Title: Indelible
Fandom: Dark Angel
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Max, the X-5s.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 353
Spoilers: Somewhere mid-Season 1.
Summary: The barcodes are permanent identifying marks.
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 345: Amnesty, using Challenge 150: Ink.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Dark Angel, or the characters.



The barcode tattoos are permanent. Back at Manticore, the X-5 series had their hair kept cropped short, leaving the ink on the backs of their necks clearly visible. Their only identifying marks, the sole concession to individuality, Manticore’s way of telling one soldier in training from another when they were otherwise dressed alike. They were just numbers to Manticore, barcoded like pieces of equipment; the names they have they gave themselves.

Those who escaped have allowed their hair to grow out, covering the tattoos, or else they wear high collars, scarves, anything to hide that tell-tale mark. It can be covered with make-up, but that’s only a temporary solution, and having it removed, while the effects might last a little longer, doesn’t solve the problem either, because the barcodes aren’t added after birth. They’re encoded in each X-5 at a genetic level, indelible, unalterable, a constant reminder of what they are; not so much people as living, manufactured weapons, valuable commodities. Manticore wants them back and will stop at nothing to retrieve them.

While the barcodes make disappearing more difficult, it’s not impossible; Max is proof of that. For a long time she wasn’t sure whether any of the others had made it out; perhaps she should have had more faith in them because she knows now that most of those who escaped with her are still on the loose. Her brothers and sisters, her family, somewhere out there, always on the move, just trying to get by and avoid detection.

Someday, maybe, they’ll be entirely free of Manticore, able to live their lives out in the open like normal people. It’s a hope to hold onto. Until then, hiding’s not so bad. Max has people she can count on, and she gets to live her life on her own terms. It’s not perfect, but what is? Doesn’t look like most other people have it much better these days anyhow. Life’s a bitch, but it still beats the alternative. As long as she can keep mostly under Manticore’s radar she’ll do okay.

Freedom. It is what it is, and for now, it’s enough.


The End