Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Jondy, 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 (Elle/X5-164, etc.).
Chapter 37: Tinga (X5-656)
I sat down on my bunk after the lights went out, just enjoying a few moments of peace before I was going to get ready for bed. I need a little bit of peace and quiet after the end of yet another hectic day here. Suddenly, I sat straight up and then smiled when I heard footsteps moving stealthily down the hall and grinned when they stopped in front of my cell. I got up and went over to my cell door, opened it, and pulled Biggs inside. "Hey there, sweetie." I closed the door behind us.
"Hi, gorgeous," Biggs said. He smiled at me. "I just thought that I would stop by and see how my favorite woman is doing."
"I'm doing just fine," I said. "And now that you're here, I'm even better." Biggs leaned his head down and kissed me. I returned the kiss and wrapped my arms around his neck. I felt tingles—no pun intended—from head to toe. His lips are magic, I swear. I couldn't help pouting when we finally broke the kiss.
"Want more?" Biggs teased.
"Now, that is a silly question, young man," I replied in the same tone of voice. I smiled. "Of course I do." I pulled Biggs' head down to mine and kissed him. What was it about him that made me feel this way? We'd only been 'dating' since the facilities had been consolidated three weeks ago, though we had that week or so last year for the Poland mission. It was almost crazy, how I felt about Biggs. When I kissed him, nothing seemed to matter. I could ignore anything and everything from Krit snoring in the cell next door to the soft sounds of my other siblings as they left their cells to do who-knows-what. However, I couldn't quite ignore the knock on the door and Biggs and I reluctantly separated. "Who is it?"
"It's me," Max said. "I'm sorry to interrupt you guys, but Parker and Xavier finally have the database ready for us to look at. We're meeting in the third floor C wing rec room to look at it."
"Oh, good," I said. "Give us a few moments." I shrugged a little as I turned my head to face Biggs. "Sorry about that."
"No problem," Biggs said. "I'll grab Alec and Sasha and we'll meet you there in a few." He gave me one more kiss and he left my cell. I smiled, put my boots back on, left the cell as well, and shut the door behind me. I quietly followed my brothers and sisters to the rec room in question and we sat down in the couches or on the floor as Parker took off the backpack that he had been carrying and took out a laptop and a CD. A few moments later, the kids as well as Biggs, Alec, and Sasha entered the room.
"I'm sorry that I took an extra day to show this to you guys," Parker apologized as he turned on the laptop. "But Xavier and I wanted to re-encrypt the data with our own codes as a precaution."
"I'm sure that it'll be worth waiting the three days," Zack said.
"Hurry it up, already," Krit complained.
"Patience, young grasshopper," Parker said. He grinned and I groaned to myself. Why does he have to bait Krit like that? "Do you want to wait another couple of days? I'm sure that Xavier and I can fine-tune our encryption."
"Parker, don't tease," Becky said.
Parker looked amused and he gave Becky a mock salute. "Yes, ma'am." Xavier handed him the CD and Parker loaded it into the laptop. He quickly typed in a password at the prompt and smiled once more. "We are in, ladies and gentlemen. Who should we dig up dirt on first?"
"If we're talking about first…" Ben trailed off and grinned wickedly at Zack. "…then I think that we should start with Zack."
"But of course," Parker said. He clicked a few times and grinned. "Here we go. Doesn't Zack look all nice and handsome and ready to kill somebody in his latest mug shot?" We all laughed except for Zack, who was predictably glaring at Parker. "Thank you. You'll be happy to know that your birthday is on September 25th, Zack. We know that…we know that…" All of a sudden, Parker started to laugh hysterically, followed by most of the others who had a good enough angle to see what was on the laptop's screen. "Oh man, I should have known! How obvious was this?"
"How obvious was what?" Zack asked. He was also not sitting at a good angle.
"Nothing," Zane said innocently. He looked at Zack and then at Becky, who was next to Zack, and started laughing again.
Becky looked really annoyed. "If one of you doesn't start explaining what the hell is so funny, I'm going to start ripping some heads off of necks. Am I making myself clear?"
"As crystal," Parker said. He began to read off of Zack's file again. "'Siblings: 330768235405.' Will that do?"
My jaw dropped. Becky was Zack's younger sister? I really should have seen that one coming. There was a physical resemblance, particularly around the eyes, but also how they acted and thought was remarkably similar. It was amazing. I turned to look at Zack and Becky, who were staring at each other and smiling a little. Wow.
"We can look up more dirt on each and every one of us later," Max said. "What I want to know is the stuff about Manticore itself."
"As the lady requested," Parker said. He clicked a few more times until he apparently got to another folder. "How about this one? It's labeled 'projects.'"
"Sounds good to me," Max said. "What's inside?"
"Let's find out," Parker said. He clicked on the folder and looked slightly puzzled. "Huh—'executed/green-lighted' and 'aborted.'"
"I wonder what could have been so screwed up that even Manticore would have said that it was a no-go," Alec wondered.
Parker shrugged. "I don't know, but let's check it out." He clicked and let his breath out before he began to read off folder names. "'Human to X3,' 'Human to X4,' 'Breeding Program'…"
"Breeding program?" Elle repeated slightly nervously.
"That's what it says," Parker said. He clicked open the folder and then clicked again on something else, I guess a file. "'07/29/2012—The possibility of having the older X-series breed with ordinary soldiers was brought up for the second time in the committee meeting, this time with all three facility directors present. While Lt. Colonel Renfro, Seattle facility director, was in full support of the project, Colonel Lydecker, Gillette facility director, argued vehemently against it. Col. Lydecker felt that aside from the fact that half of the X3s, X4s, and X5s would be taken out of active duty for as much as a year or more, that it could potentially be too tricky of a psychological issue to deal with for said X-series females, especially if they are not sedated to the point of unconsciousness while giving birth. After hearing his arguments against the idea, a final vote on green-lighting the project was taken and by a result of 9-4-2, the breeding program project was canceled before implementation.'"
"Whoa," Eva said. "I never thought that I would hear myself saying this, but we actually have something to thank Lydecker for."
"Can you imagine what a mindfuck that would have been?" Sasha said.
"What other nasty things did they change their minds about?" I asked.
"There's plenty of them," Xavier said. "What's this one? 'Human to X5'?"
"I don't know," Parker said. He opened that folder up and I guess opened another file. "'02/11/2017—The serum had officially passed all preliminary tests and was cleared for the first human trials. An army private that had volunteered for this experiment was sedated and the serum was administered to him by I.V. Once the serum was completely in his bloodstream, we continued to monitor the subject and wait for results. While at first the results were promising and the subject's DNA started to accept the X5 DNA from the serum and replace itself accordingly, as with the trials with previous subjects using the X3 and X4 serums, complications arose and the subject went…'" Parker trailed off and I saw some of the others, particularly the kids that had a good view of the laptop screed, get a little bit pale. Parker took a deep breath. "'…and the decision was made to abort the project. This one, like the previous two, is tentatively scheduled to be reviewed for renewal at a later date.'"
"They are sick puppies," Kevin said.
Zack snorted in disgust. "Yeah, no big deal if some private volunteers to have his DNA turned inside out and ends up dying in agony," he said sarcastically. "He was expendable."
"They probably wanted to be able to replace one of us quickly if somebody went down on a mission," Max said.
"Either that or they wanted to be Superman and use it on themselves," Biggs remarked.
"Thank goodness they decided to shelve that idea," I said. I tried to put a smile back on my face. "Enough of this garbage. Let's go back to our stuff."
"Gladly," Parker said. He smiled gratefully at me and went back to the laptop and back to our files. "Whose dirt should I dig up next…Jondy! What do you say?"
"Go ahead," Jondy said. She smirked. "There's nothing that Manticore has on me that you guys don't already know."
"Wanna bet?" Jace said.
Jondy stuck her tongue out at her. "Very funny, Jace. How much do you want to bet that there's something embarrassing about you that Manticore somehow knows about?"
"Hold that thought, Jondy," Parker said, laughing. "Check this out. According to your file, you were born on April Fool's Day of '99."
"Are you kidding me?" Jondy said.
"I told you," Jace said smugly. "I called that one."
"Please don't let me actually have been born on April Fool's Day, too," Reese begged.
"Nope," Parker said after a few moments. "Your birthday is on April tenth."
"Yes!" Reese cheered. "I dodged that bullet."
"I hate you," Jondy said.
"Relax," Parker said. He grinned wickedly and directed his attention at Max. "You and Max can complain to each other. She was born on Halloween."
"Lucky me," Max said. "And since we're on my file now, let me guess…"
"…he's definitely your brother," Parker said, gesturing towards Krit.
"Now there's a surprise," Wayne said, snorting.
"Bite me," Krit said.
"Grow up," I said automatically. I sighed and leaned on Biggs' shoulder. "Lucky me having to deal with those guys, huh?"
"More power to you, babe," Biggs said.
"Yeah," I agreed as Krit and Wayne decided to team up on Zane and went after him mercilessly. I gave Biggs a kiss. "It could be worse."
"Yeah, we could have to watch you guys PDA non-stop," Zane said.
I glared at him. "Very funny."
"Not a problem, big sis," he said cheerfully. I shook my head, but I smiled. Gotta love my younger brothers, huh?
TBC