The strange thing about last night was, she had enjoyed the time to herself, the solitude, even if she had been basking in something approaching self-pity. Within her the call of the maverick was struggling to be heard. She wondered if her life would always contain these contradictory urges, reflecting the periods when she’d been a part of a group... as at Manticore, or with the L.A. street gang, the Brood... and those other times when she’d been very much on her own, scratching for survival, based upon her own skills and wits.
Seattle had begun as a quest for anonymity — once Seth was lost to her, Max only wanted to blend in with the crowd, a loner on the watch for her Manticore pursuers. But over the course of two years, another family had gathered itself around her: Cindy and Joshua and Sketchy and Alec and the other transgenics, and even Normal, and, yes, most of all Logan.
Was the presence of this family a comforting one in her life, or merely smothering?
She passed through those tall forbidding gates, made the walk to the heavy steel door that led into the control center, the weight of that door seeming to transfer to her as she swung it open.
Made up of two distinct sections, upper and lower, the control center resembled electronics stores Max had seen in pre-Pulse vids and movies. The back section of the lower half was given over to a large layout table where the group held council sessions; right now it was largely covered by a map of Terminal City and the surrounding neighborhoods. The front section was a pyramid of video monitors, a dozen screens where four transgenics kept an eye on the local media and what the world out there was up to. Four stairs led to a raised level, where another thirteen monitors were pyramided, showing the Terminal City security system, both interior and the perimeter. From a command chair up there, Dix supervised the entire operation.
Down below, huddled over the map, Mole, Alec, and Joshua were in the midst of a powwow.
Mole was first to notice her return. “Hey, boss lady — where the hell you been?”
She tossed him a sarcastic smile. “Mr. Warmth — sweet to see you, too.”
“Hey,” Mole said, grinning, considering the appellation. “I think I like that — Mr. Warmth.”
Max cheerfully flipped him off and asked, “Status?”
“Nice and quiet,” he said. “Somehow we survived a night without you.”
Joshua — just your average dog man in an army field jacket, T-shirt, and jeans — lumbered around the table and enveloped her in a bear hug. “Little Fella!”
His silly yet somehow endearing nickname for her gave Max a sudden rush of warmth.
Also, she was struggling to keep breathing — the transgenic’s fondness for her was exceeded only by his grasp.
Squeezing out words like the last smidgens from a toothpaste tube, Max managed, “Heeey... Big Fella. What’s shaking?”
Joshua released her from his crushing embrace, and the noble, shaggy face studied her. “Joshua was shaking, till now. Now that I see Max is all right.”
“Sorry to worry you,” she said, meaning it. “I had to think about some stuff.”
Suddenly Alec was at her side. As usual, the X5’s attire seemed parked halfway between beach boy and biker, a gray leather jacket over a T-shirt and dark jeans. “Logan told us about Seth.”
Max couldn’t read the handsome face, and asked, “So how do you feel about it?”
“Logan recruiting Seth?”
“Logan recruiting Seth and getting him killed.”
Alec half smirked. “Come on, Max — Seth musta got himself killed. He was one impulsive dude, right? Anyway, he was a big boy — he knew the game and he knew the stakes.”
“What about Logan lying to us?”
Alec grunted something that might have been a laugh. “Oh yeah, I’m pretty worked up about that. I mean, I never lied to anyone, my whole life, right?... And I’m sure you’ve been straight with Logan, hundred percent, since day one.”
That made her flinch a little, but she managed to cover.
Of course she’d lied to Logan — plenty of times, since they’d met; in the early days particularly, before trust had been built up. But this was different — this mattered; this had been about something important. Yet the sense that she was guilty of judging by a double standard burned in her stomach.
Max said, “You guys seem to’ve got by fine without me last night.”
“Well, you sent us on a merry chase,” Alec said. “But yeah — Terminal City stands in all its glory.”
“Can you guys get by without me awhile longer?”
Alec shrugged. “Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
From the sidelines, Mole pitched in: “We’ll be fine, Max. Take some time. Chill.”
Alec’s smirk widened. “Like you’re capable of chilling.”
She ignored that.
“Okay then,” she said to the group. “I’ll be at Logan’s for a while, you need me.”
Joshua said, “Logan is a good man, Max. Don’t be mad at him.”
“Or at least be fair and make sure he’s wearin’ that exoskeleton thingie,” Alec said. “You know... ’fore you kick his ass?”
She shook her head, but couldn’t hold back the smile. “You’re bad, Alec. Truly bad.”
“That’s the rumor,” he said.
Almost at a run, she took the tunnel between the two former Medtronics buildings, the one inside the Terminal City fencing and the one on the other side. Logan owned both buildings in the name of a fictional company, Sowley Opticals. Even though the siege was over and she could use the streets, the private passage of the tunnel felt more comfortable.
The tunnel had concrete walls and ceiling, and a tile floor, all a dull hospital green; fluorescent lights hung every thirty feet or so. Her boots were almost silent on the floor and Max stayed quiet, keeping her breathing shallow as she strolled toward the far end. She liked the silence down here — sometimes so still, she could hear her own blood coursing through her veins.
Going up the stairs at the far end, she could see a slice of light from Logan’s apartment around the door, which was partially open — usually, it would be closed and locked, and she wondered if Logan had company.
That would be perfect: here she was ready to try to forgive him, and on the other side of that door, he’s crying on some other girl’s shoulder — Asha, maybe...
As she reached for the knob, shaking off her lover’s paranoia, she could detect voices in there; but this wasn’t Logan’s voice, nor Asha’s for that matter — these voices spoke something that wasn’t even English...
Not convinced anything was wrong — but hardly ready to cheerfully call out, “Anybody home?” — she stepped quickly, quietly inside...
... and saw a man with a gun.
A squat Latino with a buzz cut and a dour, puffy face, Logan’s “guest” wore jeans and a black T-shirt and no coat, despite the bitter cold outside; an F was tattooed on the man’s right forearm, the branches of the letter formed from forearms and clenched fists. He held an Uzi loosely in both hands.
The tattoo marked the visitor as a member of the Furies, a gang from Sector Eight — a guest who would hardly be stopping by Logan’s to sing Christmas carols. The Furies considered themselves the badasses to end all badasses, but in Max’s opinion these Latinos ruled Sector Eight by sheer strength of numbers.
With over a hundred soldiers in their ranks, the Furies were broken up into units of ten — “packs,” which tended to include specialists in arson, theft, torture, sniping, and various other skills, making each little unit self-contained for assorted fun and games.
If the asshole with the Uzi was here, she knew the rest of his pack wasn’t far away. Logan not in sight, she stood alone, here — which made the likely odds at least ten to one. She considered going back for Joshua and the others, and she could have outrun these clowns and ducked their bullets, or maybe she could just slip back out and use her cell to bring the gang running, yeah, that would be the smart move...