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Deception	By : elle6778 Category: 1 through F > Dark Angel Views: 9973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Disclaimer: Dark Angel and its characters obviously do not belong to me, it belongs to James Cameron and Charles H Eglee. I am writing this purely for non-profit
entertainment. No infringement had been intended, and no profit had been made
from this story.

Summary � When Max found out why he was sent to her
cell, she hated Manticore even more. Starts at the beginning of Designate This. For clarity, this is not a ML fic.

A/N: I know what you are thinking � Another �Designate
This� fic! Well, I have to
give it a shot too! Hehe! Everything in Season 1
happened. I just modified Designate This to suit my
liking! For those of you who had read my other stories, you may find this a bit
different. I hope it is ok!

Deception - Chapter 1

(by elle6778)

Manticore Cell

The cell in Manticore
was just like any other holding cell. Cold, damp and depressing. And it had
been Max�s home for the past few weeks ever since she had been released from
reindoctrination.

Max was lying down in
her bunk, waiting impatiently for the guards to leave so that she could carry
on sawing the blocks out of the wall. As she had done for the past one week.

Max knew that she
needed to get out of Manticore. The feeling of being caged up was beginning to
get to her and she did not know how long more she could keep up with the
pretenses. Renfro had already suspected that she was not fully reindoctrinated.
Max frowned as she thought about that woman. She really hated Renfro with a
passion. A feeling which Renfro seemed to reciprocate fully.

Max thought back to
the incident which had led to her capture. Images flashed across her eyes as
she remembered facing off with a younger version of herself. She had been so
unnerved that she had gotten careless. And she paid a dear price for her
carelessness; she got shot, Zack�s now hooked up to a machine and she was under
lock-down in Manticore.

Her heart constricted
as she thought of her brother. No, Zack�s heart constricted, she amended. She
could not believe that he took his own life for her. I am not worth it, Zack, she thought silently. Renfro had said that
she was poison. Maybe Renfro was right. Her siblings had all been fine until
they came into contact with her. Eva, Brin, Tinga, Ben and now Zack. Max
squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shut out the unpleasant images that appeared
in her mind at the thought of her role in her siblings� demises.

Max opened her eyes as
her ears picked up the sound of approaching footsteps. The footsteps stopped in
front of her door. She could see the guard checking up on her through the cell
door, so she remained motionless until she heard him leave the hallway.

Springing off her bed,
she folded up her bunk and hooked it to the wall. She extracted a hidden metal
bar from the underside of her bunk. Inserting the flat piece of metal in the
shallow groove of mortar between the concrete blocks, she started scraping,
loosening another piece of block. Not
long more and I�ll be out of this godforsaken place, she promised herself. I made it out before and I will do it again!

She had been working
for a good hour before she heard a noise from the hallway which made her pause
mid-scrape. Rapidly, she stuffed back the block in its original position and
pulled down her bunk, lying down just as the lights to her cell were switched
on from outside.

Max sat up as someone
entered her cell.

Her eyes widened as
she took in the familiar form.

�Ben?� she whispered
unsteadily in disbelieve. How? But I
snapped his neck! A confused jumble of thoughts started running through her
head.

He looked at her
wordlessly.

�Ben, is that you?
It�s me. Max,� she asked again, in a steadier voice. She still was not too sure
that it wasn�t just an illusion.

Smiling at her, he
said softly, �Max�� He was still standing in front of the door. He made no move
to go to her.

Max got off her bunk
slowly, almost afraid that if she moved suddenly, Ben would disappear. She
walked towards him, taking in the familiar hazel eyes and dark blonde hair. She
felt her eyes fill with tears as she reached out a hand to touch his hand
softly. He�s alive. Manticore must have
somehow brought him back like they did with Zack.

Still smiling, he laid
his hand over hers, his thumb caressing the back of her hand as he looked up.
His eyes locked with hers. As soon as their eyes clashed up close, Max suddenly
felt uncomfortable. The blank expression in his eyes contained nothing of the
Ben she used to know. She backed away, suspicious of the man standing in front
of her.

�What did they do to
you, Ben?� she asked warily. She sat down on her bunk, eyeing him. Max caught a
flash of his barcode as he turned to sit. He was definitely Ben but she felt
something different in him; something she could not place. Her mind flashed
back to her last encounter with Brin. Brin was nothing like who she used to be
after she had undergone Manticore�s reindoctrination. The loving sister Max had
remembered no longer existed. Max could not help feeling sad every time she
thought of Brin.

He sighed and sat beside
her, his elbows propped on his knees. Looking sideways at Max, he said, �They
found me in the woods and brought me back here. Brought me back to life, then
reindoctrinated me, I suppose.�

Recalling the last
time she saw him, her spirit sank. She turned to Ben, her pain evident in her
eyes, �I am so sorry Ben. I shouldn�t have done it. I should have tried harder
to get you out. I shouldn�t have let them have you.�

Silence followed her
proclamation. She saw something flicker in Ben�s eyes. Feeling even worse now,
she continued, �I don�t blame you if you hate me now. If I haven�t tracked you
down, you would still be free.� Free to
kill, she added to herself. Perhaps
it was better this way. He did say before that we shouldn�t have left. He said
that things made sense in here.

Deep in her thoughts,
she was surprised to suddenly find him kneeling in front of her. She did not
even notice him move. Ben has always been good at stealth, she thought.

Holding her hands in
his, he said softly, �Max, listen to me. It�s not your fault, okay? You did
what you have to do. Don�t blame yourself.�

Max looked up into his
eyes to see him looking at her with a familiar expression. She smiled as she
remembered that this was how he had used to look at her back when they were in
Manticore as kids. It was the look he had given her whenever she was upset
about some unjustified punishment she had received from Manticore. Whatever Manticore did this time to him, at
least there is still a bit of the Ben I know from before, she thought,
grateful. Her suspicions evaporated.

Evidently satisfied
that Max was alright, he got off the floor and sat back down on the bed.
Turning towards her, he asked, �So, how did you end up in here?�

�Oh, that,� she said
flatly. Taking in a deep breath she continued, �We decided to try to take down
Manticore. Obviously it went sideways; Manticore�s still here and I am all
locked up.�

�Really? You said
�we�. Who else were with you?� he asked curiously.

�Just a few of us. You
don�t know Logan, he�s a friend I have outside. But there were Zack, Krit,
Syl and�Lydecker,� Max grinned as she saw the look of shock on Ben�s face. She
knew that it was once unthinkable that Lydecker would team up with them against
Manticore. She supposed that the incident with Tinga was too much, even for Lydecker.

�Lydecker? You�ve got
to be kidding right?� he asked incredulously.

�Nope, it�s true.
Lydecker came to his senses about Manticore and decided to help us,� Max said
with satisfaction. Then she frowned as a thought crossed her mind. She was
worried. She hoped that Lydecker, Logan, Krit and Syl got away safely.

Noting the sudden
worried look on Max�s face, he asked, �What�s wrong, Max?�

Shaking her head, she
answered, �Nothing. Just hoping that the rest of them got away.�

�Do they know what
happened to me?� he asked curiously.

She did not them about
Ben. Max hesitated before she answered, �No, I couldn�t bring myself to tell
any them. Anyway, I don�t have that much contact with them. Did you?� she
decided to change the topic. It was too painful.

�Me neither.�

�Zack thought it would
be better to keep us apart anyway. He was looking out for all of us, as he had
always done. Even when we were back here before the escape,� Max said
wistfully. She missed having her siblings around. Previously in Manticore, they
had always been there for each other. Now she thought that she was all alone,
until Ben walked in through the door.

Unaware of her
thoughts, Ben said, �Zack was probably right to keep everyone apart,�

Max nodded, �We should
have listened to him. Then maybe he would still be free. He wouldn�t be hooked
up to a machine just because he gave his heart to me,� she said sadly.

�Zack must love you
very much to do what he did, Max. I am sure he doesn�t regret it.�

�He would have done
the same for you too Ben,� she said, looking into his hazel eyes. She held it
for a second before she looked away. She could still see a faint mask over
them, and she felt unnerved by it. She longed to see the familiar warmth she
associated with Ben when they were young. Not the masked expression. And definitely
not the tortured look he had when she last saw him in Seattle during his killing spree.

�Maybe,� he said with
a small smile to her remark, �So, Zack didn�t tell you the locations of the
others?�

Max shook her head,
�Fear of tactical exposure. He told me that by doing that, at least if one of
us got caught, we wouldn�t be able to expose the rest. Which makes sense, I
suppose. But I would still like to meet up with the rest. Don�t you miss them?�

�Yeah�Won�t mind
meeting up sometime. Shame we don�t know where they are,� he said thoughtfully.

Max did not want to
broach the subject, but she felt that she had to, �Ben, about the killings��

He interrupted, abruptly
turning away from her, �I don�t want to talk about it.�

At a loss for words,
Max fell silent. She looked up at him as he sighed heavily.

�Sorry, Max. They did
something to me in reindoctrination, and�it�s hard to explain. I just don�t
want to talk about it, okay. Just leave it.�

Registering the
expression of pain on Ben�s face, she tried to comfort him. As she wrapped her
arms around him, she felt him stiffen in rejection.

Hurt, she let her arms
fall limply back down. The cuddly bother she had back when they were younger didn�t
exist anymore. That Ben would not have rejected her hugs. Yeah, Max. Back then you wouldn�t have snapped his neck either, a
small voice inside pointed out. She cringed involuntarily. Ben was angry at her
for killing him. Either that, or Manticore really did a number on him.

Manticore. She frowned
as something occurred to her. It did not occur to her earlier in the excitement
of seeing Ben. Why did Manticore let Ben in here? It could not possibly be just
for a social chit-chat. Manticore wasn�t big on these sorts of things. They
called it unprofessional.

Turning to him, she
asked, �Ben?� she waited until he looked at her before continuing, �Why did
Manticore send you here to me?�

She saw another
unfathomable flicker in his eyes. The look he was giving her was making her uncomfortable.

�What is it, Ben?� she
asked anxiously.

The answer he gave was
short and to the point.

�We have been paired
up as breeding partners.�

t.b.c

A/N: What do you think
of it? Pretty uneventful, right? (Grins) Keep in mind that things might not be
quite as it seems!
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Deception