“Afraid of what I’d do to you?”
“Afraid you’d hate me.”
“Good call.”
He stood staring at her as if she’d punched him.
Her tears ran now — hot tears of sorrow-tinged anger as she thought about Seth, and the man she loved who’d got him killed, this man in front of her, the man who was supposed to love her. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Max... I just did.”
“Oh, so better late than never?”
Logan said nothing.
“You kept me dangling,” she said, “so I’d continue to do your bidding — serve your various self-righteous agendas... same as you did with Seth. You couldn’t tell me because you might lose a valuable resource in Eyes Only’s crusade.”
“It wasn’t that at all.”
“What the hell was it then?”
“Max... you know what it was.”
“Do I?”
“... I fell in love with you.”
Now she felt as though he had punched her; but she lashed back, “And you figured that telling me you got my brother killed might put a damper on my feelings?”
“Max, I—”
“Don’t ‘Max’ me — I’m maxed out. I’ve heard enough.”
She crossed the room, snatching her jacket off the back of a dining room chair as she went.
Going the opposite way around the couch, he headed her off at the door and put a hand on her arm.
“Want that broken?” she asked, glancing down at the offending hand.
He didn’t move.
“Fair warning.” She grabbed his hand in hers, removed it from her arm and was about to crush it.
Logan made no effort to stop her — he just stood there staring into her eyes, the pain in his having nothing to do with the pressure she was applying.
Applying more, she saw the first flash of physical pain in his face and released her grip.
“Hell with it,” she snarled. “I’m outta here.”
She threw the door open and strode out into a night almost as angry as she was, leaving Logan behind with his lies and his guilt, standing in the doorway, the wind chastising him.
He called her name once, but she ignored him and stalked off into the darkness. Tonight, she wouldn’t go back to Terminal City, wouldn’t worry about the inhabitants. She couldn’t be near any of them tonight, not even Joshua and Original Cindy. The only place to be tonight was where she had last seen her brother — where Seth had died.
The Space Needle was pretty much as she remembered it, even though she hadn’t been there since the Terminal City siege began. There were a few new graffiti tags, but other than that, the Needle was same-o same-o. Turning on the power, which few but Max knew still allowed the elevators to run, she rode up to the observation deck, then climbed some more until she got out to her usual perch at the very top.
The wind whipped even worse this high, but she was careful, and her jacket was warm, and besides, from up here she could feel close to Seth and maybe gain some perspective.
Over five hundred feet below her the city went about its usual nighttime activities, signaled by fireplay flickerings across the landscape, seeming very small. Up here, so far removed from everything, she felt small, too, and tonight, somewhat insignificant.
So many years, so many failures.
And not just her failures — sometimes, like this time, the failure lay with someone else. Logan could have told me, she thought, should have told me. Hell, he’d had over two years to find a way to break this to her, and yet he had never brought it up until tonight.
The tears were streaming again. You’re not so tough, she told herself. That flame of hope she’d kept within herself, that she had never allowed to flicker out — sometimes it seemed those rays of hope were all she really had that belonged to her.
Now, just as he’d gotten Seth killed, Logan had doused that tiny flame. Only despair remained, and an icy, enveloping cold.
Chapter four
Vanished
By the next morning the wind had subsided some, but the thirty degree temperature lingered, a guest overstaying its welcome. Come dawn, Max had finally abandoned her perch atop the Needle. As morning bled into the sky, she felt an urge to climb on her Ninja and just keep riding; she might have given in to that impulse if the bike hadn’t been sitting back in Terminal City.
And right now she just didn’t have the heart to go back there and face her friends, and their questions...
Wandering into the city as it woke, Max purchased two cups of coffee at a bakery, balancing them atop a box of bagels, and found herself walking on a kind of autopilot up to the entrance of her former place of employment — Jam Pony Express. Except where pockmarks remained from bullets fired at the building during the hostage crisis six months ago, the place hadn’t really changed since the night when Max left that life behind.
The usual morning hubbub buzzed around the place, that peculiar combination of weariness and energy, of chaos and organization, found at the top of the day in most any workplace. The little ramp that led down to the concrete floor was swept neatly, as usual, and the wire grating that separated Normal — the messenger service’s manager — from his peons still looked like this was visiting day at county lockup... though whether it was the messengers who were the prisoners, or Normal, remained unclear.
Several of Normal’s seemingly endless supply of disheveled young riders milled about, sipping coffee or chatting each other up, some getting ready to take off on their first runs of the day. A few recognized Jam Pony’s most famous graduate and stared openly at Max.
The peaceful settlement of the Terminal City siege had actually made her a local celebrity of sorts. Not reacting to those watching her, Max wondered if this was how Jenny Brooks, the Channel 7 weather girl, felt when she walked the streets.
This fifteen minutes of fame — which seemed to keep renewing itself — was surprisingly hard on Max, who as a loner felt uncomfortable wearing the eyes of others, and who as a longtime fugitive — she had spent most of her life on the run from Manticore, after all — felt uneasy when she could not fade into the landscape.
Doing her best to ignore the stares, she picked up on Normal, active behind his wire window. He had not changed an iota — his blondish hair was cut in its usual flat top, his black glasses continued to try to flee down his nose, and his ever-present earpiece made him look like the world’s least sophisticated cyborg. He landed behind the window and looked up — sensing someone just standing there motionless, which meant a messenger needed a reprimand, of course — and then his mouth creased into something that might have been a smile.
“Well, well, little missy,” he said. He always seemed to savor his words, as if each one was his favorite flavor Lifesaver. “Have you finally come crawling back looking for your job?”
She gave him a good-natured smirk. “That’s right, Normal — the money we’re making hand-over-fist at the Terminal City Mall just can’t compare to the nickels and dimes you used to toss me.”
He pretended to frown. “Well, that’s a good thing — because I don’t have an opening right now.”
“Oh, damn. I’m crushed.” She set the box of bagels on the counter and removed the two cups of coffee from their perch. She turned to find half a dozen messengers standing around her, watching their exchange. Max stopped, feeling awkward.
“Yes, slackers, it’s Max — as seen on TV,” Normal said pleasantly. Then he scowled and yelled: “Get moving! This is not a youth hostel, but I am hostile to youth — packages to be delivered, people — bip bip bip!”