Echoes of the Past - Chapter 2

No, it can’t possibly be her.

Alec blinked. And then blinked again, not trusting his eyes. His entire mind had decided to shut down on him and for a moment, he found himself unable to respond in any way.

Their eyes locked for a long while, both staring at each other as if they had seen a ghost. In a way, that was true, Alec supposed. It was like seeing Sam’s ghost.

The girl looked exactly like Sam. Well, apart from the hair. Sam had preferred to keep her hair short. Alec swallowed past the lump in his throat. But she is not Sam, he reminded himself bitterly. Sam was dead. Too far gone even for Manticore to revive.

Max.

Her name is Max.

Not Sam.

452, not 453.

And what about her reaction? She seemed just as shell-shocked as he was. Even more so, if that was possible, Alec thought. That was odd. Why should she be surprised to see him? It was not as if they had met before.

Lydecker must have done this on purpose, the sneaky old man. The colonel knew fully well that introducing Sam’s twin into his unit would be cruel, and yet he did it. But why?

Then her eyes left him, breaking the spell. Those chocolate brown orbs shot a glare at Lydecker.

“He is not…” she began cautiously, but Lydecker cut in.

“Max, this is 494, also known as Alec. He’s the Commanding Officer of the Unit 6. You’ll be joining them,” he explained, seemingly unaware of the tension.

Alec watched with interest as her eyes narrowed just a fraction at Lydecker’s words.

“What’s the meaning of this, Deck?” she bit out, her voice measured.

Deck? Alec smirked. So, the girl had guts. But seeing that she shared the same genetic make-up with Sam, he was not too surprised. But she was in for it now. Surely Lydecker would not stand for it.

“You heard me, Max,” was all Lydecker said, his voice containing a hint of weariness.

Stunned at Lydecker’s non-reaction, Alec interjected before he could stop himself, “Insubordination, sir.”

Spinning around, she pinned a fiery glare on him. “You stay out of this,” she hissed venomously.

Unperturbed, Alec directed an icy look at her. “You may want to remember that I’m your CO.”

Snorting inelegantly, she retorted, “Yeah, sure.”

Not expecting the not-so-subtle brush-off, Alec tensed immediately. He gritted his teeth. Now he knew why Lydecker was so tense. Max probably had words with the old man earlier. The girl needed to be taken down a peg or two. Hell, she needed to be squashed flat to the ground. Several times.

By him personally.

“We’ll see how well you’ll cope with the training here, shall we? It’s bound to be…different,” Alec remarked casually, but he was aware of the challenging undertone to his voice.

Her lips curled. The gleam in her eyes told him that she understood him perfectly. “Bring it on, soldier.”

“Enough!” Lydecker snapped, obviously tired of their verbal jabs at each other. “Alec, you’ll show Max to her cell.”

“In the basement, sir? I believe there are a few available ones there,” Alec asked with a straight face. With the anomalies and the transhumans. Where she belonged.

Lydecker shot him a warning look. “No. Together with the rest of your unit.”

A thought occurred to Alec. No, Lydecker would not be as warped as that, would he? He was not thinking of allocating that cell to Max.

Then Lydecker continued, “She’s to be housed next to Biggs.”

Alec closed his eyes in relief. At least that hellcat would not be occupying Sam’s cell.

Max was fuming when she left Lydecker’s office.

She could not believe it. Lydecker had the nerve to put her in the same unit as Ben’s twin. Lydecker knew how she would react, and yet, he went ahead and done it.

Not only that. Ben’s twin had to be someone as cocky as Alec. From the second his eyes had landed on her, she knew that he had something against her. The reason for his animosity remained unknown, but the reason was not important to her.

This was going to be painful. Having him around as the reminder of Ben and hence, the fate of the rest of her unit, was going to be painful enough without him treating her like some second-class soldier.

But she would show him.

Hefting her backpack higher over her shoulders, she glared at the broad back in front of her. It was disturbing how much he looked like Ben. If he had not opened his big mouth, she would never have known that he was not Ben. For a second, she had even thought that Manticore had somehow managed to revive the long-dead Ben.

But Ben is dead, she reminded herself, feeling as if she had just stabbed herself in the heart.

No, he is not Ben, Max reiterated to herself. Her brain knew it, but it was still hard to adjust. She felt like she had lost Ben all over again.

She closed her eyes briefly. It was never going to be the same again. For the past eighteen months, she had tried to lose herself in her work. It worked to a certain extent, but the nightmares were still there.

She had been moved from one unit to another in Wyoming, but for various reasons, it had not worked out. There was no reason for her to expect it to be different this time round. She guessed she would be going off pretty much on her own here as well. With a twitch of her lips, she wondered what Manticore would do once they had run out of units to transfer her to.

Wordlessly, she continued to follow Alec out of the Command Centre into the open.

She looked up and around her. Although the sun was no longer high in the sky, the rays were still intense, bathing the compound in a bright glare. The trees stood unmoving in the still, humid air.  There were five identical three-storey blocks in the area linked together with a covered walkway.

Alec made a beeline towards the furthest block.

As they approached the entrance, he broke the silence. “This is the block we share with Unit 5. We’re on the top floor.”

Max nodded wordlessly as she followed him into the lobby. A stair stood right in front of them, splitting the two wings of the block.

Gesturing to his right, he said, “There’s a small kitchen in there. You can get to the main mess hall through the kitchen if you follow the external walkway.” Then he turned to his left. “The indoor training hall is to the left.”

Max inclined her head in acknowledgement and then watched with interest when Alec raised an eyebrow at her.

“You’re allowed to speak, by the way,” he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. Of course she knew she was allowed to speak. She just did not feel like it. “Should I be making small talk then? Should I be getting to know my new CO better, hmm?”

Already halfway up the stairs, Alec turned back to give her an assessing look. And then, his eyes wandered up and down her form slowly, almost insulting in its intensity.

Max gritted her teeth. She had no doubt that he was deliberately doing it just to annoy her. Tilting her chin up, she returned his blatant perusal with one of her own, making sure that her expression conveyed nothing but bored disinterest.

“Sweetheart, you’ll be at the end of a long line of queue if you want to get to know me better,” he drawled.

The self-absorbed jackass! She bared her teeth in a parody of a smile. “I guess it’s just as well because I don’t see anything worth queuing for.”

His eyes narrowed a little at her comment, but it was enough to make her smirk. Glaring down at her, he opened his mouth but she beat him to it.

“Well, are you going to stand there all day or are you going to show me my new cell?”

Turning away from her abruptly, he snapped irritably, “Follow me.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied with a mocking undertone, grinning inwardly when saw the sudden tensing of his shoulders.

Alec walked briskly away from her cell, grinding his teeth together in irritation. The girl was nothing short of impossible.

What the hell was Lydecker thinking, transferring someone like her into his unit? All she would do was to upset the entire unit, especially with that attitude of hers.

He walked into his cell and slammed the door shut. Dropping himself down to his bunk, he exhaled a heavy breath. How the hell was he supposed to make sure that she did not disrupt his unit?

As a CO, he could not treat her any differently from the other, however much her presence disturbed him. And alienating her would not achieve anything but create distress in the team.

Alec sighed heavily. He guessed that he would have to endeavour to be civil to her.

A moment later, a knock sounded at his door.

Still deep in thought, he snapped irritably without looking up, “What?”

Biggs peeked in, his face scrunching up at the harsh tone. “What’s eating you?” he asked in bewilderment before he stepped into the cell.

Alec released a weary sigh. “You won’t believe what Lydecker did.”

“Oh?”

“The new transfer. She’s here.”

Biggs grinned. “So it’s a she,” he exclaimed with glee. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Her designation’s 452,” Alec supplied darkly. He paused momentarily, and then continued, “She’s Sam’s twin.”

Biggs jaw dropped, all traces of his grin evaporating instantly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Alec shook his head. “No.” Burying his head in his hands, he continued, “This is not good.”

Looking thoughtful, Biggs remarked slowly, “It might not turn out so bad. If she’s like Sam…”

“No!” Alec interrupted, springing to his feet. “She’s nothing like Sam. Not with an attitude like that.”

“Attitude?” Biggs parroted in confusion.

Alec groaned and sat back down. “You’ve got to see it for yourself.”

Biggs frowned. “It can’t be that bad.”

“You say that now. But you judge for yourself when you see her.”

Another state, another facility, another cell, but Max felt like she had stayed in one which looked exactly like this one. She could have sworn that the last cell she had occupied had the exact same diagonal crack at the corner of the doorway.

Blockwork walls that looked like it had just been painted white not too long ago lined the rectangular room. A small cupboard was shoved to one corner at the foot of the single bunk.

Max’s eyes went to the door, making a mental note to pinch the keys from the guards. Including the master key. There was an unwritten rule that they were not supposed to lock the doors, but Max had no intention of surrendering her privacy.

Her lips twisted into a self-deprecating smile. Privacy had never been an issue before. At one time, her door had always been left open, with the rest of her unit walking in and out as they pleased.

But that seemed like such a long time ago. Had it just been eighteen months since that disastrous mission? She realised that ever since she had returned to Manticore, having managed to escape from her captors, she had never felt safe without a lock on the door.

She knew that that was the root of the problem. But what could she do to change it? How could she ever feel safe again with those memories in her head?

A shrill sound rang in the hallway, startling her out of her thoughts.

A quick glance at her watch told her that it was time for dinner. She could hear the sound of cell doors opening and shutting, followed by the thundering sound of footsteps outside her cell.

She remained seated on her bunk, deliberating whether she should leave to join the rest or not.

Whether she should put off the inevitable meeting with yet another new unit.

With a sigh, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Meeting her new unit mates could wait. A bitter smile flitted across her lips. And anyway, at this rate, every X5 would have at one point or another, been her unit mate.

Besides, she was not hungry.

All the members of Unit 6 were lined up in a neat row, awaiting his next command. Alec snuck a glance at the opposition at the other end of the sparring mat. Unit 4 was listening intently to their CO, taking in every last bit of advice before the sparring competition.

Alec grinned. This time, he was going to make sure that Unit 6 won. Lydecker had offered the prize of a weekend out, all expenses covered, and that was not something he or the rest of his unit wanted to pass up on.

A loud pop sounded somewhere behind him.

Alec turned around with a frown. “What’s that?” he asked quietly out of the corner of his mouth.

His whole unit just looked at him blankly. Then, just as he turned away, another pop sounded. This time he knew where it came from.

“Sam!”

Innocent brown eyes stared at him enquiringly. “Yes?”

“Spit it out,” he ordered the thirteen-year-old girl.

Those eyes widened. “Wasn’t me, Alec.”

“Lose the gum or you’re out!” he threatened.

The expression in those eyes turned defiant. Alec resisted the urge to groan. Not now, Sam, he thought, frustrated. He waited for a few seconds, but the stubborn look remained on her face.

Making up his mind, Alec said, “Fine. Twenty laps around the track.”
 

“What?”

“Now, Sam!”

“But…”

“That’s your punishment for disobeying an order.”

Wordlessly, she fell out of line. After two steps, she turned and shot him an accusing look over her shoulders.

A sudden darkness enveloped him.

The next thing he knew, Sam was lying still in his arms.

Alec felt his heart stop. No, no!

Those chocolate brown eyes stared up accusingly at him. The open gash in her chest spurted thick, dark red blood. He pressed his shaking hands against the wound, but her life continued to seep out between his fingers.

His voice was desperate. “You’ll be okay, Sam. Hang on, help will be here soon. Please stay with me,” he begged in a broken voice.

She opened her mouth, and a thin stream of blood trickled out of the corner. Gurgling with her own blood, she rasped, “How could you? You said that everything would be alright.”

He stared at her, unable to speak. His own guilt was eating him up.

Her eyes became impossibly wide, the accusation in them jarring. “You let me die, Alec. YOU LET ME DIE!”

Alec shot upright in his bunk. His breath was ragged and his body shook violently. Sweat dotted his forehead.

It was a dream.

Just a dream, he reassured himself, trying to steady the rapid hammering of his heart.

He laid back down, inhaling deeply.

Groaning, he rubbed away the sweat from his face. He had not had such a vivid dream for a long time. At one point, he had been dreaming about Sam almost every night. The nightmares had decreased gradually into nothing. He did not remember having any in the last few months. What could have possibly brought this on?

Max.

Max’s appearance must have brought this on, he thought darkly. Her presence would forever be a reminder of Sam, not that he needed any help remembering.

His watch was showing 0500 hours. Alec sighed. There was no chance of getting back to sleep now. He might as well get up.

He picked up the clothes that had been tossed by the side of the bed last night. Clad only in a pair of black boxer shorts, he pulled open the cell door and made his way to the communal showers at the end of the block.

He was about to push the doors to the shower room when the sound of running water stopped him. Frowning slightly, he wondered who could be up at this unearthly hour in the morning.

Shrugging, he pushed the door open and stepped in.

Then he froze in his tracks.

Sam.

A pair of eyes stared at him coldly from the far end of the shower stalls, reminding him that he was staring at Max, not Sam.

There was a scar on the underside of her arm, he noted absently.

Slowly, Max lowered the arm she was in the process of soaping. Turning away from him, she stepped under the water, pointedly ignoring him. Gathering her hair up away from her neck, she began to lather it.

From where he was standing, the tiled partition wall obscured most of her body from his view, but he could see another jagged scar running from one side of her barcode down to her shoulders. And another scar crossing the first one down her back.

Alec frowned. What the hell had happened to her? Transgenics healed so fast that it was very rare for them to sustain any scarring.

He pulled his gaze away and walked towards the laundry chute. There, he dropped his pile of soiled clothes and then glanced back over his shoulders at Max. She was still facing away from him. Alec quickly removed his boxers and tossed it into the chute. Grabbing a clean towel from the shelf, he wrapped it around himself before walking across the room to the stalls.

As he passed the low bench separating the shower stalls from the sinks, he unwrapped himself and tossed his towel there. Steeping into the stall at the opposite end from hers, he wondered why he bothered to cover himself in that short distance. It was not as if he was shy or anything like that. None of them could afford to by shy. Normally, this morning routine involved his whole unit being in the showers at the same time. Considering that there were only ten shower stalls in a row against the wall, sometimes they even shared the same stall.

But he guessed it was different with Max. After all, the rest of his unit was his family. They grew up together doing almost everything together. Max, on the other hand, was a stranger, however much she resembled Sam appearance-wise.

Facing the wall, he adjusted the knob until a spray of warm water hit him. Squirting a handful of soap from the dispenser, he began to wash himself.

A sharp squeak from his right told him that Max had turned off her shower. He had not seen her since he left her at her cell last night. The rest of the unit was curious about her, but there had been no sign of her at the mess hall.

Suddenly, his senses told him that he was being watched.

He glanced over his shoulders to find a towel-clad Max staring at him with an amused expression on her face. Staring at his bare ass, to be exact. He paused in the action of rubbing the soap on his chest, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

Resisting the urge to cover himself from her, Alec slowly raised his eyebrows. “Like what you see?” he asked with a smirk.

Her eyebrow arched. “Just returning the gesture,” she said levelly.

She must be referring to his earlier perusal of her body, Alec thought with a small amount of amusement. Turning away from her, he resumed washing himself. Conversationally, he said, “Slept well?”

“Don’t sleep much,” came the abrupt response.

He turned his head around, his eyes following her as she took another towel from the shelf. “Shark DNA?”

A fleeting look of surprise came over a face before it vanished just as quickly. “Was that a lucky guess?” she asked as she towelled her hair, her voice muffled by the towel.

“I knew someone who had the same thing,” he said, knowing that he sounded a little strained.
 

She gave him a thoughtful look, and then she shrugged. “Well, it has its benefits,” she remarked. Then, turning away from him, she casually dropped her towel and began to dress.

“Yeah,” was all Alec said, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. The scars which had been obscured from him earlier were now fully exposed to his view. In addition to the those he had seen before, there were two more lines running across her back.

Involuntarily, his eyes landed on the swell of her ass and then followed down her long legs. No, she was definitely different from Sam, he noted somewhat uncomfortably.

Tearing his eyes away before his thoughts, and his eyes, drifted elsewhere, he said, “Well, I hope you’re all set for the morning drill.”

“Hmm,” she responded noncommittally.

The rasping sound of a zipper being pulled up reached him. He twisted around to look at her again, feeling oddly relieved that she was almost fully dressed. “I think a sparring session might be interesting,” he added meaningfully, recalling their conversation the day before.

To Alec’s surprise, the corner of her lips lifted and a spark of light entered her eyes. She pulled her grey shirt over her head as she walked to the door.

Stopping in front of his shower stall, she said, “I’m looking forward…” and then she paused. Alec watched incredulously as unabashedly, her eyes drifted down to his backside.

“…to kicking your ass,” she finished with a smirk.

Before he could respond, she strode out of the door.

Next>>