PART 5: Revelations
Max woke up the next morning to hear the sound of laughter coming from the room where they were keeping Brin. She ran into the room to see Brin and Angela lying on the bed laughing their asses off. "What is going on here!" She had to yell over all the noise they were making.
"Brin was just telling me about you guys at Manticore, and some of the dumb stuff you did." Angela and Brin looked at eachother and broke into laughter again.
Max looked at the two rolling on the bed and smiled. It was obvious that Brin had gotten her memory back, and she wasn't insane, so that was a good sign. All of the other X-5's and Logan ran into the room to see what all the commotion was about.
"Why is Brin untied?" Zack demanded before he really took notice of what was going on. "Okay scratch that last question and I'll a ask a new one. Why are rolling around on the bed laughing?"
"Because Brin has remembered a few funny stories about us, and she's told Angela."
"So Brin has her memory back?" Tinga asked excited.
"Yeah I do," Brin said wiping tears from her eyes. "How are all you guys? Good I hope. You didn't get hurt when you got me out did you?"
Zack smiled at her. "We're good baby sister. How're you feeling?"
"Good, all things considered, but hey, we've got heaps of catching up to do. How about breakfast?" Brin was the youngest of the group and was always the most enthusiastic, always wanting to play some sort of game.
"Wait a minute," Krit said shaking his head. "Angela said that it took a while for a person to recover from the mind control thing, and that it was hard for them to remember. So how is Brin better? Not that I'm complaining for anything, it's just a bit strange."
Angela shrugged. "It shocked me too, but from what I can guess, it's either because of who you guys are, your genes or something, or the control wasn't completed. It usually takes a long time to get someone fully under control. They obliviously didn't finish it."
"But hey, that's a good thing, because Brin didn't go insane." Syl said going up to hug her sister. "And I think that's a plus."
"Definitely." Max said hugging Brin as well.
"You know I really was serious about breakfast, I'm really hungry." Brin said and all of them laughed, and went into the kitchen to get something to eat.
"Logan," Angela said. "I'm just going home to get a few things, I'll be back soon."
"Sure," Logan said and followed his girlfriend into the kitchen.
Angela smiled and made her way home. She arrived just as Original Cindy was waking up. "Hey Original Cindy. Have a good night?"
"Depends on your point of view. I met a nice likety chick last, I man she was da bomb. So I make my move, and I tell you girl, Original Cindy was on last night. Shoulda seen it. So my girl and I are getting closer, you know physically, we have some fun, then sister-girl drops she go both ways."
"And?" Angela prompted.
"Hey, I can live with bisexual, it ain't perfect, but at least she halfway there. So anyway, how your thing go boo? You and Max aiight?"
"Yeah, we're fine, everything went good. Like clockwork. That's how obsessive this guy Zack is, but god, what a body."
"Zack?" Original Cindy raised her eyebrows.
"Sam, from Jam Pony is actually like Max, him and that other guy. But you know when you said he had a good body, well you haven't seen it without the shirt."
"Biteable?"
"Absolutely," Angela responded rolling her eyes at the memory. "Thought I would pass out, but hey, I didn't and I got a nice view for my efforts."
"I'm sure you did." Original Cindy said. "So what do you need here?"
"Just a few things, I think they'll help Brin. Anyway see you at work." Angela said walking out the door, and going back to Logan's apartment. When the elevator doors opened Zack was standing right in front of it and Angela jumped about three feet. "My god! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
"Where did you go?" Zack asked not answering her question.
"I had to pick up a few things from home, is that okay with you? How's Brin by the way?"
"She's fine," Zack took her elbow and led her into the guestroom she had been in the night before. "We need to talk."
"What about?" Angela asked.
"About whatever happened when I was unconscious in the cave."
"What do you think happened?" Angela asked warily.
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. All I know is when I woke up you were different. Why?"
"Look it doesn't matter what happened, it's over and there's nothing you or I can do to change it, so don't worry about it anymore." Angela said trying to walk out the door but Zack blocked her way.
"It's you I'm worried about. Whatever happened has changed you somehow, and I want to know." Zack demanded.
Angela smiled touched at his concern. "Zack there's nothing for you to worry about, I'll be fine."
"How can I be sure? Whatever happened seemed to have screwed you up pretty bad, how do I know that won't happen again?"
"You don't, but I don't need you to worry about me, I already have enough people to do that."
When Zack just stood there waiting for an explanation, Angela sighed. "Look, there was a situation I had to handle, I didn't handle it quite the way I would have liked to, but there's nothing I could do about it, I had to do it that way. Are you happy now?"
Zack frowned, "You just made it even more cryptic. Does this have to do with whatever you and Max won't talk about in front of other people?"
Angela nodded. "There are just something's I like to keep secret."
"But who am I going to tell?" Zack asked smiling engagingly at her. "I've got a secret of my own, why would I tell yours?"
"Because you might not have a choice in the matter." Angela said looking up at him. He was standing so close to her that she could smell his aftershave, it smelled like the woods, which wasn't a bad thing; it was actually kind of intoxicating. She shook her head to clear the thoughts that were there and stepped away from Zack. But he caught her hand and pulled her back so that they were standing, very close together. "I just don't want to put you in that situation."
"What if I want to be there? Tell me Angela." Zack implored looking deep into her eyes.
Angela looked away but Zack placed his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up to meet his. Looking into her eyes he lowered his lips to hers. This kiss wasn't anything like the last one, this was tender, loving. Zack moved away from the door to the bed and laid her down on it, then lowered his body on top of hers. Angela gasped as Zack's full weight came upon her and his mouth moved from hers to her neck, sucking softly on the skin there. Satisfied when he left his mark there he went back to her mouth and attacked it with ferocity. Angela returned the kiss with all she had, arching her body up into his as his hands wondered over her stomach and up here top. His hands rubbed her breasts gently and he drew back to remove her top, it ended up across the room on a chair. Happy now, he resumed what he was doing.
Angela barely noticed her shirt going across the room or how she managed to get his shirt off, but hey, she really didn't care at the moment. Just as Zack was reaching for the clasp on her bra someone knocked on the door and called out, "Are you guys alright? You've been in there a while." It was Max's voice.
Zack groaned and buried his face in Angela's neck. "I think I'm going to have to kill her."
"We're fine Max, we were just…talking, be out in a sec." Angela responded since Zack didn't say anything else and hadn't gotten up from on top of her. "Zack you need to get up." Angela whispered.
"Don't wanna," He said sounding very much like a little boy whose favourite toy was just taken away.
"You might not want to, but you have to." Angela said. "What if someone comes in here? You're not wearing a shirt and neither am I. Those are just questions I don't want to answer at the moment."
"You're right," Zack said getting up and retrieving their shirts. He went to open the door, but turned around to look at her. Angela's shirt didn't hide the hickey he had given her, but she didn't know that, he smiled secretly. Zack opened the door to see Max's confused face. "We'll finish this conversation later." He nodded to Angel, then passed Max as if he was on a daily stroll.
"Yeah, okay," Angela responded a little shaky.
Max too one look at Angela's face, then her neck and dragged her back into the room. "What happened?" She demanded.
"Nothing," Angela denied. "We were just talking."
"Really? Then why do you have a hickey on your neck?"
Angela paled, touched her next then ran into the bathroom. Max just waited for her to come out before she said anything. "So?"
"We were just kissing." Max raised her eyebrows. "Fine so there was a bit more than kissing."
"I'll bet," Max said, then shuddered. "I'm sorry, but just thinking about Zack doing that creeps me out. He's my brother."
"Well he's not mine." Angela smiled wickedly, then pulled the shirt up to cover the hickey. "Don't we have something else to do?" She asked Max in an obvious change of topic.
"Probably not." Max said smiling.
"Well then I'm going to do a little research." Angela said walking out of the room and into the kitchen to find Logan. "Hey Logan is it alright if I use your computer to do a few things?"
"What for?" Logan was in the process of making pancakes for all the X-5's.
"I just want to check something out."
"Sure," Logan said resuming his cooking.
Zack watched Angela walk out of the room and noticed that she had pulled her shirt up to cover his mark. Max must have seen it and said something to her, he thought to himself. He looked over to Max and noticed her staring at him strangely, when their eyes met, he saw a flash of warning there and he didn't need anyone to tell him what that meant. If he hurt Angela, Max would kick his ass.
Angela walked into Logan's computer room, shutting the door behind her. She sat behind the computer and hacked into the Manticore files. She didn't know what she was looking for, but somehow she knew where to go, which files to access. She was in the files where all the information of all the Manticore creations were kept. She was going through all this stuff so fast, instinctively knowing where to go. She was now in the X5's files. There was Max's, Zack's, Zane, Tinga, Jondy and more, but it was the last one she was looking for. All of the files contained pictures of them. Angela clicked to open the file on X5-385.
There in the file was a picture of her ex-boyfriend, Alec. She sat there in shock, just staring at the screen. She then got up and walked, very calmly into the kitchen and called Max to go to the computer with her.
"Does he look familiar?" Angela asked pointing to the screen.
"That's Alec isn't it? The obsessed ex-boyfriend." Max responded confused.
"Yep, look where the file comes from."
Max looked and gasped. "Manticore. Alec was Manticore?"
"One of the X5's that didn't escape. So if he didn't escape, what was he doing in Seattle? Why was he so obsessed with me?" Angela demanded, sitting back down at the computer.
"I don't know, I'll get Logan, maybe he can make some sense out of some of this." Max said going back to the kitchen. "Logan can you come and look at something for a sec?"
Logan saw the look on Max's face and immediately followed her.
"Is everything alright?" Brin asked, her mouth full of pancakes.
Max smiled at her youngest sister. "Everything's fine, just computer term that we don't get, you guys stay here." She went back to the computer room to see that Logan was looking at the screen frowning.
"You dated this guy?" Logan said pointing at the screen.
"Yeah I did. You met him Logan, heaps of times." Angela responded.
"And you never noticed that he had a barcode on the back of his neck?" Logan said going over the contents of the screen.
Angela shook her head. "No, his hair must have covered it, or it was removed. I don't know, I just want to know what he was doing in Seattle."
"What I want to know is how you got in here." Logan said to himself. He clicked on a button say 'projects'. "This should tell us." The screen changed and a long list of projects came up. "Well it looks like Alec was in on a lot of stuff." He scrolled down the page to find Seattle. "Here it is. It seems he was looking for someone, a girl, brown hair to the waist and green eyes." Logan didn't see Angela's eyes widen. "Here's a picture." The picture was of Angela.
"Oh my god," Max whispered her hand going to her mouth.
Angela just stared at the screen for a little while. "Find out what he wanted." She demanded.
Logan clicked on 'details'. "He was supposed to take you to Manticore. It doesn't say why, he was just meant to bring you there. There's a file on you as well. It's got your birth date, parents, what you've done for the past eighteen years."
"Before I broke up with him we were going to go away for the weekend. He said he had a cabin in the woods. Said it would be romantic. Good thing I broke up with him or I'd be a Manticore right now." Angela said calmly, too calmly.
"You're taking this a little too well, Angela." Max said worried for her friend.
"What else is there?" Angela demanded.
"Nothing, that's it," Logan said. "It doesn't say why they wanted you, this is all there is."
"Well there has to be more. Find it!" Angela yelled. "Find it Logan!"
The other X5's hearing Angela yelling came running into the room.
"What going on?" Zack demanded, walking up to Angela and putting an arm around her shoulder.
"There's nothing else Angela. This is all there is, if there's anymore it's in more secure files." Logan said calmly.
"Then I'll find them, I got this far I'll find the files." Angela said pulling away from Zack, and pushing Logan away from the computer.
"And what do you want to find Angela? Will that answer your questions?" Logan demanded. "This won't work. I don't know how you got this far, but you won't find those files Angela, they wouldn't let you."
"Then why would they let me get this far?" Angela demanded. "Why does Manticore have files on me? Why was someone sent to take me there? WHY!!"
Dead silence followed Angela's exclamation. "What?" Zack demanded. "What is she talking about Max?"
"Manticore has a file on her." Max responded. "According to these records a guy was sent to take Angela to Manticore. She dated him for almost a year before she broke it off. That weekend they were meant to go to his cabin."
"And let me guess his 'cabin' was going to be Manticore." Zack said disgusted.
"Yeah," Max said.
Angela was still at the computer trying to get to the files, but having no success. But something else happened, the screen suddenly changed and Alec's face appeared there.
"So you found this." Alec said to Angela. "You found it sooner than I thought you would, good for you baby. I suppose this really confuses you, but don't worry, everything'll make sense when we come and get you."
"No you won't." Angela hissed.
"Yes we will." Alec smiled, then looked at the people gathered behind Angela. "Good work you guys, getting Brin out. Couldn't have done it better myself. But enough of this, just wanted to say hello baby, see you soon." The screen went blank and they were left staring at a different file. A file that said what was going to be done with Angela.
