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 (and would really be sorta whacked, given some of the events and persons depicted herein).
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Author's Note: Apparently I'm twisted… Yep, I can live with that. Thanks for all the feedback to that last chapter. I haven't seen that many reviews for a single chapter in a very, very long time.
Anyway, thanks to Moonbeam for the work she did beta reading McElroy's speech in this chapter. As with Ashton's speech, her input was greatly appreciated and extremely helpful. Even though she couldn't refrain from making comments about 'the travesty of Chapter 17.' :)
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XVIII – JihadThe first thing Max realized was that she'd been drugged. Heavily, she decided. Her mind was swimming, and all of her senses seemed dulled, sluggish. It was only moments later that she realized she was tied up. And I'm sitting upright, she decided. Legs are tied together and fastened to the left chair leg, down at the feet and again at mid-calf. Wrists are tied together, too. And my hands are covered and tied behind my back… She tried to figure out what was on her hands, and her stomach sunk when she realized. Mittens. Damnit. She kept her eyes closed, focusing on her other four senses as she tried to figure out where she was. And how I got here. What happened…
"Just in time," she heard a familiar voice say. "I was wondering if you'd ever wake up." Set. Shoulda known he was involved somehow. Max knew there was no point in pretending she was asleep. The X5 could hear her heartbeat and breathing rate – both had sped up as she awakened.
"Where am I?" she asked groggily as she opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She saw she was in a windowless room with bare, cinderblock walls. Probably a basement.
"You're safe," Set answered. "Do you really need to know any more than that?"
"What did you give me? Why is everything so hazy?"
"Calm down," Set replied as he approached slowly, lifting her eyelids and gazing at each of her pupils. "It was just a sedative. It should be completely out of your system very soon."
"Why am I tied up?"
"So that I'd know where you are," Set told her. "So that you couldn't leave before we had a chance to talk."
"About what?"
"Not yet," Set chided. "There's about to be an important speech. I don't want to miss it." Three long strides brought him to a small, black and white television. He turned the knob, and Max was immediately presented with the sight of Senator McElroy limping up behind a podium. He took a few moments to steady himself, and then took in his audience in a grand, sweeping gaze, already looking very much the part of a president.
"I address you tonight not as a senator of the United States, and not as a candidate for president of this great nation, but as a fellow citizen of humanity," McElroy began gravely. "My fellow Americans . . . my fellow human beings . . . it has now been several weeks since the United States began waging war against its enemies – those parasitic cultists who have devoted their entire existence to achieving the extinction of mankind; of every normal, true-bred human, along with our courageous transgenic allies who have placed their own lives in the balance by joining with us. We have had some early success, but recent events – including the tragic assault at the Seattle courthouse – prove that we must remain vigilant, aware not only of the fact that this conflict will go on for a long time, but also that we cannot afford to fail. Should just a few of these Familiars escape justice, should just one couple survive to breed and carry on their tradition of terror, all of mankind may be doomed."
"What did he mean?" Max asked, latching on to the reference to the Seattle courthouse. Gunfire. Blood. Death. It all started coming back to her, memories teasing her from the drug-induced haze of her mind.
"Quiet," Set reprimanded. "I'll explain it all after he's done."
The senator stopped momentarily, a pause so well practiced as to appear natural. His grim expression melted away as his brow furrowed slightly, suddenly casting a calm, thoughtful demeanor over his face. "It is almost impossible to even fathom the magnitude of our struggle," McElroy continued. "We must locate and defeat a few thousand individuals in a world of over six billion. Our enemies are not simply the proverbial needles in a haystack – they're straws of hay hidden in a haystack. Our greatest obstacle has been in identifying men and women who, though they are different, look exactly like the rest of us. How does one even hope to find a few thousand particular straws from a stack of six-billion?" Once again, in a heartbeat, McElroy's mood changed, this time from calmly thoughtful to unabashedly skeptical. The skepticism did not last long, though. Before he even continued, the senator developed a new expression – confidence. "Our scientists, working side by side with transgenic researchers, believe they have found an answer.
"Not long ago, the Familiars attempted to release into the world a toxin that would have wiped out every man, woman, and child who had not been born into their perverse cult. The Familiars were protected by virtue of having spent millennia developing an inherent immunity to this toxin. What they never considered, however, is the antitoxin that their bodies produce is controlled by a gene that is not present in any ordinary. We have the technology to test every single human in the world, to identify those that have this gene, to smoke out our foes so that they may be brought to justice."
"Yeah, mob justice," Max grumbled.
"Shhh--" Set reprimanded again.
"President Ashton has already prepared a proposal to bring to Geneva, to present to the United Nations. Within a year, we hope to start a global testing program that will help ensure the genetic integrity and purity of every true-bred human in the world. We will identify, isolate, and annihilate the Familiars before they can unleash another doomsday, before they can infiltrate us any further.
"Infiltration . . . it's a terrifying concept. It allows our enemies to walk amongst us, to gain positions of authority and influence, to control our words, thoughts, and actions without our knowledge. Infiltration allows Familiars to be the doctors who administer drugs to us, the lawmakers who set up the rules that govern us, the police and soldiers who protect us, and even the teachers who help shape the minds of our children.
"Rest assured, despite the nay-saying of those skeptical few who foolishly continue to assert that the Familiars are not – and could not possibly be – real, this is not some paranoid fantasy. As just one example, I present evidence of Special Agent Ames White. Some of you may recognize the name – he was present at certain congressional hearings investigating the facts behind the Manticore Project. He was killed not long ago, and using the very same genetic testing to which I have referred, we have been able to determine that Ames White was not a human at all. He was a member of this cult; he had worked his way up through the ranks of our society, using his position as a means to disrupt and destroy the Manticore Project and the transgenics it produced – the very same transgenics who have sworn themselves to our cause.
"Failing to destroy Manticore from within, Agent White took advantage of the trust the public placed in him, using his respected position of authority to deceive us as he made very public comments intended to incite panic. He clearly misjudged us. Gone are the days when an unenlightened populace could be inspired to give in to senseless paranoia, to embark on witch-hunts, to persecute those who are different solely for the unforgivable crime of being different." McElroy paused again, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, obviously favoring his left leg – the one in which he'd taken a bullet standing against the Familiars' cause. Subtle, Max noted. I'll bet he's been waiting his whole life to make this speech.
"I believe Agent White's manipulative kin will find us to be far more formidable a foe than they ever expected," McElroy continued, his voice growing stronger, more defiant. "We are not sheep; we will not be peacefully led to slaughter, and we will likewise never allow our intelligence to be clouded by irrational terror. We can see, we can reason, and we can tell our friends from our foes. Despite the cultists' deceptive propaganda, despite potentially misleading outward appearances, we know that the transgenics are our allies, and the Familiars are our nemeses.
"We will stand together with our friends, the transgenics. Many of them may look different than us on the outside, but on the inside they possess the same compassion, valor, and love for independence and equality that is the birthright of every natural human. It is the Familiars, all cunningly bred to look just like us, so that they could better beguile us, that possess hearts harboring only contempt for humanity and the desire for dominion over this world. They must be stopped before they succeed in their goal of wiping out all who oppose them.
"All races, creeds, and colors must now come together to pursue our enemies to the end of the Earth – across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves, in cities and rolling countryside, in deserts and jungles," he roared, pounding his fist on the podium to emphasize his points. He sure knows how to work a room, Max admitted as the television cameras momentarily broke away from McElroy and panned across the audience, every member of which seemed to be in a rabid frenzy of support for the senator. "We will hunt down these abominations, and we will deal with them before they can succeed in their crusade to destroy us. We will emerge from the conflict stronger than before, secure in the knowledge that the greater species has survived and inherited this fine Earth. Thank you, and God bless." Bastard just started a holy war, Max fumed as McElroy staggered away from the podium, thunderous applause praising his defiance of humanity's enemies, and exalting in his assurances of victory.
"So that's your boy," Max commented as Set turned to shut off the television, temporarily delaying any of her more pressing questions. Yeah, like where the hell I am, she thought angrily.
"My boy?" Set asked with a grin. "I hardly think so. Senator McElroy is his own man. I'm simply one of the little people that've been swept up on his coattails as he leads the way into the future."
"He may be leading the way, but I suspect you're the one that gave him the map," Max muttered caustically.
"Perhaps," Set admitted. "I may have offered some occasional guidance, but I prefer to think of my role as being an associate, a willing ally in the quest for peace."
"Please… shoot me before I drown in the bullshit," Max replied, ignoring a slight wave of nausea that she assumed was caused by whatever sedative her captor had used. "I always knew you were up to something, Set. I just never knew what it was."
"I'm simply following orders," Set answered.
"Lydecker?" Max asked.
"He knew more than anyone else," Set responded with a nod. "He was in a position to anticipate the actions of our enemies."
"How?"
"I assume you've heard of Revelation," Set said. "The last book in the Bible."
"Yeah, I've heard of it," Max grumbled. Great, here I thought Set was simply an average, run-of-the-mill psychopath, when in actuality he's a deluded religious fanatic psychopath.
"Do you know who wrote it?"
"Some guy," Max replied flippantly. "What does it matter?"
"It wasn't just some guy," Set shot back. "It was a seer. A prophet."
"So they say," Max muttered coolly. "If you wanna believe in that stuff, then go ahead."
"You don't believe?" Set asked, an annoying, amused tone suddenly creeping into his voice.
"In God? In prophecy? Are you kidding? We were created in test tubes, Set," Max reminded her sibling. "We weren't born of two humans – we were assembled from the genes of no fewer than a dozen species. Not that I really want to get into a theological debate or anything, but I don't see why I should have any interest in a God that the ordinaries say cares only about them."
"I'm not interested in your feelings about religion," Set responded. "I want to know what you think about prophecy."
"I'll believe it when I see it."
"You've already witnessed telepathy," Set reminded her. "Even Manticore was able to stir up telepaths among its various genetic cocktails. And you've also seen telekinesis, haven't you?"
"Yeah," Max admitted, remembering a Familiar child that had tossed her around with some kind of mental ability.
"So why are you skeptical about precognition?"
"Huh?"
"Don't refer to it as prophecy," Set clarified. "Call it precognition, if you prefer. It's a more scientific word, it has a more banal connotation. The Familiars have bred telekinetics, why would you dismiss the idea of them successfully producing precogs?"
"Wait a second, are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"I'm only saying what the colonel suspected – that the unidentified man known only as John, the man who wrote the Book of Revelation, was in fact a Familiar who was banished to the island of Patmos. Colonel Lydecker believed that John committed the unforgivable heresy of abandoning his cult's beliefs in favor of Christianity. As a result, despite his value as a seer, he was exiled to Patmos, where he had his visions."
"You have evidence of this?" Max asked dubiously.
"Not exactly," Set admitted. "There's a lot of circumstantial evidence, and Lydecker had to fill in a lot of blank spaces in the story. Once he found out about Megiddo and the Well of the Seas, he concluded that he had little option but to at least consider the possibility that Revelation was accurate. His opinion was that there was too much risk in disregarding theological prophecy just because his twenty-first century rationalism demanded he view organized religion as fantasy, Marx's opiate for the masses."
"Doesn't sound like Deck," Max commented.
"It made sense, though," Set continued. "Look at some of the elements that are present – the battle at Armageddon, worldwide pestilence, the annihilation of the unfaithful – it all matched up to some of the Mediterranean region's earliest apocalypse stories, almost all of which Lydecker had already concluded referred to the Manticore Cult. He told you that much back in Israel. Revelation's only real addition was the inclusion of certain Christian images, all of which can be attributed to the author's conversion to Christianity. As crazy as it sounds, Revelation was a handbook on what the Familiars were planning . . . and how they could – and would – be defeated. All that's needed is to know how to read between the lines."
"And I suppose you know?"
"No." The word was spoken with such disgust, such disappointment, that Max couldn't help but feel some degree of sympathy for Set, despite the fact that he had taken her hostage. "All I have to go on is Lydecker's notes, and one of the first things he wrote was that he knew his interpretations were little more than guesses based on current intelligence. He expected to have to reinterpret on a constant basis, to match up current events to the admittedly obscure images used in the scripture. I'm a soldier, a terrorist, an assassin – I don't know a damn thing about interpreting religious text."
"Then why bother?" Max asked. "We know who our enemies are. We have them on the run now. Why continue to build our efforts around obscure, two-thousand-year-old prophecies that we don't understand… that we don't have the training or insight to ever understand?"
"Because those were the colonel's orders," Set answered immediately. "He was very clear about the need to refer to Revelation to better anticipate our enemies' next move."
Great, he's following the orders of a dead man. Exactly how am I supposed to talk some sense into him? "I find it hard to believe that Deck would have made covertly advancing the career of a politician an integral part of the plan," Max said, deciding that a more indirect approach might be wiser. Discredit other parts of his plans, and it might be easier to discredit the orders regarding Revelation, too.
"He had his reasons – rather obvious reasons, I'm sure you now see – for playing the political card," Set explained, making it clear that supporting McElroy – or at least any senator that stepped up to the plate the way he did – was part of Lydecker's scheme. "The colonel wanted us to be free. He wanted us to be able to build lives for ourselves."
"He wanted us to be the best little soldiers we could be," Max countered, "and he spent countless hours coming up with new and interesting ways to motivate us. I can't believe you've forgotten what that man was like, no matter how penitent he felt at the end."
"He knew most of us would just reenlist anyway," Set responded with a knowing smile that made Max try all the harder to free herself from her bonds. I wanna wring his neck. "The colonel raised us to be soldiers, and that's not something that would change overnight, if at all. I just had to find a politician who would let us have what we wanted. It wasn't that hard."
"Out of curiosity, at exactly what point did Deck order you to take me hostage?"
"It's not that simple, really," Set said, his demeanor changing in a flash. For the briefest of moments Max thought she saw sorrow, regret. It vanished in an instant, though. "You're not being held captive, Max."
"I beg to differ on that."
"I've simply taken measures to ensure your participation in a rather uncomfortable conversation," Set told her. "You see, Max, as public a figure as you were, no one knows that you've been abducted."
"Excuse me? How exactly did you pull that off?"
"The entire world is under the impression that you're dead, cut down by the Familiars as retribution for openly joining the cause of the ordinaries." Max's heart sank at the words. The attack on the courthouse steps, the gunshots, the limo… All of the blank spaces in her memory started to fill in, and Max shuddered at the answers she found. "You see, Max, the entire press conference was a set-up. You had to die; you had to be martyred."
"Huh? No…"
"You're a messiah, Max, and our people will never be free as long as you're alive," Set explained. "Transgenics were designed, created, and trained to be followers, and they've chosen to follow you. A cult of personality has developed around you, and that'll keep every transgenic's attention riveted on you, on your decisions, on your guidance. They'll never learn the tough life lessons that you and your fellow escapees had to learn for yourselves so many years ago. They need to be free, they need to learn to think and live for themselves. That couldn't happen with you looking over their shoulders; no more than Christians could be free until Jesus died, or Muslims could be free until Muhammad died, or Jews could be free until Moses left them before entering the Promised Land.
"Besides, martyring you will make you as much a hero to the ordinaries as you've been to the transgenics. Humans love heroes, Max; they need them, they idolize them. Giving them a transgenic hero will strengthen the bond between us and make it less likely that they'll turn on us once the Familiars have been defeated." Max could see where Set was going, and tried as best she could not to think about it.
I don't want to admit yet that he might actually be right… that I really should die. "You know, I hate to be the one to tell ya, but if your goal was to kill me, you haven't done a real bang-up job," she commented sarcastically.
"I did well enough," Set answered, his annoying grin returning. "You see, Max, only seconds after you reached the safety of the limousine, the vehicle was hit by an anti-tank rocket. It blew up. Horribly, you escaped the initial explosion, only to leap from the blazing wreckage and walk far enough for the six-o'clock news to film your body being consumed by fire. One of my snipers also put a couple of extra bullets in you, just for good measure. It was heart-wrenching… it was tragic."
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Don't you remember getting into the limo?" Max thought back, chasing away the fog in her mind, trying to grasp the few fragments of memory that still evaded her, like dreams in the light of day.
"Ashley… Sam… Whatever her name is now," Max muttered.
"Actually, it was Erin," Set corrected. "X5-455. Ashley has a family – I wouldn't have used her if it could have been avoided. I'm not entirely heartless."
"But Erin was killed that night at the meeting with McElroy," Max said quickly. "It couldn't have been her."
"As you may be aware, her body was never found," Set responded. "The reason is that she was taken prisoner. She was my target that night; you were actually perfectly safe the whole time. Until Erin threw that grenade, anyway. We captured her and held her until now, all the while using some of Manticore's old reprogramming techniques --"
"You mean brainwashing," Max interrupted.
"Call it what you will," Set said with a dismissive wave. "The long and short of it is that we replaced you with her. The authorities will attempt to identify you through DNA and, of course, she'll be a match."
"No she won't," Max replied. "I have no junk DNA. I'm not really an X5."
"But nobody knows that," Set told her. "The only two individual genetic work-ups of you were done by Manticore and the CDC. Manticore's gone, and some of my people made sure any record of you was erased and replaced with identical information from your clones. The same night we took Erin, we also blew up the CDC offices in Seattle to make sure their records were destroyed, too."
"I didn't know."
"Logan did an Eyes Only report about it and everything," Set replied. "I remember it particularly well because he got on his soapbox and preached about how people shouldn't rush to judgment and blame transgenics every time something blew up. Funny thing was, that time it was our fault."
"Yeah, that's real funny," Max muttered. "So is this where I compliment your genius for pulling everybody's strings for so long?"
"No, this is where you grieve for lost friends," Set muttered. Max gazed at him, every second feeling the drugs wear off more. She was finally feeling completely normal, and that only further motivated her in her attempts to free herself.
"What do you mean? Who?"
"I'm sorry," Set told her. "I truly am. You see, Alec didn't make it."
"Didn't make it?" No, this can't be happening.
"He rushed you to the limousine," Set explained. As he spoke, Max began to remember details she suspected part of her mind had deliberately tried to forget. "He was wounded, and ended up slouching down against the vehicle. When my people fired the rocket… I'm sorry, Max. For what it's worth, it was quick. He didn't really feel much pain."
"Alec…" Max muttered. No… If only I hadn't let him stay by me. If only I had kept on treating him like dirt…
"It wasn't really part of the plan, Max," Set explained. "He was supposed to help guide your people, along with Joshua. Now we're going to have to find someone to take his place… I honestly don't know if Joshua is up to doing all of this alone."
"You're a dead man," Max growled. "You know that? I'm not gonna be in this chair forever. Eventually I'll get loose, and I'm gonna tear you apart with my bare hands."
"No you won't," Set countered.
"Wanna bet?"
"You have too many responsibilities," Set said. "You might want to kill me, and you might be very capable of succeeding, but the fact of the matter is that I'm not another one of your sycophants, Max – I'm more than willing to kill you if I have to. You have survived this long only because I feel you have one more role to play, one more crucial task to perform. Besides, given your present situation, I don't think you'd be willing to take the chance of losing."
"My present situation?"
"I have to go run an errand," Set told her, making no attempt to hide the fact that he'd purposely dodged her question. "Unfortunately, I won't be coming back. The good news is that you're free to try to escape – I won't stop you. The bad news is that if you fail to escape, you'll die of dehydration within a few days."
"Son of a bitch…"
"I trust that I haven't secured you too well," Set commented as he grabbed a Colt 1911 off of a small coffee table and walked toward a rusted, steel door. "Good luck, Max. With everything. I'm afraid this will be the last time we see each other."
"Don't bet on it."
"We both have our responsibilities, Max. You have to run away and lay low, making certain no one ever figures out who you are," Set instructed. "I have to keep an eye on the fire McElroy just lit. I have to make certain it burns itself out before too much destruction is caused."
"You do that," Max muttered. Then another thought occurred to her, one that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of sooner. "What about Logan?"
"Excuse me?"
"What about Logan?" Max repeated. "I'll make you a deal – I'll go away, I'll lay low, I'll never come looking for payback. You just do what you can to get him off the hook, okay? I've already lost Zack and Alec; I can't lose Logan, too."
"You're hardly in a position to bargain," Set replied. "And besides, you know all too well that I'm right, that you can best serve your people by disappearing. You also know that Logan wouldn't want me to get him off the hook. He must have explained that to you in his cell."
"I don't care what he explained to me," Max answered, enjoying the slight sense of relief she felt in allowing herself a bit of selfish gratification. "I want him out of custody, and I want it now." Set glared at Max for several minutes, his cold eyes locked onto hers. His name couldn't be more appropriate, she decided. His eyes actually sorta look like a serpent's.
"I'll do what I can," Set finally responded. "But I'll make no promise other than that."
"Good enough," Max muttered.
"And just remember that I'm sorry," Set said, surprising Max with his attempt at apologizing. "I know you'll probably never believe me, but I didn't want to do any of this. If I had my druthers, if Lydecker had never tracked me down and convinced me to join up with him, I would have moved to Maine, bought a boat, and trapped lobster for the rest of my life."
"Trapped lobster?" Max heard herself ask, surprised that any part of her mind had any interest in speaking to her captor.
"It's a peaceful job I could have done alone, without the temptation to do the things I know I do best," Set explained. "You may have noticed – I don't play well with others." He didn't say another word as he walked out, slamming the door behind him. Max listened for a lock, but heard none. He really expects me to just leave, she decided with amazement. I guess I should get to work.
To be continued………………………………