Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel so don't sue me. Thanks. :-)

A/N: Thank you peculiarxemma, Sandra, x4 416, and nattylovesu for reviewing the last chapter! Reviews are always appreciated! &_&

Ex Multus Familia: Part 2

Chapter 14

The inhabitants of Terminal City were starting to get antsy with their prolonged confinement. It had been about two months since the lockdown had occurred, and no one was taking it well. Truthfully, most of them could and did still escape into the city when they felt like it, but there was still the matter of the official gates being locked, and on top of that, the fact that Max was cautioning them to stay inside. The last thing she wanted to do was lose anyone else to the Familiars or the transgenic-hating humans. They were a city besieged and none of them were taking it well.

"We're going to have a riot on our hands soon enough," Logan said. He was sitting at a table across from Max in the T.C. mess hall. Many of the transgenics had gone ahead and gotten the stoves in their apartments fixed or found microwaves, but a few, especially the younger ones, still ate in the mess hall, and people were always in there during lunch. It was just easier to eat there than go back to their apartments.

"They'll hold," Max replied before she snapped her teeth down on a ham sandwich. "They've got good endurance, and they know this is serious. We've stressed that."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're happy about this," Logan said. He had been living with the transgenic population for around half a year now, and he was beginning to understand how they thought. Everything was a battle; they were divided on how to go into that battle though. Some were content to sit and strategize for months while others were trained to go into situations without much deliberation or thought at all.

"I'd rather them be pissy than go out and get killed by White and his fighting freaks," Max grumbled around the hunk of sandwich in her mouth.

"You could always let us go out and kill the freaks before they kill us," Krit suggested as he put his plate down beside Logan's. He slipped into the green lawn chair with his usual, unnatural X5 grace and started eating his sandwich, which seemed to be peanut butter and jelly from the way it was spewing dark purple goo and brown paste on his plate.

"We don't even know where they are," Max replied, tossing a frown at her brother.

Krit shrugged. "We've got people for that sort of thing. Trackers, assassins, all sorts of crazily well-trained soldiers who know how to find a target and take it out." He smirked at her, his sandwich held a few inches from his mouth. "It's not like you're running a peaceful commune here."

"I couldn't be that lucky," Max retorted.

"Seriously," Krit said, taking away from her ability to consider him seriously by waving the dripping sandwich at her, "You should think about making a strike-force or something. Kill or be killed. Transgenic mentality."

"If we take the initiative, White may not see it coming," Logan said. He rubbed his scrubby beard and nodded at Krit. "The least we could do would be to send out a reconnaissance team, to find out the location of White's group."

"What about the main group of Familiars?" Max asked, "We haven't even touched that subject yet. We're not exactly buddy-buddy with them either."

"No, but at the moment, they don't seem fixated on exterminating us," Logan replied, "It's more likely that they're focused on political takeover right now instead of their old apocalyptic one." Lately, Logan's informant network had been focusing on figuring out exactly who in the government was a Familiar and who wasn't. There wasn't an enormous amount, but it seemed like those who were in the government were slowly putting themselves into positions of power and creating a subtle, almost imperceptible buddy network with the others.

"So we should take out White and his buddies before the other Familiars decide that theirs is the better way," Krit said.

"I thought you were a techy pacifist," Max said, glaring at her brother.

Krit grinned. "Yeah, but remember my roots. I'm supposed to be a hardened killer." He took another bite out of his sandwich and displayed similar manners to Max. "'sides, those assholes are threatening my territory, and that doesn't fly with me."

Max launched a tiny carrot at him and snorted. "Shut up. You're not even an alpha."

"So?" Krit frowned at her. "I can still be territorial."

Logan sighed and shook his head. "Personally, I think we should start looking at our options." When Max shot him a dirty look, he held up his hands. "Just look, nothing more! I didn't say grab some guns, a couple bombs and take off right now."

"No, because then she'd kill you," Krit muttered. When Max's death gaze was turned towards him, he held up his hands. "I'm speaking truth right now."

Max rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I'm not that violent…"

Krit and Logan exchanged one of those conspiratorial look, which only served to piss Max off some more.

"I dunno, Maxie," Krit said with an irritating grin, "You did threaten to break my arm off the other day for saying you were having a bad hair day…"

Logan gave a slow, playfully thoughtful nod. "And the bathroom needed remolding last week after you got angry because the water heater didn't work…"

"You're both assholes." Scowling ferociously, Max grabbed her plate and stood up from the table abruptly.

"Max," Logan dragged her name out as he stood up, going to follow her. "Max."

"Good luck, man!" Krit shouted before turning his attention back to his sandwich.

Max refused to answer Logan as she stormed past tables of now very interested in what their leader was doing transgenics. Her plate was tossed unceremoniously in the trash as she ignored Logan and continued her march toward the door, the human trailing behind her, now wearing a frown to match her own.

When they were out in the hallway, Logan caught her arm and turned her back around. "Hey! What's wrong, it was a joke."

Max pulled her arm away. "I didn't think it was funny."

She walked away, almost stomping as she made her way through headquarters. People moved out of her way and gave her nervous sideways glances, only frustrating the hell out of her. She wasn't violent! Not that much at least, it wasn't like she flew off the handle at random. She knew Logan was following her; she could feel his presence, smell him and hear the whirr of the exo-suit he always wore even though he didn't need it. Insecure about his position here, Logan felt the suit gave him that extra edge, made him useful to the transgenics. And maybe protected him against her, since supposedly she was going to haul off and attack someone.

Her office was blessedly devoid of aggravated, cooped up transgenics coming to complain to her. She tried to shut the door in Logan's face, but he slipped in a second before she could. Trying to contain a growl, she moved over to her desk and began to shuffle through the papers.

"Okay," Logan said slowly, motioning with a thumb over his shoulder to the door, "what was that about?"

"Nothing," she snapped back.

"Yeah. I'm sure that's it."

She threw the papers onto the desk and glared up at him. "What? Aren't you scared I'm going to maim you? Rip an arm off?"

"I think ripping my arm off would maim me…" When he saw that the look on Max's face wasn't one of amusement, he sighed. "Max, what is this about?"

She pushed back from the desk and then looked at the paperweight sitting on the edge of her desk. "I just…"

There was a moment of silence before Logan prompted her. "Just…"

Max huffed and shoved her hair back behind her ears. "I don't want you to think of me as just an X5 soldier, you know?" Making a face, she turned around and started rummaging through the drawers of her desk, as if she actually was missing something.

Logan watched her for a minute and then shook his head. "Max, I've never thought of you as just a soldier," he said, taking the steps necessary to close the gap in-between them. He smiled and played with a piece of her hair as she tried to pretend he wasn't there. "Ever since that night you've broke into my apartment, I definitely thought of you as a woman first."

Max stopped and turned to him, a suspicious look on her face. "Really? Or are you shitting me?"

"I'd never shit you about this," he said, cracking a lazy smile at her vulgarity. He brushed her hair back behind her ear and kissed her. He grinned and pulled back when she melted into his arms. "And I wouldn't do that to just any soldier."

"You better not," Max warned half-heartedly.

"Yeah, I—"

Max's eyebrows knit together as Logan broke off into coughing. He stepped away from her and dry-coughed into his shirt sleeve for a moment. Frowning, she reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. "Did you see Gray about that yet?"

Logan smirked at her as the coughing subsided. "It's just a cold, Max. It's November, almost December. This sort of thing happens." A wry moment tweaked the corner of his smirk. "At least, it happens to normal humans."

"Well, I don't like it when it happens to you," she grumbled.

Logan laughed and hugged her to him, pressing his face into her hair. "Too bad. You're just going to have to deal with your weak human choice."

"Hey, don't pick on my choice," Max said, gently shoving him in the chest before hugging him back. "I personally like him."

"Well, I'm glad you do because I sort of like him too." Logan abruptly pushed away from Max so that he could have another coughing fit; this one he tried to suppress, which resulted in only fiercer chest movements. His face went slightly red, and he heaved a deep sigh when the coughing was done as if he hadn't been able to breathe properly the whole time.

"Please, please go see Gray," Max said worriedly. She gave him a sly grin and reached out to lightly grasp one of his hands. "It will make me happier," she promised Logan.

"Well, I guess I can't really say no to that, now can I?" Logan took his glasses off for a moment so that he could rub his eyes, then replaced the glasses. He leaned over and kissed her again, gently cupping her cheek with one hand for a moment, "I guess I'll be back sometime this afternoon," he said after they broke away from the kiss.

"That'd be nice… maybe you could attempt to give me another dinner cooking lesson," Max said, smiling back at him. Really, she didn't dare cook without him there. The few times she'd tried, the experiments had turned into horrible messes of goo or burnt black crisps of nothing.

"Just don't try anything on your own, ok?"

"Hey, I might not be a good cook, but I'm not an idiot," Max retorted. She pushed him to the door. "Go handle that cold. I'm gonna try to figure out something to keep everyone entertained."

Logan shook his head. "Good look with that," he said, pausing for a moment in the doorway, his hand on the doorsill. Then he swung out with one more smile.

Max sighed. Really, entertainment was the hardest job at the moment. The Cultural Center was almost complete, but not quite ready for people to use on a regular basis yet. Most of the important projects were close to completion, and besides short shifts, there wasn't much to do besides patrol since they weren't supposed to go on missions. Even when the Cultural Center was complete, Max knew that they'd still have problems with transgenics feeling cooped up. Max didn't blame them…she was feeling it herself. Which was probably why she was testy lately.

Max dropped into the chair behind her desk and stared blankly at the paperwork and reports that had piled up on it. Since when had she become a paper pusher? When she'd given up living a totally normal life, she hadn't intended it to be like this. She'd still just wanted to be one of the random soldiers in the field. But no, even that had been denied her as she'd somehow come into a strange sort of leadership role here in Terminal City.

She would never complain aloud about it. But… it would be nice if she and Logan actually had time to spend on that farm out there. If she could actually go on a mission and have people worry about her being killed because they liked Max as Max, not Max, fearless leader.

Max sighed and listlessly pushed a few papers around before folding her arms across her desk and dropping her head into them. She was stuck, and she had no idea what to do now. She didn't know how to make the transgenics, the government, the people living in Seattle, or the Familiars happy. Everyone seemed to be angry at each other, and fixing that somehow…

Well, it definitely wouldn't be happening any time soon.

Max sat up as she heard hurried footsteps down the hallway. The footsteps were already pass the first two doors, which basically meant they were coming for her unless they were in a hurry to get some gaming equipment out of the closet right next to Max's office.

Usually the hurried footsteps were for her. And as much as Max was hoping they wouldn't be this time, they still were. They stopped right outside of Max's office in the small area where she couldn't see, and then the owner of the footsteps walked in.

Ah. Dalton.

"What's up?" she asked him. She frowned as she took in his appearance: slightly disheveled, harassed-looking, and definitely not his usual chipper self.

"Gem…Crystal…come see…black marks…" Dalton was already swinging back around and out into the hallway, impatient to be off.

"I'm coming," Max said hurriedly, jumping up from her desk chair. It wasn't like she'd been working on anything anyways. "What's going on?" she asked Dalton as she followed him down the hallway, through the main room, and then out of HQ.

"I don't know, Gem doesn't know, that's the problem. These marks…" Dalton was going so fast he was almost blurring now. "They just appeared on Crystal this morning. We can't get them off, they're like…" he looked over at Max. "They're like our barcodes, Max. They won't go away, no matter what we do."

Max froze, and Dalton wheeled around when he realized Max has stopped. "Max?" he asked worriedly. "What's wrong?"

As if he didn't know what was wrong…well, maybe he didn't know. But still, he knew what was happening to Crystal wasn't normal. "These marks," she said slowly. She walked toward Dalton and stopped in front of him. "What do they look like?"

Dalton was staring at her, slightly confused as to why she was stopping when he'd obviously been trying to get her somewhere urgently. "Umm, I dunno," Dalton said with a shrug. "Like something scratched her or something with a pen. Gem was super-freaked this morning."

"I bet she was," Max muttered. She took a deep breath. Well, maybe it wasn't what she was afraid it was. Plus, how was it possible? There was no explanation of them being on the kid, not when the person who could've created him would never have seen Crystal, never have been involved in her creation.

She took another deep breath. "I'm sure it's fine," she told Dalton, forcing a smile. "Maybe it's a messed-up barcode tattoo, inherited form her parents or something."

"Maybe," Dalton said doubtfully, "Gem was wondering if it might be that, but I didn't think it looked right. Plus it was on her arm."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to see," Max replied. Dalton nodded, and they picked up the pace again. Max desperately hoped she was wrong about her suspicion.

Dalton led the way at a blur all the way to the infirmary, barely bothering to slow down so he didn't crash through the front doors. Max grabbed his shoulder to force him into a walk, though he strained for a moment against her grip. A few medics watched with wary eyes as the X6 and the transgenic leader passed by, making an odd pair.

Max briefly wondered where Logan was or if they had passed him on the way…or maybe he had gone back to the apartment instead of listening to what she had asked him to do. The last option had her glaring even harder than she had been previously.

Max was led to one of the exam rooms where Dalton opened the door then practically shoved her inside.

"Max!" Gem sounded relieved and worried at the same time. She was sitting on the exam table, holding Crystal in her arms. The baby girl wasn't crying at the moment, but she was staring at the adults in the room, her eyes moving suspiciously from Gray to Sibil, both of whom were standing in front of the exam table. Tears tracks and a puffy face told Max that Crystal had been crying, but for now the tears had subsided and she was silently grudging instead.

"Hey, Gem, Sibil, Gray," she said, nodding at the two doctors before giving Gem a reassuring smile. "Dalton gave me the low down, but I'm not sure if he covered it all. Care for some extra detail-telling?"

Gem returned the smile with a grimace. Carefully, she took Crystal's chubby little arm in her hand to hold her still and turned the baby so Max could get a good look. On Crystal's forearm, there was a short series of black marks, about three complete characters, that looked far too familiar for Max's tastes.

Crystal gave a whimper and tried to pull her arm back, nearly breaking Max's heart. Max was used to Crystal always reaching for her, wanting to be picked up; the little redhead had a special fondness for the T.C. leader.

"It looks like your marks, Max," Gray said. He was rubbing his reddish stubbly beard and looking at Crystal's arm. Gem held Crystal closer and cooed softly to the confused baby while Max turned to look at the doctor.

"What marks?" Dalton asked, his interest and protective instinct piqued.

"Yes, but mine didn't show up until earlier this year," Max said, "And Crystal hasn't been genetically tampered with, as far as we know."

"Did they perform any procedures on you while Crystal was in utero?" Sibil asked, her voice calm and soothing.

"What marks?" Dalton repeated.

Gem shook her head. "No, it was only the normal stuff. They knew I was pregnant, but they didn't sedate me or anything while we were there."

"Then it's unlikely that Manticore put this coding into Crystal," Sibil said, "But it had to come from somewhere." She turned towards Max, her dark gaze piercing. "These marks are Minoan, aren't they?"

Dalton sat back and grumbled to himself about how he was always ignored.

"As far as I can tell," Max replied. Logan was really becoming the expert in Minoan, but lately decoding her temporary tats had taken a backseat to keeping everyone in T.C. alive. The translation of her most recent tats still wasn't finished and what Logan had finished didn't make sense. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, wishing this added problem wasn't happening right now.

"Wait, I don't get it," Dalton said. He looked at Max, his arms crossed. "You have markings like Crystal's?"

"Every now and then they appear," Max replied, not wanting to fight with the X6 or pull rank on him. It wasn't really her most guarded secret; quite a few of the T.C. residents had seen the tattoos and asked her about them at various times. "They're coded messages, from Sandeman, but Marie can't read them. I asked."

After Marie had settled into T.C. life, they had asked her if she knew any of the Minoan symbols, and she had said no, Sandeman had never taught them to her. Ever since learning about her husband's death, she hadn't been the same, and some of those who worked closely in the lab were convinced that she had locked vital information away when she heard of the news, as if there were now mental blocks over information they needed. Every now and then, this theory seemed to be true, such as when she had suddenly remembered the sequence for the heat-suppressant drugs last month.

"So these messages on Crystal's arm are from Sandeman too?" Dalton asked, looking from Max to Crystal and Gem, trying to come up with some logical solution.

Max frowned. "No, they can't be. Sandeman was gone long before Crystal was even, um, created and then they didn't tamper with her DNA." That was something Max loved about the second generation of X5s. No genetic alterations, no Manticore stamp. But now there were the Minoan marks…

"But it has to be from him, somehow," Dalton said. His young face was set in a determined, thoughtful look. "Who else in Manticore would know how to do that? Or want to?"

"I don't know," Max said uneasily. What if it had been Sandeman, somehow? It was entirely possible; he seemed to be very, very good at this whole long-range planning thing. She glanced at Gray and Sibil. "Is it possible for Sandeman to create something in a person that only shows up on that person's child?" she asked. She'd been doing a lot of reading about biomedical stuff lately, and she thought she'd might have heard about something like that, but she wasn't sure. She was sort of hoping she'd made it up in some crazy part of her mind.

"Well, the idea is feasible, technically speaking, but for it to be so precise that actually characters are made to appear…" Sibil held Crystal's arm for a second and then let go. "It's hard for me to conceive of, considering that it would have had to be put in place long before the child was even made, possibly even when Gem was young."

"What's it called?" Dalton asked curiously.

"What's what called?" Sibil asked, her face blank.

"What you're talking about," Dalton shrugged. "It sounds sort of familiar."

"Germ line therapy. Or, well, a version of the original idea. Much more refined, restricted to egg or sperm cells perhaps, restricted to one small gene…" she shook her head and gave Gem a sympathetic glance. "I can think of very few people who have the skills to do this."

"But I don't understand," Gem said, stroking Crystal's hair. She looked up at Sibil, "Why me? Why Crystal? And why…why just this?" She knew that there had been a whole lot more writing on Max, so the super-short script didn't really seem to make any sense.

"We'll probably have to get it translated before we can even start to understand," Grey said. He frowned at Max. "Do you know where Logan is?"

"He's supposed to be here," Max said grumpily. She was so going to kill him if he wasn't. She was going to have to start threatening him with drastic consequences if he didn't come and get himself looked at.

"Why don't we ask Marie?" Dalton suggested. When everyone stared at him, he got defensive. "Well, why not? We brought her here to be the expert, didn't we? Maybe she'll know. Maybe she'll feel like talking for once." He crossed his arms. "If anything's wrong with Crystal, I want to know what's up."

Max was suddenly struck by the fact that Dalton was not only growing taller, he was becoming more mature. Not much, but it showed in the way he cared about Crystal. He was going to make quite a decent man some day.

They were all looking at her now, and Max looked away uneasily. Sometimes she hated being the 'leader'. She had never felt entirely comfortable around Marie; she was just too much of a reminder of all the problems Sandeman had created for Max and her family. But it looked like now it was up to her to deal with the woman and convince her that they needed her help.

"I suppose I could go try and talk to her," Max finally said. "But only if someone promises to look at Logan and makes sure that he sees a doctor." She gave Sibil and Grey significant looks.

"Got it," Sibil said with a firm nod. Max nodded in return; now that it was in Sibil's capable and demanding hands, Max knew that it would get done.

Max left the room then and hurried down the hallway toward where the science department was. They were lodged in an annex attached to the clinic; since there work often involved medical things, having them close to the clinic had been the easiest arrangement.

As far as Max knew, Marie spent most of her time there, though whether she actually made herself useful or not was another story. If Marie wasn't there, then she was probably at Joshua's where she'd taken up permanent residence ever since coming back from Italy.

Max stopped at the first office and glanced in; a transgenic named Calico was there. "Hey, have you seen Marie?" she asked the redhead. Calico gave a barely perceptible shake of her head; she was intensely concentrated on whatever she was looking at in the microscope in front of her.

Max started to move on when Calico's voice called her back. "Oh, sorry, Max," Calico gave her a sheepish smile. "I wasn't really listening. I think Marie is down the hall in the small lab. Room 213."

"Thanks," Max said. Well, at least that didn't mean she'd have to go fetch Marie from Joshua's and drag her all the way there. Max had heard that the days Marie didn't come into the lab were Marie's bad days.

"Marie?" Max didn't see the older woman at first; her now-white hair sort of blended in with the off-white coriander countertops that the smallest of the three labs held. But then the old woman poked her head up from behind one of the counters in the back.

"Marie?" Max stepped into the lab and watched as Mari stood up from here she'd been kneeling on the floor. The woman dusted her hands off and leveled a steady gaze at Max. They stared at each other for a moment and then Marie gave an impatient twitch before bending down to pick up some piece of equipment off the floor.

"Do you need help…" It looked like a compact DNA sequencer, but those things, even in compact form, where slightly bulky.

"No, I don't thank, you very much," Marie said briskly. "Just because I'm not transgenic doesn't mean I can't do anything for my self." She set the equipment carefully down on the table, studied it for a moment, then turned and looked at Max. "Well, my little trouble maker, what do you need from me today? I know you never come to see me unless you have to." Was it just Max, or did her voice sound slightly bitter?

"Erm, I'm sorry about that," Max said, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets. "But that's how most of my relationships are these days. I see people when I need to talk to them."

"Oh, well that sounds healthy," Marie said. She turned and fiddled with the knobs on one of her instruments… possible a DNA analyzer? "Just because you aren't fully human doesn't mean you have to remove yourself from normal human activities, you know."

"Of course I know," Max snapped, crossing her arms. This woman always set her off! She took a deep breath, determined not to get into an argument with Marie right now. "Look, we need your help with…some Minoan. The symbols that are on me have started to appear on one of the X5 babies."

Marie stopped her movements and slowly looked up at Max. "Already?"