A/N: Thanks to MoonAngel23 and X5898 for reviewing! I hope to see even more new names for this chapter. One little note about this chapter. The Priestess from the show (involved with the Conclave) was never given a name, so I named her Marian, just so nobody gets confused about who Marian is. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel. It was the genus work of James Cameron and therefore not mine.
Chapter 1
Luke ran over to the television and hastily pushed the button to turn it on. A commercial for laundry detergent showed some gangsters trying to clean the blood stains out of their white shirts appeared. "What channel? What channel?"
"Try any damn channel," Mole answered irritably through the cigar that rested between his lips. Hardly any of them knew what he sounded like when he spoke without it. "It's got to be on all of them." In response, Luke began pushing through the channel up button continuously, but without paying any real attention to the screen.
"There," Max said, pointing to the screen as one of the local news stations caught her eye. "Stop there."
"I have just been informed that the President is ready to make a statement." All eyes, whether they were located deep in the skull with horizontal eyelids, catlike, deformed, or even just two normal spherical eyes, all of them had their vision fixed on one of the multiple televisions found within Terminal City.
At the reporter's words, the reporter and the news station faded and there stood President Randolph Jacob Glade III in his tailored navy suit accompanied with a white shirt and a light blue tie. On the lapel of the suit a miniature American flag rested assertively and visibly. President Glade himself came from a very political family. None of the other members of his family had succeeded in reaching the position of President of the United States, but his grandfather came close in the election of 2008.
President Glade had the look of a politician. His hair held grey roots despite the brown in most of his tips. The wrinkles in his face came down and gave the appearance that his face was melting so that extra flesh created hallows on the right and left sides of the space between his lips and chin. For a man of fifty-eight, he looked a lot older, despite having a fit physique, but it seemed like the aftermath of the pulse did that to people.
He stood at a wooden podium. The background behind him was a giant navy blue curtain with the seal of the United States on it. Old Glory rested in the corner of the stage to his right, rustling softly with the movement and fury of all the reporters in the room. White flashes bounced off his suit and made the flag pin on his jacket sparkle when it caught one of the flashes just right. A body guard stood clad in black suits on either side of the stage, but could only be seen briefly in the few quick moments it took the camera man to focus and zoom in on the President so that only to top half of the podium and his body were showing. He cleared his throat and all at once, what little noise the audience made ceased to be heard.
"My fellow Americans," he began his voice low and scratchy. "The reason my administration and I felt it necessary to call this press conference is because we've been deceived." He paused and licked his lips.
"Earlier this year, it came to the attention of this administration that a facility stationed in Gillette, Wyoming under the pretence as a V.A. Hospital was actually conducting genetic research on humans. The facility, known as Manticore, worked to create soldiers to defend our country; soldiers that exhibited various specialized abilities because of their genetics. Seven months ago, this facility was compromised, and an unknown number of these transgenics managed to escape before Manticore burnt to the ground.
"Some of you have heard about Senator James McKinley's investigation of Manticore and the resulting transgenics, as well as the testimony of Special Agent Ames White which has brought accusations against this administration for knowingly diverting funds towards genetic research and the ultimate recovery of that research."
President Glade's eyes hardened and his hand gestures became more adamant. "Let me tell you here and now that this administration did not knowingly divert funds to supplement or cover up Manticore. An investigation is already underway to discover and prosecute any of those involved whether they are currently working to conceal or have concealed any information relating to Manticore." Following that statement the defensive look he portrayed in his features fell away to a sort of tense weariness.
"Late last night, I received a report from the Governor of Seattle, Washington. He informed me that at least four transgenics were involved in a hostage situation before taking refuge in downtown Seattle. No one was injured during that time."
"No one was injured, my ass," Mole broke in. "None of their kind was injured, but no one cares about us." Max looked at Mole sadly in a memory of Cece before turning back to the television.
"The exact number of transgenics in this facility is unknown, but it's estimated in the hundreds. The federal government will be sending infantries of the National Guard to assist in the peaceful surrender of those transgenics involved in the hostage situation. We do not want a war, but we will fight if we can't talk Thank you."
"Mr. President!" the urgent cries came out almost simultaneously, but one question seemed to permeate above them all.
"Mr. President, what is your plan if negotiations fail?" The President looked at the man with short blond hair, but did not say a word as he walked off the stage. Luke turned off the television as soon as the President disappeared off-stage.
"I dunno what you thought making a stand was, but this is war," Mole said gesturing at the blank television. "You don't bring in the National Guard just for peace."
"They said they want to talk, we can't give up hope yet," Max argued.
Mole looked at Max with disbelief. "What are you going to do? Walk into the street just so you can talk to them? They'll shoot you ten times before you even reach the perimeter."
"No one's going anywhere," Max insisted, her voice held a note of finality. She and Mole stared at each other for a moment before Alec stepped in.
"Alright people, back to business, fixing and sorting things or whatever." As the other transgenics began to disperse he made his way to Max. Original Cindy and Sketchy were standing with her.
"Thanks," Max said tiredly.
"Hey, no problem, but outta curiosity, you do have a plan, right? Because you are leading all these—" Alec watched as a transgenic with webbed feet and hands walked by, it's eyes on the side of its head "things to greener pastures." The look of thanks on Max's face immediately turned to irritation.
"I'll take care of this, boo," Original Cindy said to Max, stepping in front of her friend to confront Alec. "What's goin' on in my girl's head ain't fo your ears to hear. She's saved your ass enough times fo you to trust her judgment. So maybe you sit your white ass down and find somethin' to keep your hands busy so you don't break anything."
"Okay, okay," Alec said putting his hands up in surrender. "I get the picture. Max is the Queen." He turned to Max. "Jeez, see if I help you again."
Max shrugged. "If you could help me out without reminding me of what I already know, we might be able to work something out."
"Well, while you're working stuff out, you might want to consider the consequences of them staying here," he said gesturing to Sketchy and Original Cindy.
"What's he talkin' 'bout?" Original Cindy asked placing a hand on her hip as Alec walked away. "Original Cindy's not about to leave you to fight this bitch all on your own."
"I second that," Sketchy agreed as he wiped the lens of his camera with the sleeve of his shirt. "Those people out there will be dying for the inside scoop once this is all over. Hey, ow!" Sketchy pulled away from the sharp elbow Original Cindy just rammed into his side and looked at her in disbelief.
"Hey, this could be an advantage for you, too, Max. Think about it," Sketchy said dreamily as he waved his hand in the air as if he could touch the headline to his latest story idea. "I could call it, The Truth Behind the Soldier or Inside the Transgenics Genes: Friend or Foe?"
Max gave Sketchy an irritated stare. "None of them want to hear what we have to say. I don't know how this is going to go down, but I don't want anyone mistaking either of you for one of us."
"And how do you suppose to keep us outta harms way?" Original Cindy asked with an eyebrow raised. "We can't just walk out and face twenty guns pointed at all our vital organs. Besides, if we left you what would we do? Go back to Jam Pony while my sista girl is trying to bring peace to this broken world? Hell no. Original Cindy is in this till the end."
Max smiled fondly at Original Cindy who smiled back before turning her attention back to Sketchy. "What about you, fool?"
Sketchy looked back and forth between Original Cindy and Max. "Well, as appealing as it is to look death in the face, I figure that as a reporter," Sketchy's eyes flickered over to Original Cindy, "and a friend, passing up an opportunity like this would most certainly have dire consequences."
"Words spoken like a true idiot," Original said with a smile. "And a straight up friend."
1111
"Failure seems to follow you, Ames," Marian said into the phone. "The Conclave sends you the Phalanx to get rid of one girl and you let her slip out of our hands again."
"With all due respect to the Conclave, if you have a better way of taking care of her, I'd like to hear it," White argued. "The matter is being handled."
"The Conclave has given you its last resort," Marian explained. "If you don't take care of 452 soon—"
"Are you threatening me?" White demanded. He had never liked the priestess very much, but as a sister, he couldn't help but tolerate her, but these threats went too far.
"I don't need to explain to you the urgency with which this matter needs to be regarded."
"I know what's at risk. I have a plan that will take care of 452 and the rest of those transgenics all at the same time."
"I'm glad to hear that, Ames, but I'll be happier when I see it," Marian said pointedly. "Fe'nos tol."
"Fe'nos tol."
1111
"Bugle, do you have to play such a depressing song?" Fixit asked without looking up from the pieces of television she had spread out on the floor in front of her.
Bugle turned away from the front of the window he liked to look out when he played. Streams of water systematically formed and separated into individual dots. Looking past the window, the rain fell in straight glistening sheets like large thin shimmering spider web curtains.
Bugle pulled the horn away from his mouth, his fingers resting on the tops of the valves as if in mid-note. "It's raining outside. I'm playing to the mood."
"What about that new song you were working on?" Fixit suggested distractedly. "Why don't you play that?"
Bugle shook his head, his brown hair being ruffled slightly as he did so. "That song is a happy tune. I don't feel like playing that right now." The backdoor slammed the sound echoing through the house.
"Can someone help me with these?" Bullet said, struggling with a stack of logs in his hands. His blond hair held dew drops of rain that slid down his face because the hood of his navy blue rain jacket had fallen, leaving his head unprotected. Before Fixit or Bugle could make any effort to help him, the logs fell from his hand and spread out over the floor.
"Watch it!" Fixit cried as she watched one of the logs coming close to landing on one of the circuit boards to the television.
"Thanks for the help," Bullet said sarcastically as he bent down to pick the logs up. He looked over at Fixit. "Any closer to fixing that thing?"
"I'm almost done," Fixit said. "I just got to put it back together and I think we'll be in business. Those tubes Ralph picked up at work were a life saver."
Since the five of them arrived in Canada, three if them managed to find jobs. Fixit worked at a car mechanics shop in District 13, where the manager there didn't ask questions of how such a young girl knew her way around a car, but rather accepted her knowledge with the relief of having an educated hand for his short-staffed garage.
Ralph worked at a restaurant in District 11. It really was a sweet deal for sometimes wrong orders or excess foods allowed Ralph to sneak pork, chicken, and occasionally some steaks home for the rest of them. She managed to find the television tubes from a regular who worked in an electronics shop.
Zero succeeded in finding the most advantageous job for their situation out of all of them. Being the oldest, Zero managed to earn the respect of a local news reporter while making a delivery as a bike messenger to the news station. Accidentally, his book bag had spilt while waiting for a signature, knocking the copies of some papers from Washington State. Since their escape into Canada, Zero made it a point to keep up on news in the states. He subscribed to a Washington paper who delivered to a deposit box he'd set up specifically for that purpose under a false name.
A reporter, Jamie Byers, assisted Zero in picking up the papers. Under the assumption that Zero had an interest in being a reporter due to his collection of papers, Zero played along and soon found himself with a job as a Byers's personal secretary. The job meant that Zero got to ride into various districts to pick up information from sources with a district pass that got him all around the city.
Before Zero acquired the pass the five of them kept residence in a communal warehouse in District 15. Bums, thieves, muggers, and many others who couldn't afford a place for keeps all stayed in this one large open room, sleeping half awake with a hand on what few possessions they owned. About a week after obtaining the job, Zero spotted this house on the way back from a meet with a source. It looked abandoned and further investigation proved it was, but it seemed for good reason. The house desperately needed patches in the roof, replacement windows for the many broken ones, a new front porch because the old one was rotted through. They used the back door as their main entrance. The kitchen and bathrooms required new fixings for the plumbing and many steps leading to the upstairs were questionable.
Bullet and Bugle took to fixing and cleaning up things around the house during the day. With the needed pieces obtained in what ever ways they could, Bugle and Bullet slowly patched up the roof, replaced the plumbing, and worked on increasing the supports for the stairs. The house actually seemed homier with the touches Ralph and Fixit added to the atmosphere. Fixit managed to score some rows of seats from cars being disassembled for parts, and they made up the majority of the furniture in the living room. A moldy old couch came with the house, but was unusable until Ralph washed the smell out of the cushions and managed to find some cloth table cloths at work to cover the couch with.
"Hey, kids," Zero said coming into the house, a big brown bag of groceries in his hand. Ralph came in behind him with another bag which they set on the kitchen counter. Both of them looked thoroughly wet, and deep brown spots in the brown bags showed the bags had suffered significantly from the rain as well.
"Hey, Zero. Anything new at work?" Bullet asked as he placed the wood in a stack next to the fireplace. He grabbed a few pieces of wood and threw them in the fireplace.
"Nah, worked inside with paperwork mostly, since it was raining," Zero explained as he and Ralph unpacked the groceries. Bullet nodded as he rolled up some old pieces of newspaper and stuck them under the wood.
"Alright, I think I got it," Fixit announced as she placed the back of the television on. Surprisingly, the television had also been left in the house, but like everything else it needed extensive repair and electronic parts were scarce and expensive.
"Awesome, Fixit," Zero praised as he threw the paper bags on the fire Bullet had just lit. He collapsed in one of the gray cloth car seats and waited as Fixit plugged in the television. The screen turned on fuzzy and slightly snowy. Fixit fooled around with knobs and the fuzziness slowly dissipated as the local news station came into view.
"Yes!" Ralph shouted in excitement. "Way to go, Fixit! Turn it up!" Fixit roamed her fingers easily across the buttons and pushed the volume up button rapidly several times as the reporter's voice filled the room.
Zero listened for a few minutes, but got bored as the highlight of their broadcast seemed to be the weather. He reached into his book bag and pulled out several Washington newspapers. Work kept him busy lately, so he hadn't been able to find the time to pick up the papers in a couple of days. He scanned the headlines and front pages of all the major sections, without seeing anything of interest till he reached today's paper. Siege on Transgenics after Hostage Situation: Genetically Enhanced Killing Machines Fighting for Domination. The article on the front page of the paper took up the whole page above the crease. Two pictures went along with the article. One picture showed a hand drawing of a man with the face of a dog, with the caption, "Many transgenics have combined DNA. This half-dog half-man creature attacked several Seattle police officers four months ago." The other picture he recognized as Max. She stood on one of the Police hover drones and seemed to be flying with some control towards a building. The caption read, "As soldiers trained to kill, just as many transgenics have been made to look like humans. Aside from their superhuman fighting abilities, they are distinguished by a barcode located on the back of their neck."
"Guys?" Zero said cautiously, not looking up from the paper, but none of them paid attention to him. It was then that the newscaster's words began to register in his brain. When he heard the word "transgenics" he looked up. Camera footage was being shown from a helicopter. They could see a large dilapidated warehouse with a fence around it, only to be further surrounded by police cars. They listened as the reporter told them all about the transgenics taking hostages and the events that led to the siege.
"We got to help them!" Ralph cried as they went to a commercial.
"Are you crazy?" Bullet asked. "Did you not see all those cops? How do you expect to get past them? Not to mention the fact that if this is all over our news then White has to have people crawling all over the place!"
"Don't you get it?" Ralph scoffed. "That building is filled with people just like us; people who have been running for their lives and struggling for some sort of normalcy, some sort of acceptance into a society that doesn't want them. What ever happens there is going to determine the state of our existence for a while."
"Even still, we're probably not even going to be able to get near Sector 7, let alone get into any other Sector without a pass," Bullet pointed out.
"We'll worry about that we went get there," Ralph insisted.
"We can't go in there without a plan!"
"The plan is to go to Seattle."
"And hope they have someone handing out Sector passes to transgenics at the border?"
"That's enough!" Zero said stepping in. "Fighting isn't going to solve anything." Zero paused for a minute staring at the TV in blank thought. "Ralph has a point. This is as much their battle as it is ours. After everything Max did for us, I think we owe her the courtesy of our help, but the fact is this is bigger than her. For the longest time it's only White we had to worry about. If this thing goes bad, everyone in the world is going to know we exist and can be looking to hunt us down. I don't want to live that way. As a unit I think we should go to Seattle together, but this isn't Manticore," Zero said looking at Bullet. "If this is a battle you don't want to fight, then stand down, but don't stop others from making their choice, or vice versa," Zero said to Ralph.
The room turned silent with the exception to the television that no one was paying any attention to.
"I'm in," Ralph stated with a smile at Zero.
"Me too," Fixit agreed.
"Me too," Bugle said his voice high and childlike amongst the others.
Bullet looked at Bugle in surprise and at the others with uncertainty. He thought for a moment and with a sudden realization of what was really at hand, he spoke up too. "I'm in, too."
"We'll have some dinner, get a few hours of sleep and then make our way south," Zero said conclusively. Seconds later, the five of them divided up housework and went through the motions of cooking dinner knowing that it would be their last night in the comforts of their house for awhile for the future remained uncertain with no assurances that any or all of them would ever return.