Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show 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.).

"Hey, buddy," Alec said as he walked up to Zane two nights later at Zane and Krit's garage. "I hope I made it in before closing time."

"Yeah, by about five seconds," Zane said. "What did you bring in for me today? The Ducati, the convertible, or Brin's car?"

"The Ducati," Alec said. He pointed to the bike. "It doesn't sound quite right when I go to change gears. I noticed it last night when I went out for a ride."

"Gotcha," Zane said. "We won't be able to start work on it before closing time, but I'll put it in right now." He waved Alec towards a desk and then walked behind it and brought out a form and a pen and slid it over to Alec. "Fill this out. Do you need a ride back to your place?"

"No, but thanks for the offer," Alec said. "I brought the bike in my car so I can drive that back to Brin's and my place." He quickly filled the form out and handed it back to Zane, who began to enter the information into a computer. "This place seems to be doing really well. There are quite a few sweet vehicles here."

"Oh yeah," Zane said. "I'm jealous of some of our clients." He finished entering the information and walked with Alec over to where Alec had left his motorcycle. Zane wheeled the bike over to a work area and leaned it against a wall. He took a tag off of a shelf, quickly wrote some information on it, and hung the tag on the bike. "There you go. We'll get to work on it first thing in the morning." Something caught his eye. "Speaking of which…" He turned to face the girl that was still working on the engine of a black convertible. "Hey, Fixit, time to clock out and go home."

She looked up and blushed. "Sorry, Zane." Fixit noticed Alec standing next to Zane and unconsciously straightened her posture. "Hello, sir."

"It's been awhile since that was necessary," Alec said, amused. "Relax."

"Hard to do around my—well, I should say former commanding officer," Fixit said. She sounded slightly disgusted. Zane gave Alec a questioning look.

"She was in Rob's unit," Alec explained. "She wasn't exactly too fond of him, either."

"That's an understatement," Fixit said. "The only decent thing that I can say about him as a person especially after what happened with Jeff this past summer is that at least he left me relatively alone after he tried to hook up with me right before Manticore burned down."

"He claimed to be hung up on Becky and he still tried to get with you?" Alec said, raising an eyebrow.

"That's the Rob that we all know and love to despise," Fixit reminded him.

"Good point," Alec said.

"Agreed," Zane said. "In any case, Fixit, I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Gotcha," Fixit said. She put her tools away and punched out and left.

"She's one of the best workers here," Zane said. "She's practically a surgeon when it comes to engines."

"Speaking of which, where is the rest of the motley crew that you've got working here?" Alec asked.

"At home, I assume," Zane said. "Rena and Syl left the offices hours ago and today was Krit's day off. All of the other mechanics were out of here by half an hour ago." He stretched his arms. "Nothing like a good long day of working on cars and bikes to make you feel satisfied."

"Whatever floats your boat," Alec agreed. He sighed. "I wouldn't mind something to take my mind of what's going on right now."

"About the murder in Canada?" Zane guessed. "That's just plain sick. I can't believe that one of us would be that stupid to…" He trailed off and winced. "Oh yeah."

Alec looked at him sympathetically, his eyes holding a similar look of pain. "Yeah."

"What Ben did was completely different in a way," Zane said. "From what I was told, he hadn't been anything but cold and methodical in how he'd murdered those people. Whichever one of us transgenics that did this was a total one-eighty. Losing it was written all over the body. What saddens me the most about Ben's situation is that he was at the point-of-no-return when Max had caught up to him. I can only hope that whoever did this isn't at that same point for his or herself, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope over that one."

"I know," Alec said grimly. "We can just cross our fingers and hope that this doesn't turn out to be an absolute worst-case scenario."

Zane nodded. "Yeah." He went over to one wall and pressed a button and the door to the garage closed. He made sure that it was locked before he went over to the customer entrance doors and locked those as well. He turned back to Alec and tried to smile. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty hungry."

"Me too," he said. "Brin and I are only planning on having TV dinners tonight, but you and Rena are still more than welcome to join us if you want. I know that Brin wouldn't mind."

"Thanks," Zane said. "I'll ask Rena when I get back to our place and I'll call you and let you know then."

"Cool," Alec said. His cell phone rang and he looked at the number on the caller I.D. before he flipped it open and answered it. "Talk to me, Dix."

"Where are you?" Dix asked.

"I'm over at Zane and Krit's shop," Alec said. "Zane and I were just about to leave. Why?"

"We've got the final results back from the DNA tests on the samples that were sent over from Canada," Dix said. He hesitated. "We came up with a match from the Manticore database. We need you, and I guess Zane if he wants to be there, back to Terminal City immediately."

Alec frowned and tried not to panic. Something's wrong. Dix isn't usually this evasive with us. "Give it to me, Dix."

"Okay, Alec," Dix said. He took a deep breath. "The killer is Brandi."

TBC