Disclaimer: All of the characters that appeared on the TV show Dark Angel (Max, Zack, Logan, etc.) belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Becky/X6-405, etc.).
Notes: More spoiler-ish stuff for "Proof of Purchase."
"I hope he hasn't left yet," Becky whispered to Max as they waited outside of the warehouse.
Max shook her head. "He hasn't. Logan would have called us to let us know if he did."
"You need this?" Becky asked, offering Max her pistol.
"I don't do guns, remember?" Max said.
"I know, sorry," Becky said. "Thought I'd ask."
"I appreciate the concern," Max said. "See or hear anybody in the building?"
Becky narrowed her eyes and zoomed in on the warehouse. "I can't get a visual on anybody. I can hear some voices, but we're too far away for me to distinguish them." She blinked and turned back to Max. "Just from what I can see here, the warehouse seems to be one floor. If there's a cat walk or an alcove, it's on the opposite side of the building from where we are."
Max nodded. "There's no entrance here, so no guards. If we have to go in, we're gonna need to climb to get through one of those windows. Those drainpipes don't look too steady, though. Got any ideas?"
"Yeah," Becky said. "On my last mission, my first and only solo, I had to get into a warehouse with a similar setup. I ended up—" She abruptly stopped. "He's coming out."
Max picked up the sound of footsteps a short moment later. "Got him. Let me handle him. Stay back in case I need you."
"Got it," Becky said. She drew her gun and waited patiently for Max.
"You've been up to something, Alec," Max said. "Care to tell me what's going on?"
Alec jumped. "Geez, Max. You scared me."
"Sure. Like you probably scared Becky when she saw her younger brother bleeding and in pain on that sidewalk by that hospital," Max said.
"That guy was in her unit? Crap," Alec said.
"That doesn't matter," Max said. "What the hell is going on?"
"I'm in trouble," Alec said.
"Figures," Max said.
"Real trouble, Max," Alec said. "I got caught by the NSA agent in charge of hunting us down. I was making money in some cage fights and they found out about it and caught me."
"Real bright," Max said. "Alec, what were you thinking? It was underground so you'd be okay? You should have known that they would have been looking for us in places like that. I missed out on how many years of training and I knew that." She sighed. "Aside from that, why the hell did you agree to help these bastards?"
"I'm sorry that I wanted to live, okay?" Alec said. "What do you want me to say, Max, that I'm sorry I must still be enough of a sheep to do what I'm told? I wasn't going to do what they wanted me to do Max."
"Kill other transgenics and cut off their barcodes so this prick would have proof?" Max said.
"How did you find out that I killed the others?" Alec asked.
"I'll tell you later," Max said. "Just finish the story."
"I was trying to play them. I thought that if I told them 'okay, I'll go out and kill a couple of fellow transgenics' that they'd let me go and I could just skip town and go hide somewhere," Alec said. "Unfortunately, these guys weren't stupid. They implanted an explosive device in my neck close enough to my brain stem that when it blows...anyway, I killed the first two, but then the next one I came across was Becky's brother. I just—it's one thing when you have to kill something that gave you nightmares when you were a kid, you know? It was almost cathartic in a sick way. But when I saw him, I almost saw myself. Even though I didn't know who his commanding officer was when I ran into him, I never would have killed him."
"Good thing you didn't," Max said. "I've gotten to know Becky pretty well over the last week and if you had killed him and she'd found out, she would have killed you before you could blink."
"I knew White—that's the agent's name—would still want to see a barcode, so I convinced Becky's brother that he was the one in trouble so he would let me cut it off of him," Alec continued. "I think I fooled White, but he's still not happy enough. He wants me to show him proof that I've killed at least five transgenics total by midnight tonight, or the device they implanted will blow, they set it to run on a timer, and if I don't get at least one more in the next hour, he's gonna kill the two kids he's holding to be shipped off to be cut up." He shook his head. "Max, I'm sorry. I'm running out of time. I need to slice off your barcode."
"Are you crazy?" Max said. "No way. There's got to be another way we can get you out of this situation."
"There isn't," Alec said. "I would have found it by now. I need your barcode."
"No," Max said.
"I wish I didn't have to do this," Alec said, taking his gun out of his pocket and leveling it at Max, only to jump in shock as the gun was shot from his hand.
"Then don't," Becky said coldly. "Max, go inside and take care of this agent guy. It's my turn to deal with Alec."
"Got it," Max said, running towards the building.
"Thank you for not killing my brother," Becky said. "Max was right, that's the only thing keeping me from killing your sorry ass right now."
"I'm desperate," Alec said, picking up his gun and turning it on Becky. "I need two more barcodes by midnight tonight."
"I heard you the first time," Becky said, redrawing her own gun and pointing it right at Alec. "Nice situation we got here. I'm a faster shot, but it's not gonna matter too much at this close range." She paused. "Did you see the explosive before they implanted it?"
"What?" Alec repeated, confused. He lowered his gun.
"Did you see the explosive?" Becky repeated, not lowering her gun.
"Yeah, it was one of those new Japanese models," Alec said. "The silver ones that are an almost perfect ball shape, not like the European-made ones that are oval shaped. Why?"
"This is why," Becky said. In the blink of an eye, she grabbed Alec with her free hand and shoved him onto the ground and got down next to him, putting her ear against his neck near the base of his head.
"What the hell are you doing?" Alec said.
"Just shut up," Becky said. She closed her eyes in concentration for a few moments before she got up again and held her hand out to Alec to help him up. "It's a dud. You're okay."
"Excuse me? Run that by me again?" Alec said.
"Those new devices might be the best available right now, but they make a distinct clicking noise when they're armed," Becky said. "It's incredibly low, though. The sound is low enough to be outside of an X5's hearing range so they wouldn't know if it was armed or even if it had been implanted if the implantation had occurred while the X5 was unconscious, but X8s and those of us X6s who's abilities are up at that level can hear them if they listen closely enough. They taught us to be able to listen for them. White was the one who was playing you. You were in the clear the whole time."
Alec's jaw dropped. "Son-of-a-bitch. I just killed two anomalies for no reason..."
"In your defense, you had no clue that White was playing you," Becky said. "You couldn't have known."
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about that and I'm sorry I hurt your brother," Alec said.
Becky nodded. "I know." She turned back towards the warehouse. "I just hope that Max doesn't get caught in there."
TBC