just kill me," White sneered.
"I know," Alec replied coldly. It's not like I have any time to conduct an interrogation, anyway. He picked up the Desert Eagle and walked behind his captive, grabbing White's hair roughly with his left hand while he leveled the barrel of the .50 cal. pistol at the back of his head with the right. "You know, I never thought the end would be this easy, this anti-climactic," he commented. White never had a chance to answer, as Alec pulled the trigger and blew the bottom part of the Familiar's face all over the inside of the container.
The rest of Alec's task was done quickly, methodically. He dipped White's fingers in the acid, burning off his fingerprints. Then he went to work with the pliers, prying from the blasted jaw the few teeth that remained. He placed those in a small bag, and then stood over his prey as he analyzed the scene. Perfect, he decided. The body won't be found for awhile, not until the container is opened in Australia. And when it is found, the only real way to identify the body will be through DNA, and as a Federal Agent, White's DNA is on file. By then, news will be out about the cult and its DNA signature. The authorities will figure out what he was, and word will spread like wildfire that a Familiar was able to infiltrate the NSA. There'll be scandal, finger pointing, witch-hunts… and death.
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"I understand," Lillith said as she hung up the phone, her lips spreading in a macabre mockery of a smile. She had finally gotten the news she'd been waiting for – Special Agent Ames White had disappeared. She doubted his body would ever be found – the transgenics were nothing if not thorough, and she doubted they would ever take the chance that they could be blamed for the death of a federal agent. That kind of image wouldn't exactly do wonders for Max's latest public relations campaign.
So White is gone and the transgenics likely have their guard down, Lillith decided. It's time. She picked up the phone again and called her contact in Alexandria. It was only seconds before she received her answer.
"Hello?" a male voice asked form the other end.
"Ship it," Lillith said simply.
"Are you certain?"
"The wild card that complicated matters last time has been controlled," Lillith announced. No one will interfere."
"But they hit Vieques," the voice on the other end of the line pointed out. "They know about the program."
"Perhaps, but they have no information on the details," Lillith reminded the man. "There's no vaccine for them to distribute this time. Maybe their heightened immune systems will allow them to survive, but no one else will. And once the ordinaries are out of the way, there'll be nothing to stop us from rolling right over the transgenics."
"Then all I need is the authorization code," the man said, cutting to the formalities.
"Commence The Rapture," Lillith replied, speaking the words that she knew would give authorization for the Familiars in Egypt to ship their bio-weapons to the UAR and Israel. Within twenty-four hours every Familiar in the world would be immunized, and within forty-eight hours germ warfare would very likely break out in the Middle East.
And so it begins, Lillith thought happily as she hung up the phone. We will unleash a pestilence unlike anything the world has ever seen.
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Logan was jolted out of sleep when he felt something moving in the bed behind him. What the hell? he wondered, part of his brain afraid that some kind of animal had gotten into his apartment and jumped into bed with him, and part trying to figure out a strategy to defend himself against an intruder he was sure was there. Then, all of a sudden, he relaxed.
It's just Syl, he realized with relief. They had been together for a couple of weeks now, and still he found himself surprised every time he woke up. I can't believe I got so used to sleeping alone, he marveled. After my divorce, I thought that was the one thing I would never be used to again.
He moved slowly, drawing the sheet and goose-down blanket off of him as he stood up. Syl remained asleep, or at least pretended she did. Either way, Logan was confident he would get the alone time he needed.
Leaving the bedroom, he walked down the hall and into his office, only to abruptly turn on his heel and head for the kitchen before he went back to work. Just because I'm too awake to sleep doesn't mean I'm coherent enough to get anything productive done. I need coffee. He only turned on the light over the stove, trying to keep the room as dark as possible while still being able to see what he was doing.
Almost right away, as so often happened, his thoughts drifted to Syl. Exactly what the hell am I doing with her? he wondered. Three weeks ago this would have been inconceivable. Now, I'm not sure I'd be able to get along too well without her. Personally and professionally, she's been a godsend.
When she had first gone to him that night, she'd spoken of loneliness, and Logan knew well exactly what she was saying. Ever since taking on the role of Kilroy, a persona diametrically opposed to everything his alter-ego of Eyes Only stood for, Logan had felt increasingly isolated. He couldn't go to anyone to talk about what was going on. The only other person who knew was Set, and he lived off in his own little world. There was no solace there.
Then Syl had come along, initially a threat to everything he was doing, and then an unexpected ally. Finally, Logan had had someone to talk to, someone to whom he could express his fears, schemes, and self-doubt. And she always listened, no matter what I said, he acknowledged. Without any semblance of self-interest in the situation, she listened and understood. Logan doubted he could have retained his sanity without her.
Despite everything they shared, though, Logan wasn't really sure he held any emotional attachment to the woman, and that was the puzzle that now had him standing alone in the kitchen, brewing coffee at 3:30 in the morning. When he thought about the future, when he dreamed of a time and place he could be happy, it was always Max, not Syl, who stood next to him. Am I being unfair to her? he wondered. Should I break off this whole thing with Syl? He shook his head, trying to chase the thought away.
It seemed that at least once a day she reminded him somehow that their relationship was to remain as unemotional as possible, though she almost always couched her thoughts in tactical terms. "You're a leader of a secret army," she had said the previous evening. "What if you immediately need to send someone on what would likely be a suicide mission, and I'm the only person available at the time?" she had asked. "You know as well as I do that we can't have your feelings interfering in a situation like that. So just make sure you don't fall in love with me, Logan."
"I won't," Logan had assured her. "Though I'm starting to wonder why you feel the need to remind me on a daily basis."
"Because I know you," she'd returned with a smile that he found increasingly endearing. "You're not the type that's comfortable with the thought that you're using somebody."
"I don't think I'm using you," he'd objected.
"Deep down, I think you do," she had said confidently. "You're the type of guy with very old-fashioned values, and you hold those values very dear, Logan. It's your values that led you to become Eyes Only. You place women on a pedestal, you see them as something to be cherished and protected. You also can't imagine yourself being with the kind of woman that's in it only for the physical gratification. Combine the two, and you're left with a guy who's forced to conclude that deep down I'm a nice girl, since that's the only type he'd get involved with for any length of time, and that since I'm a nice girl, I must somehow be completely oblivious to the things you're making me do. Just remember that that isn't the way it is, Logan. I'm not a nice girl, though I am your girl. Just not in a 'let's settle down in a nice house with a picket fence and grow old together' sorta way."
Logan smiled at the memory of the conversation. She'd been right, as usual. There's something there in the back of my head that wants to make something normal out of this whole situation, he admitted. But there's nothing I was ever taught that prepared me for the position I'm in now.
He noticed the coffee was done brewing, and he poured a cup and took it into his office, immediately heading for the well-worn chair at his desk. There was a new message from Senator McElroy.
I need the information you have on the breeding cult, he wrote again, sending the same message he always sent. I know you know more than you're letting on. It's time to go public.
Logan sat back and sighed. If it had been up to him, he would have gone public weeks before. Set had advised him against it, though. And he was right to wait, Logan admitted. Now they knew about the gene that was present in every Familiar, the gene that allowed them to produce the protein that made them resistant to the virus developed to initiate The Coming. Now we can expose them all, Logan thought with relief. Of course, we'll have to find a way to test everyone in the world, but once we do that, the Familiars won't be able to hide anymore. We actually have a chance to win this thing.
"What's up?" Syl asked from behind him, walking up and looking over his shoulder at the message on the screen. "He's still trying to get the info, huh?"
"Yep. I don't think we can keep stringing him along for much longer."
"Why would you?" Syl asked immediately. "We have dozens of names of confirmed Familiars. We've found companies that control their assets. We found a genetic tag that can be used to identify them. Let's get this going before it's too late."
"Too late?" Logan asked, surprised at the thought that they were on a stricter timeline than he'd planned.
"They're out there, Logan," she reminded him. "Somewhere, they're planning the end of the world. Max's genetic immunity made them rush, maybe move too soon with The Coming. They lost, they had their plans defeated. Now all of the transgenics know about them, and they know we know. We were created to oppose them, Logan, and they know that, too. Tactically speaking, their best bet is to make a big move right now. They know we're probably trying to find some way of identifying them; they can't allow that to happen. They may be genetically superior to any ordinary, but there are only a handful of them in the whole scheme of things. You think for a moment they'd fare any better than the transgenics have against six billion ordinaries? They have only two choices – wipe out the transgenics before we can either take action against them or warn the ordinaries, or try some kind of alternate doomsday plan and wipe out the ordinaries right now, leaving us alone to fight however many of them there are. Whichever one they choose, the longer they wait, the more danger they're in. And here you are, sitting on information that could win this war for us." Her demeanor, her vigorous pleading for the release of the story, reminded Logan of the way he sounded when he'd first taken to the airwaves as Eyes Only. It's nice having her around, he decided. In another world, she'd have made a pretty good journalist in her own right. He kept his opinions to himself, though, and focused on the issue at hand.
"We can't release the information until the situation at Terminal City is resolved," Logan countered. "It can't seem like we're making this all up to take the heat off the transgenics, or at the very least trying to produce an even greater bogeyman so that the ordinaries will leave your kind alone as the lesser of two evils. We can't appear to have anything to gain by releasing the information, or we risk the chance of seeming… I don't know what word to use."
"Self-serving?"
"That's not the word I was looking for, but it works well enough," Logan replied.
"But so many people have already come around, Logan," Syl said, once more sounding as if she were pleading. "They know there's more to the story than they're being told. They want the truth, Logan – they need the truth. They're starving for it, and you're holding it back from them, hoarding it until the time you feel like sharing. It's not right."
"Maybe not," Logan replied, "but it's my call. I control when they get what they want… what they need… and the time isn't now."
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Set's cell phone started to ring, and he waved an apologetic hand at the heavily armed men standing a few feet away as he answered the call.
"I assume this is important," he muttered in Latin, knowing that the only person with the number who wasn't already present would understand him completely.
"It is," Zack replied in English. "We arrived at the scene too late."
"Really?" Set asked absently, also in English. Standing next to Set, Bucephalus did his best to hide his curiosity. He knew Zack was the caller, and he likewise knew that Set was getting word on the success or failure of the strike at Vieques. Set's indifferent demeanor completely concealed the fact that the conversation he was having very likely dealt with the fate of the human race.
"We captured a few lab techs, including the Caine woman, but she hasn't exactly been cooperative," Zack continued. "All she's told us is that we were too late, that the weapons were shipped out along with the vaccine, and that there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we had the vaccine, she says there's no way to inoculate the populace in time."
"Prepare your guest for a trip," Set told Zack, Bucephalus immediately nodding in understanding. So, they at least got some prisoners. "You remember Tia, right?" And he's planning on being hardcore with the prisoners, too, Bucephalus realized. Tiamet was an Inquisitor, an extremely introverted X6 that had been selected by Manticore to learn the techniques of interrogation and torture. Bucephalus knew that Tiamet was very good at her job.
"I understand," Zack answered. "But what if everything she said is right? What if it's already too late?"
"I'm currently addressing that possibility," Set assured the other X5. "I have my own contingency plans."
"You sure?"
"Trust me," Set answered as he folded up his cell once again, turning his attention once more to the seven armed Chinese men arrayed before him. "I'm terribly sorry about the interruption," he apologized smoothly. "I believe you were about to give me the account numbers in Zurich."
The man in front, a short, stocky Chinese man wearing a custom-tailored European suit, nodded and handed over a small card. Set took the card and entered the numbers on his PDA. "It'll just be a few moments." Seconds crept by until one of the armed men near the back of the group spoke up.
"It's there," he announced.
"Excellent," their leader replied. "The merchandise, I believe, is now yours," he added with a gesture toward the four large, steel cases positioned on the ground right behind Set's van.
"And if I need more?" Set asked, drawing a surprised stare from everyone, including Bucephalus.
"More?" the Chinese man asked. "Why would you need more?"
"In case I run out," Set explained.
"Huh?" Bucephalus knew what the man was thinking – he was shocked that Set had announced he actually had plans to use the merchandise. For decades such items were traded from one man to another, always used to blackmail one government or another. It was the possession, not the use, of the merchandise that had always been important. All except for once, over the United States' East Coast.
"I might need more," Set said, trying to clarify his request.
"You can't be serious," the man replied with a hint of a British accent in his English, betraying his Hong Kong origins. "You're actually going to use them?" He seemed to be considering the wisdom of the sale, and Bucephalus started ever so slowly to move his hand toward the front of his jacket, preparing to draw his weapons if it became necessary. Between him, Set, and Kali, who was watching from her usual sniper position, he knew they'd likely walk away alive. But there was still the possibility he could face the discomfort of being shot.
"Yes or no," Set prompted, "that's all you have to tell me."
"Yes," the Chinese man confirmed. "But if you start using them, the price will go up precipitously."
"How much?"
"Five million per megaton."
"Unacceptable," Set answered. "I'll tell you that much right now. You go home and think about another number. Expect my call." The Chinese man backed away slowly, cautiously, trying to decide whether Set was really crazy enough to use the hydrogen bombs that he'd just bought.
It wasn't long before Set was alone again with his lieutenant. "Go to Zack's place," he instructed. "Talk to Harry, get him to come along with us… we're gonna need his help."
"Sir?" Bucephalus asked, doubting he could possibly be hearing what his commander was implying.
"Now, Ceph," Set ordered. "We don't have much time. It might already be too late."
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Author's Endnote: So all of the characters have reached the end of this leg of their personal journeys. Some readers have griped about characters not being 'in character,' but that was the entire point. Just as Max was not the same character at the end of Season 1 as she was at the beginning, so is she different now than she was at the end of Season 2. So yes, I have departed from the series dogma, but so would the writers had they had the opportunity to pen a Season 3. (Change is necessary for any series if it wants to stay fresh). My only hope is that the reader can see why each character's change has taken place. If you can see that, then I'm satisfied. If you don't agree with where I've gone, that's your prerogative. I just hope you can at least see where I was coming from. Now, by way of final comments, I want to thank everyone who posted a review to this story. Specifically, at the risk of pissing off some readers by inadvertently omitting them, I wish to thank the following people for their frequent, insightful comments: RagingConfusion, JoJo, Me, Dark Phanton, and especially Dia (her well thought out comments helped keep me honest a couple of times). If I missed anyone, feel free to send me nasty emails about it.
The sequel (and final story of the trilogy) will be posted within a day or so of this chapter, so if you want to read it, go ahead. The story is entitled Dreams Torn Asunder.