Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or any characters featured in either of the seasons.
Orphan PastAlec couldn't stop thinking about Max. She called him 'Ben.' She also was from Manticore. Thinking about these two factors made it next to impossible to listen to what the teacher was saying. He had never met anyone from Manticore outside being at Manticore. He had left the only a month before the investigation had started. He was of age and they couldn't keep him, plus he didn't seem to be a hazard to their precious little world. He always had been an obedient ward, never causing a problem. To tell the truth he had always been too scared to anything but what he was told. The Fields, being a prime example; fear.
The Fields, as all the wards learned, was the large open field on Manticore property that was over grown with grass and weeds. When someone had gone against the code, the wards that were suspected would be released into it to run and hide. The handlers, or supervisors, would roam the fields and slowly catch every single on of them and take them to a part were it was mowed down into a nice sized circle. There each ward was tortured to reveal the guilty person. The rest of the wards had to "sit", or be restrained more like, and watch each torture happen until someone would give. It that happened then the guilty person and the revealer were tortured some more and then thrown in the hole, or the Pit, as many of the wards nicknamed it. It was where the anomalies were stashed, the wards who couldn't be trusted to stay quiet when they came of age. This was to show you what would happen if you didn't straighten up.
Aside from the Fields, there were many other methods and teaching "obedience." Sick and twisted methods that sometimes made fellow wards "disappear." Of course this was just whisper during bunk time, "Alice disappeared today after drills. Evan disappeared after bunk last night." But when the whispers reached the handlers, they would always make a big announcement, "Alice was adopted last week by a family. Evan was reunited with his maternal grandparents." To celebrate this occasion, every ward would clap in "joy" for their fellow wards finding a family.
Shaking his head, Alec made himself stop thinking about Manticore. Instead he made himself start to focus on getting ready for morning classes. Maybe he would run into Max. He was intrigued with her, shit, he was never gonna be ready for class.