ARCHIVE: With permission
By Valjean
Hell in Seattle
"What do you mean the police took him away!" O.C. shouted at Sketchy. "Why didn't you do something?"
"Like what?" Sketchy hollered back. "If Alec couldn't take 'em how the hell was I supposed to? They had shock prods O.C., the really big kind, not those little hand held ones. They knocked Alec out and dragged him away. Said something about charging him with assault."
"Figures," O.C. said tiredly. "I step outside for two minutes with a little honey and come back to find my fine boy in a big jam."
"Where's Max?" Sketchy grumbled. "She's gonna hafta fix this."
"Where do you think? At Logan's. We're takin' her ex back to Chimera with us. Max says we need his skills and contacts."
"You better get her," Sketchy said. "Quick."
"What's the hurry? They'll be hours bookin' Alec at the station anyway. Max will figure out a way to spring her man, one way or another. She always does."
"Alec was sick, O.C.."
"What you talkin' about?"
"He was shaking when that big dude attacked him. He was gonna take some pills."
"What pills?" O.C. said, although she already knew the answer.
"These," Sketchy said, holding out the bottle of tryptophan. "I picked this up off the floor and scooped all the pills I could find back into it. Figured it might be important."
O.C. snatched the container out of his hands. "Give me that, fool," she said. But then her eyes softened. "It's a good thing you grabbed it. Alec really needs this stuff. You may have saved his life."
"Really?" Sketchy said, his chest puffing a bit.
O.C. touched his arm. "I'll tell Alec what you did and he's gonna owe you big time. But first, I've gotta get them to him which ain't gonna be easy if he's in jail. You got any idea which precinct house they'd take him to? I heard some of the sector police stations were closed."
"That's just it, O.C.," Sketchy said. "They don't bother holding prisoners downtown any more. They just book 'em in then take 'em straight out to Langford Prison."
"Uh-oh," O.C. said. "Been there, done that. Langford's bad news. Especially if they've still got that wicked warden in charge."
"There's talk about that place," Sketchy said with a shudder. "People go in there and then they're just ... gone. Good thing Alec can take care of himself."
O.C. looked down at the bottle of tryptophan in her hand.
"Oh," Sketchy said lamely. "I see what you mean. If Alec's sick ..."
"I gotta go find Max," O.C. said.
"Let me know if he's okay!" Sketchy called after her, but O.C. was already out the door.
*****
Alec regained consciousness with someone slapping his face.
"Come on pretty boy! Time to rise and shine! We're sure as hell not carrying you in."
Pulled roughly to his feet, he ended up being half dragged out of the police van. "Wake up!" a voice roared in his ear, so loudly he winced, followed by another slap that made his head spin even worse than it already was. He tried to get his feet to work, to quit stumbling, but he felt like he was drunk, or at least this must be what drunk felt like since he'd never actually been intoxicated. His muscles didn't want to work right. He'd been shocked to the ground only once before in his life -- by Ames White -- and he knew it would take a few hours to recover. But there was something else wrong with him. He couldn't seem to stop shaking.
And then he remembered. The tryptophan.
Shit.
He swallowed hard and tried to relax, letting the guards support some of his weight as he was taken into the precinct house. Hopefully Sketchy would tell O.C. what happened, and O.C. would get Max who would come down and bail him out. Yeah. That's what would happen. Nothing to worry about.
But then Alec raised his head and, squinting in light that seemed too bright, he realized this police station wasn't like any he'd ever been in before. The best word he could find to describe it was "chaos." People were everywhere -- some conscious, some not so conscious, some maybe dead. They were sitting in every chair, against the walls, lying on the floor, and the whole place reeked of vomit and urine and feces.
"What's the charge?" a burly officer bellowed from behind a desk.
"Assault, resisting, and carrying a concealed weapon," his guard replied, giving Alec a hard shove in the back.
"Name?" the booking officer snapped.
Alec, supporting himself by hanging onto the front of the big desk, remained silent and kept looking at the floor, following the orders that had been drilled into him since childhood by Manticore.
If you're captured by the enemy, say nothing, do nothing, and we'll come and get you.
Max would be coming for him. Another spasm wracked his body. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
"Get his prints and send him down to Langford," the officer said tiredly, not even pressing the issue. "With charges like those, he's gone for good anyway."
*****
"What do you mean Alec got arrested?" Max said, her voice beyond incredulous. "He couldn't-- He wouldn't-- He didn't--"
"He could, he would, and he did," O.C. said, standing with hands on hips in the living room of "Father's house," the place where Joshua had stayed so many months and where Logan still kept his personal computer equipment.
"The idiot," Max said disgustedly. "Of all the dumb ass things to do ..."
"According to Sketchy it wasn't our boy's fault," O.C. said. "He was jumped from behind by some crazy jealous type just lookin' to pick a fight."
"Well, he should have been able to handle a little brawl without getting arrested," Max snapped.
"Didn't help that Alec was trippin' out on that serotonin deficiency," O.C. said quietly.
"What?" Max said, her face paling slightly.
"Sketchy said Alec had the shakes and was gonna take some of that tryptophan. But then he got jumped, shock prodded, and hauled away." She reached into her bag. "Here's his pills. Won't do him no good now though. And Sketchy said he never managed to swallow any before the shit hit the fan either."
"Logan?" Max said, turning to the older man who was seated at his computer terminal, a plea in her voice. "Which precinct would he have been taken to? Alec can probably handle himself. I'm not really worried, but ... we need to get him back, especially if he's sick."
Logan adjusted his glasses on his nose and, with a grim expression, began typing on the keyboard. "Here it is," he said a moment later, his scowl deepening. "As usual, Alec's in pretty deep. He was taken to Precinct 12, booked as a 'John Doe' but the description matches." He turned around and looked at Max. "They've already transferred him to Langford. With charges like his it will be months before he gets to trial, if ever. Most likely they'll put him on one of the slave details and keep him until he dies. That's what happens to most prisoners nowadays. With the plague killing so many, the justice system has become a source of cheap manual labor -- any warm body they can snatch on any kind of charge will do. And they get away with it because there's no one left to protest, no one who even really cares except maybe the friends and families of the prisoners who disappear."
"Sounds like Eyes Only ought to be on this," O.C. said with a pointed look at Logan.
"Eyes Only retired a long time ago," Logan replied, his voice strangely flat. "You might say he lost his incentive." The words were for O.C., but he was looking at Max.
"Just ... see if you can find his record at Langford," Max said. "We need to be certain he's there. Then I'll go in and--"
"You will not!" Logan said hotly. "No way can you risk yourself, Max. You're the only hope the world has for survival. It was bad enough Alec almost got you killed on that museum job you insisted on doing, and your leg still isn't healed."
"Alec didn't almost get me killed," Max said levelly. "He saved me."
"That's not how I heard it," Logan said, his eyes cold behind the lenses of his glasses. "He just started shooting, and you got caught in the crossfire."
"Logan's right about one thing, Boo," O.C. said, playing peacemaker between the two. "You can't do the rescue thing this time. It wouldn't make sense what with your leg hurt and all. They'd have both of you then."
"Alec needs help, and he needs it now," Max insisted. "O.C., you know how I was when I didn't get my tryptophan. Well, Alec's that bad already. His seizures are only going to get worse. Eventually, he'll fall into a coma and die. I've got to get this to him." She held up the bottle of pills.
"I'll do it," O.C. said. "I've been in there before. I know the routine. Just get me a low-cut dress, some hip boots, and a high hairdo."
"No," Logan said. "It's too dangerous for either of you. Like I said, things have changed for the worse at Langford. It's no place for women. You'll end up in slavery at an overseas brothel or in a third world prostitution ring. Even Alec might not fare much better. He's young and extremely good looking. He'll be noticed, used."
Max 's heart started to pound. Logan was right. And with Alec incapacitated he wouldn't be able to defend himself. He'd be helpless. When seizures take hold of a transgenic all strength, speed, and agility vanish. Muscles are paralyzed, feline DNA is rendered useless, and the body becomes weaker than the most pathetic of ordinaries.
"Who can help him then?" O.C. asked. "If not Max and me?"
Logan looked at the phone on the desk. "I can think of someone. Lord knows he's helped Alec out of enough messes before this."
"No," Max said, knowing exactly who Logan was referring to. "I don't trust him."
"He saved Alec from Renfro," Logan pointed out. "Twice to be precise. And from White, not to mention those Middle Eastern mercenaries. Should I go on?"
"You sayin' Donald Lydecker's Alec's guardian angel?" O.C. commented, her perfect dark eyebrows raised.
"Might as well be for all the times he's saved your lover boy's ass," Logan replied. He waited a moment, giving them time to think. "Lydecker's in town," he prodded. "I can reach him." His eyes flickered. "Riley's with him in fact. I was supposed to meet them tomorrow. Time for a transfusion."
Max cringed at the mention of Logan's so-called bodyguard, an X-5 named Riley who, due to some extreme re-indoctrination procedures, now had the mental capacity of a five-year-old. X5-533 did, however, make a convenient source for the transgenic blood that kept Logan on his feet -- literally -- one of the things that made Alec so homicidal toward the former Eyes Only.
She thought a moment more about Alec, remembered her own experience with seizures while being held at Langford, and knew she had no choice.
"Call the Devil," she said.
There is one upcoming chapter in this story that might not be acceptable for fanfiction.net's new guidelines. Anyone who wants to read "The Best Laid Plans 2: Death and Life" in its entirety as I write the story is invited to my website: http://www.michaeleaston.com/DA/DAfanfic.html. I also have a number of other DARK ANGEL M/A fanfiction stories there that I've not made available on ff.net as of yet. I even keep an email list of interested readers whom I notify when I post new work on the site.
Also, I'd like to encourage all M/A DARK ANGEL fans to read Max Collins' official prequel novel BEFORE THE DAWN. True, Alec isn't in the story (yet), but there's lots of canon background material in the book that would be pertinent to Alec later on. Plus, Mr. Collins says that Alec and Joshua will be "centerstage" in the DARK ANGEL sequel novel SKIN GAME coming out next February. -- author's note