Nope, still don't own 'em.

Nameless

Friends were something you had outside Manticore's walls. Soldiers were either in your unit, or you worked with them sometimes. You never called them friend. Most of the X5s that Alec would have considered friends were dead. Most of his unit hadn't made it either. Their numbers had been whittled down for most of his life, some lost in battles, some at the inexpert hands of ordinary doctors who didn't understand what they had lying in front of them. Things used to treat ordinaries could be lethal to a transgenic if you didn't know what you were doing. The fire had just stolen the most of his unit at once. Alec couldn't remember what his last words to some of them had been. He hadn't needed to remember, so he didn't. Moments suddenly became important when someone was dead. He was lucky that 528 had had a lot of moments worth remembering.

The last thing 528 had said to him had been an insult, but she'd said it with a smile so he'd forgiven her immediately. She'd shaken her head and sounded exasperated. "Moron."

603 had given the order to move forward, all had seemed fine, it was a fairly standard mission, the ordinaries hadn't seen it coming and they'd surrounded pretty damn quick. Alec had said something about the soldier they'd come to retrieve, something about him being 528's type? It was definitely a stupid comment, one that would become his style on the outside.

Then the enemy had had back-up. It had always been a possibility and they were prepared for it. But someone had missed one guy. One guy, one shot and 528 was gone.

In all honesty Alec thought it would have hurt more.

One person's life boiled down to tiny pieces of time. Time as a name was taken by an anomaly. Patient as a rock and resembled one too. Tiny was out as well. Some idiot had named a giant of a transgenic Tiny. Alec didn't find it as amusing as some of the others. Some people should not be allowed to give people names. He'd voiced this opinion to Mole, who only agreed after a group had come in, for some reason they'd decided to name themselves after the characters in Star Trek. Spock had acquired a pet dog which was called Tribble.

528 probably would have mocked Star Trek, but watched it willingly. Biggs had worked with her for an extended deep cover once, he'd complained that she watched too much late night television. 528 had adored the insanity of Hogan's Heroes, although she disliked Colonel Hogan mostly on principle. But there was no way in hell he was naming her after anyone in that show, not civilian enough and he'd read too much about the real fate of POWs in some wars.

But he liked thinking of her that way, curled up in a cushioned chair, maybe in civilian clothes with barefeet, darkness outside the window, but 528's face lit in the changeable light from the TV. In his mind she'd always had a colour TV, and occasionally popcorn or chips to hurl at the screen during offensive scenes. Not that Alec had ever done that. Even though Biggs had been the one to tell him about it, Alec had never left a space for him in his mental picture. Maybe now he should. Alec spared his own chair a glance. 528 and Biggs could fight over the remote, he supposed. She would have liked the company.

Alec stared out the window at the rain again. He knew it wouldn't last forever, at least logically he did, but it felt like it would. He wouldn't mind if it did rain forever. The weather matched the way he felt about the world, caged inside and grey. He'd always considered freedom a relative concept. Sure, free to do whatever you wanted, including starve to death, or to be killed by other people who had the freedom to kill you if they felt like it. Liberty was a dumb name for a person, even if he knew both were dead.

528 had liked blowing stuff up, the intricacy and precision of building complex explosives had appealed to her. Sometimes she'd had the attention span of a three year old riding high on caffeine and sugar, but for explosions she'd had the patience of a saint. C4 would have fitted, if not for the similarity to a designation. Dynamite would have been good, long fused and slightly unpredictable. It could be shortened to Dyna, which was okay. But being called dynamite would take some living up to. 528 wouldn't have minded being Termina City's bomb maker, if they ever needed one. A transgenic called Splat was rumoured to be practising, just in case, which explained why a seemingly sturdy building had collapsed a week ago.

If 528 had picked her own name Alec would have bet that she'd change it several times before settling on one. A slightly traditional name like Kathy in the morning and then something like Scooby-Doo by lunch, especially on a Saturday. If she liked late night TV, Saturday morning cartoons would have been her style too. Alec wished he had the nerve to ask 603 if he thought 528 would have liked Scooby-Doo. But she was definitely not a Daphne. Definitely not movie Daphne. Alec grinned at the idea of someone trying to unmask a transhuman like they were the bad guy of the week on Scooby-Doo. They'd probably get shot or at the least beat up for it. It could be worth it to see the look on someone's face, but only if they got the reference.

Scooby might have been an alright name, if 528 had had a more obvious or silly sense of humour. 528's humour was dry, so dry that a desert seemed flooded by comparison.

Silly, almost slapstick humour had been left to 817. They'd thought he was joking when he'd fallen and lain so still. It took too long for someone to realise he wasn't teasing. 817 had treated life and death as a joke. Alec thought he would have liked his death if he'd been able to watch. No one else had.

They'd ridden in a different truck than 528 after she's been shot that day. "What do you think they'll do with them?" 603 had asked just loud enough for him to hear.

"Who?"

"The ones who die."

Until then the idea of what they did with the dead soldiers hadn't bothered them. Dead X5s just, went away. There was an area set so far back from the main compound that it was nearly in the woods with barcodes set into the ground like a graveyard, but none of them had ever believed anyone was buried there.

Ordinaries buried their dead, or cremated them to have in jars that gathered dust in relatives houses. Alec had seen mass graves where people had been hurriedly buried. Graves like that were the ones no one was meant to know about.

Ordinaries used to seem overly obsessive about dead bodies to him. He and the others had swapped stories of relatives demanding to know where their brother/father/cousin/sister/aunt was. The answer was simple once. They were dead, that's where they were. The corpse was for others to deal with.

Now it mattered. He knew what 603 had wanted to know. Would they cut her open and sew her organs back into other soldiers? Was there a mass grave of Manticore soldiers somewhere? Rachel had somewhere for people to go, even if he wasn't meant to, why didn't they? It might be an idea to bring up in the next meeting, or to try to get someone else to bring up. A memorial or something for everyone who ever died, escaping or otherwise. Max would go for the idea in a heartbeat, though where the hell they'd put it he didn't know. He wouldn't want to walk past it every day.

603 would like that. They had a list of everyone living in Terminal City, why not a list of those who didn't get a chance to? All that was left of them was remembered moments. If he and 603 died, who'd remember that 528 had ever lived at all? She deserved something tangible that proved that she did.

He'd rather that she'd been cremated than dumped in a mass grave, He hoped they'd put her among the trees. He'd told 603 that's what they'd do with her. It was probably a lie, but he liked the idea of spending eternity under trees. Or in a bar, either worked. No, could he have a TV? With cable? And a cushy chair. The place he'd imagined for Biggs and 528 would be nice. Eternity with friends and TV.

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