Keeper of Souls (Part I)
Title: Keeper of Souls
Author: hunters_retreat
Artists: davincis_girl & crazycanary
Fandom: Dark Angel/Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing(s): Alec/Derek
Summary: Everyone learned to keep secrets and Alec was better at it than most. He needed to be after all, he had more to hide. When a raid goes wrong though and he's forced to work with a human named Derek Reese, he begins to trust. Derek seems on the up and up and so they make their way through the resistance, fighting for humanity and trying to keep each other alive. But what happens when Derek finds out that Alec isn't part of humanity, but a Transgenic from Cyberdyne’s Manticore facility? What will happen when humanity's last hope for survival rests on a man that isn't human at all?
The formation was straight, the lines true to form, and X5-494 trotted through the installation with the rest of his unit, head held high and ready for anything that might come at them. They were just being moved from one facility to another so nothing would happen. It didn’t mean Manticore expected its soldiers to be any less prepared though.
The gateway they moved through was tall, with crisp clean lines of concrete. He could see the cameras and the automated guns at the top of the walls surrounded by barbed wire. They didn’t stop in the open though, their superiors directing them from the front doors, down the many flights of steps, and through the long hallways until each soldier was issued a room of his own.
It was a small privilege and X5-494 was just glad he wasn’t living in the barracks like he used to. The walls were bare, a dull grey that did nothing for his imagination or his spirits. It wasn’t designed to, so he kept that thought to himself.
The bed was a standard fold up that snapped to the wall. The door opened on one end, a false window on the other, with a small closet for his clothes beside it. Just him, his bed, and his own little 10x15 feet bit of space to call home.
He opened the closet and found his things already set up; standard military gear pressed and folded or hung already, his boots shining at the bottom with a gleam that would make the strictest of military minds proud. He closed the door and took a deep breath, realizing he had no idea what the new routine would be. He didn’t like the notion, but it wasn’t like they’d been given much more by way of orders than, “Get in the truck for permanent relocation.”
He unsnapped the bed and took a deep breath as he climbed up on it. His legs dangled over, not quite long enough to sit and still reach the floor. He disliked the feeling so he pulled his legs up, crossing them over one another and taking up the meditation pose.
He closed his eyes, imagining the forms and motions that he would be able to work on once they were given their training schedule. X5-494 might not be the biggest, or tallest, or fastest X5 in his unit, but he was always thinking ahead, always planning and plotting and filing away other’s weaknesses for later use. In his mental exercises, he allowed himself the peace to work different tactics in his head to experiment and learn. While his fellows were probably napping or doing push ups, X5-494 was honing the one weapon that Manticore preferred they keep a little dull.
Twenty three minutes passed in his head before he heard the doors rattle open and one of the older X-4s came through the hall, ordering them all up to the main courtyard. X5-494 knew the layout in his head already. They were all expected to know it after the briefing they’d received in the trucks on the way over.
He came running out into the open and fell into immediate formation with his unit to the back of the other X-5s. He hated the way they were lined up, the eldest of the X series to the front with the youngest at the back. It made it harder to see what was happening and he was sure it was done on purpose. It was a subtle snub, something the officers could give them hell for later when they couldn’t do the moves correctly for the bad presentation. It was a psychological obstacle that they had no way to overcome and he was well aware of the way they tested them over it.
The rest of his unit and the other groups were preparing for sparring and X5-494 realized that even though they’d been moved, things were going to continue on much they way they had before.
He settled into the routine of sparring, followed by the critique and then the training sessions that were supposed to improve where they’d been in error. By then it would be dinnertime at the mess hall and back to his cot for lights out. At least that was the routine. It was Manticore after all, and he doubted, as exhausted and exciting as the day’s trip had been for the youngest in the X-5 series, that they would let them sleep the whole night through.
He’d learned, years ago when they’d first been transferred, not to question the noises he heard at night. He’s learned not to go looking for the cause of them. Not everyone in his unit had been so lucky, no matter that he’d warned them to stay back and stop worrying about something they couldn’t change.
He kept himself focused and pulled his weight, no matter what was asked of him, and each time it became clear that another unit was being called up into duty, he prayed it wasn’t his. Until the day when there just weren’t enough units left to keep watching.
494 didn’t know how he’d come to be involved in this, but with his ability to keep his head down and gather information from the smallest of comments, he’d found himself not only involved but planning the whole damn thing.
As scary as the idea of living in the world outside of Manticore might be, staying inside Manticore was worse. Staying inside Cyberdyne’s Manticore facilities was death and none of them had been trained in how to die easy.
He refused to look back though, refused to think of anything but the way out because there was no other option left to them now. It’d taken them too long to realize what was happening, too long to question orders when the older groups began to disappear.
He kept his eyes down as the delivery truck made its way through the main courtyard and down to the delivery bay to keep anyone from thinking he cared one way or another about it, but he made his way to the corridors, away from watchful eyes, and then moved quickly to make up the time. It was simple enough. Anyone who didn’t make it down there was left behind. They didn’t have a hope of fighting their way out past the automated guns, let along the metal skeletons that patrolled the grounds.
When he got there, he found that the others had already started without him. 452 and 599 had already knocked the driver unconscious and had him stuffed in the back. Nine others stood looking to him for the next move. They all knew what it was they needed to do, but they watched anyway. Even among Manticore’s elite soldiers, they needed someone else to lead. 494 didn’t say anything, but he pulled a knife from his belt and gritted his teeth as he sliced at his wrist, cutting deep enough to bleed out an ordinary, to get to the tracking device that had been placed in the flesh. The others did the same and when 494 tossed the transmitter into one of the cleaning bots the others followed his example, looking for other small mechanicals that would move around, giving the computers who monitored their positions the continued impression of movement. At least for the next fifteen minutes.
599 drove because he looked the most like the driver who’d been taken. 452 sat beside him and 494 in the back, ready to move if need be. The others were waiting for his signal, crouched down on the floor between boxes.
The gate opened and the others seemed to let out a collective breath. Not 494. He tensed even more. He wasn’t the only one. “Let’s max this thing out,” 452 said to 599.
599 shook his head. “We need more distance. Don’t want them to think I’m running.”
“Calm down,” 494 said. He looked at her for a second and smiled. “Max.”
“Max?”
“It fits you.”
She seemed to think about it for a minute, but then she tilted her head slightly and smiled. “Yeah, I guess it does. You got a name?”
“494,” he said without thought, his mind focused on the horizon ahead and the death trap they were leaving behind.
“Smart alec,” Max said with a roll of her eyes as she shifted to look over at her unit mate.
“Alec,” 599 said softly.
“Alec. Yeah,” 494 said slowly. Alec. He could be an Alec.
“What about you? You got a name?”
“Zach.”
494 looked at the other X-5 with curiosity. “Zach? Where’d you get Zach?”
“One of the old guards, he told me a story once about a man who refused to tell the mob how to find his son. He died to protect them. He died to keep their secret. His name was Zachariah.”
“Good name,” 494, Alec, said softly, though he disliked it instantly. There were enough troubles ahead of them without one of them developing a martyr complex.
They switched vehicles a couple times when they found the opportunity, never some place conspicuous and always in an out of the way town, hoping it would keep them hidden if anyone did come looking for them. When they stopped the second time, two of the X-5s got out and stayed with the car, heading in the opposite direction to make a fresh start.
They were never going to find one another again. There was no idea of solidarity or trying to protect each other by continuing on as a unit. They were a danger to one another so the best way to escape was to simply disappear. Each time they stopped the lost a few more until it was only Alec, Mac, and Zach.
The three of them continued on until nightfall when they knew they needed to stop and calculate their next move. The first thing they needed was a place to stay for the night. The second was money. As sheltered as they’d been during their training with Manticore, they’d always been prepared to be sent outside the installation’s walls. It wasn’t until the previous year that they’d discontinued that level of training and kept them strictly on the physical aspects.
Max and Zach took care of a place to stay; breaking in to the back window of a room in a large enough motel that no one would likely notice them. Alec took care of the cash. He hated it; hated dirtying himself with stealing but there was nothing else to be done. He was an accomplished pickpocket and the large mall they’d passed was the perfect place for it. He picked pockets, took the cash, and left the rest in a bag on the information desk when no one was looking.
It wasn’t enough to survive on for long, but he kept at it until it wasn’t an immediate concern. Especially if they could manage to steal their way into a new hideaway every night.
Their next target was a superstore and a combination of fast talking and a few fists were enough to get them out the back door with enough supplies to get them going; non-perishable food, clothes, supplies for first aid, and things they could use to defend themselves with. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. It was better than he’d expected since he’d never thought they’d actually get past the gates alive.
It bothered him that Manticore hadn’t sent anyone else out for them but they had to keep moving, had to keep going. It was part of the reason they’d all separated, the reason Alec was going to head out on his own. No one wanted to trust each other completely when any of them could have been a spy for Manticore. The machines weren’t the only way Manticore could come for them. It rubbed at the back of his head, making him feel raw inside, but there was nothing he could do about that until their hunters arrived.
Before dawn break, Alec divided the supplies into thirds and took his. He had a duffle and a back pack full of supplies, a wallet full of money, and a stolen SUV as he headed out of town without a goodbye. Clean breaks were the best, especially when he realized he was the one in need of a clean break. The fact that he’d managed to get the others out meant something, and Zach and Max, who had helped him start planning it all meant something. Which meant he had to leave while he still could. They’d understand in the morning when they woke.
Three days later Alec was in the Rocky Mountains making his way deeper and deeper into the unknown. He listened to the radio as the announcers detailed the most horrific events in the history of man. They were all grasping at straws, trying to make a connection to what had happened, but no one knew. All they knew was that nuclear weapons were hurled through the sky, blacking the horizon and killing everyone in their destructive path.
That day was the first. When the satellites came back online Skynet introduced itself to the world, opening its doors to the survivors. People fell in line, like lambs to the slaughter, hoping for food or water or medical treatment but when they opened their doors, it was the same all over. From afar, Alec watched as Cyberdyne’s Manticore installation opened its gates. There was no mercy as the metal skeletons walked out, the terminators glowing with a sick reflection from the unnatural sky. Everyone was gunned down, coldly and efficiently.
It was Judgment Day and by dusk, the human race was an endangered species.
The world was nothing more than a broken battlefield, lakes and rivers unsafe to tread and only the occasional green dotted the countryside. Alec knew in his mind that in some other place there was green. In some other part of the continent there had to be green peeking through the never ending grey of ash but he hadn’t seen it in years.
He’d heard a broadcast earlier, heard the call sign and known that John Connor was still out there, trying to rally the human race into some sort of rebellious mob that would end the terminators and their hold on the world, but Alec didn’t pay much attention to it other than to analyze his tactics. He wasn’t human. His own kind had been obliterated, all but a handful, when the humans had taken out Cyberdyne’s Manticore buildings, hoping to stop the machines back in the early days. They hadn’t known, but it didn’t make Alec any more inclined to help them.
Part of him realized the futility of that train of thought, because without the humans there would be only Alec, and the terminators would be able to find him easily enough. Still, it all settled uneasily on his shoulders as he looked back at the man to his right.
Devlin gave him a small, tight lipped smile and Alec wasn’t sure what it meant. The man had been tense for the last couple days. More so than usual. The few others with them looked at him with concern but Alec just let it go. The man had more nerve than anyone Alec had ever met before. He’d stood by Alec when his barcode had been found out, when the others had tried to toss him out of their gutter community for fear the terminators would be looking for him specifically, and walked away until they’d found their current community.
It was bullshit really, the things people thought about the transgenics. It was better that crowd than the others though; the ones that thought they’d willingly let themselves be guinea pigs in some lab experiment so the metal could learn how to grow the human flesh that made them indistinguishable from a human to the naked eye. He’d had a few brushes with that crowd too, before he’d learned about the laser and how to burn off the code for a few weeks.
No one around them knew about Alec now though and he had no intention of telling them. Not when that meant him getting kicked out of another community for it. He might not have a great love for humanity, but he didn’t really want to be the only duck in the shooting pond. Besides, he figured he’d go nuts eventually with just himself to talk to.
“It’s time,” Devlin said over his shoulder.
Alec nodded and heard the men and women behind him moving out, getting into position before the metal could know they were there. The plan was simple. They’d seen the patrol from afar and there were enough of them to overcome it. In the cart were a handful of people, the HK-transport obviously fresh out of the pens to look for more of the human population to decimate or to keep in the slave factories.
He was about to leave his secured location to join the others when he saw something gleaming from the other side of the ravine. He crouched down, knowing if it was a terminator then he was already too late to save the others. There were a group of men and women though, and he wondered at the likelihood of another pocket of humans in the area. They had to be human. Metal didn’t travel in packs when it just took one or two to bring down a whole lot of humans.
He looked back at Devlin and the other man nodded grimly. He didn’t understand Devlin’s mood because this should have made this part easier, even if the rest got muddled but he let it go as the first of his group began to open fire and he moved into sniper position.
It was easy to pick off the greys from there, and he knew that some of the people he was with weren’t too happy about the way he killed off anyone helping the terminators, claiming they could have no choice, but Alec knew that once broken always broken. If they were helping now they would again. He wasn’t about to trust his life with people like that.
He heard a noise behind him and jerked around, stopping last minute as he saw another man coming up beside him. He looked just as startled as Alec and both held their guns at the ready, neither shooting.
The other guy nodded towards the fight. “Just here to get rid of some metal.”
Alec lowered his weapon as a sign of trust, knowing he’d be able to get his weapon up quicker if the other man drew on him. He didn’t, but took position next to Alec, setting his rifle at the ready. Alec turned back to the men around them and then they were working in tandem, picking off greys and protecting the men and women at the front of it all.
That night Alec sat along the sidelines watching the rest of the humans as they laughed together, seeking comfort in the small fire was all that they had deemed safe. They were more alive after a fight, more aware of mortality and the need to prove they lived for something more than just survival’s sake. Alec wasn’t sure they did, but they did their damnedest to prove otherwise.
He drank whatever was passed around though, raising his glass when they did, taking a little part of their communion. He watched the darkness through it all, watched and wondered, worried about the ever present sense of danger and his own innate need to walk away from these people, to leave them behind and find a place of solitude where he’d never have to worry about discovery and betrayal.
He looked away from the night and towards the fires when he heard someone approaching. It was the man from earlier and he took a moment to really look at him. Before it had been a quick once over, an assessment of threat and nothing more, but now he took his time. Strong broad shoulders and dark, short cut hair. His eyes were hard, but not cold the way too many soldiers became, like he cared about his men, would mourn their loss instead of just tallying numbers in the overall battle. The set of his shoulders said he would continue though, that he wouldn’t buckle under the weight of those dead. He was a keeper of souls, as X-5493 had once called them, men and women who remembered the fallen and carried on in their name.
“You’re pretty good with a rifle,” the guy said, holding out a travel cup of whatever they were drinking.
Alec took the cup and watched as the other man leaned back against the cavern wall, looking into the darkness the same way Alec had been doing.
“Guess that’s why they give me the big guns,” Alec said, smiling slowly at the quirk of the other’s brow. He offered his hand and the other man took it slowly. “Name’s Alec.”
“Derek,” the other man said, looking down at where their hands were joined. It was old fashioned in a way, but Alec had been raised on human formalities and he respected the other man’s skill with a weapon. It was a simple way to show it.
“How long have you been planning that raid?” Alec asked as he sipped from the cup. It was just coffee and he was glad of it, took comfort from the warmth of the liquid and the rare taste as it slipped over his tongue and down his throat.
He passed it back to Derek who took another drink. “Just got word of it yesterday so we scrambled as many people out here as we could. What about you?”
Alec frowned. Two groups that far out seemed unlikely, but two groups that got word of something like that at about the same time? It was a coincidence he was unwilling to believe.
“How did you get word?”
“One of our scouts came back with it. Said he saw the ships flying around and warned us.”
“Same with us,” Alec said.
He knew he had a tendency towards paranoia but Derek’s brow furrowed as well. “I don’t like this,” he said softly.
“Got a man on guard?”
“Yeah.”
“Your scout?”
Derek cursed. “Fucking volunteered.”
Alec didn’t wonder where he was going when Derek took off, understanding as he made his own way to where he’d left Devlin to keep an eye over the ridge. Devlin raised his eyebrows as Alec walked up, his weapon in hand as he looked into the darkness on the other side of the cavern’s walls. The caves were good for overnight and they had smaller tunnels that gave two other escape points. The ravine they bordered was easy to watch and the clearing on the other side had few trees to hide incoming soldiers. Alec felt suddenly exposed though as he looked through the trees.
“Seems like our friends got warning about the same time we did,” Alec told the other man.
“Really? That seems… suspect,” Devlin said, raising his hand to rub at the back of his neck.
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
“The thing is…” Devlin said softly. “They take everything from you, Alec, everything. But sometimes they can give it back. Sometimes,” Devlin’s hand caressed the locket he wore around his neck, snapping it open as his eyes caressed the picture of his wife and daughter inside. “they give you what you thought was lost. All they wanted was a Transgenic and I found you.”
Alec heard Derek’s shout back among the others and he didn’t hesitate to raise his gun. The bullet between Devlin’s eyes meant he didn’t live long enough to tell anyone else who he was. “Get out!” Alec screamed above the others. He was back in front of the fire a second later and he knew then it was too late. One of the HK’s hovered above them and three machines stalked the floor, already littered with bodies. People were shooting and chaos filled the air because they were all too tired and too far into the drink to think straight. He damned them for not taking their safety seriously enough because they were all going to die up there, but then the HK shot a canister into the clearing and gas started pouring from it.
He caught sight of Derek, pushing people down through the cave entrance, trying to get them out the tunnels. Alec followed his direction and began doing the same, knowing he’d have a better chance at escaping notice in the exit tunnels. The combination of gas and alcohol was making everyone move sluggishly though and there was nothing they could do but hold back the terminators and hope some of them made it out. He found himself side by side with Derek, defending the mouth of the cave, but the metal wasn’t advancing. They were biding their time as the gas took its toll. Derek stumbled and Alec knew what it meant. “Come on Derek. Stay with me.”
The other man nodded, gritting his teeth, as they both threw out another volley of bullets. He could take a terminator out on his own, his strength giving him the ability to break the wiring and cords that ran through the metal body and he knew the right places where the manufacturing left them vulnerable, but he’d never be able to take out three along with an HK and if he did anything like that it would expose himself. They’d know what he was and they’d take him for experimentation. He looked at Derek though and realized that it might give the other man time to escape.
“I can…” he started to say, unsure of what he could say that would make sense but Derek wrapped one hand in Alec’s shirt.
“You go out there, I go out there.”
Alec just nodded because he knew what Derek meant just as Derek knew what he’d been thinking. He stared into Derek’s eyes a little longer, trying to think of their next move but when something from above hit the cavern they were both thrown by the concussion. Alec felt his head hit stone and then Derek was pulling at him, trying to get him up.
He couldn’t hear the words, but there was fear in Derek’s eyes, not for himself, but for Alec. He watched as Derek stumbled into him, watched in horrid slow motion as Derek’s hand reached out and yanked a yellow dart from his shoulder.
Before he could say anything else, he was slumping over, unconsciousness taking him. Alec found himself being carried to the ground under his weight. There was no escape for him as he felt the edge of blackness taking his sight. As unconsciousness claimed him too, he wrapped one hand in Derek’s jacket and one in the tags around his neck, holding on with a death grip that even the machines would have trouble breaking.
On to Part Two