Timebomb Central
By Rowe
Disclaimer: Unfortunately Dark Angel and its characters (including Alec sob..) remain the property of Fox and James Cameron.
A big thankyou to the lovely Kiwi for her beta job.
Chapter 1: Fear of the unknown
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Mole didn't like it that once again he was to be the bearer of bad news. As their leaders, Max and Alec would need to be informed of the latest news when they got in. It hadn't been the first and it certainly didn't look like it would be the last given the pattern that had been established over the past few weeks. This was the tenth unexplained death within TC's walls. The mystery just continued to grow and take on a life of its own.
The others in headquarters were nervous, the fear was coming off them all in waves. Edgy glances were being thrown over shoulders. People were definitely scared. Rumours were beginning to circulate. All wild extrapolations on the truth and fuelled by paranoia. Was it a serial killer? Was it something more sinister? It was the lack of an apparent enemy that was terrifying these highly trained soldiers so much. There was nothing they could face and defend against. As sketchy information filtered down amongst them it made them even more worried. What were their leaders keeping from them? The atmosphere was becoming increasingly more tense. It was even starting to effect the daily running of Terminal City as small fights broke out over insignificant disagreements.
So far all the victims had been X's but that didn't mean anyone was safe. Mole could understand the fear he could see in his comrades' faces. He felt it himself. Deep in his mind he was worried as to whether this was some insidious form of psychological warfare. It was only going to escalate further unless they solved what was going on and quickly. Otherwise White would become the least of their problems, they would become their own worst enemy.
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As Max entered the room she could feel that all eyes were on her. Tempted to turn tail and leave again, instead she strode towards the table in the centre of the room where Mole, Dix and Joshua stood huddled. Their body language spoke volumes. Maybe she shouldn't have bothered getting out of bed, it obviously wasn't going to be a pleasant day.
Mole tensed as Max approached. He contemplated the wisdom of waiting for Alec to show up before telling her of the latest victim. Max wasn't a patient person. With some reservation he decided to let her know straight off. Mole chomped hard on his cigar butt, even that wasn't soothing his nerves these days.
"There's been another one. The body was found in an abandoned warehouse near the perimeter. Single shot, same M.O." He succinctly reported to her the facts, no point in sugar coating them for her. "As far as we can tell, death occurred in the last 24-48 hours." Max's face became even more grim than usual as he relayed to the news.
Another body, another death, within the walls of their so-called sanctuary from the hostile world. To Max it was quickly beginning to resemble a prison. One where someone, or something, appeared to be stalking them, taking them out one by one.
"Any signs of a struggle?" She needed to find some clue for her mind to analyse, to allow it to deal with these deaths. At the shaking of Mole's head her shoulders slumped. That was the most confusing aspect of all these recent fatalities- the evidence suggested that only the victim was present. Manticore didn't go though all the trouble to make its soldiers just to allow them to self-destruct. Their survival instincts alone were strong enough to reduce the risk, but thorough training had been carried out to make sure that it would not be an option. So what was happening here? The pieces of the puzzles just kept being tantalisingly out of reach. She just wished that Alec would hurry up and get here so they could something, anything, to at least feel they were dealing with this with some authority. He had been elusive all week.
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He looked a mess. He registered the fact and then dismissed it as irrelevant. No one was going to see him anyway. He'd make sure of that. Dreams had started to invade his sleep in this past week. No, not dreams, nightmares really. Each had concluded with his own death. To say that this had been unsettling was an understatement. It had to have been triggered by what had been going on in Terminal City but it rattled him no less. Even trying to still his mind with this logical explanation had done nothing to reduce his stress levels. Sleep was not a comfort now, it was becoming something to allow to happen only out of necessity. Fine for someone given shark DNA in their cocktail, like Max, but he needed his beauty sleep to be able to keep operating at optimum levels. Well to be able to keep operating at all.
Pacing back and forth in his apartment he was beginning to feel like a caged animal. The worst part was the cage was in his own mind. Now, that was somewhere that it was not so simple to pick the lock and escape from. He had even contemplated knocking himself unconscious to get peace for a little while. Losing sleep this past week for fear of dropping over into some mental abyss was really taking its toll. Even alcohol had proven useless, in fact only enhancing the images further. The vividness of these had woke him screaming already and their intensity only seemed to be increasing.
He was now that on edge that he was no good to anyone, especially Max. His self imposed house arrest was because he knew that he was not in a fit mental state to deal with her confusing angst driven behaviour with any patience. He was likely to snap and do something violent. Especially to Logan who hadn't taken the hint and left when it had started to turn nasty. So instead he avoided them and paced endlessly in his own room. Vainly he had hopes of exhausting himself enough that when sleep overcame him it would be dreamless, allowing him to escape the demons currently haunting him in his own head.
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As Logan whirred into T.C. headquarters he could feel the hostility towards his presence. The level had been slowly rising since this new crisis had begun. He got it, he wasn't stupid. He was an outsider. Spotting Max, he moved over to where she stood with the others to update her on his research. Logan really didn't want to tell them what his research had revealed. It implied that things were far bigger and more dire than they had imagined. His sources had been able to supply him with details that rather than making the situation clearer, would be inclined to cloud it in more confusion. Information from other cities and even Canada had been found. Most were coroner's reports, some were just hearsay. The barcode tattoos were the common factor, along with a single gunshot wound. Clean and efficient. It sounded like a hitman to him.
Logan's approach forced Max to turn around. She was grateful for his help, and for him risking his health to stay in the toxic dangers. He always seemed to be able to help them with information that their informant net, albeit a fledgling one, was unable to unearth. Unfortunately for their relationship, unlike when she had been a lone transgenic loose in Seattle, she was now amongst her own people. She no longer felt the same comfort in his presence that she had felt prior to revisiting Manticore. It had reminded of what she was, and that was most certainly not human. He couldn't understand, not really, what it felt like to be hunted for who you were. Now, this latest spate of deaths was making his presence awkward as many objected to his presence. They were closing ranks, a good survival instinct. Trying to pin a smile on her face she greeted him. He went into detail on the stack of reports he handed her. She shuffled through them, looking at the photos as he spoke. She was surprised at the number of seemingly related deaths all over the US and even up north, some of the faces even looked familiar to her. As she came to the bottom of the pile she froze. The blue face in the photo, a roughly taken coroner's picture, was her own.