FIC: Past Today 1/5
It’s been awhile since Alec’s run into another transgenic. Few years, at least. It takes him by surprise, but he’s not completely unprepared. Hunted as he is, he can’t afford to be.
Three pistols and a knife in easy reach, the shotgun he took from a farmer who caught him squatting in his barn last year tucked under the mattress, and Alec’s up with a weapon in hand before his intruder can blink.
It’s dark and drafty, hard rain rattling the windows. His shirt’s all the way across the room and he instantly misses his warm nest of blankets. The orange glow of streetlamps filters in to cast watery shadows across the intruder’s form, but Alec can see him clear as day and there’s no mistaking that face.
Weapons and reaction time aside, nothing could have fully prepared him for coming face to face with a zombie.
"You’re dead," Alec says, allowing himself a half-second to adjust to the universe's newest anarchy.
"Manticore doesn’t accept failure," is what the undead intruder comes back with. He's caked in dirt, dripping rainwater all over the floor, ugly fraying beanie cap swallowing the top of his head, and his knuckles are bleeding. His features are more hardened than Alec’s, and he's thinner, too. He smells like pine and roadkill.
Alec keeps the gun steady, eyes flicking to the half-open window. This confrontation is all very jarring and what-the-fuck, but all he can think is that if anyone saw Ben climbing in, they’re both screwed. He's six floors up and there's no fire escape out there.
"Being dead’s kind of an irreversible failure," he tries, stalling so he can get his head on straight. He's not sure this isn't some kind of conscience-purging nightmare, even if he stopped having those a while ago.
"They tortured me until I wasn’t anymore. ‘Experimenting’ was actually what they called it, but you know how that goes." Ben shrugs, trying for casual, like this is all normal, being a dead guy looking up his genetic copy as easy as finding a listing in the yellow pages. But there’s a rigidity in his posture Alec is intimately familiar with. Bad memories all around, and no thank you.
"Manticore went up in smoke years ago," says Alec. "Where the hell have you been?"
"You know the drill. Escape and evade."
Yeah, Alec knows the drill. He’s only lived it for the past half-decade, and where the hell was Ben when they were front and center on the news every day? Psychosis or not, they could’ve used some help. Alec could have used- "You didn’t come back."
"I couldn’t risk it."
"Get out."
Ben loses the smirk, the tiny spark in his eyes smothered out. "I just got here."
"You’re crazy. Crazy people aren’t invited. Go look up Max, I’m sure she’d love to hear from you."
Ben frowns. "She killed me."
Alec bites his lip. He shouldn’t have brought her into it, now that he’s thinking about it. She may have spoken fondly of her brother and wallowed in a shit-ton of guilt over his death, but she’s sure to have a few choice words for him if Ben-alive and probably still whacked right out of his serial-killing gourd-actually catches up with her. "She told me."
Ben nods, like he knew already. "I returned the favor."
"What?" It’s not a question, more I dare you to repeat that so I can blast you full of holes, but Ben doesn’t seem to be interpreting the warning quite right.
"She’s dead," Ben says again, like he thinks Alec's genuinely hard of hearing.
Alec feels something crucial to his survival snapping loose inside, the beginnings of an unraveling, but there's nothing he can do about it unless Ben takes it back. His finger goes tight on the trigger. He can pick up the sound of his knuckles creaking, even over the raging pulse in his ears. "That what you’re here for? Gonna sacrifice me to your bloodthirsty Lady next? ‘Cause I got a few bullets that’re gonna have something to say about that."
"She was done," Ben explains, not taking it back at all, making it so much worse, and he doesn’t look amused or any kind of casual anymore. He looks just like Alec feels. Alec aches to shoot him, right between the eyes. "All that running and hiding. She was glad I came. Funny. She thought the world had gotten too big and scary for me, back then, but when I found her?" Ben shakes his head, and Alec’s eyes burn, his steady aim not so steady now. Screw shooting him. Alec should beat him to death, painful and messy. "When I found her, she was squatting in a dead man’s house, some guy she had to take out ‘cause he spotted her leaping a fence. Our fearless Maxie was starving to death because she didn’t wanna have to kill anyone else just to get more food."
"Shut up." Alec’s done listening.
But Ben’s not done talking. "You know what she said to me? She said: 'They made me out to be a monster, and then I had to turn into one.'"
"Five seconds."
"I’m not here to kill you," says Ben, and now he looks scared. He should be, even if Alec knows he’s not the thing Ben fears.
"Four."
"I’ve been looking for you forever, and you’re just gonna--"
"Three." Alec cocks the gun.
Ben takes a careful step back toward the window. "I did this wrong."
"Two."
"Fine," Ben snaps, eyes gone cold and hard, throws the pane up and dives out headfirst over the ledge, swift and soundless.
Alec blows out a shaky breath and lets the wobble in his knees take over, ass colliding hard with the lumpy mattress. Gut twisting, he pinches himself and bites his lip and blinks fast.
He doesn't wake up.
-:-
Max is dead and Ben isn’t: two new facts like rusted blades going to town on his insides. Just when Alec thinks the world can’t get any more fucked up, it rises to the challenge.
Alec's having a hard time hanging onto his surprise, though, more pissed at himself than anything. He remembers robo-Zack all too well, should've guessed sooner that Manticore wouldn't give up on another multimillion dollar investment just because its brains got a little scrambled, and he idly wonders if Ben got any shiny, indestructible parts to go with his lunacy. He's probably out there hunting some poor schmuck right now, some family man with a wife and two-point-five kids and a blatant thirst for shedding transgenic blood. Alec should have planted a bullet in Ben's brain, quick and clean, should feel more guilty that he loosed him back on the city. He should've avenged Max's death, at the very least. She deserved that much.
It's entirely too tender, that place in his memory where she lives. Poking at it brings nothing good, and Alec's no masochist. There’s no sense dissecting any of these things now, anyway, nothing he can do to change it, so he splashes his face in the sink and kicks the useless clutter out of his head.
The apartment’s not anything special-a gutted, abandoned place with wires creeping out of the walls, carpet and baseboards and fixtures all ripped out-but Alec was hoping for the luxury of calling it home for at least a week or two. Wasn’t easy dragging that dumpster-salvaged mattress up six flights of stairs without calling attention.
He can’t stay now, though. Ben may be an X5 but he’s nuttier than squirrel shit and who knows how much of his stealth training is tangled up in the madness twisting his brain all out of shape. Alec heard him coming in, and with that level of carelessness Ben might as well have been flashing neon lights around the place. Besides, Alec’s not eager to have another run-in. Ben knows where to find him and that doesn’t sit well at all.
He’s packed in under four minutes, pulls on a couple of shirts and a hoodie, leather jacket over it all. He’ll be sweating like a pig before he gets outside, but a guy wandering around in the cold with too few layers commands instant suspicion and lots of it.
Outside, Alec finds a beat-up old Pontiac and hotwires it easy. It’s the least conspicuous one, free of graffiti and an alarm. He tosses his duffel and blankets into the passenger’s seat, shotgun on top, and hightails it out of there. There's no fuss out on the street right now, but that doesn’t mean anything. People have gotten sneakier about forming their lynch mobs, and Alec’s keen to be in the wind before they get that far.
Newly restored high-rises are stacked along the horizon: jagged, monstrous things poking at the sky, starbursts of artificial light running up the sides like connect-the-dots. Rain blurs the windshield, and Alec thinks he’s done with cities for a while. Chicago is nothing like Seattle and yet everything like it at the same time. It’s big and important and full of easy marks and cubbyholes that are only a stone’s throw from places that can be ransacked for food, and it’s familiar for all of that. Still, he knows it was ridiculous to ever come here. Everything is so packed-in, people living on top of each other. It’s easy to get lost in places like this but it’s more dangerous too. The US government’s spent the last few years getting its shit together again: more reliable Internet, a resurrection of imports and exports, an all-around mend in the broken economy. Alec doesn’t want to be caught in any Ordinary-choked metropolis the day they install heat scanners in every doorway. The open countryside’s better.
He drives around for a while, scouting and planning and leaving absolutely no room in his head for anything else, but it turns out all the denial and aggressive apathy in the world can't keep that dreadfully familiar something inside him from unwinding just a little bit more. There's nothing but a whole mess of trouble waiting to ruin all his hard-won mental tidiness if he lets it go on, so Alec has to waste precious minutes stomping on it until it quits, and he's left with jangled nerves and sweaty hands by the time it's done.
But it is done, just a brief relapse. He's over it.
There’s a pack of Winstons in the glove box, crumpled and half full. Alec lets out a shaky sigh and chain smokes until he pulls into a Citgo, rubbing at his eyes until they’re red and puffy. He flips his hood up and hunches his shoulders, sniffling wetly when he walks inside. The harsh lighting does him a favor, his distorted reflection in the cooler’s glass verifying he looks like shit, and he checks his wallet as he browses.
He'll need to score some more cash soon. Getting out of the city’s going to take a few days, if he’s lucky. There are checkpoints all over the place, and he’ll have to ditch the car to get around them.
Alec grabs some snacks and a cheap roll of cough drops, lets out a miserable, hacking cough when he walks up to the register. A set of posters are plastered on the back wall, lined up neatly side-by-side underneath the cigarette display. MONSTERS AMONG US! the first one says, a list of tips for taking a freak down, a phone number and promises of a reward-DEAD OR ALIVE-in bold print across the bottom. It’s old and faded.
He coughs again, and the cashier doesn’t even look up from his Enquirer as he scans the items. Transgenics don’t get sick; that's common knowledge now.
"Thirty-one fifty," the cashier says distractedly, flips a page and keeps reading.
Paying that much for a handful of goods physically hurts, but Alec forks over the money. His eyes light on the drawer when it zings open, all that crumpled cash stacked so high the cashier has to put some elbow grease into cramming Alec's contribution in there, and the ache in Alec's gut combined with the skin-warmed metal tucked at his back is giving him all kinds of reckless ideas.
He looks around.
There's a kid in the store, filthy denim jacket and faded red sneakers, hair cut too short and his unprotected ears glowing bright red at the tips. He's inspecting the candy bars and checking the prices with an intensity usually reserved for penny-pinching old ladies. Can't be more than seven or eight, not old enough to be out alone at this hour. His fingernails are filthy and he's too thin.
Alec accepts his change and keeps his gun in his pants, heading for the door, but he suffers a moment of hesitation when his eyes fall on the kid again. He's seen and walked past bigger charity cases without a single hitch in his step, and he doesn't let himself think about why he doesn't this time.
"This is the one you want," he says, startling the kid when he stops beside him.
The kid flinches away and looks up, wary eyes and a scowl. Should've made more noise; Alec forgets that sometimes.
The obnoxious bell over the door jangles, and Alec's careful not to look around in paranoia. He tries for a carefree smirk and maybe fails a little bit, holding out a package of Reese's and a five dollar bill.
The kid's smart enough not to trust it, so Alec lays the money and candy down on the rack, remembers to sniffle and cough some more when he turns to leave.
"Nobody move!" a voice shouts, strained with fear, and Alec freezes just shy of the door. "Down on the ground!"
"Oh, come on," Alec groans under his breath, but drops to his knees and sneaks a glance over his shoulder.
Another kid, older and rougher, is waving a hand canon around, and it's goddamn fucking annoying when someone steals Alec's stupid ideas right out from under him. Guy couldn't have waited ten more seconds so he wouldn't have to watch?
"Not you!" the robber barks at the cashier when he tries to hide behind the counter, throws an empty backpack across. "Everything in the register! Now! Move!"
The cashier's got silver hair and liver-spotted hands, shaking like a dried-up leaf about to crumble apart in the wind. He fumbles around, filling the bag and dropping change all over the floor, pulse at his throat jumping so erratically Alec can practically hear the heart attack coming on.
"Hurry the fuck up!" the robber snaps, eyes bulging just as wide as they can go. He spots the candy-shopping boy trying to crawl out the opposite door. "Kid!"
The boy stops dead, and the gun-wielding moron walks over to haul him up by the arm. He shoves him at Alec. "Try anything else, and I'll bust a cap in your little ass, got me?"
Nodding jerkily, the boy stutters out an apology and shrinks back against Alec. Alec can't help the flinch. He avoids contact at all costs-the fever-warmth of his skin is just another giveaway-and it's jarring to have another body jammed up in his personal space.
"Stupid old motherfucker!" the robber shouts when the cashier drops the bag, bills scattering. "You want me to blow your fucking brains out? Is that it? Pick it up!"
The cashier falls down on creaking joints and promptly scrambles to gather it all back up. "I'm sorry, oh god, sorry! Almost done, don't shoot me, please, just don't shoot me!"
Alec is beyond irritated at this point. There's no way he's getting out of this without having to flee the scene before the cops show, possibly with a few dead bodies behind him. They'll check the witnesses for barcodes-they check everyone they have to make eye contact with these days-and if he runs before they get here, it won't be much better. Let it happen, stop it: any scenario he plays out in his head ends with him expending too much effort and energy. He might as well make it worth his while.
"Hey, it's okay," he tells the boy, nudges him aside gently and catches his gaze. "I'm not here to hurt anybody, okay?"
The boy looks at him like he thinks Alec's got a few screws loose. The guy with the gun is clearly the one to be afraid of, not some cash-gifting dude with the plague.
"Soon as I move, hit that door and don't look back."
The boy shakes his head, eyes bulging. "Don't be stupid!" he hisses, but Alec just winks.
In the next instant, the robber's out cold on the floor, Alec standing over him with his newly confiscated pistol trained on the cashier. The cashier's taken advantage of the distraction to remember he has a shotgun under the counter, and he's aiming it right at Alec's head. The boy has not yet fled, frozen to the spot.
"I don't want to," says Alec, aim a hell of a lot steadier than the geriatric guy gaping at him. "Don't make me."
The cashier seems to snap out of his stupor, then, firms his grip. "You think I'm gonna stand still so you can peel the flesh from my bones, you better think again, freak!"
Alec rolls his eyes. There's no reasoning with these people, he doesn't even know why he bothers. He blurs out of the line of fire and over the counter, conks the guy on the head before his spent shotgun shell hits the tile.
"Told you to run away," Alec says to the boy, who's still inanimate with fear. Shaking his head, Alec scoops up the dropped bag of money and collects his purchases. "You can be here when the cops show to tell 'em all about the scary monster, or you can grab as much food as your scrawny arms can carry and make yourself scarce. Anything missing, they'll just blame on me," he advises, backing out the door.
The boy says nothing, and Alec gets gone.
Back in the car, he heads south until a checkpoint gets in his way, veers off and leaves the Pontiac in a random parking lot. He transfers his spoils from the store to his own bag, then hikes as far northeast as he can go before he hits water. The rain tapers off just before the leaden sky glows pearly with the first hints of sunrise, early risers trickling out. It’s early winter; snow will be blowing down within the next few weeks.
Losing himself in one of the warehouse districts, Alec finds an old place by the docks with all its windows smashed out and hunkers down in one of the second-floor offices. The wind howls its way inside but he doesn’t spare a blanket to block it off, changes out of his wet clothes and counts the money. Nearly three hundred.
Maybe he'll try for Canada, he thinks, but changes his mind the next second. If those rumors of a safe haven for freaks have any truth to them then he doesn't want to risk it. Maybe he'd see a friendly face again, or maybe he'd find out they're all dead-"They made me out to be a monster, and then I had to turn into one."-or as good as. Better to just get clear of the city and follow the road until it hits nowhere.
Bundling himself in blankets, Alec uses his duffel for a pillow and keeps one hand tucked inside, wrapped around his newest pistol.
-:-
From Manticore to Terminal City, and they were still caged. They could leave, sure, sneak out into the world for supplies, but if they were caught they were dead.
It was open season on transgenics after all those conspiracy reports White had cooked up-those stunts he pulled with Annie and the Jam Pony fiasco had stirred up too much paranoia for him not to take advantage and expand on it. Transgenics were credited with high profile assassinations, school shootings, livestock mutilation, the works. Any crime bloody enough where the culprit got away clean, and the finger was automatically wagging their way. Didn’t matter what their human supporters said or tried; they ended up getting lumped into the target pool if they kept on protesting long enough. Eyes Only was more hunted than ever.
Civilians were worse than the cops by a mile-more of what happened to Biggs going on in spades. They caught the barest glimpse of ink on anyone’s neck and they’d mow the freak down in the streets with a motor-cart, or bash his head in with a broomstick, whatever was handy. Judges didn’t bat an eye, if it even made it as far as a courtroom. The offender usually ended up getting a medal out of the deal.
Max had a tendency to be a bitch when it came to anything Alec-related, never tried very hard to kick the habit, and it wasn’t like Alec did much to discourage it. But she gave him a place, a purpose, more chances than he deserved, and that smoothed over cracks Alec didn’t even know he had back then. And she tried where it mattered.
We’re not giving up, she’d say every time Alec proposed leaving TC. We can still fight this. Fix it.
They had nowhere to go, anyway. It’d be the same story, new venue, she insisted, wouldn’t hear Alec’s defense that they were bred for this very thing: to fight, acclimate, survive. They’d be safer if they spread out.
Max was too stubborn and idealistic, though. Even after Logan was finally caught and killed she wouldn’t budge. She refused to let their losses be for nothing. She held out hope until the very end.
But the government wasn’t much for peace talks where a bunch of psychotic freaks were concerned, wanted the mess swept under the rug for good and for keeps, and it was only a matter of time before the lines were crossed.
They weren’t just crossed, though. They were detonated.
They lost over half their number, buried in fire and rubble. Blood running down her arms and ash smearing her face, Max told the survivors to scatter, so they did. No questions. They all knew where it was headed, where it had already gone.
Kill or be killed, every freak for himself.
That was five years ago.
-:-
Something smacks him in the face and Alec snaps upright, barrel of his gun jammed tight against his visitor's forehead before what turns out to be a jacket is even finished sliding off his head. White daylight hits him square in the eyes, and he squints against it.
"We have to go," Ben says. He's crouched not a foot away, doesn't appear to care if Alec blows his brains out or not, which is just another reason Alec should. "Brilliant stunt you pulled last night. Our face is all over the news."
"How'd you find me?" Alec asks. He left witnesses at the store, so that announcement isn't exactly shocking. Other things have been bothering him more, despite all his not thinking. "How'd you even know about me? Was it Max?"
Ben swats the gun away, and Alec doesn't bother raising it again, scowls instead. "Max got pissed when I asked about you. She wouldn't tell me anything." Ben frowns, like he doesn't understand why in the world his search for Alec might alarm anyone. He picks up Alec's jacket and pushes it at him again. "I ran into an X6 a few years ago. Called himself Dalton. He thought I was you."
"You kill him, too?"
Ben stands, looks at Alec like he's the crazy one. "Why would I?"
Alec doesn't dignify that with a response. You don't explain things to crazy people. They already have all the explanations they'll ever want, and trying to inject sane-person logic into their way of thinking only gets you in trouble. Alec's had enough experience lately.
He pushes up and dresses swiftly, casting sidelong glances at his twin. Buoys clang off the water, dock workers grunting and stomping and cussing, rank polluted smell in the air. Ben's standing at the window, watching over it all while he waits for Alec to finish. He's cleaner today: no grit, new clothes that hang too loosely on his frame, but he’s still wearing the hat, pulled down too low like he wants to disappear into it. The morning light cuts sharp angles across his face, skin taut and bone-pale, and his eyes are darker than Alec's ever were, even at his lowest. Ben may still function well enough to remember about showers but he won't survive on his own much longer. Killing him would be a mercy.
"You know there's something wrong with you, don't you?"
"With me?" Alec says, brows jumping high. "Are you fucking serious?"
Ben turns, head cocked in appraisal. "You walked into a store to buy food, like it was normal. Like it's your right."
"It is." Alec buttons up his pants and shoves his feet into his boots.
"It's not. It was stupid. You could've been killed. Then you went and let everyone live to tell the tale so they could try to kill you again." Ben's getting a little worked up about it, fists clenched and his chest heaving, but Alec doesn't care if he flies right off the handle at this point. It's not his business.
"You know what?" Alec stuffs his clothes into his duffel and starts rolling up his blankets. "I've been getting by just fine, so save it. You wanna dig around in the trash for your next meal, that's your choice. Just because they treat us like rabid dogs doesn't mean we have to live like 'em. Sorry I got you in deep shit, but that's what you get for wearing my face."
Ben twists his mouth up in irritation. "It was my face first."
"Yeah, but then you died and it was all mine. Just 'cause you wouldn't stay that way doesn't mean you can have it back. Here." Alec stands again, duffel slung over his shoulder, and tosses a bag of chips and a soda over. Ben catches them. "Try something that hasn't been spit out of someone's else's mouth. Enjoy."
"You're leaving?"
"We're wanted, remember? You woke me up just now and told me about it." It's not the answer to Ben's real question, but Alec feels like being a smart-ass right now. He hasn't had the cause to exercise that side of himself in a long while.
Ben just looks at him, from violently annoyed to open and pleading in a beat flat.
Alec turns and walks away, pauses in the threshold and, without looking back, says, "I see you again, Ben, it's gonna get ugly."
Taking the stairs two at a time, Alec thinks it would've been better if it was Max who'd betrayed his existence to Ben. Hating her for any legitimate reason at all would make things easier.
-:-
With a confirmed transgenic in the city, everyone's on high alert. Trying to sneak through a checkpoint now is a lost cause, so Alec takes to the sewers.
They send regular patrols underground (monsters like their dank, dark shitholes, it's just common sense) but being caught in a crowd of Ordinaries topside would be much, much worse, and the cops are easy enough to avoid down here. The way things echo off the pipes, he can hear military-issue boots a mile off, and he can see better in the dark than they can. That's always handy.
He could do without his heightened sense of smell right now, though.
He's been down here maybe an hour, creeping through the squishy muck as stealthily as he knows how, when he picks up movement that's not him, and hushed voices.
"Shhh, shhh! C'mon, just a little further."
Alec goes still. He's at a T-junction, no openings nearby that would let him back onto the street, and the pipes snaking along the ceiling aren't sturdy enough to cling to until the danger passes. Opening fire down here would be a monumentally bad idea. He'll have to fight.
He presses his back to the slimy wall, waits and listens. It's not another five minutes before he sees what he's up against: a tight cluster of shadows all shuffling along together, a little clumsily, and only one of them's tall enough to be considered a threat by most people. The rest are low to the ground and tiny. Alec's not most people, though, and he knows a group of miniature assassins when he sees them. Looks like his little stunt has flushed some transgenics out of the woodwork.
He feels a flash of that same unwanted relief that Ben brought, the comfort of being with his own kind, and the irritation, too. An old responsibility he shed a long time ago rearing up to demand he lend a hand-it's partially his fault that things are like this now, and completely his fault that the city's released the hounds. The least he can do is help them find a new safehouse. Inconvenient as all hell, but still the least he can do. It's not like he has to stick around after.
When he steps out into the open, though, the X-6 ushering the group has other ideas. She takes one look at him and pops him right in the eye.
"Ow! What the fuck?" The left side of his face flares bright and throbs. It's been forever since he took a hit from someone who can actually do any real damage. Damn, he misses it, except that he really, really doesn't.
"You!" she hisses, and swings again. "You asshole!"
Alec's ready for it this time, catching her fist before she can take out his other eye. "Hey, c'mon! Do you punch everyone who tries to help you in the face? Jesus."
She yanks her arm out of his grip and, oh man, if looks could kill. The kids huddled around her are glaring at him, too, lips curled up and their eyes shining with what promises to be hell on his ankles if he makes one more wrong move. None of their faces are familiar to him, not from TC. Probably some of the few refugees smart enough to make tracks as soon as Manticore burned down, instead of sticking around to live in the oppressed spotlight.
"Think you've helped enough," the X-6 growls, edges her group past him and hurries them along the corridor until they're out of sight again. "Thanks for stirring the pot, dipshit," she calls out of the dark, and Alec sighs.
Whether she's talking about Seattle or Alec's latest clusterfuck doesn't make much difference.
He kicks at the wall. Grits his teeth and moves on.
NEXT
Three pistols and a knife in easy reach, the shotgun he took from a farmer who caught him squatting in his barn last year tucked under the mattress, and Alec’s up with a weapon in hand before his intruder can blink.
It’s dark and drafty, hard rain rattling the windows. His shirt’s all the way across the room and he instantly misses his warm nest of blankets. The orange glow of streetlamps filters in to cast watery shadows across the intruder’s form, but Alec can see him clear as day and there’s no mistaking that face.
Weapons and reaction time aside, nothing could have fully prepared him for coming face to face with a zombie.
"You’re dead," Alec says, allowing himself a half-second to adjust to the universe's newest anarchy.
"Manticore doesn’t accept failure," is what the undead intruder comes back with. He's caked in dirt, dripping rainwater all over the floor, ugly fraying beanie cap swallowing the top of his head, and his knuckles are bleeding. His features are more hardened than Alec’s, and he's thinner, too. He smells like pine and roadkill.
Alec keeps the gun steady, eyes flicking to the half-open window. This confrontation is all very jarring and what-the-fuck, but all he can think is that if anyone saw Ben climbing in, they’re both screwed. He's six floors up and there's no fire escape out there.
"Being dead’s kind of an irreversible failure," he tries, stalling so he can get his head on straight. He's not sure this isn't some kind of conscience-purging nightmare, even if he stopped having those a while ago.
"They tortured me until I wasn’t anymore. ‘Experimenting’ was actually what they called it, but you know how that goes." Ben shrugs, trying for casual, like this is all normal, being a dead guy looking up his genetic copy as easy as finding a listing in the yellow pages. But there’s a rigidity in his posture Alec is intimately familiar with. Bad memories all around, and no thank you.
"Manticore went up in smoke years ago," says Alec. "Where the hell have you been?"
"You know the drill. Escape and evade."
Yeah, Alec knows the drill. He’s only lived it for the past half-decade, and where the hell was Ben when they were front and center on the news every day? Psychosis or not, they could’ve used some help. Alec could have used- "You didn’t come back."
"I couldn’t risk it."
"Get out."
Ben loses the smirk, the tiny spark in his eyes smothered out. "I just got here."
"You’re crazy. Crazy people aren’t invited. Go look up Max, I’m sure she’d love to hear from you."
Ben frowns. "She killed me."
Alec bites his lip. He shouldn’t have brought her into it, now that he’s thinking about it. She may have spoken fondly of her brother and wallowed in a shit-ton of guilt over his death, but she’s sure to have a few choice words for him if Ben-alive and probably still whacked right out of his serial-killing gourd-actually catches up with her. "She told me."
Ben nods, like he knew already. "I returned the favor."
"What?" It’s not a question, more I dare you to repeat that so I can blast you full of holes, but Ben doesn’t seem to be interpreting the warning quite right.
"She’s dead," Ben says again, like he thinks Alec's genuinely hard of hearing.
Alec feels something crucial to his survival snapping loose inside, the beginnings of an unraveling, but there's nothing he can do about it unless Ben takes it back. His finger goes tight on the trigger. He can pick up the sound of his knuckles creaking, even over the raging pulse in his ears. "That what you’re here for? Gonna sacrifice me to your bloodthirsty Lady next? ‘Cause I got a few bullets that’re gonna have something to say about that."
"She was done," Ben explains, not taking it back at all, making it so much worse, and he doesn’t look amused or any kind of casual anymore. He looks just like Alec feels. Alec aches to shoot him, right between the eyes. "All that running and hiding. She was glad I came. Funny. She thought the world had gotten too big and scary for me, back then, but when I found her?" Ben shakes his head, and Alec’s eyes burn, his steady aim not so steady now. Screw shooting him. Alec should beat him to death, painful and messy. "When I found her, she was squatting in a dead man’s house, some guy she had to take out ‘cause he spotted her leaping a fence. Our fearless Maxie was starving to death because she didn’t wanna have to kill anyone else just to get more food."
"Shut up." Alec’s done listening.
But Ben’s not done talking. "You know what she said to me? She said: 'They made me out to be a monster, and then I had to turn into one.'"
"Five seconds."
"I’m not here to kill you," says Ben, and now he looks scared. He should be, even if Alec knows he’s not the thing Ben fears.
"Four."
"I’ve been looking for you forever, and you’re just gonna--"
"Three." Alec cocks the gun.
Ben takes a careful step back toward the window. "I did this wrong."
"Two."
"Fine," Ben snaps, eyes gone cold and hard, throws the pane up and dives out headfirst over the ledge, swift and soundless.
Alec blows out a shaky breath and lets the wobble in his knees take over, ass colliding hard with the lumpy mattress. Gut twisting, he pinches himself and bites his lip and blinks fast.
He doesn't wake up.
-:-
Max is dead and Ben isn’t: two new facts like rusted blades going to town on his insides. Just when Alec thinks the world can’t get any more fucked up, it rises to the challenge.
Alec's having a hard time hanging onto his surprise, though, more pissed at himself than anything. He remembers robo-Zack all too well, should've guessed sooner that Manticore wouldn't give up on another multimillion dollar investment just because its brains got a little scrambled, and he idly wonders if Ben got any shiny, indestructible parts to go with his lunacy. He's probably out there hunting some poor schmuck right now, some family man with a wife and two-point-five kids and a blatant thirst for shedding transgenic blood. Alec should have planted a bullet in Ben's brain, quick and clean, should feel more guilty that he loosed him back on the city. He should've avenged Max's death, at the very least. She deserved that much.
It's entirely too tender, that place in his memory where she lives. Poking at it brings nothing good, and Alec's no masochist. There’s no sense dissecting any of these things now, anyway, nothing he can do to change it, so he splashes his face in the sink and kicks the useless clutter out of his head.
The apartment’s not anything special-a gutted, abandoned place with wires creeping out of the walls, carpet and baseboards and fixtures all ripped out-but Alec was hoping for the luxury of calling it home for at least a week or two. Wasn’t easy dragging that dumpster-salvaged mattress up six flights of stairs without calling attention.
He can’t stay now, though. Ben may be an X5 but he’s nuttier than squirrel shit and who knows how much of his stealth training is tangled up in the madness twisting his brain all out of shape. Alec heard him coming in, and with that level of carelessness Ben might as well have been flashing neon lights around the place. Besides, Alec’s not eager to have another run-in. Ben knows where to find him and that doesn’t sit well at all.
He’s packed in under four minutes, pulls on a couple of shirts and a hoodie, leather jacket over it all. He’ll be sweating like a pig before he gets outside, but a guy wandering around in the cold with too few layers commands instant suspicion and lots of it.
Outside, Alec finds a beat-up old Pontiac and hotwires it easy. It’s the least conspicuous one, free of graffiti and an alarm. He tosses his duffel and blankets into the passenger’s seat, shotgun on top, and hightails it out of there. There's no fuss out on the street right now, but that doesn’t mean anything. People have gotten sneakier about forming their lynch mobs, and Alec’s keen to be in the wind before they get that far.
Newly restored high-rises are stacked along the horizon: jagged, monstrous things poking at the sky, starbursts of artificial light running up the sides like connect-the-dots. Rain blurs the windshield, and Alec thinks he’s done with cities for a while. Chicago is nothing like Seattle and yet everything like it at the same time. It’s big and important and full of easy marks and cubbyholes that are only a stone’s throw from places that can be ransacked for food, and it’s familiar for all of that. Still, he knows it was ridiculous to ever come here. Everything is so packed-in, people living on top of each other. It’s easy to get lost in places like this but it’s more dangerous too. The US government’s spent the last few years getting its shit together again: more reliable Internet, a resurrection of imports and exports, an all-around mend in the broken economy. Alec doesn’t want to be caught in any Ordinary-choked metropolis the day they install heat scanners in every doorway. The open countryside’s better.
He drives around for a while, scouting and planning and leaving absolutely no room in his head for anything else, but it turns out all the denial and aggressive apathy in the world can't keep that dreadfully familiar something inside him from unwinding just a little bit more. There's nothing but a whole mess of trouble waiting to ruin all his hard-won mental tidiness if he lets it go on, so Alec has to waste precious minutes stomping on it until it quits, and he's left with jangled nerves and sweaty hands by the time it's done.
But it is done, just a brief relapse. He's over it.
There’s a pack of Winstons in the glove box, crumpled and half full. Alec lets out a shaky sigh and chain smokes until he pulls into a Citgo, rubbing at his eyes until they’re red and puffy. He flips his hood up and hunches his shoulders, sniffling wetly when he walks inside. The harsh lighting does him a favor, his distorted reflection in the cooler’s glass verifying he looks like shit, and he checks his wallet as he browses.
He'll need to score some more cash soon. Getting out of the city’s going to take a few days, if he’s lucky. There are checkpoints all over the place, and he’ll have to ditch the car to get around them.
Alec grabs some snacks and a cheap roll of cough drops, lets out a miserable, hacking cough when he walks up to the register. A set of posters are plastered on the back wall, lined up neatly side-by-side underneath the cigarette display. MONSTERS AMONG US! the first one says, a list of tips for taking a freak down, a phone number and promises of a reward-DEAD OR ALIVE-in bold print across the bottom. It’s old and faded.
He coughs again, and the cashier doesn’t even look up from his Enquirer as he scans the items. Transgenics don’t get sick; that's common knowledge now.
"Thirty-one fifty," the cashier says distractedly, flips a page and keeps reading.
Paying that much for a handful of goods physically hurts, but Alec forks over the money. His eyes light on the drawer when it zings open, all that crumpled cash stacked so high the cashier has to put some elbow grease into cramming Alec's contribution in there, and the ache in Alec's gut combined with the skin-warmed metal tucked at his back is giving him all kinds of reckless ideas.
He looks around.
There's a kid in the store, filthy denim jacket and faded red sneakers, hair cut too short and his unprotected ears glowing bright red at the tips. He's inspecting the candy bars and checking the prices with an intensity usually reserved for penny-pinching old ladies. Can't be more than seven or eight, not old enough to be out alone at this hour. His fingernails are filthy and he's too thin.
Alec accepts his change and keeps his gun in his pants, heading for the door, but he suffers a moment of hesitation when his eyes fall on the kid again. He's seen and walked past bigger charity cases without a single hitch in his step, and he doesn't let himself think about why he doesn't this time.
"This is the one you want," he says, startling the kid when he stops beside him.
The kid flinches away and looks up, wary eyes and a scowl. Should've made more noise; Alec forgets that sometimes.
The obnoxious bell over the door jangles, and Alec's careful not to look around in paranoia. He tries for a carefree smirk and maybe fails a little bit, holding out a package of Reese's and a five dollar bill.
The kid's smart enough not to trust it, so Alec lays the money and candy down on the rack, remembers to sniffle and cough some more when he turns to leave.
"Nobody move!" a voice shouts, strained with fear, and Alec freezes just shy of the door. "Down on the ground!"
"Oh, come on," Alec groans under his breath, but drops to his knees and sneaks a glance over his shoulder.
Another kid, older and rougher, is waving a hand canon around, and it's goddamn fucking annoying when someone steals Alec's stupid ideas right out from under him. Guy couldn't have waited ten more seconds so he wouldn't have to watch?
"Not you!" the robber barks at the cashier when he tries to hide behind the counter, throws an empty backpack across. "Everything in the register! Now! Move!"
The cashier's got silver hair and liver-spotted hands, shaking like a dried-up leaf about to crumble apart in the wind. He fumbles around, filling the bag and dropping change all over the floor, pulse at his throat jumping so erratically Alec can practically hear the heart attack coming on.
"Hurry the fuck up!" the robber snaps, eyes bulging just as wide as they can go. He spots the candy-shopping boy trying to crawl out the opposite door. "Kid!"
The boy stops dead, and the gun-wielding moron walks over to haul him up by the arm. He shoves him at Alec. "Try anything else, and I'll bust a cap in your little ass, got me?"
Nodding jerkily, the boy stutters out an apology and shrinks back against Alec. Alec can't help the flinch. He avoids contact at all costs-the fever-warmth of his skin is just another giveaway-and it's jarring to have another body jammed up in his personal space.
"Stupid old motherfucker!" the robber shouts when the cashier drops the bag, bills scattering. "You want me to blow your fucking brains out? Is that it? Pick it up!"
The cashier falls down on creaking joints and promptly scrambles to gather it all back up. "I'm sorry, oh god, sorry! Almost done, don't shoot me, please, just don't shoot me!"
Alec is beyond irritated at this point. There's no way he's getting out of this without having to flee the scene before the cops show, possibly with a few dead bodies behind him. They'll check the witnesses for barcodes-they check everyone they have to make eye contact with these days-and if he runs before they get here, it won't be much better. Let it happen, stop it: any scenario he plays out in his head ends with him expending too much effort and energy. He might as well make it worth his while.
"Hey, it's okay," he tells the boy, nudges him aside gently and catches his gaze. "I'm not here to hurt anybody, okay?"
The boy looks at him like he thinks Alec's got a few screws loose. The guy with the gun is clearly the one to be afraid of, not some cash-gifting dude with the plague.
"Soon as I move, hit that door and don't look back."
The boy shakes his head, eyes bulging. "Don't be stupid!" he hisses, but Alec just winks.
In the next instant, the robber's out cold on the floor, Alec standing over him with his newly confiscated pistol trained on the cashier. The cashier's taken advantage of the distraction to remember he has a shotgun under the counter, and he's aiming it right at Alec's head. The boy has not yet fled, frozen to the spot.
"I don't want to," says Alec, aim a hell of a lot steadier than the geriatric guy gaping at him. "Don't make me."
The cashier seems to snap out of his stupor, then, firms his grip. "You think I'm gonna stand still so you can peel the flesh from my bones, you better think again, freak!"
Alec rolls his eyes. There's no reasoning with these people, he doesn't even know why he bothers. He blurs out of the line of fire and over the counter, conks the guy on the head before his spent shotgun shell hits the tile.
"Told you to run away," Alec says to the boy, who's still inanimate with fear. Shaking his head, Alec scoops up the dropped bag of money and collects his purchases. "You can be here when the cops show to tell 'em all about the scary monster, or you can grab as much food as your scrawny arms can carry and make yourself scarce. Anything missing, they'll just blame on me," he advises, backing out the door.
The boy says nothing, and Alec gets gone.
Back in the car, he heads south until a checkpoint gets in his way, veers off and leaves the Pontiac in a random parking lot. He transfers his spoils from the store to his own bag, then hikes as far northeast as he can go before he hits water. The rain tapers off just before the leaden sky glows pearly with the first hints of sunrise, early risers trickling out. It’s early winter; snow will be blowing down within the next few weeks.
Losing himself in one of the warehouse districts, Alec finds an old place by the docks with all its windows smashed out and hunkers down in one of the second-floor offices. The wind howls its way inside but he doesn’t spare a blanket to block it off, changes out of his wet clothes and counts the money. Nearly three hundred.
Maybe he'll try for Canada, he thinks, but changes his mind the next second. If those rumors of a safe haven for freaks have any truth to them then he doesn't want to risk it. Maybe he'd see a friendly face again, or maybe he'd find out they're all dead-"They made me out to be a monster, and then I had to turn into one."-or as good as. Better to just get clear of the city and follow the road until it hits nowhere.
Bundling himself in blankets, Alec uses his duffel for a pillow and keeps one hand tucked inside, wrapped around his newest pistol.
-:-
From Manticore to Terminal City, and they were still caged. They could leave, sure, sneak out into the world for supplies, but if they were caught they were dead.
It was open season on transgenics after all those conspiracy reports White had cooked up-those stunts he pulled with Annie and the Jam Pony fiasco had stirred up too much paranoia for him not to take advantage and expand on it. Transgenics were credited with high profile assassinations, school shootings, livestock mutilation, the works. Any crime bloody enough where the culprit got away clean, and the finger was automatically wagging their way. Didn’t matter what their human supporters said or tried; they ended up getting lumped into the target pool if they kept on protesting long enough. Eyes Only was more hunted than ever.
Civilians were worse than the cops by a mile-more of what happened to Biggs going on in spades. They caught the barest glimpse of ink on anyone’s neck and they’d mow the freak down in the streets with a motor-cart, or bash his head in with a broomstick, whatever was handy. Judges didn’t bat an eye, if it even made it as far as a courtroom. The offender usually ended up getting a medal out of the deal.
Max had a tendency to be a bitch when it came to anything Alec-related, never tried very hard to kick the habit, and it wasn’t like Alec did much to discourage it. But she gave him a place, a purpose, more chances than he deserved, and that smoothed over cracks Alec didn’t even know he had back then. And she tried where it mattered.
We’re not giving up, she’d say every time Alec proposed leaving TC. We can still fight this. Fix it.
They had nowhere to go, anyway. It’d be the same story, new venue, she insisted, wouldn’t hear Alec’s defense that they were bred for this very thing: to fight, acclimate, survive. They’d be safer if they spread out.
Max was too stubborn and idealistic, though. Even after Logan was finally caught and killed she wouldn’t budge. She refused to let their losses be for nothing. She held out hope until the very end.
But the government wasn’t much for peace talks where a bunch of psychotic freaks were concerned, wanted the mess swept under the rug for good and for keeps, and it was only a matter of time before the lines were crossed.
They weren’t just crossed, though. They were detonated.
They lost over half their number, buried in fire and rubble. Blood running down her arms and ash smearing her face, Max told the survivors to scatter, so they did. No questions. They all knew where it was headed, where it had already gone.
Kill or be killed, every freak for himself.
That was five years ago.
-:-
Something smacks him in the face and Alec snaps upright, barrel of his gun jammed tight against his visitor's forehead before what turns out to be a jacket is even finished sliding off his head. White daylight hits him square in the eyes, and he squints against it.
"We have to go," Ben says. He's crouched not a foot away, doesn't appear to care if Alec blows his brains out or not, which is just another reason Alec should. "Brilliant stunt you pulled last night. Our face is all over the news."
"How'd you find me?" Alec asks. He left witnesses at the store, so that announcement isn't exactly shocking. Other things have been bothering him more, despite all his not thinking. "How'd you even know about me? Was it Max?"
Ben swats the gun away, and Alec doesn't bother raising it again, scowls instead. "Max got pissed when I asked about you. She wouldn't tell me anything." Ben frowns, like he doesn't understand why in the world his search for Alec might alarm anyone. He picks up Alec's jacket and pushes it at him again. "I ran into an X6 a few years ago. Called himself Dalton. He thought I was you."
"You kill him, too?"
Ben stands, looks at Alec like he's the crazy one. "Why would I?"
Alec doesn't dignify that with a response. You don't explain things to crazy people. They already have all the explanations they'll ever want, and trying to inject sane-person logic into their way of thinking only gets you in trouble. Alec's had enough experience lately.
He pushes up and dresses swiftly, casting sidelong glances at his twin. Buoys clang off the water, dock workers grunting and stomping and cussing, rank polluted smell in the air. Ben's standing at the window, watching over it all while he waits for Alec to finish. He's cleaner today: no grit, new clothes that hang too loosely on his frame, but he’s still wearing the hat, pulled down too low like he wants to disappear into it. The morning light cuts sharp angles across his face, skin taut and bone-pale, and his eyes are darker than Alec's ever were, even at his lowest. Ben may still function well enough to remember about showers but he won't survive on his own much longer. Killing him would be a mercy.
"You know there's something wrong with you, don't you?"
"With me?" Alec says, brows jumping high. "Are you fucking serious?"
Ben turns, head cocked in appraisal. "You walked into a store to buy food, like it was normal. Like it's your right."
"It is." Alec buttons up his pants and shoves his feet into his boots.
"It's not. It was stupid. You could've been killed. Then you went and let everyone live to tell the tale so they could try to kill you again." Ben's getting a little worked up about it, fists clenched and his chest heaving, but Alec doesn't care if he flies right off the handle at this point. It's not his business.
"You know what?" Alec stuffs his clothes into his duffel and starts rolling up his blankets. "I've been getting by just fine, so save it. You wanna dig around in the trash for your next meal, that's your choice. Just because they treat us like rabid dogs doesn't mean we have to live like 'em. Sorry I got you in deep shit, but that's what you get for wearing my face."
Ben twists his mouth up in irritation. "It was my face first."
"Yeah, but then you died and it was all mine. Just 'cause you wouldn't stay that way doesn't mean you can have it back. Here." Alec stands again, duffel slung over his shoulder, and tosses a bag of chips and a soda over. Ben catches them. "Try something that hasn't been spit out of someone's else's mouth. Enjoy."
"You're leaving?"
"We're wanted, remember? You woke me up just now and told me about it." It's not the answer to Ben's real question, but Alec feels like being a smart-ass right now. He hasn't had the cause to exercise that side of himself in a long while.
Ben just looks at him, from violently annoyed to open and pleading in a beat flat.
Alec turns and walks away, pauses in the threshold and, without looking back, says, "I see you again, Ben, it's gonna get ugly."
Taking the stairs two at a time, Alec thinks it would've been better if it was Max who'd betrayed his existence to Ben. Hating her for any legitimate reason at all would make things easier.
-:-
With a confirmed transgenic in the city, everyone's on high alert. Trying to sneak through a checkpoint now is a lost cause, so Alec takes to the sewers.
They send regular patrols underground (monsters like their dank, dark shitholes, it's just common sense) but being caught in a crowd of Ordinaries topside would be much, much worse, and the cops are easy enough to avoid down here. The way things echo off the pipes, he can hear military-issue boots a mile off, and he can see better in the dark than they can. That's always handy.
He could do without his heightened sense of smell right now, though.
He's been down here maybe an hour, creeping through the squishy muck as stealthily as he knows how, when he picks up movement that's not him, and hushed voices.
"Shhh, shhh! C'mon, just a little further."
Alec goes still. He's at a T-junction, no openings nearby that would let him back onto the street, and the pipes snaking along the ceiling aren't sturdy enough to cling to until the danger passes. Opening fire down here would be a monumentally bad idea. He'll have to fight.
He presses his back to the slimy wall, waits and listens. It's not another five minutes before he sees what he's up against: a tight cluster of shadows all shuffling along together, a little clumsily, and only one of them's tall enough to be considered a threat by most people. The rest are low to the ground and tiny. Alec's not most people, though, and he knows a group of miniature assassins when he sees them. Looks like his little stunt has flushed some transgenics out of the woodwork.
He feels a flash of that same unwanted relief that Ben brought, the comfort of being with his own kind, and the irritation, too. An old responsibility he shed a long time ago rearing up to demand he lend a hand-it's partially his fault that things are like this now, and completely his fault that the city's released the hounds. The least he can do is help them find a new safehouse. Inconvenient as all hell, but still the least he can do. It's not like he has to stick around after.
When he steps out into the open, though, the X-6 ushering the group has other ideas. She takes one look at him and pops him right in the eye.
"Ow! What the fuck?" The left side of his face flares bright and throbs. It's been forever since he took a hit from someone who can actually do any real damage. Damn, he misses it, except that he really, really doesn't.
"You!" she hisses, and swings again. "You asshole!"
Alec's ready for it this time, catching her fist before she can take out his other eye. "Hey, c'mon! Do you punch everyone who tries to help you in the face? Jesus."
She yanks her arm out of his grip and, oh man, if looks could kill. The kids huddled around her are glaring at him, too, lips curled up and their eyes shining with what promises to be hell on his ankles if he makes one more wrong move. None of their faces are familiar to him, not from TC. Probably some of the few refugees smart enough to make tracks as soon as Manticore burned down, instead of sticking around to live in the oppressed spotlight.
"Think you've helped enough," the X-6 growls, edges her group past him and hurries them along the corridor until they're out of sight again. "Thanks for stirring the pot, dipshit," she calls out of the dark, and Alec sighs.
Whether she's talking about Seattle or Alec's latest clusterfuck doesn't make much difference.
He kicks at the wall. Grits his teeth and moves on.
NEXT