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.).

Notes: Spoilers/spoiler-ish stuff for "The Berrisford Agenda."

Chapter 42: Jondy (X5-210)

At exactly midnight, I slipped out of my cell and joined Max at the head of the hallway. We exchanged grim looks as we stood and waited for Rena to meet up with us. Neither of us had heard any kind of reason as to why Ben had been taken away earlier, much less why he had been treated the way that Rena and Eva had told us that he had been treated. Max hadn't even been told anything, and she's the acting squad commanding officer. If any transgenic should have been told something, it would have been Maxie. We'd even asked Biggs and Sasha if they'd heard anything and neither of them had gotten wind of anything. What do you do when you can't find something out by word of mouth? You try to find it out for yourselves. We were determined as hell to uncover the information that we wanted.

"Is Eva coming with us?" I asked.

Max shook her head. "No, she's not. When I talked to her just before lights out, she said that she really wanted to go with us to get this 411 but she'd really gone through the wringer in that physical activities session that she'd had in the gym this evening and she was absolutely wiped as a result of that so I told her to just crash tonight and that we'd fill her in when we let everybody else know." Max frowned. "Rena's still joining us, though. Right?"

"Right. She knows that…" I trailed off when I saw Rena leaving her cell out of the corner of my eye. As soon as she reached us, Max made a gesture and we headed off. "I wish that Parker wasn't out on a mission. We might have to do some hacking to find out what we want."

"You and me both," Max said. "We're going to have to make do without him." She paused for a moment and I smiled sympathetically, knowing what she was thinking. I knew that Max missed the hell out of Zack and how badly she was looking forward to him returning in a few weeks.

"You're even better at this sneaking around at night stuff than Zack is," Rena said teasingly, though her eyes still look somewhat haunted. I really felt bad for her. I'd known that she and Ben had gotten much closer to each other since we had originally met up and then were separated again from Alec and Sasha, but now I've got a feeling that they had gotten closer to each other than either of them had realized and that Rena was just starting to figure it out. It made me feel lucky as hell to have Jack, that was for sure.

"Should we be bringing along anybody else or should we keep this little mission to the three of us since Eva's not with us?" I asked.

Max looked thoughtful. "I'd love to bring in a few of the others, but it would look just a little too suspicious if a whole big group of X5s were caught sneaking around to places that are usually restricted after lights out. We're going to have to keep it to just you, me, and Rena."

"On that note, what's going to be our first stop?" Rena asked.

"I think our first stop is going to be one of the unrestricted computer labs," Max said. "As much as it goes against my nature to say this, we shouldn't try any of the riskier places to get the intel just yet." She smirked. "And yes, I'm probably going to be wishing that Parker were here myself in just a couple of minutes while I'm going through this crap." That got giggles from myself and Rena, though we kept it quiet enough for only the three of us to hear them as we continued through the building. We had almost reached the computer lab we wanted when I spotted a vaguely familiar silhouette. It spotted us at the same time and approached us.

"Hey, there!" It was P2-400, the Psy Ops soldier that went with us on the Poland mission almost two years ago. She was pretty cool. I've actually spoken with her once or twice since we first moved here to Seattle.

"What's up, 400?" Max asked.

"Just needed to clear my head," 400 replied. Her voice sounded on the surface to be as cheerful as it normally was, but I could tell that there was something bothering her and that it was major. "I've had one heck of a long day."

"You and us both," Rena said. "One of our unit mates was taken away this afternoon and we weren't given a reason. Not only was he taken away without any explanation, but they grabbed him as if he'd done something that rated a ten on the one-to-ten scale of bad things to do."

400 looked really troubled and I got a really bad feeling. She looked around before she motioned us into the computer lab. Nobody else was there, so we sat down on the floor facing each other. "This can't get out, not yet. You and 511 aren't supposed to be notified about this until sometime tomorrow."

"Myself and B—511?" Max said. She frowned. "Why?"

"You're absolutely right, 493 did nothing to be brought to Psy Ops," 400 said. I'm glad that she—what! Ben was taken to Psy Ops? "Neither did 494."

Max, Rena, and I exchanged a look. Alec had gotten sent to Psy Ops as well? "494 is also is Psy Ops?" I said slowly. "Did something go wrong with his mission?"

400 nodded, looking close to tears. "It did. He was brought to me this afternoon under sedation and I had to do the initial investigation." She told us what had happened to Alec and I was shocked to say the least. Poor Alec! That poor girl that he had fallen for while he was out. What else was Alec supposed to do, huh? He was only trying to do the right thing. God, I absolutely hate it when Manticore and us have different versions of what the right thing to do is.

"Why did they have to jump the gun like that?" Max said quietly but venomously. She shook her head. "Alec would have been able to talk his way out of it or figure out some kind of solution with the brass being none the wiser. He's always been able to do that before. Poor Alec." She clenched her fists. "That still doesn't explain why they took Ben to Psy Ops as well. Ben did as much of anything as his brother."

"This is Manticore," I said. "And this does sound like the kind of message that they like to get across from time to time. Besides, it's not as if they need an excuse to do shit like that."

Rena snorted. "Great. I guess that means that if Sasha or I ever fuck up, they'll toss the other one of us into the brig or solitary or Psy Ops too. Fucking sadists."

"Noted," Max agreed. She looked back at 400 and I noticed how upset the Psy Ops soldier looked and I couldn't help feeling bad for her. Max caught it too and when she spoke, the venom had disappeared from her voice. "Are you going to be okay, 400?"

"Eventually, I guess," 400 said. "I don't get it, 452. I've been asked to do so many different things while I was training my telecoercion skills, when I've used them in Psy Ops, and during field interrogations on missions. You guys remember when I interrogated the enemy soldier that we captured before we left Poland, right? You saw what I had to do to him."

"Oh yeah," I said. I remembered exactly what 400 had done to him. The evening after we'd returned from rescuing Jeff and Christian, we'd brought the enemy transgenic that we'd captured out from under the drugs that Wayne had given him earlier, made sure that he was properly restrained, and then 400 had gone to work on him. It was not pretty. 400 ended up having to do a real number on him, but she didn't blink an eyelash about it and neither did we. We'd known exactly what they had done and what they had planned to do and it seemed only fair. Hell, compared to what they had done, what 400 did to the prisoner was small potatoes.

"This is so different," 400 continued. "This feels so wrong. That felt right, other things have felt right, other things have felt questionable to me, but this just feels absolutely wrong. I did what I could to buffer both 494 and 493 from what could have been done to them, but I still feel so horrible." She actually did start to cry and I felt surprised. Even though I knew 400 at least a little bit, I never thought a Psy Ops soldier would actually have a conscience. From the little interaction I've had with other Psy Ops soldiers and from the rumors that I've heard, they care even less about right and wrong than what Manticore thinks an X-series is supposed to. Then again, look at us.

"You're only human, 400," Rena said softly. "And we appreciate what you have done so far for them. We can't thank you enough."

"I want to do more for them," 400 confessed. She frowned. "I overheard some of the doctors and guards talking. They want to keep 494 in Psy Ops for six months. They didn't say anything specific about how long they wanted to keep 493 in there for, but it would be for at least a few months though not for as long as 494. I'll see what I can do about getting them to shorten the length of their stays. I wish that I could convince them to kick them loose immediately, but that will look way too suspicious."

"No doubt," Max agreed. "What do you think will be the best that you can do?"

400 thought about it for a few moments. "The best that I can do without suspicion is to get them to cut it to a few weeks for 493, but I won't be able to get 494 sprung for at least three months. Director Renfro is that angry about what had happened."

"Ouch," I said, wincing. There are few things scarier in life than Director Renfro when she's mad. I've been lucky enough so far that I haven't had her wrath directed at me, but I've passed by her office when she's screaming at some poor guy for one reason or another and she frightens me more than Lydecker ever did.

"Alec's still going to be a mess when he gets out," Rena said. Her voice hardened. "Both him and Ben are going to be freaked out when they finally get sprung." She took a deep breath. "It's not that I'm ungrateful to you for taking this big of a risk, 400, I'm just upset over this whole situation in general." And you've fallen for Ben, big sis.

"I understand," 400 said. "Why did you just refer to 494 and 493 as Alec and Ben? I'm assuming that's who you were talking about."

Whoops. "Do you promise not to tell anybody?" Max warned.

"Sure," 400 said. She nodded. "Of course."

"We named each other," Max said. "It started with my unit back in Wyoming, and then the X6 unit that we were on the mission with named each other after we were paired in the old mentoring program years ago, and then Alec, Biggs, and Sasha named themselves when we were out on the Poland mission. Biggs and Sasha are 511 and 121."

"That's nice," 400 said. "I don't see what the harm is in having a name. Ordinary soldiers have names too, don't they?" The four of us stood up. "Thank you for letting me vent."

"No problem," I said. "Thank you so much for giving us the 411 on what was happening with Ben and Alec. We'll try to let Biggs and Sasha know as soon as possible." I saw 400 nod and I smiled. "Hey, do you want a name, 400?"

"I'd love one," 400 said. "Let's see…what should I go with?" She looked deep in thought for a few moments before she smiled. "You guys can call me Mia."

"I like it," Rena said. "It's a cute name. I think that it fits you. I'm Rena."

"I'm Max and she's Jondy," Max said, pointing to me. "We'll properly introduce you to the rest of the crew later."

"Great," Mia said. "And thank you again."

"You're welcome," I said. We exchanged good-byes before we left the computer lab. Mia headed off in one direction while Max, Rena, and I headed back in the direction of our block. I sighed. "Now comes the harder part: telling everybody the reason why this all went down."

"Oh yeah," Max said. "God, Zack's not going to be happy when he hears about this. I just hope that I can calm him down enough to keep him from beating the hell out of somebody. Not that I'm sure whoever he would want to beat up wouldn't deserve it, but still." She looked over at Rena, who looked as if she was going to cry. "It's going to be okay, Rena. It really will."

"But how much hell will they have to go through before it'll be okay?" she asked.

"Hopefully, not as much as they could," I said. Please let Ben and Alec get through this okay…

TBC