Disclaimer: I unfortunately do NOT own Dark Angel. If I did, then the re-runs would be shown IN ORDER over the summer for those who didn't see them all. (That would not include me, by the way. ^_^)
Author's Note: This is the new update of the first chapter. I went in, fixed the things that I REALLY didn't like, and now I'm re-posting it. It's been two weeks since I originally posted, and I've gotten 12 reviews. THANK YOU to all that reviewed! I'll mention you guys by name in the beginning of the next chapter. Thank you again! Those who left emails with their post will get emailed when I update next. Enjoy!
-Lanna
PS- By the way, my computer hates me. If this has a HUGE white blank spot at the bottom, and I don't see it before you do, PLEASE tell me. Also, how do you, those members of FFN, get it to be edited so nice and pretty? It hates me, I swear! Please enlighten a fellow member. I'm so confused! -_-;
********
June 2009
Gillette, Wyoming
They would always be on the run.
It was inescapable. It was a fact of their genetically tampered-with lives. The X-5 series would never be able to rest as long as they lived. Even after Lydecker was eliminated, foreign governments would still be after them, to steal their secret genetic code. This fact was ingrained into them from the start, along with all the other training. It was to keep them from attempting to escape.
Even as they realized all of those facts, they knew that another one had been brought to life. No more under-water chains, any more tests, any more anything, except freedom. They would escape.
Tonight.
***
Seattle, Washington
Mercedes sighed from another long night of research on her computer. The terrorists were escaping her, and it was driving her nuts. Not only did they plan to infiltrate the government, but they also were going to bomb the entire nation with something that would wipe out all of the computer systems in the US. How lovely, she thought sarcastically. Rubbing her eyes tiredly and sitting back, she glanced around her opulent penthouse before heaving herself up from her computer chair and gliding into the kitchen to prepare her a quick sandwich.
Everything was perfectly normal for a day in the life of Civilian Detective Guevara while researching another case for the good of humanity in what was considered one of the richest countries in the world. The United States had a booming economy; they were in peacetime...
...And they had illegal operations that, if listed, could have gone from Maine to Hawaii and back six times. Now, finding all of those crimes and exposing them were proving difficult. To top that, terrorists were going to bomb the entire country.
Life couldn't get any better.
Just then the phone rang. She puzzled at who would be calling at the ungoddessly hour of two in the morning (it dimly registered in the back of Mercedes' mind that she had been up four days without sleep because of this case, so it didn't really matter what time it was). She picked up the phone. Effecting a tone that suggested she had been in her bed at the time, she answered.
"Whoever you are, this better be good. I was just in the middle of the best dream all year, starring the delicious Tom Cruise himself, a bowl of whipped cream, and a box of strawberries."
"Are you sure it wasn't me you were dreaming about?" the voice at the other end teased. She immediately knew it was her greatest source and ally, Kevin Jhanda. He had also been her only lover.
"Mmm... Maybe," she teased, a silly grin on her face. Distractions at this time of night were helpful in some ways.
"I always knew you couldn't forget me, hon." His voice let her know that he was grinning as well. "However, Ms. Fantasyland," he sighed. "This couldn't wait." It had to be important for him to interrupt their teasing at this time of night, because he dealt only in illegal government covert ops, so she immediately dropped the vocal façade, albeit reluctantly.
"What is it Kevin?" Mercedes was all business, grabbing her sandwich and heading back to her computer room. Such teasing would have to wait 'til later.
"Remember that military facility back in Gillette, Wyoming?"
"Gotcha." She pulled up the file of all information he had given her three years ago, which wasn't much. "Top-secret; something called 'Manticore'? Run by a Donald Lydecker, ex-GI. Joe. Security tighter than an oyster shell."
"Precisely." Kevin forced himself to forget the past as he continued on in his explanation. "But get this: there was a security breach last night, south quadrant, sector 47."
"Breach? You're kidding me." At his negative response, she grinned, ignoring the slight hesitation in his voice. She pulled up the map of the place as she fired off her next question. "Internal or external?"
"Internal." His voice was grim, but he was also hyped. Mercedes knew he always loved bringing down a corrupt government facility, therefore taking down the government's wrongdoing. It had to be in his blood - his dad had been the same way. "There were fifteen escapees in all, but thirty initially attempted."
"What the hell had to be so horrible that the workers had to run for the literal hills?" She was typing furiously, updating all information banks - pictures, text, everything as he sent them through their barely illegal network.
"Not workers, Merche." She had no clue as to what was coming, because the only time he used her nickname was when he tried breaking the news gently to her.
She wasn't patient enough for his response, though, so she filled up his silence with her own fear. "Kids. It was kids, wasn't it? Dammit, I knew it! How could they do som - "
"It wasn't kids, Merche," came his gentle reply.
That made her pause for a second, only to reply, "It wasn't?"
"No," he denied. "It was projects."
That was such a fast ball that she stopped everything for a second until it sunk in. "Projects? You sure it wasn't kids?"
He sighed. "It was kids." Before she could get a word in, he hastily added, "Genetically enhanced kids, hon, but projects all the same."
As Kevin gave her the run-down on the entirely illegal operation, she momentarily forgot about the terrorists and the electronic pulse that was no doubt going to happen. Kids? Forced to endure what? It was astonishingly horrifying, and after Kevin bid her goodnight, albeit sarcastically, she sat there for a few minutes, staring at the suddenly elongated information document on 'Project Manticore.'
Yanking off her headset, she got up and started to pace, leaving her untouched sandwich by the computer. She needed the blood flowing to get her brain cells working before she could sit down to her impossibly long task of hacking into Manticore's mainframe. However, when she passed the couch, she deemed that she'd get her blood flowing faster if she were sitting down and thinking comfortably. It was an entirely sleep-deprived decision, and as she started thinking about Manticore, the four days and more without sleep caught up with her, and she gave up. Manticore would be there in the morning. Tom Cruise going commando while bringing his own whipped cream and strawberries wouldn't.
Mercedes' daughter, Max, had watched and heard the entire conversation. She wanted to know what exactly was getting her mother all in a tizzy, so she crept out from behind the silky, luscious plant in the living room and towards the computer. She signed on, knowing all of the passwords to her mom's files. She started to hack into Kevin's computer, but was blocked with firewall after firewall. Frustrated, she sighed shortly and flexed her fingers. If she couldn't get into Kevin's system, she'd never be able to break into Manticore's.
She went back to work. She had to hurry, though, because daybreak was imminent. Her mom would wake up soon, and she had no plan to avert an angry, sleepy mother. She only dealt in computers. After all, she had learned from the government's most trusted hacker.
Mercedes.
***
Wyoming
They ran all night and day on adrenaline and fear only, keeping to the trees' cold shadows and finally reaching the state border under cover of darkness. Their conditioning hadn't gotten up to this level, so they had to stop there when that same adrenaline ran out, even though it was risky. Some, who never slept much anyway, kept watch while the others caught up on their sleep, restoring their energy for their respective flights away from everything they'd ever known. They would be splitting up as soon as the false dawn appeared, effectively distancing themselves forever from the wilds of Wyoming.
One of the older Chimeras, known to the others as Logan, sat up against a tree. He needed the sleep, his 12-year-old brain reasoned with him, but he couldn't submit to it. His mind was filled with the images of the escape - his fellow brothers and sisters and cousins, as he thought of them, shot in the back of the head by snipers with tazers, darts, and the regular bullets as they took to the trees. Those images of the ones who gave their lives, so those that did escape, could do so. Ones like Hector...
Roughly he shoved those thoughts to the back of his consciousness. He couldn't deal with all of this so quickly, no matter how trained he was to deal with his mind, to force it to forget something. And he didn't need to cause a seizure by attempting such a thing. His siblings counted upon him to present a strong façade in order to calm their own beating hearts. They had just separated from everything they knew, everyone they knew, and it was a terrifying experience. They needed someone to be strong. He would have to deal with his own pain later, when he could afford to. Not now.
Kelly, Logan's favourite surrogate sister, watched him pseudo-sleep from her guard post. She knew their supposedly fearless leader better than anyone else, and could tell he was warring with himself over what had just happened. She needed his strength to keep her from falling to pieces, to keep the sights and smells of freshly spilt blood of their family in the humid air; the sounds of repeated gunshots... She cursed her inability to sleep normally due to her shark DNA, and shook her head to forget in order to clear those memories. Logan will only be effective with the proper amount of sleep that his body needs, the soldier inside her muttered. So, as discreetly as only an X-5 could, she moved over to sit beside him, still keeping her watch. Hopefully all would be right in the end, and the deaths of their comrades would be avenged.
***
Seattle, Washington
The Pulse, the American people soon referred to it as, happened at midnight on December 25th, exactly six months after the escape from Manticore. Max knew precisely when it happened, having stayed up late yet again to watch her mother working late on the same terrorist project behind that potted plant as before. The power blew suddenly, and her mother's computer died instantly. When Mercedes finally got it booted up again, all of her files had been dumped. Even her diskettes had been erased. She was enraged that all of her petitions to the government to look into the matter had been sent back without even being opened, "...and now look where it bloody well got us!"
"Mom? Why'd the power go out?" Max wasn't young enough to suck her thumb, but she did strike a deceptively innocent pose against the doorframe, holding her teddy bear in one hand. She was incredibly light on her feet for her age. Normally, she thought to herself. Those Manticore kids were much faster than she was.
Mercedes whirled to find her daughter standing there, gazing at her with eyes that held way too much intelligence for the age of eight. "Honey..." She struggled for the words, but amazingly enough the child helped her out with the explanation.
"The terrorists struck, didn't they?"
She blinked, and answered the only way she knew how. Honestly.
"Yes. Yes, they did."
"What's the government gonna do about it?"
Mercedes grimaced. "Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing." She paused, then slapped her forehead. "I'm sorry, honey. I shouldn't be using such words around you," she frowned, contrite.
Her daughter peered up at her with her large, velvety-brown eyes. "It's okay, Mommy. I understand why you use them." Mercedes smiled thanks to her daughter, who continued with a worried look on her face. "They knew it was coming though, didn't they? You sent them explanations, right? But..." Her eyes widened fractionally. "So that's what was in those brown envelopes. They refused them."
Mercedes knew enough to not be surprised by her daughter's knowledge. She knew too much about computers to NOT find out sooner or later. That's what happens when your only parent's a governmentally funded hacker, she thought regretfully. "Pretty much. Really it just got ignored by the new secretaries, who probably didn't realize who I was." If she were a cat she would have growled. "And now the entire country is royally screwed over. They probably won't become unscrewed over for awhile, either." She flashed her daughter a tired grin. "But hey, that's corporate America for ya. The NYSE goes down a couple of points and they quickly boost it up again, panicked, but when a real problem rears its ugly head, there goes federal support."
"And now your job, right?" Max wasn't foolish enough to believe otherwise. Hopefully something would come about to keep their financial position the same as it was before. Being kicked out of their penthouse wouldn't be the best thing in the world to happen.
"Yep. But hey, let's get to bed. There's nothing else I can do tonight, and tomorrow's going to be along day for both of us, what with the reprogramming of the computers needing to be done." Her eyes shone at her daughter.
Max's eyes brightened, and she dared to grin a little bit. "You mean... I get to help you?"
"Of course!" Mercedes laughed. "You even get to help me set up the security system program."
"All right!" She launched herself into her mother's arms, joyous at the thought of getting to help with the firewalls, and they both went off to bed. Not before a parting comment from mother to daughter, however.
"Just consider it your birthday present for next year."
"Dangit!"
