Title: Factory Radio
Author: intodust
Disclaimer: Dark Angel is the property of 20th Century Fox and
Cameron/Eglee Productions; that is, it's not mine. Summary's from Black Box Recorder's
song of the same name.
Rating: R
Category: AU. Not "Driftwood," exactly.
Voices raised in song, a Sunday morning chorus muffled by the impenetrable brick wall worn with time and neglect to an echo of once-rich crimson. The church stands like a faded blood shrine against a burning-smoke sky, casting long shadows down the street. It's been there for as long as she can remember, a church, a place of faith, as though the strength of its congregation has kept the rest of the world outside. But it's money, not belief, that keeps it standing, that keeps the ancient-majestic bricks from being replaced with prison walls, that futile shade of grey designed for maximum impact. Faith alone doesn't keep the doors open, like they used to say. And faith hasn't kept the barbed wire fences from being erected around the property.
But then, what does she know?
They're chanting, a steady rise and fall of syllables in a foreign tongue. Dona nobis pacem. She does not speak Latin but has passed by this building often enough to understand the meaning, if not the words. She took shelter within those walls, once, when the shooting had just begun. The priest had knelt, as those before him, and the words of his prayers had not muffled the sonic noise of machine-gun fire. She'd left before the explosions had stopped, needing to see if Logan was okay, and the priest's eyes had been sad like he thought he was losing a follower.
She walks by the window in time to see the sharp red dot moving like a sunbeam along his chest and knows instinctively that there is nothing she can do. He won't see her, even if she raises her hands in warning, and the fallout would probably kill them all. Her steps slow anyway and someone jostles against her, the smell of unwashed hair and dirty denim. Whoever it is, they're gone by the time she hears the telltale whir and then the bullet slicing air, watches the blood spread across the cassock as he falls. The congregation is abruptly silent, frozen by the audacity and the suddenness of the intrusion. They will only be in danger if they react, if they take offense. If they leave now, they'll be allowed to go home.
And then the church is behind her. She measures her steps carefully so that the soldiers don't think she's running. They've got snipers positioned up and down all of the main streets, riot guards. If they shoot her now, they'll search her body and find the Beretta, find an easy scapegoat despite the obvious weapon difference; she'll go down for the priest and she's got more important things to die for. The voices start again, a unified plea, words cried in mourning. Dona nobis pacem.
These days, she thinks, there is no god. If there ever was. No one will hear them, but they speak anyway, because it's all they can do. Not everybody has a cause.
Dona nobis pacem. Day in, day out. This is life.
Dona nobis pacem. Give us peace.
xxxxx
The closest thing she finds to peace is at home, and even that's stretching the term to something she doubts Gandhi would recognize.
Home is on the fourth floor of the former West Kingston Hotel, though that hasn't been its name for a long, long time. Time passes quickly these strange days, measured for the most part, at least subconsciously, in seconds, as in survived another. Now it's the Compass, because Kingston Hotel collapsed a long time ago and now all that's left is WEST, neon bulbs white and drab near invisible in ever-present unnatural twilight. Home is on the fourth floor, second unit to the left of the concrete staircase, room 2110. Ignore the plastic sheets lining the halls, reminding her of another place, a time before, when all she had to worry about was bribing the sector cops. Flick on the lamp when the electricity forecast looks good, crumple her jacket into a ball and throw it at the bed. Curtains stay drawn during the day out of habit and not actual need; the kind of people who'd look through her window aren't deterred by cloth boundaries.
Four walls, bed, bath, and beyond. Home. Funny how definitions change. She exists here, but she doesn't live. That part's walled off with the names she only just remembered how to say, the sentimental things like never nearing burnout while biking in the rain, manicures and Sibelius.
RAF Kitty lives downstairs. She was never in the military and she was never called Katherine, she told Max, but wasn't it a catchy name? Good for stage work, marquees if she ever got that far. Which she didn't.
Max knocks on her door before she goes up. It's become a habit. This way, if one of them goes out and doesn't come back, at least somebody'll know they went missing. It's a nice thought and an entirely sentimental one; if she goes missing, there's nothing Kitty can do about it, and vice versa. Though that's not entirely true. Max could, if she wanted, probably rescue Kitty, break her out of whatever military prison she'd be in and take her home, but at what cost? She's already got an albatross. Her efforts must be saved, held in reserve until they're needed.
She hears the click-snap of Kitty unlocking the door. "You made it back," Kitty says, leaning against the doorframe with one hand in the pocket of her stained jeans and her eyes luminous. RAF Kitty is a relic, an artifact. She doesn't belong here, but who does? Instead of raising children in some Scandinavian paradise, she designs games for the private lives of military clients, custom-made adventures. A variation of her previous profession. She said once that at least this way she gets to use her brain. She'd chuckled, small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and Max had tried not to think about how much she reminded her of Logan right then.
"Swenson's dead. Shot as I went by," Max says. Information, even gossip, is currency. She doesn't slide her hands into her pockets, assume that casual position, because that would be another few seconds' delay, should something happen. Should something attack.
"The priest? Seems like they're doing everybody these days," Kitty says. She doesn't sound concerned; caring is a burden and burdens require sacrifice. When there's nothing left to give, burdens die. That's just how it goes.
"Yeah. Just hope they don't get around to us soon," Max says. Kitty grins, nods and closes the door. They both know it's a lie and they're conspirators in this charade, pretending that if they can make it long enough, good things will happen. There'll be a reward. The war will be over, except war was never declared in the first place, so how is that going to happen? The suicide rate's up by half, she thinks, except there's no one around to take that poll, make that count. So it's just a number.
She takes the stairs slowly, one at a time. There's no rush. She unlocks her own door, closes it behind her. There are no dark figures inside, no intruders. No misguided siblings waiting to take her home, make her one of them. Resistance is futile, they'd say in a stern, cold voice. Lydecker's voice. And then they would hit her with a taser, crackling blue flame, drag her back to base, and it'd be done.
It would have been done a long time ago, she thinks, except she's not really resisting. She's biding her time, waiting for the right moment. She wonders how many she could have saved she hadn't waited, if she weren't waiting. She would have had to find them, first, and how to decide who's important? The ones closest to her are already down, because they could have told them where to find her, and because they didn't. Firing squad or fit of anger, either way they were executed. Either way they're dead, and all that's left is him, because somebody remembered that he had money, that he had contacts.
That he was worth more alive than dead.
So now she's looking for him. He's become her reason for living. She wonders if this is an example of true love conquering all, or if it's an example of fixating on the only thing left. She wonders if it really matters.
She sits on the edge of her bed and closes her eyes. She wonders if he's still alive. She won't believe otherwise until she sees a body, because that's all there is, all there is to her these days. She hasn't told RAF Kitty who she's looking for, only that she's looking for someone. Kitty'd nodded, told her that she'd had someone like that, too, a lover, a long time ago. He's in the military, one of the invaders. She hasn't seen him forever.
She opens her eyes and sees light through the curtains, flame. She's used to the sight; as long as it doesn't spread, she'll be fine. There's no cause for worry. She wonders if it's the church, the stained-glass windows falling as their curator did. One more murder. She wonders if he'll remember, when she finds him, or if they'll have taken that from her, too. They will have a past or they will have a future; she's unsure whether both can exist at the same time, in the same place.
She'll find out, she thinks, soon enough. She's supposed to meet a contact this afternoon, someone who will know. Someone who will tell her.
She looks at the clock, salvaged from his apartment before the looters came. The rose tint through the curtains is not the remnant of sunrise, but the glow of the fire. She has six hours and she dares not go outside again, this close to zero-hour. She could go downstairs, sit cross-legged on Kitty's floor and watch her hands dance across the keyboard, Kitty with her eyes like Logan's, but it is too dangerous this time. Kitty is an ally, sometimes a friend, but Max does not know her, really, and she cannot afford to be distracted right now.
So she waits, listens to her own breathing, the movement of her blood through veins, and ignores the siren call. Soldiers are stone. She is a soldier. The cold, paralyzing fear sliding across her mind is a product of her imagination. There is nothing to be afraid of.
Nothing but death, and that's not much at all.
The hours pass slowly and the blaze eventually goes out. There is a burst of gunfire twenty minutes later and then shocked silence. She does not sleep.
xxxxx
Flimsy plastic glow of the Macs on the fourth day, running on backup generators like they are just waiting for the electric company to do its job. Like they're surviving a brownout and they'll eat dinner by candlelight and she'll go to work the next day. Like Jam Pony hasn't been demolished, a known hideout for fugitives and anti-government forces, the opposition. Like the world hasn't just gone to hell. "It looks . . . it looks like it's at the border. It just stops. All communication. Everything in and out."
"Like they're cutting us off?" The edge of his desk biting into her hands, hard enough to her mind to draw blood. Cutting us off. No way to articulate the reality, the exactness, the sheer impossibility of all of this happening now.
"Yeah. Like they're cutting us off." He's staring at the computer screens and she knows he's not seeing them at all.
She focuses on him like he knows, like he'll know. "What does it mean?"
A sigh like wind through dry leaves, like there's nothing left. "I don't know."
"Oh." Because she hadn't expected him to, after all. She knows just as much as he does at this point.
He swallows, his voice low and worn. He hasn't slept for the two days that she's been here, since she took advantage of the rain and hid in the shadows along the way. "But whatever it is . . . it's not good."
She meets his eyes, finally, and knows that this, really, is it. "Yeah. I kind of got that, myself."
And the terrible silence afterward. Because what else is there to say?
xxxxx
