Movie Magic - Chapter 5: The Creature Shop
Title: Movie Magic
Author: LaughtersMelody
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Dark Angel
Disclaimer: I don’t own it. I have the DVDs, and one of my friends was kind enough to give me the books, but that’s as close as I get. *sighs*
Genre: Romance/Humor/Mystery/Action
Pairing: Max/Alec
Type: Multi-chapter
Spoilers: Takes place sometime after “Love Among The Runes,” but before “Freak Nation.”
Characters: Max, Alec, Logan
Secondary Characters: OCs
Summary: Max and Alec go undercover on a movie set, and things get…complicated.
A/N: You know, the problem with posting in so many places is that it's easy to get certain things mixed up...like author's notes, lol. I actually had the author's note for this chapter on the last chapter. *shakes head at self* Well, lol, this chapter is the one with less exposition and more action in it, lol.
I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think! :)
~*~*~*~*~
Movie Magic
They’d decided to check out the air field after dark since that was when the set was the quietest, and they were least likely to get caught. It wasn’t hard to sneak past the trailers. The guards posed a little more of a challenge, but Alec and Max managed to stay in the trees most of the way, jumping from branch to branch. When the branches thinned out too much, the growth on forest floor was thick enough to hide them until they reached the road Alec had seen while doing recon.
The ‘road’ turned out to be more of a dirt path, but it wasn’t being watched, and after a few minutes of hiking, they reached the air field.
It wasn’t much to look at. The largest building, the hanger, sat near the end of the runway, surrounded by a few other, smaller buildings, and a couple storage sheds. It looked like it hadn’t been used for a while, but the light reflecting in the windows made it pretty obvious that it wasn’t as abandoned as it was supposed to be.
Alec frowned.
Things had been easy so far, but crossing that runway was going to be tricky. It was basically just a long stretch of blacktop that offered no cover, and if they got caught, they’d be sitting ducks out there. Well, Alec supposed, they just have to not get caught.
He turned to Max and smirked.
“Ladies first,” he said.
Max rolled her eyes and started forward. He followed behind her, keeping low to the ground as he moved.
There were a couple bored-looking guards on sentry duty around the hanger, so they stuck to the shadows and skirted the perimeter, looking for an opening.
“This isn’t gonna be like that time we got stuck in a closet, is it?” Alec whispered.
“Why,” Max demanded, glancing back at him, “you got somewhere else to be?”
“Actually, yeah. Teresa asked me to have dinner with her.”
He could have been wrong, but he thought he saw Max’s jaw clench a little at that.
“Well, your love life will to wait,” she snapped finally. “This is more important.”
Alec frowned at her reaction, but he didn’t get the chance to say anything. The guards they’d been watching apparently did routine sweeps of the area, and they chose that moment to start one. Max and Alec waited until the guards had turned the corner, then blurred across the runway.
They would have had a problem actually getting into the place -- turned out hangers didn’t usually have a whole lot of doors to chose from -- but one of the windows on the far wall was broken, the glass completely missing. It was pretty high up on the building, but a 10 foot jump wasn’t a challenge for a transgenic.
Max went first again, and Alec didn’t argue. He knew that was how she wanted it, and at least that way he could watch her back. A problem in front of her, she could probably deal with alone, but ambushes had a nasty way of sneaking up behind you. That, she’d need help with.
But, for once, there’s weren’t any ambushes or problems -- yet -- and the window led to a dark corridor lined with some old shipping crates.
“Wow,” Alec couldn’t resist saying, “Malone really is evil. He’s hiding crates. The injustice of it all!”
Predictably, Max hit him.
“Idiot,” she growled. “Maybe he’s shipping something in the crates. Ever think of that?”
Alec arched an eyebrow at her and pried the lid off the nearest one. It was empty. Well, for the most part, anyway.
“Oh, look, straw. We’re doomed.”
Max hit him again. Hard.
“If there’s nothing here, then we’ll just have to keep looking,” she hissed. “Now, hurry up and come on. After all, you’re the one who was whining about missing your precious date.”
Okay, he definitely hadn’t imagined the bitterness in her voice that time…
They walked around for a few minutes, dodging the occasional guard, and finding yet more crates. Alec was starting to believe that really was all they were going to find, when they reached the end of the hallway. Evidently, the hanger was designed with smaller storage areas ringing the walls, and a main, open area that was intended for the planes themselves.
But planes weren’t being kept there now.
Sitting in a back corner was a large cage. That alone wasn’t really shocking -- Alec was pretty familiar with cages. He’d been inside them too many times not to be. But what caught him off guard was the woman in the cage. A tall woman with long, black hair, blue eyes, and stripes. Stripes.
A transgenic. Malone’s ‘package’ was a transgenic.
Alec and Max shared a look and moved closer, using some of the lower-lying crates as cover.
She was a transhuman, that much was obvious. She was wearing a battered Manticore-issue black vest and gray fatigues. Her eyes were a deep, teal blue, and fangs were visible when she snarled. Her features looked mostly human, but her skin was strikingly pale…except for the stripes.
There might have been a few other things mixed in, but for some reason, Alec had a feeling “white tiger” was probably a pretty big part of her cocktail.
She actually looked kind of cool…in a weird, freaky sort of way.
A large company of guards was stationed around her cage. They were all well-armed, and several of them had what Alec could only call cattle-prods. That was probably what they used to keep her in line.
Alec grimaced, and Max tensed next to him.
“We have to get her out of there,” she said lowly, starting forward. Alec realized what she was doing and caught her just in time. He pulled her back down.
“Max, we can’t.”
“What?!” she demanded. “Why not?!”
Alec sighed.
“Listen, I get it, okay? I do, really. But right now, there’s two of us, and a lot more of them. We have to play this smart, or we’ll wind up in there with her.”
Max looked like she was ready to argue -- big surprise -- when the sound of a familiar voice echoed through the room, making them both freeze.
Malone.
He was walking towards the cage with a tall Hispanic man, who had dark hair and even darker eyes, and a bearing that screamed military-for-hire. The insignia on his uniform identified him as a Colonel, but Alec had a feeling that he didn’t take orders from anyone, no matter what their rank.
Malone didn’t look happy.
“Mr. De Luca might have hired you,” the producer was growling, “but right now, you’re working for me, and I expect you to do your job.”
“My job is to protect Mr. De Luca’s interests, not yours. You would be wise to remember that.”
Malone’s eyes narrowed.
“Is that a threat, Rodriguez?”
The Hispanic man shrugged.
“What if it is? You forget who does your dirty work, Malone. You might order the hits, but we get rid of the bodies. What do you think would happen if one of those bodies just happened to wind up on the Seattle PD’s doorstep?”
It seemed like Malone wanted to make a threat of his own right then, but Rodriguez had the advantage for the moment, and Malone knew it.
“You say you’re here to protect Mr. De Luca’s interests,” he said at last, his voice tightly controlled. “You take me out of the picture, and you’ll wind up costing him a lot of money.”
“How? All we’ve done for the last couple weeks is guard this thing. My men are getting restless, Malone. And I really don’t like it when people waste my time.”
Most people would probably have been worried by the not-so-subtle warning, but instead, the producer actually managed to look smug.
“Is that what you think this is? A waste of your time?”
Rodriguez shrugged again.
“You haven’t given me a reason to think it’s anything else.”
Malone paused, obviously considering the pros and cons of what he was about to do. Apparently, the pros won out. He stepped closer to the cage, just outside the bars. The transhuman woman snarled and charged at him immediately, only to be hit by a cattle-prod from one of the guards. She gave a half-human roar of pain and staggered back.
Alec felt Max tense next to him again, and put a restraining hand on her arm.
“Did you see that?” Malone asked, turning back to the Colonel.
Rodriguez looked totally unimpressed.
“It’s a freak with stripes.”
“Oh, but she’s so much more than that,” the producer disagreed. “These days, Hollywood is a joke. You make a movie, you sell a couple thousand copies at best. But, if people learn they can see something like her in a movie? They won’t be able to get enough of it.” Malone smiled. “Mr. De Luca agrees.”
“So,” Rodriguez summarized, “in exchange for his help getting this thing to where it’s supposed to be, you’re giving him a share of the profits?”
“Mr. De Luca understands that there’s a profit to be made.” Malone paused. “Do you?” he asked pointedly.
Rodriguez gave him a measuring look.
“What are you offering?”
“I know Mr. De Luca is paying you for your services here, but I can double that. All I need is a few more days. By then, filming here will be finished, and we’ll be able to move her.”
“You sure about that?” the Colonel asked. “That’s what you told me a week ago when you fired those actors. You said the movie would be scrapped. It wasn’t.”
Alec blinked.
No wonder it seemed like Malone was doing everything he could to stop the movie from being made. He was. He wanted to stop production on one film so he could get started on the next one, his transgenic prize in tow. Pretty ironic, considering that he already had two transgenics staring in the movie he was trying to shut down.
Malone grit his teeth.
“I told you, I thought the studio would call the film a lost cause. They didn’t. That left me no choice but to hire replacements. The studio would have been suspicious if I hadn’t.”
Rodriguez seemed satisfied enough with that answer.
“Fine,” he said at last. “You double our pay, and my men and I will stick around, and make sure no one from the set gets curious. But any longer than that, Malone, and we’ll have to renegotiate.”
Malone still didn’t look very happy, but he nodded in agreement. Rodriguez moved closer to the cage, studying the transhuman appraisingly.
“How did you get your hands on this thing, anyway?” he asked.
Malone shrugged.
“You’ve got your connections, I’ve got mine. The acquaintance who sold her to me says she’s changed hands a few times, but she was originally bought off of one of the scientists who worked at that Manticore place. He swapped her for a ticket out of the country.”
Rodriguez gave a non-committal grunt.
“Well, wherever you got her, she better be worth it.”
Malone smiled.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“I’d better not. If I do, I guarantee you’ll have problems of your own.”
With that parting shot, Rodriguez walked off, leaving Malone to glare daggers at his back.
Alec glanced at Max, not surprised to see her giving Malone the same look he was giving the Colonel. Not that he blamed her. He wouldn’t mind having a “talk” with Malone himself.
But, right now, they needed to get out of here. They’d learned everything they were going to, and they needed to get back to the set before someone started wondering where they were.
They had a few days to figure out what to do, so they could wait. They could come up with a plan, and improve the odds. Smart Strategy 101. He just had to convince Max that he was right.
Alec sighed.
One thing was for sure. He was definitely gonna have to cancel his date with Teresa.
TBC…
~*~*~*~*~
A/N: Tigers actually do have stripes on their skin. :) The Sea World animal info page on tigers says, “Tigers are the only large cat species to have distinctive striping located on both the hair and skin of the tiger.”
The next chapter should be very soon. :)
Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!
Take care and God bless!
-Laughter
~*~*~*~*~
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |
| Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 |
~*~*~*~*~
Author: LaughtersMelody
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Dark Angel
Disclaimer: I don’t own it. I have the DVDs, and one of my friends was kind enough to give me the books, but that’s as close as I get. *sighs*
Genre: Romance/Humor/Mystery/Action
Pairing: Max/Alec
Type: Multi-chapter
Spoilers: Takes place sometime after “Love Among The Runes,” but before “Freak Nation.”
Characters: Max, Alec, Logan
Secondary Characters: OCs
Summary: Max and Alec go undercover on a movie set, and things get…complicated.
A/N: You know, the problem with posting in so many places is that it's easy to get certain things mixed up...like author's notes, lol. I actually had the author's note for this chapter on the last chapter. *shakes head at self* Well, lol, this chapter is the one with less exposition and more action in it, lol.
I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think! :)
~*~*~*~*~
Movie Magic
They’d decided to check out the air field after dark since that was when the set was the quietest, and they were least likely to get caught. It wasn’t hard to sneak past the trailers. The guards posed a little more of a challenge, but Alec and Max managed to stay in the trees most of the way, jumping from branch to branch. When the branches thinned out too much, the growth on forest floor was thick enough to hide them until they reached the road Alec had seen while doing recon.
The ‘road’ turned out to be more of a dirt path, but it wasn’t being watched, and after a few minutes of hiking, they reached the air field.
It wasn’t much to look at. The largest building, the hanger, sat near the end of the runway, surrounded by a few other, smaller buildings, and a couple storage sheds. It looked like it hadn’t been used for a while, but the light reflecting in the windows made it pretty obvious that it wasn’t as abandoned as it was supposed to be.
Alec frowned.
Things had been easy so far, but crossing that runway was going to be tricky. It was basically just a long stretch of blacktop that offered no cover, and if they got caught, they’d be sitting ducks out there. Well, Alec supposed, they just have to not get caught.
He turned to Max and smirked.
“Ladies first,” he said.
Max rolled her eyes and started forward. He followed behind her, keeping low to the ground as he moved.
There were a couple bored-looking guards on sentry duty around the hanger, so they stuck to the shadows and skirted the perimeter, looking for an opening.
“This isn’t gonna be like that time we got stuck in a closet, is it?” Alec whispered.
“Why,” Max demanded, glancing back at him, “you got somewhere else to be?”
“Actually, yeah. Teresa asked me to have dinner with her.”
He could have been wrong, but he thought he saw Max’s jaw clench a little at that.
“Well, your love life will to wait,” she snapped finally. “This is more important.”
Alec frowned at her reaction, but he didn’t get the chance to say anything. The guards they’d been watching apparently did routine sweeps of the area, and they chose that moment to start one. Max and Alec waited until the guards had turned the corner, then blurred across the runway.
They would have had a problem actually getting into the place -- turned out hangers didn’t usually have a whole lot of doors to chose from -- but one of the windows on the far wall was broken, the glass completely missing. It was pretty high up on the building, but a 10 foot jump wasn’t a challenge for a transgenic.
Max went first again, and Alec didn’t argue. He knew that was how she wanted it, and at least that way he could watch her back. A problem in front of her, she could probably deal with alone, but ambushes had a nasty way of sneaking up behind you. That, she’d need help with.
But, for once, there’s weren’t any ambushes or problems -- yet -- and the window led to a dark corridor lined with some old shipping crates.
“Wow,” Alec couldn’t resist saying, “Malone really is evil. He’s hiding crates. The injustice of it all!”
Predictably, Max hit him.
“Idiot,” she growled. “Maybe he’s shipping something in the crates. Ever think of that?”
Alec arched an eyebrow at her and pried the lid off the nearest one. It was empty. Well, for the most part, anyway.
“Oh, look, straw. We’re doomed.”
Max hit him again. Hard.
“If there’s nothing here, then we’ll just have to keep looking,” she hissed. “Now, hurry up and come on. After all, you’re the one who was whining about missing your precious date.”
Okay, he definitely hadn’t imagined the bitterness in her voice that time…
They walked around for a few minutes, dodging the occasional guard, and finding yet more crates. Alec was starting to believe that really was all they were going to find, when they reached the end of the hallway. Evidently, the hanger was designed with smaller storage areas ringing the walls, and a main, open area that was intended for the planes themselves.
But planes weren’t being kept there now.
Sitting in a back corner was a large cage. That alone wasn’t really shocking -- Alec was pretty familiar with cages. He’d been inside them too many times not to be. But what caught him off guard was the woman in the cage. A tall woman with long, black hair, blue eyes, and stripes. Stripes.
A transgenic. Malone’s ‘package’ was a transgenic.
Alec and Max shared a look and moved closer, using some of the lower-lying crates as cover.
She was a transhuman, that much was obvious. She was wearing a battered Manticore-issue black vest and gray fatigues. Her eyes were a deep, teal blue, and fangs were visible when she snarled. Her features looked mostly human, but her skin was strikingly pale…except for the stripes.
There might have been a few other things mixed in, but for some reason, Alec had a feeling “white tiger” was probably a pretty big part of her cocktail.
She actually looked kind of cool…in a weird, freaky sort of way.
A large company of guards was stationed around her cage. They were all well-armed, and several of them had what Alec could only call cattle-prods. That was probably what they used to keep her in line.
Alec grimaced, and Max tensed next to him.
“We have to get her out of there,” she said lowly, starting forward. Alec realized what she was doing and caught her just in time. He pulled her back down.
“Max, we can’t.”
“What?!” she demanded. “Why not?!”
Alec sighed.
“Listen, I get it, okay? I do, really. But right now, there’s two of us, and a lot more of them. We have to play this smart, or we’ll wind up in there with her.”
Max looked like she was ready to argue -- big surprise -- when the sound of a familiar voice echoed through the room, making them both freeze.
Malone.
He was walking towards the cage with a tall Hispanic man, who had dark hair and even darker eyes, and a bearing that screamed military-for-hire. The insignia on his uniform identified him as a Colonel, but Alec had a feeling that he didn’t take orders from anyone, no matter what their rank.
Malone didn’t look happy.
“Mr. De Luca might have hired you,” the producer was growling, “but right now, you’re working for me, and I expect you to do your job.”
“My job is to protect Mr. De Luca’s interests, not yours. You would be wise to remember that.”
Malone’s eyes narrowed.
“Is that a threat, Rodriguez?”
The Hispanic man shrugged.
“What if it is? You forget who does your dirty work, Malone. You might order the hits, but we get rid of the bodies. What do you think would happen if one of those bodies just happened to wind up on the Seattle PD’s doorstep?”
It seemed like Malone wanted to make a threat of his own right then, but Rodriguez had the advantage for the moment, and Malone knew it.
“You say you’re here to protect Mr. De Luca’s interests,” he said at last, his voice tightly controlled. “You take me out of the picture, and you’ll wind up costing him a lot of money.”
“How? All we’ve done for the last couple weeks is guard this thing. My men are getting restless, Malone. And I really don’t like it when people waste my time.”
Most people would probably have been worried by the not-so-subtle warning, but instead, the producer actually managed to look smug.
“Is that what you think this is? A waste of your time?”
Rodriguez shrugged again.
“You haven’t given me a reason to think it’s anything else.”
Malone paused, obviously considering the pros and cons of what he was about to do. Apparently, the pros won out. He stepped closer to the cage, just outside the bars. The transhuman woman snarled and charged at him immediately, only to be hit by a cattle-prod from one of the guards. She gave a half-human roar of pain and staggered back.
Alec felt Max tense next to him again, and put a restraining hand on her arm.
“Did you see that?” Malone asked, turning back to the Colonel.
Rodriguez looked totally unimpressed.
“It’s a freak with stripes.”
“Oh, but she’s so much more than that,” the producer disagreed. “These days, Hollywood is a joke. You make a movie, you sell a couple thousand copies at best. But, if people learn they can see something like her in a movie? They won’t be able to get enough of it.” Malone smiled. “Mr. De Luca agrees.”
“So,” Rodriguez summarized, “in exchange for his help getting this thing to where it’s supposed to be, you’re giving him a share of the profits?”
“Mr. De Luca understands that there’s a profit to be made.” Malone paused. “Do you?” he asked pointedly.
Rodriguez gave him a measuring look.
“What are you offering?”
“I know Mr. De Luca is paying you for your services here, but I can double that. All I need is a few more days. By then, filming here will be finished, and we’ll be able to move her.”
“You sure about that?” the Colonel asked. “That’s what you told me a week ago when you fired those actors. You said the movie would be scrapped. It wasn’t.”
Alec blinked.
No wonder it seemed like Malone was doing everything he could to stop the movie from being made. He was. He wanted to stop production on one film so he could get started on the next one, his transgenic prize in tow. Pretty ironic, considering that he already had two transgenics staring in the movie he was trying to shut down.
Malone grit his teeth.
“I told you, I thought the studio would call the film a lost cause. They didn’t. That left me no choice but to hire replacements. The studio would have been suspicious if I hadn’t.”
Rodriguez seemed satisfied enough with that answer.
“Fine,” he said at last. “You double our pay, and my men and I will stick around, and make sure no one from the set gets curious. But any longer than that, Malone, and we’ll have to renegotiate.”
Malone still didn’t look very happy, but he nodded in agreement. Rodriguez moved closer to the cage, studying the transhuman appraisingly.
“How did you get your hands on this thing, anyway?” he asked.
Malone shrugged.
“You’ve got your connections, I’ve got mine. The acquaintance who sold her to me says she’s changed hands a few times, but she was originally bought off of one of the scientists who worked at that Manticore place. He swapped her for a ticket out of the country.”
Rodriguez gave a non-committal grunt.
“Well, wherever you got her, she better be worth it.”
Malone smiled.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“I’d better not. If I do, I guarantee you’ll have problems of your own.”
With that parting shot, Rodriguez walked off, leaving Malone to glare daggers at his back.
Alec glanced at Max, not surprised to see her giving Malone the same look he was giving the Colonel. Not that he blamed her. He wouldn’t mind having a “talk” with Malone himself.
But, right now, they needed to get out of here. They’d learned everything they were going to, and they needed to get back to the set before someone started wondering where they were.
They had a few days to figure out what to do, so they could wait. They could come up with a plan, and improve the odds. Smart Strategy 101. He just had to convince Max that he was right.
Alec sighed.
One thing was for sure. He was definitely gonna have to cancel his date with Teresa.
TBC…
~*~*~*~*~
A/N: Tigers actually do have stripes on their skin. :) The Sea World animal info page on tigers says, “Tigers are the only large cat species to have distinctive striping located on both the hair and skin of the tiger.”
The next chapter should be very soon. :)
Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!
Take care and God bless!
-Laughter
~*~*~*~*~
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |
| Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 |
~*~*~*~*~