ARCHIVE: No
By Valjean
Father Knows Best
Joshua fell at Father's feet and lowered his head as if bowing to a god.
"What is it, my child?" Herman Sandeman implored, truly distressed to see his "son" so upset.
Tear filled blue eyes looked up at him, grief mirrored in their watery depths. "Alec," Joshua said.
"What about Alec?" Sandeman asked gently. His clear eyes narrowed slightly. "Has Alec done something bad?"
"No!" Joshua declared quickly, taking hold of Sandeman's hand with his own. "Alec's my friend ... my buddy ... Alec's good. It's just--"
"What did Alec say to you? Something about me? Something that disturbs you?"
Joshua nodded, his gaze falling. "Alec said you tried to hurt him ... have him and Max killed because they say you don't need them anymore ... don't need us."
Sandeman closed his eyes. "I would never hurt you, Joshua," he said softly. "You're my first born special child."
"And not hurt Alec and Max either?" Joshua asked hopefully, his eyes lighting up.
"Max has fulfilled her destiny," Sandeman said carefully. "Her place in the Prophecys is past. Alec has also played his part well, protecting her, keeping her safe so she could be the source of the vaccine that will save mankind from the plague. However--"
"And now Alec and Max will lead your army," Joshua said eagerly. "Your army that's on Chimera."
Sandeman was shaking his head slowly. "No, my child. I'm afraid your friends' roles are finished. I thought Alec could build my army, father children with Max ... that all of the X's could contribute. But unfortunately their flesh is flawed. They can't succeed. And so, it remained up to me to create another army, which I've done."
"What other army?" Joshua asked innocently. "Alec says you made X5 clones, bad creatures ... evil Manticore things. But you would never do that would you Father? Make bad things?"
Sandeman had the decency to look away. "They're capable of fighting," he said. "That's all that's necessary. I only need them to be able to defeat the Breeding Cult, to protect ordinary humans from annihilation. They're nowhere near as beautiful as Max and Alec ... as you Joshua ... but they'll do."
A look of great sadness descended on Joshua's doglike countinence. "Alec was right then," he said quietly. "You're replacing us with ... things."
"The X series on Chimera are dying," Sandeman said, trying to make his child understand. "I can't help them. I've tried, but the research is impossible right now, not with the vast need for my plague vaccine taking up all of my time and resources.
"But why try to kill Max and Alec?" Joshua wailed. "When they've helped you so much!"
"Because according to the Prophecies Alec's role ... 494's role ... may not quite be over," Sandeman said grimly. "His name is mentioned one last time in the scrolls. Before, his part was ambiguous -- we were uncertain if he would help or hinder. It turned out he helped ... tremendously ... genetically complimenting Max, siring a child, attempting to build my army, protecting mankind ... But now his name is once again in play, and I'm extremely concerned that his final act in our Prophecies will be to aide the enemy." He took Joshua's face in his hands, his ancient eyes boring into the dogman's. "Alec and Max want to destroy my cloned X5's. If they succeed, humanity is doomed. In attempting to do good, they would be committing the ultimate evil. I can't let that happen."
"So you really did try to kill Alec and Max?" Joshua whimpered, wiping a tear away with the back of his large hand. "And you'll try again?"
"Yes," Sandeman said honestly.
And with that single world, Joshua's world was no longer whole.
*****
"My new soldiers truly are inferior to the original, aren't they?" Sandeman said quietly without looking up from where he was seated in his wingback leather chair. Working at his desk on formulas and calculations late into the night by the light of a single bulb, his wizened face looked as dried and ancient as a mummy.
"The real deal is always better," Alec replied, stepping forward from the shadows with Max at his side.
"You've come for Joshua?"
"He's here?" Max asked before Alec's hand on her wrist could stop the words.
Sandeman smiled sadly. "Yes, he's here. In his room. He's very angry with me, and worried sick about the two of you." He raised his eyes to Alec's. "How many did you kill on your way in?"
"Three," Alec said, his voice emotionless. "And we're gonna kill a lot more before we leave."
"The tanks in the cavern," Sandeman said, nodding. "I knew you'd return to be my downfall ... mankind's downfall. It's written in the Prophecies you know -- your ultimate role as the one who thwarts the army of good and allows the army of darkness to destroy the world."
Alec looked at Max, one eyebrow raised. "Should I be flattered?"
"I think so," she said, an equally quizzical look on her face. "First you save the damn world, and now you get to destroy it. Nice work, 494."
Alec shrugged. "I try."
Sandeman listened to the bantering with his head tilted slightly to one side. "You're not taking me seriously," he said.
"No foolin'," Alec replied sarcastically. "We've both had enough of this Prophecy crap. The world's gonna either live or die on its own. Max and me have nothin' more to do with it. We just wanna make sure you don't set a bunch of slave X5's loose, and that you keep your promise to our people -- to take care of our genetic problems.
"I'm sorry," was all the old man said. He shook his head sadly. "I truly am so very, very sorry."
Alec honestly didn't believe Sandeman had it in him. Even when he saw the small handgun in Father's hand, he still thought this had to be some kind of bluff or even a joke -- that a man who had once considered his Manticore children to be the saviours of the world was now about to personally kill him was beyond ludicrous. At the very least he'd expected an attack from the newly minted soldiers, or from some of the burly bodyguards.
But when he allowed himself to truly focus on Father, he realized the tears in those wrinkled blue eyes were being shed for the death of X5-494.
"Alec!" Max screamed a second too late.
The first bullet caught Alec in the chest, throwing him backwards to stumble over a chair. The second hit his side, the third his right shoulder. The fourth, the kill shot aimed at his head, was a clean miss, the bullet burying itself in the wall by the door.
And then, as Alec lay struggling for breath on the floor, Sandeman turned his little pistol in Max's direction.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again, as if that would somehow make everything all right, and pulled the trigger one more time.
But Max wasn't there. In a blur of motion she was on top of her Father, wrenching the gun from his hand and striking him mercilessly across the face. The old men fell into a file cabinet, the wind knocked from his lungs. Slowly he clawed his way back to his feet, trembling, like an ancient rotten tree trunk ready to topple in the slightest breeze.
"Alec?" Max cried out softly, looking from Sandeman to her mate who lay unconscious and bleeding to death on the floor. Manticore training dictated she finish the job -- that she kill Sandeman now.
But instead Max turned her back on him and fell to her knees beside Alec. A fatal mistake. She didn't see the hypodermic needle in her former benefactor's hand.
"Max!" Joshua's voice shouted from the door. "Watch out!"
Max turned to see the poison filled syringe plunging toward her neck. Her hand blurred to deflect the hypo at the same instant Joshua's huge fist slammed into Sandeman's head knocking the old man off his feet to send him flying through the air and into a wall. When he landed, Father lay with his neck oddly canted to one side, pale blue eyes open and staring sightlessly up at his first born child in shock and surprise even as death clouded their color forever.
Death. "Oh God," Max whispered, turning again to Alec. Joshua, breathing hard, stood staring down at the man he'd just murdered, the man he'd called "father" his entire life, the man he'd loved so much. Tears welled in the dogman's eyes and a keen formed on his lips. But then he looked at Max on her knees beside Alec as she frantically tried to stem the blood flowing from his wounds, and the wail of grief died before it was truly born. There was nothing to grieve for here -- not yet at least.
Anyone who wants to read "The Best Laid Plans 2: Death and Life" in its entirety 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