James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned (or any other) copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.

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Author's First Note: This story is a sequel to my earlier story, Unnatural Selection. It would certainly help you understand what's going on here if you read that first, though I guess most people would be able to catch up quickly enough without reading the other story.

Author's Second Note: Here it is, the start of a second story I never intended to write. (And I changed the prospective title from Introducing the Serpent as I thought this new title more closely fit the tone of the story. The old story title will simply be the title of one of the later chapters.) As I wrote Unnatural Selection, I felt an increasing desire to tell more about the transgenics' struggles, and not just their fight against the Familiars. That brought me to this tale, which is going to have a bit of a plot, but will more likely focus on the personal repercussions most characters experience because of the events in Unnatural Selection. As a result, this will be far more character driven than its predecessor, so I hope most people are fine with that.

Also, please don't ask what the pairing in this story is going to be. I don't write stories with particular pairings necessarily in mind before I start. I'd love to be able to say that I know this is going to be M/L, or M/A, or even M/OC, but the fact is that I don't know yet (though I definitely have my suspicions). Things have a tendency of changing as my stories progress. (For instance, for those of you that read Unnatural Selection, Alec was originally going to be the one to kill Lydecker to initiate The Coming, but as the scene grew closer I realized that Zack (who was originally slated to die) had the greater motivation to do that. Then Alec was going to be the one to take over Lydecker's role, but Logan sorta convinced me otherwise. So Alec (and most everyone else) ended up somewhere completely different than I had planned at the beginning… and that difference is going to be played out as this story unfolds.) So I hope that's explanation enough for ya. Now I guess I should start the damn story, huh?

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Seasons Change

by

Nevermore

Where can I run to?

Where can I hide?

Who will I turn to?

Now I'm in, a virgin state of mind.

-- K's Choice, 'Virgin State of Mind'

I – Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows

"Good morning, Max," Gordon said reverently, averting his eyes as Max walked slowly by, trying not to pay attention to the newly arrived transgenic. She was amazed that they kept coming, scrambling through the increasingly lax security at the perimeter of Terminal City. It had been slightly over a month since the siege began, and it appeared as if the powers that be in the national government had decided to let individual transgenics continue to join their contained comrades. It'll be that much easier for them to wipe us out that way, if they decide to, she thought again, trying to fight off the anxiety that grew daily.

"Ah, Max, good morning," another transgenic muttered, also averting her eyes. Max could only wonder who the woman was. Yet another new arrival, she knew. Like the others, this one seemed to hold Max in inhumanly high regard. Word had gotten out that she'd died opposing the Familiars, and that she had then come back from the dead to lead the transgenic nation to freedom. "That's totally not what happened," she'd complained to anyone that would listen. Not that it helped at all. As Alec had told her, their people needed someone to believe in. Back at Manticore their lives had had structure, and they'd all become accustomed to being told what to do and how to do it. The lack of direction in their lives since the escape had created a void in all of them, a void that they were all too happy to fill with the messianic idea of a transgenic that rose from the dead.

"Hey," Max heard another voice say casually from behind her. She turned and set her eyes on Alec, smiling broadly despite herself, basking in the absolute lack of awe in which he held her. He was the only one in Terminal City that had been with her in Israel when she'd 'died,' although he never spoke of it. When she asked him once why he pretended as if none of that had ever happened, he answered that he was afraid that he also might start getting some kind of cult-like treatment, and that was the last thing he wanted. So he continually tried distancing himself from the assault in Megiddo. "Although it might help me score with some chicks if I was seen as some kind of minor deity," he had commented with obvious amusement. Max smiled as she remembered that conversation, just one of many that she had had with Alec since returning from the Middle East. Sure, he may be a happy-go-lucky sociopath, she admitted, but at least he still talks to me like I'm a real person. Not even Joshua does that anymore.

"How you doin'?" Max asked evenly, instinctively burying the comfort she felt being anywhere near the man who was quickly becoming her most trusted lieutenant.

"Guess I'm doin' all right," Alec commented. "What's this I hear about us getting a visitor?"

"Dunno," Max replied. "Mole just radioed in from the perimeter and said that the National Guard is clearing the entrance for someone that wants to talk to me."

"Do we know who it is?"

"No, but this might be what we've been waiting for," Max answered. She fought to conceal her disgust as the two of them walked through a large room and over a dozen transgenics all looked away, as if they were afraid that Max would visit divine retribution against them if she caught anyone daring to look upon her. This has got to stop, she told herself for the umpteenth time. I'm not a goddess. I'm not even a good soldier. Hell, until a month ago I was a delivery-girl. This is so absurd.

"I'll take care of it," Alec volunteered.

"You'll take care of it?" Max asked, surprised by the fact that he seemed to be assuming some kind of responsibility. Though that shouldn't surprise you anymore, she quickly reminded herself. Stop thinking of him the same way you did before Israel. He changed almost as much as you did out there, Max.

"I'll meet our guest at the gate," Alec clarified, obviously taking Max's reaction to be an assumption that he was trying to usurp her authority. "I'll bring him right to you, though; I'm not going to do any of the talking or anything."

"I know," Max clarified. "That's not what I meant." She almost smiled at the familiarity of it all. Almost. Every day Alec took on more of the routine responsibilities, leaving her free to concern herself with the big picture; and every day he apologized for his assistance, fearing that he had gone too far. And I never have the nerve to thank him for everything he's doing, Max chided herself. As everyone else distanced themselves, afraid to get too close to their 'divine leader,' only Alec grew closer, still seeing Max for what she was – a young woman who needed as much help as she could get.

"You sure?" Alec asked. "I don't want to step on your toes or anything." He seemed so genuinely contrite that Max had a hard time not laughing. It was certainly not a good look for Alec.

"It's fine," Max assured him.

"So you want me to get the guy at our gate?"

"Yes," Max said. "Please," she added, almost as an afterthought. Alec simply nodded and walked off, leaving Max alone again. She walked up to their makeshift lookout tower, deciding she should at least get some idea of what to expect. Once up there, she set her gaze on Joshua, who followed the lead of so many others by avoiding eye contact, though he had not yet gotten to the point where he was totally averting his gaze.

"Hey, Max," he said evenly.

"Hey," Max said with a comfortable smile. He doesn't call me Little Fella anymore, she noticed sadly. It was just another reminder of how her people saw her, how much she felt set apart and alienated, despite the fact that she was supposed to be speaking for all of them.

"Someone's coming in," Joshua pointed out, handing Max a spare set of binoculars. "It's someone important."

"Yeah, looks like it," Max agreed. The National Guard had cleared a path through the demonstrators gathered at the front gate – there are even more today than yesterday, Max noted – holding them at bay with the very genuine threat of violence if anyone stepped out of line. A single figure waded through the barely controlled masses, a man whose strong strides belied his slight frame. He ignored the people around him, the anti-transgenic reactionaries on his right, every one of them calling for the death of all those in Terminal City, and the pro-transgenic supporters on the left, all of them demanding an end to the siege and equality for those trapped within.

"Do you recognize him?" Joshua asked.

"It's not anyone I've ever met," Max answered. "He does look familiar, though. He looks like someone I saw a picture of when I was a kid, back at Manticore. He's aged a bit."

"What's his name?"

"If it is who I think it is, he's Frederick McElroy," Max answered. "He's a senator. He was on the committee that originally approved the funding for the creation of the Manticore project. He was one of Manticore's biggest supporters."

"So is he a good guy or a bad guy?" Joshua asked.

"Don't know," Max admitted. Though it doesn't seem like we can simply make everyone either a 'good guy' or 'bad guy' anymore, she lamented. The past month had taught her that everyone had his own agenda, and whether the individual was seen as good or bad depended solely on which side of that agenda Max and the rest of the transgenics fell. "I guess it's time to find out."

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Max leaned back in her chair, gazing across the battered desk toward the door beyond, waiting for her guest to be shown in. This is your office, Max, she reminded herself. You're the one in control. Don't let him forget it. Her mental pep rally concluded just as a soft knock came from the door. Wait on it, she told herself, making certain she didn't seem too anxious by answering too soon. Okay, 1… 2… 3. "Come in," she instructed.

Alec opened the door and walked in first, with Robert McElroy closely in tow and Mole bringing up the rear. She looked McElroy over curiously, now certain of his identity as she got a closer look. The years hadn't been overly kind to the man. Max remembered him as being at least fifty pounds heavier in the old pictures she'd seen as a child. McElroy had been an Olympic athlete, a member of a silver medal-winning crew team. His broad, muscular shoulders had withered into the frame of an over-worked, under-paid bureaucrat. His face, once finely chiseled and displaying as much strength as his body had, was now wrinkled and pale from years spent indoors, poring over the minutiae of running a government that spent every day on the brink of collapse. And his hair, thick and brown just ten years earlier, had been reduced to a few thin, gray wisps.

He's probably a very devoted man, Max decided. In a period of unprecedented corruption and governmental failure, Senator McElroy actually seemed worse off than he had been at the beginning, physically declining while so many of his peers grew fat off the misery of the citizenry. But who, or what, is he devoted to? Can I trust him?

"Are you Max?" McElroy asked, drawing a thin smile from his host. Max was amused that Alec and Mole had obviously first brought their guest to Erin. Erin had come to Terminal City a week after Max's return from Israel, when word had started to get around that Max had come back from the dead to lead her people. Erin, formerly X5-455, was yet another clone of Max's, and she had volunteered to be a security decoy, to draw the fire of anyone that sought to kill Max. Another zealot, Max thought. Yet another person willing to die for me. It's crazy…

"Yes, I'm Max," she assured the senator. "And you're Senator McElroy."

"You're well informed," the senator responded with a disturbingly fake looking smile, the same grin that every practiced politician wore whenever he opened his mouth to speak. It was instinct, a show they all put on to make themselves appear more friendly and trustworthy. Max found it irritating.

"What do you want?" Max asked, not bothering with small talk. She knew that politicians could be counted on to do what was best for them; she just wanted to know how she fit into the picture.

"Do you think we could talk alone?" McElroy asked, glancing meaningfully at Mole and Alec hovering at his sides. Max concentrated on the man seated in front of her – she heard his heart rate quicken, she could see and smell him beginning to sweat. He's nervous, that's for sure, she decided. That alone was enough to make her certain she wasn't sitting across from a Familiar. She and many of the others had decided that their enemies likely had some of their own people in positions of power, and Max knew it was possible that one, or more, could be senators. She was relatively certain she would be safe alone with McElroy, though.

"Mole, can you go back to the perimeter?" Max asked. "I don't want anyone to get careless just because we have a guest."

"Sure," Mole muttered in response. He obviously wasn't happy to be left out, but he was also, much to Max's surprise, one of her most devout followers. He hadn't questioned a single one of her orders since she had returned to them.

"I'll check the security system," Alec said, also moving to leave.

"No, stay," Max said. Alec looked at her in surprise, and Mole looked at Alec with obvious jealousy, but Max didn't bother to explain her decision to anyone, including herself. Though I'm really not sure why I feel better with him around, she wondered silently, knowing that only a few short months earlier she had had to concentrate on quelling her irritation just at the mention of his name. "You say what you have to say to both of us, or not at all," she told McElroy. "If that's unacceptable, then goodbye."

"That's fine," the senator replied quickly, his left hand deftly wiping away a bead of sweat that had appeared at his brow.

"So what do you want?" Max repeated.

"I want to help," McElroy said. Max simply stared in response, unable to decide which of the many offensive retorts she had come up with would best convey her suspicions. "Seriously," he continued. "I doubt you know, but I was one of the men that originally approved the Manticore project."

"I know," Max answered.

"Good," McElroy responded, his faux grin growing ever wider with each word. "You see, Max, I feel responsible for what's happened. This isn't how it was supposed to be."

"I know that, too," Max countered. "We were supposed to be kept behind concrete walls, a secret from the populace, slaves to the whim of men like you."

"Yes," McElroy agreed, surprising Max with his candor. "I'm not foolish enough to think you could ever forgive my colleagues and me for what we did to you before you were even born--"

"You mean created," Alec interrupted, immediately shriveling beneath the punitive stare shot in his direction.

"No, I mean born," McElroy clarified. "You were all born. True, you were created in a lab, in a test tube, but you were still born. Good old red-blooded American women were selected as your surrogates, and you were born to them. Do you know what that means?"

"That I have to start buying someone flowers for Mother's Day?" Max asked sarcastically.

"No, it means you're citizens," McElroy corrected.

"Huh?" Max heard herself ask, though she hadn't intended to say a word.

"You were born to an American citizen," Senator McElroy repeated. "That makes you a citizen, too. And even if the surrogates weren't citizens, you were born on American soil. Just like the children born to illegal immigrants that sneaked into the country over the years, hoping to make a better life for their descendants, you were also born a citizen. That means you have the same rights as any other American."

"Oh really?" Alec asked sarcastically. "Seems I remember hearing every day for about eighteen years that I was the property of the United States government. Don't remember the word 'citizen' ever being tossed around."

"Me either," Max echoed.

"I suppose not," McElroy commented. "But you're no more the property of the United States government than a test tube baby in the 1970's was the property of the doctor that performed the in-vitro fertilization. Human beings can't be the property of other human beings in this country. The 13th Amendment forbids it."

"But I keep hearing on the news that we're not human," Alec commented, continuing his flippant remarks. "Said it right there on TV… and if it's on TV it has to be true."

"Alec, please," Max said, cutting him off. She could follow the senator's line of reasoning, and she liked it a lot.

"If we're citizens, then we can't be held here unless we've done something wrong," she muttered.

"Unless you're deemed a threat to national security," McElroy pointed out. "I'd expect that to be the first thing most people say to justify your imprisonment."

"But not you?" Max asked. "You don't think we're a threat to national security? Come on, Senator, you were on the committee that authorized our creation. You probably know better than most what we're capable of. I'd expect to see you out there crying for our termination." She looked him over carefully, and finally saw something hidden behind McElroy's smile. "Once again, I have to ask you what you want," Max said evenly. "You know how smart transgenics are, so let's stop dancing around it. You came here to make an offer – let's hear it."

"I'll advance your cause on a national level," McElroy offered. "I'll apply as much pressure as I can to lift this siege."

"In exchange for?"

"Your support," McElroy replied. "I'm going to run for president."

"And you figured that if you declare us citizens, then we can vote for you," Alec put in with a sardonic grin. "Nice thinking, Senator. I bet the two-hundred votes you just got today will put you right over the top."

"This country has been a third-world nation long enough," the senator grumbled. "I for one am tired of it. The Manticore Project was the most ambitious program our nation, or any other, had ever conceived of. It seems right that you help us get back to where we were when you were created."

"I don't follow," Max admitted. Sure, politicians are supposed to be vague, but this is ridiculous. "Can't you give me some kind of details to work with?"

"Imagine deploying some transgenics into cities where lawlessness is rampant," McElroy suggested. "Just a handful of your people would need only a few days to quell the chaos in places like Las Vegas, Boston, and Baltimore. Once we can provide for the basic safety of our own people, we can start looking toward dealing with some of the other problems, like unemployment, starvation, and organized crime."

"So you actually want us to join up in the army?" Alec asked. "You've got to be kidding."

"It won't be mandatory," McElroy explained. "You were all raised in a military environment; it'll doubtlessly suit some of your people to return to that kind of structured lifestyle. But the abuse will end – you'll have an opportunity for advancement, you'll be paid, and you'll have the same rights and privileges as everyone else."

"And some of us demonstrating that kind of responsibility and loyalty to the country will make it easier for all the ones that decide to go their own way," Max concluded.

"Exactly," the senator confirmed. "At least, that's the plan. It'll be a tough sell, though. The majority of people still think that you're more trouble than you're worth. Although…" he added, his voice trailing off as his eyes darted away suspiciously, piquing Max's interest.

"Although what?" she asked.

"I've heard things, lately," McElroy muttered, his voice growing far quieter. "A certain word has been bandied about Capitol Hill, often in the same breath as the word 'transgenics.' It's a simple enough word, but I don't know that it's being used in the same context as I've ever heard it. Some people seem to know what it means, and others don't. I'm afraid to ask, for fear of letting on that I may know something I'm not supposed to."

"What's the word?" Max asked suspiciously.

"Familiars," McElroy answered. "Does that word mean anything to you?"

To be continued………………………………

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Author's Endnote: Nope, I never know when to shut up. So now that the story is underway, let me know what you think. I totally listen to people's comments/criticisms/suggestions, so maybe something you do or don't like will be addressed.