Dark Angel Revised
Summary: Max comes to Seattle in search of her brother Seth. Alec has also just arrived in Seattle on the Berrisford mission. They cross paths and stuff happens. M/A
Disclaimer: I don't own or have anything to do with the creation of the show or its characters.
Spoilers: Anything is subject to altering from both seasons as well as Max Collins' book Before the Dawn
Chapter 9: The Breaking
"Why are we at a museum, Max?" Alec whined.
"I told you." She sent him an annoyed glance over her shoulder. "Recon!"
"Recon at a museum? I thought we were checking out places we're gonna hit. You know places with money."
"Exactly." She answered while hastening her stride a bit.
"Here?" Alec looked around taking note of the cracked and stained walls, ceilings, and floors. There was a sign on the planetarium door that said 'Closed for Repairs.' He then noticed that same sign was also on both the male and female bathroom doors, the elevator, and the gift shop. They passed two security guards on their way in and there were two further down the hall. Aside from the guards, there was only a small group of children and their instructor, two old women, a creepy looking man with a cane, him and Max." He turned back to her after finishing his perusal of their environment only to find out that because of it she was now several steps ahead of him. He jogged until he was in step with her. "I was thinking more along the lines of a bank." He continued.
"Banks aren't worth ripping off. Since the pulse, everyone's leery so they spend obscene amounts of money for security to protect what little money they have in the vaults because people have gone back to stuffing their mattresses rather than seeing their green turn into a bunch of ones and zeros." Max informed him distractedly as she weaved in between artifacts. Alec deduced that she found what she was looking for when she abruptly turned right after reading the sign overhead. He followed. "Estates, mansions, castles, corporate buildings-those are the places we need to hit." She whispered as they made their way down a corridor decorated with colorful canvases on each side.
"Soooo again I ask why are we in a museum?" He questioned after giving each of the canvases a once over and finding none that remotely interested him.
"Because when we break into the homes and businesses of the still rich and famous, you're going to need to know cold the difference between what's real and what's not and how many zeros it's gonna be worth once we flip it."
"Ah so this is another one of Maxie's life lessons for civilian world challenged folks such as myself. He's master of a P90 submachine gun and a Colt M-4, but give him a Frisbee and watch him falter."
"Hey the lessons I give you are not common knowledge to just any old civilian. Besides, I know when it came to things like the classics Manticore didn't give a rat's ass if we knew the difference between Manet and Monet or how many sonnets Shakespeare wrote."
"Renaissance soldiers need not apply. Although for my last mission, I did have to learn how to read music and play a little piano."
"Really?" She finally looked up at him. He plays the piano. How sexy, flitted through her head before she quickly turned away. "Anyway, the museum's the best place to see a lot of fakes up close and personal. I'm sure a few places managed to preserve some stuff from the looters, but not much."
"Couldn't we have just stayed at the library? I could have just looked at a bunch of art books." He commented while glancing around again at the paintings and deciding they looked like they could have easily been done by a two year old or a blind monkey.
"Those art books wouldn't tell you the most important information." She replied before pulling him down a hallway towards a collection of colorful paintings of elongated and squiggly figures. Max pointed to the writing underneath it. "An old friend told me that the descriptions next to the art pieces used to just describe the piece itself and the artist. But after the pulse, few lines of text were added to some to show where the real piece was either last seen or what rich big wig currently had it in his possession." Alec skimmed past the information on VanGogh and went straight to the last line. "See." She said smiling up at him.
Alec slowly reciprocated the smile as his mind caught on to what Max was implying. "If they're going to make our job this easy, they mind as well leave the cash in a duffel bag on the front porch."
By the end of the hour, they had locations on hundreds of valuable art pieces stored in their genetically engineered brains. Max had to admit to herself that it was nice being with someone with an IQ that matched hers. Like all X5, Alec was a quick learner. After escaping Manticore there had been some frustrating times when she'd have to listen to mindless drivel until whoever was talking to her got to the point or times when she had to patiently (something she still lacked) explain a concept to one of the members of Moody's gang.
She was also proud of how quickly Alec seemed to be adapting. Watching her hustle and her other interactions with people throughout their traveling had taught him a lot. The easy and natural way he spit back the street lingo made her sometimes forget that he had only recently escaped.
***
By nightfall, amongst a litter of Chinese containers, Max and Alec sat on the floor of their hotel suite tossing back and forth their check list for the job they planned on pulling later. The CEO of Bryne Tech Industries right here in Sacramento was an aficionado of both the Impressionist and Expressionist eras. He had quite a collection in his display vault at his office building. A few pieces could bring them in $200,000 easy. They already had a fence lined up in the area courtesy of Max's memory of an overhead conversation of Moody's to one of his many associates. He wasn't very welcoming when they first dropped in on him, but after she had told him that she was an old friend of Moody's and about what they could get for him, he was more than happy to open his wall safe to prove he was good for the money. The idea of robbing the fence instead made a short trip around Alec's brain but he knew it wouldn't make for good long term business sense. Not a good idea to be shunt by the black market community.
The fence printed out the schematics of the building at no extra charge making Max and Alec's job a hundred times easier. They'd know all the important information about the building's security before they'd even get there. With that knowledge coupled with their transgenic skills, they'd be in and out in five minutes. They also set up a time with their fence to unload all the stuff and cash in before the building they ripped off even opened the next morning.
By 1 am, it was go time. Alec had just finished lacing up his boots when the bedroom door opened and Max stepped out completely ready. And completely hot! Alec observed letting his eyes travel slowly from her eyes past every curve the skin tight black suit accentuated down to her boots and back again.
The question of whether or not he was ready died on her throat when he stood and faced her dressed in a fitting black turtleneck that teased her with the outline of muscles beneath the surface. He was working the black pants too. They were loose fitting for easy mobility causing Max to be further assaulted with images of different possible movements Alec could position himself, and her for that matter, into.
Max recovered from their silent appraisals first, and managed to stammer a "ready," in which Alec replied with an uncharacteristically deep "yeah," and the two were off.
They scaled the building across from the one they were breaking into since it had one wall facing an alley to easily conceal them. Once they reached the top they rappelled to their target building. Those were the hardest parts; the rest was easy.
Not anticipating anyone jumping from the other building onto the roof just to break into an office building, there was no alarm on the door. Max easily picked the lock and the two found themselves inside on the top floor. There were mounted cameras every few feet along the hallway. Once the X5s picked up the rhythm of how each camera rotated, they easily avoided being taped zigzagging their way down the hall to the elevators.
At this hour, the elevators were resting fifty floors down in the lobby. Alec pried open the doors while Max removed the gear they needed from her backpack. The couple entered the shaft and used the cables to descend to the thirty-fourth floor; the floor above the office they intended to rob.
Because of the many valuables inside, they knew Chad Bryne's office was rigged with alarms. Security would be alerted the moment they tried to pick the locks and they'd be screwed. But the office above Bryne's had no such issues. When they were inside, Alec did a quick mental check of the plans they had gotten from their fence before finding a place on the floor to start his remodeling.
Ten minutes later, Alec fashioned a nice size hole through the floor and into the ceiling of Bryne's office. Max would jump through, disable the alarms leaving the display vault only protected by a mere combination lock that would be no sweat for a creature with genetically engineered hearing capabilities. She'd load up the duffel bag and pass it through the hole to Alec and then they'd be on their way.
At least that was the plan.
It seemed like it was coming to fruition as Max rolled up the last Cézanne to add to their stash. But it was at that moment when occurred an unfortunate coincidence in the form of an intern of Bryne's who had been paged by his mentor despite the late hour and ordered to return to his office to pick up his wedding ring he'd forgotten to put back on after…well, there was a reason there were no video cameras in Bryne's office. Although Bryne managed to keep his hands in his pocket since he'd gotten home, that trick wouldn't work while he and his wife were eating breakfast together the next morning. The young intern not wanting to displease his boss, left the comfort of his warm bed to hike the two miles back to the office to get the ring, knowing he 'd then have to take the city bus which was filled with thugs and weirdoes at this hour to his boss's home. However his boss did say he'd pay for a cab to take him back home.
At least that was the intern's plan.
Both Max and Alec had heard the footsteps approaching and paused hoping they'd pass by. When the knob turned, Max's eyes flew to Alec's. He frantically motioned for her to come on which she had intended to do anyway, and there was a good chance she would have made it too if the duffel bag strap had not treacherously snagged itself on a gold hook of a large, cumbersome gold statue.
Max's blurring form made it about three inches before she was yanked back to normal speed as the entire statue crashed to the floor behind her shortly followed by the office door flying open.
"Who..who are you?" The intern stammered while wondering if maybe this whole thing was a dream when he was greeted by the sight of a young woman dressed in all black and standing in the middle of the boss's display vault. When it clicked a few seconds later that this was not a dream and that this woman was most likely a thief, the intern reached behind him and withdrew a gun. He never left home at night without, especially if his journey meant he'd be riding the city bus. "Stay where you are!" He commanded while walking to the desk all the while training his gun on Max.
Max did as she was told as she cut discreet glances back to Alec as he silently eased down the hole into the room like spider man until he was standing behind the intern unbeknownst to the intern. Max was content to let Alec handle the rest but then she noticed the look on Alec's face. She recognized the glimmer in his eyes immediately. It had been a long time since she had seen such a look, but it was one she would hardly be able to forget. He had the look of a predator about to dispose of his prey. When the threat of exposure was eminent, they were trained to do what ever was necessary to get rid of the threat. Reasoning with the guard, flirting with him, paying him off, or knocking him unconscious were all options Max had filed under the "whatever was necessary" category. But these were options she had accumulated over the years on the outside. 494 knew of only one option. She watched in alarm as 494 crept closer to his prey. Just as he reached him, she did what she had to. She blurred.
The intern was about to press the button to the guard's station in the lobby when the woman standing before him suddenly disappeared. Before the shock had time to settle in, for the intern, everything went black. Max's tackle brought his head down hard on the floor. Alec watched as Max inspected the intern's head wound and checked his pulse. He watched as she dragged the unconscious man towards the vault. He watched as she shoved him inside the vault and shut the door behind her. And while he was watching, he replayed what had led to the intern's current state over and over in his head. Unable to come up with any logical reason as to why she would risk her life when he had the element of surprise and a better position to maneuver, he questioned her.
"I had him, Max. What'd you do that for?" Alec suddenly outburst making Max jump slightly.
"You were going to kill him." Max deadpanned once she recovered.
Alec shrugged. "He would have exposed us."
"We don't know that. Besides he was an innocent man who just happened to show up and saw what we were doing."
"Exactly, wrong place, wrong time."
"And the consequence is his death."
"Well yeah."
"And you don't see anything wrong with that?"
"No, why should I?"
"Geez, I know Manticore really fucked up our heads with all those educational videos trying to desensitize us and shit. And I'm not gonna front, when I first got out, I had a hard time not thinking of the civilians on the outside as the enemy. But it got easier especially when I started seeing faces that reminded me of my brothers and sisters. I couldn't imagine doing what we were taught to any of my siblings."
"Your brothers and sisters, your siblings?"
"Yeah, the kids in my unit."
"Fellow soldiers. They weren't your brothers and sisters."
"No shit Sherlock, I knew we didn't all come from the same mom and dad." She said while roughly tossing Alec the duffle bag. "It was like we were brothers and sisters. You know the whole growing up together and spending every waking moment with one another.
"That's right. I did hear stories of the O'niners having some weird sense of family." Alec shrugged again before slinging the bag over his shoulder. Just then the intern moaned ending the conversation and reminding them that now would be a good time to bail and they quickly did so.
After they fenced their goods, they headed back to the hotel room. Since they were spotted, they planned to rest for a couple of hours and leave first thing in the morning driving as far from Sacramento as they could get without stopping.
There was a strained silence between them since the incident with the intern. Max decided to broach the subject that brought it on while Alec was counting up their cash and she was packing up their belongings.
"So nobody in your unit was close?
Nobody there who thought of you as more than just a fellow soldier?" She questioned suddenly.
Alec paused in his counting and
looked at her. She didn't expect the pained expression that his face took. She searched her mind for something to say to
alleviate it, but she was dumbstruck.
She'd never seen him look so lost and alone before. It seemed like forever before he spoke.
"Well, 401, 296, and 753 were always together it seemed." He said slowly. "Oh and 711 and 858 would hang around with that clique sometimes to, at least during the off hours." He remembered. "I guess 506 could count as somebody who saw me as more than just a soldier. He was the only one who talked to me in a semi friendly way."
"Are you saying the kids in your unit were close to each other just not to you?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them and she winced when she heard the question she had asked. But it was too late to take it back now. "Why?"
"Who fucking knows!" He exploded. He then shoved the money away and sprang to his feet suddenly feeling the need to move around. "Who fucking cares?" He finished before turning his back on her and moving to look out the window instead.
"Obviously you do." Max replied not the least bit taken back by his sudden anger.
"I don't care. It wasn't anything I did so why should I care." He said nonchalantly. The anger coloring his voice a moment ago replaced by his more comfortably cocky tone. "It wasn't my fault that I had the same face as one of the ones in the slides they made us watch and learn to hate." He added with a shrug. But to Max, his words were like a bucket of cold water thrown in her face. Ben escaped and his twin was left behind to pay the price. The past eight years Manticore had been looking with no luck and Alec was there for them to take it out on.
"Tell me please, what happened after we escaped?" She whispered. It was then that he turned to her. But he wasn't the Alec she had gotten used to.
"You were traitors. They had to make sure everybody believed that." He spoke his hard eyes never leaving hers. "But they also figured your clones would be the greatest flight risk." His voice was just as cold as his eyes. "Don't look so shocked. There's more than likely a clone of you in some facility somewhere. Manticore would definitely want another you." Despite the icy way he'd said it, Max couldn't help but blush slightly at his words. Alec, having already closed his emotions off as he always did when discussing Manticore, didn't notice her crimson cheeks or that he had inadvertently complimented her. "They also didn't want any clones of 09 to be in the same units which is why I don't know for sure if there's another you or any of the others." Alec stopped suddenly as his previous words caught up to him. 494 dissolved instantly as Alec ducked his head in embarrassment and his cheeks also took on a red hue. He raised his eyes a few seconds later to see if Max was looking at him. When they're eyes locked the two smiled sheepishly at each other for a brief moment before Alec cleared his throat and continued. "Besides probably not all of the escapees' clones made it through psych ops." His tone was now somber. "Like I said, I heard talk." All mirth was completely wiped from Max's expression as well. Having seen the range of attitude he'd displayed during this conversation, Max was relieved to see that the hard tone of the solider was gone from his voice but her heart still clenched painfully at the return of the lost little boy look "The kids in my unit knew I wasn't a traitor, but I guess it was hard, subconsciously, to separate my face from…well…me." He said softly.
"Do you hate us for leaving?"
"They made us hate you." He answered unwaveringly.
"Do you still hate me?"
***
He hadn't answered her. It was at that moment that her screwed up genetics reared its ugly head. He noticed her hand shaking and quickly excused himself to fetch her meds. She was running low so the conversation veered towards when and where they'd be able to score some more leaving the issue of whether or not he hated her behind. And he never bothered to clear it up later.
Max continued to stare up at the ceiling willing sleep to come just this once and to chase away the thoughts and emotions Alec seemed to stir up in her. But it came at a price as her dreams became nightmares.
He couldn't get comfortable on the pull out couch so he took it out on his pillow again. Angrily punching it and turning it over for the millionth time before slamming his head back against it. He closed his eyes. Just as his breathing began to even out and his eyelids had no intention of blinking for several hours, they snapped open from the sounds coming from the bedroom behind him. He listened a moment.
Whimpering, the bed creaking, more whimpering, "No!," whimpering again, and more bed creaking. He angrily threw back the covers knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep with that racket going on.
She was thrashing around in her bed. The whimpering was louder and there were more no's too.
"Max." He called from her doorway. "Max!" When that didn't work he went to stand by her bed. "Max, get up. Wake up, now!" He bent over and shook her roughly. "Max!"
She sat up suddenly and took in her surroundings. It was a dream, but it had seemed so real. She stood by and watched as they tortured children that looked exactly like all of her siblings. In the dream she knew it hadn't been her siblings but their clones. Then one by one she watched as Lydecker killed each of them; each way more gruesome than the child before. The horrible scene dissolved and she was relieved to see that she was back in her bed but than she turned and saw him standing there. And it all came back.
The nightmare fresh in her mind, her heartbeat still beating hard against her breastbone she began speaking in tune with it.
"Alec, we didn't know there were clones. We didn't know anything." Max gushed.
All traces of sleep gone, knowing immediately what she was talking about, and undeterred by her frantic state, Alec spoke his mind.
"Would it have made a difference?" His voice was colder than he wished it to sound.
"Probably not." She responded, shocked into abrupt calmness by his stoical demeanor. She couldn't stand the look his eyes flashed before he covered it up. Normally she didn't care what anybody else thought of her or what anybody else thought period. To each his own, everybody's entitled to their own opinion, and all those other trite rationalizations that made people sleep better at night and kept things from fazing her. But she felt an urgent need to make him understand. "It's not like we left because we couldn't handle the training or the torture. It was a matter of survival." She began. "It was one thing when Syl accidentally shot and killed Champ. It was one thing when Jack and Talon were taken away because of their seizures. It was always made clear that we would be of no use if we were defective…if we weren't good soldiers." Her eyes were far away and her words were whispered. "But when Lydecker shot Eva like it was no big deal…when the only thing she did was what they trained us to do—defend our unit—it all became clear. We were all just as easily expendable. Because Eva had been a good soldier. She was good at just about everything. She always looked out for everyone." Her eyes were still not on anything in that room, but her voice had risen considerably. "She was always there for me. She would have been beautiful. But he killed her…killed her like she was nothing. So, we decided to take our chances on the outside." Max didn't know she had started to cry half way through her explanation. Alec could only stare at her helplessly as she did so. When she finally finished just as he couldn't take any more, he gave into his instincts, sitting down on her bed and pulling her into his arms. Max gracelessly collapsed against his chest and continued to sob while Alec held her tightly all the while stroking her back and whispering reassurances; an action neither of them had participated in before that night.
TBC
Author's note:
Alec blushing when talking to Max, might seem out of character for Alec, but I figured since this is taking place about two or three years before Season 2, Alec and Max are only about 17 or 18 so Alec hasn't had much worldly experience or the time to hone his skills as a lady's man who's "always alright." At least that's what I was trying to show.