By Kara (anyalindir@aol.com)
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee haven't seen fit to sue me yet for borrowing their property, so why should you?
Spoilers: AJBAC
Rating: PG-13 for language, etc
Summary: Songfic-Jondy discovers the aftermath of the attack on Manticore and deals with the loss of Max and Zack. Takes place after "My Girl," three years before "Even Though It's Painful…Always"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
On a hunch, Jondy picked up the phone and dialed the contact number. She'd been moving steadily north for two days, blazing a trail through California and Oregon via the old Highway 5 on her motorcycle. Syl's roommate had mentioned her suddenly leaving for a vacation up north, and Case and Charlie had apparently finally left Portland. Worry was beginning to eat at her.
Instead of the usual beep, Zack's voice echoed over the phone wire. "Code Blue. Seattle. You know the drill." Code Blue was something Zack started almost a year ago, a fourteen-digit number that they were only supposed to call when the code was invoked. From the area code, Jondy guessed it was a Seattle number. She wouldn't call from this phone though. She'd call from the next town.
But one desolate town ran into another until she was just inside the city limits of Seattle. Jondy handed over the Sector Pass she'd filched off the girl at the truck stop just outside of town. The guards let her in with no problem, but she could feel the sense of urgency building. Something was wrong, very wrong. It was the same sense of foreboding she'd gotten the day they'd hunted the convict with the Blue Lady tattoo. It was a sense of doom that had driven her all her life to avoid sleeping.
Pulling off her bike, she headed to a phone booth that looked like it might be working. Stuffing a handful of change into the phone, she dialed the 14 digits she knew as well as her own bar code.
"Yeah?" A woman's voice answered, sounding like she had better things to worry about.
"Is Zack there?" It was a risk, but Jondy had to take it.
There was a long pause, and she began to regret that she'd used his name. What was his alias now? Michael? Matt? Jack? He'd mentioned using Sam the last time he was in Seattle…
"Max, is that you, boo? Logan's been outta his head with worry…" The woman's voice grew panicked. "Original Cindy can't get a word outta his thick head, and the others ain't spillin', so you better talk, girl."
Max? Baby sister Maxie, the one she'd failed to protect all those years ago, at Manticore. Max, falling through the ice that night, and having to leave her favorite little sister behind… Damn Zack. Fucking bastard, for not telling her…
"This is Max's sister, Jondy. Where is she? Where-"
There was whispering as the woman probably covered up the phone with her hand to consult with whomever else was there. "There's this bar in 6th sector called Crash on the corner of 19th and Hill, aiight? Someone'll meet you there." And then, Jondy heard the dial-tone.
She slammed down the phone, resisting the urge to tear the booth to pieces with her bare hands. Stunts like that got Manticore on your tail. With a sigh, Jondy slipped her helmet on again and kicked her bike into gear. Sector 6 had to be around here somewhere…
Jondy left her bike parked two blocks away, under the crumbling sign of some bank. She'd driven by the club, noting the location and all possible routes to and from it, should she be followed. If anything, Manticore had taught her that there was no such thing as being overcautious. Yeah, she was kind of ruined for normal life, but that did have some perks when it came to safety issues…
It was easy enough to stealth through the shadows right up to the door. Hiding around the corner of the building, she straightened her leather jacket and pulled her short brown hair into a ponytail. On her way up through California, she'd gotten her bar code removed again, so she was good for another few weeks. Her hairstyle was a bit much, emphasizing to the point of blatancy that her neck was completely bare, but it was one of the survival mechanisms she'd picked up over the years. The intense pain of removal was worth the three weeks of not having to worry.
Once she was satisfied, Jondy walked out onto the sidewalk like she belonged there, smiling at other people as she walked in the door. Normal was the key here-blending in with the crowd, not appearing out of place. Over the years, she'd become quite the chameleon. It might've even been because of her DNA.
The club was smoky and the lighting dimmer than the outside. Jondy's cat's eyes quickly adjusted as she shut out the extraneous noise of the crowd. There were drawbacks to having hyper-sensitive hearing, but the years had taught her to drown out anything that wasn't necessary. She still remembered her first night out of Manticore, and how much the sights and sounds had paralyzed her… As she scanned the crowd, she spotted the back of a familiar dark head at the bar, seated between a blond and a man in a wheelchair. Plastering her favorite wide-eyed look on her face, Jondy waltzed up to the bar, noting the empty stool next to her youngest brother. "Beer please." The tender gave her a long look, trying to assess her age and if she really belonged here. With a nod, he took the money she laid on the scarred bar-top and slid her a mug. Luckily, it was a light amber draft. She didn't think she could stomach the yeastier dark beers right now.
Beer in hand, she made her way to the empty stool. "This seat taken?"
The dark head turned towards her, eyes lighting up. "Jondy." Her baby brother hugged her hard, clinging to her in a way he hadn't since Manticore. His thin body, that always reminded her so much of Max, almost shook in her arms.
"Good to see you too, Krit." Over his shoulder, she recognized the blond next to him as Syl. "You too, little sister."
As Syl stood, Jondy noticed an almost haunted look to her. And when she hugged Jondy, she clung as tightly as Krit had. And that in itself said something was wrong…
"Where are they?" No use in beating bushes. Jondy wasn't engineered to be subtle.
Krit and Syl exchanged looks with the sandy-haired man in the wheelchair. "My place" was all the man would say. Even his face looked a little haggard, like he hadn't slept in a while. The knot in her stomach tightened.
"Krit?"
Her brother just shook his head. "We'll explain. I promise."
Jondy had no choice but to follow in their wake as they made their way out of the bar. The man in the wheelchair rolled over to a battered Aztek. "Need a lift?"
She shook her head. "Got my baby. Give me the add, and I'll meetcha there."
The man's face flinched momentarily, but he seemed to shake it off. "Fogel Towers in Sector 9." She nodded as he rattled off the address. High-rise sector. Wheels was loaded. "I'm in the penthouse. Someone'll wait to let you in."
If she didn't find her way in first.
By the time Jondy reached her motorcycle, the Aztek was already out of sight. No matter. Tracking had always been one of her favorite games at Manticore. It was one of the things that she'd excelled at until she was almost as good as Zack. But thinking about Zack made her stomach hurt, because then she'd remember…
Fogel Towers was exactly what she'd expected, a jewel of a high-rise in the heart of the Financial District. Scanning the building, she noticed a balcony located near the top of the building that almost screamed penthouse. If it was the wrong one, she could always just take the stairs…
Rummaging in her bag, Jondy found the trusty climbing gear that she always took with her. Though she tried to stay away from Tinga's beloved black leather, she knew the importance of being prepared. Manticore shared that principle with the Boy Scouts.
For a moment, she let herself believe that this was just another exercise, one of the games she'd loved so much when she was small. It was kind of warped in its own way, to get her kicks through subversive actions and stealth operations. But Manticore didn't exactly turn out stereotypical passive housewives in the form of genetically-synthesized soldiers.
Scaling the building was easy enough. Getting to the High Place had been more difficult, trying to find handholds in a sheer stone building and rusted-out drainpipe. Once she reached the top of the building, she noted an overhanging skylight that seemed to lead into the same apartment as the balcony she'd noticed earlier. Snapping the leadline to the belt at her waist, Jondy took a step off the roof. For a moment, she allowed herself to revel in the exhilaration of flight. Then, the wall began to rapidly approach. She landed lightly against the side and began to climb towards the skylight. She probably could have discovered the skylight just as easily by climbing towards the balcony, but it was rare that anything actually called for aerobatic stunts anymore. Zane had called her Spiderman once, for her love of swinging at the end of a rope.
The lock on the skylight was easy enough to pick. If she hadn't known better, Jondy would've said that it was deliberately jammed open, as if someone used this frequently as an entrance and exit. The window slid open quietly. Looking down into the room below, the five sitting around an island in the kitchen didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Wheelchair Boy had hoisted himself up onto a stool and was pouring wine for Krit, Syl, and two others. The black woman was probably the one Jondy'd spoken to on the phone. She couldn't place the man, though. He had the look of a bodyguard or a trainer. Maybe Wheelchair Boy was important somehow.
She landed lightly on the hardwood floor. Wheelchair Boy turned at the sound, though how he heard it, she didn't know. As his face turned towards her, Jondy could see his eyes light up, taking years off of his age. He wasn't nearing middle age after all. He was actually pretty hot. For a moment, she thought he would say something. She could actually say his lips forming a word she recognized. And from the way his face fell when he realized who she was, Jondy knew he could only be looking for one person.
Max.
"Miracle Boy." She walked towards him, noticing something familiar about his blue eyes. "Maxie's Miracle Boy. You were the one on the cable hack, when Lydecker was hunting us down again…"
Miracle Boy swung his legs around, and, to Jondy's surprise, walked towards her. Not too surprising though. She could remember Zack muttering about someone named Miracle Boy, and there had to be a reason for it. Someone had even named him once… "Logan?"
The man nodded. As he walked closer, Jondy noticed details that the dim light of the club hadn't shown-the beginnings of silver prematurely lightening his light brown hair just above his ears, the bloodshot lines in his eyes, the shadows on his face. His eyes were looked old and numb, even though he couldn't be much older than thirty. He almost looked like an X-5.
Looking around the room, Jondy also noticed a number of pictures that sat on the mantle above the fireplace. There were only a few, but the same dark-haired woman was in each one. She looked familiar, as if Maxie had grown up exactly the way Jondy had expected. She could see a lot of Krit in the laughing face in each picture, but there was also something of the little girl she'd known in what almost seemed like a past life. Max in a red dress with Logan in a tux, eating what looked like wedding cake. Max perched on a bike, wearing a vest that said "Jam Pony." Max standing with three others, one of them the woman still sitting in the kitchen. There was even one that someone had taken of Logan and Max in a group setting, staring at each other from across the distance. The looks on their faces seemed to be subconscious, as if they didn't realize…
"Maxie." She turned to Logan, his tall figure blurring briefly in her eyes. "Where is she? Where's Zack? Why-"
But she knew. She didn't need to read it in the way Syl's face fell, or the way Krit's arm automatically wrapped around their sister to comfort her. Logan didn't need to say anything to confirm the suspicions Jondy'd felt since she woke up screaming in San Diego a week before. She didn't think Logan could say it. But someone had to.
"KIA." Krit's voice was emotionless as he said it. There was a gasp that sounded like it came from the black girl. "Zack's MIA."
The room shook briefly, and Jondy automatically reached out, surprised to find a warm hand there to support her. "How-" she croaked.
"We tried to take down Manticore." It sounded so simple when her baby brother said it. We went to the store. We ate dinner. We attacked the impregnable fortress that tortured us for that period of life we called a childhood. Bringing down the bitch-they all dreamed of it, riding in to glory to save Brin and the others who never made it out alive. Manticore…an attack on Manticore…
"And?" The world was still spinning a little, and Jondy found herself leaning into Logan's grip on her arm.
"Tinga's dead. The lab was blown up. Maxie got shot by an X-7 and Zack never came back." This time it was Syl's voice-a voice so dead that it sent chills down Jondy's spine. But Max wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead. She would know…she would know…
She reached out blindly for a chair and, when she couldn't find one, she thumped to the floor. "No," she said. "No."
There was a soft whine as Logan knelt beside her, hands on her shoulders. "She died in my arms." She blinked, and for a moment, he looked like Zack with his clenched teeth and firmly-fixed jaw. "I saw her die. I saw her die."
Jondy pushed away, scooting back on the slick hardwood floor. "I'd know if she died. I'd know. Just like I'd know if Zack-" She closed her eyes, trying to find those parts of her that felt like the two people she loved best. Max was there, silent but steady, just like always. But Zack…that place that had belonged to Zack, even before her first heat and the first time she'd slept in his arms…
Zack.
She heard a soft crying fill the room. Jondy almost couldn't recognize the sound as something human-it almost sounded like the crying of a cat or some other dumb animal. She looked around, trying to find the source, but the room had blurred again, as if it was raining inside Logan's apartment. Maybe someone turned the sprinkler system on. Maybe…
She felt arms around her and someone rocking her back and forth. Something hot and wet fell on her neck, but she didn't think they were her tears. Her eyes burned and burned. Zack, KIA. Maxie, captured. Zack… Jondy blinked, rubbing at her eyes. She was surprised to find them wet. She opened her mouth to breathe, but all she heard was a hiccupping sound. She could feel her chest heaving, as if…
There was a weight around her ankles, chains binding her wrists. She was surrounded by something insulating all sound. Looking to her left, she could see Maxie there, dark eyes worried. Further down the line, she could see Jack struggling with his weights, trying to break his way towards the surface. Just one more minute, that was all they needed, and then the Colonel would let them go to the showers and back to the barracks…
Jack! Jack! Zack! Darkness was closing in, and she couldn't find him anywhere, and she could feel the pain in her stomach, the spasms that said she wasn't ready, the baby wasn't ready, but Zack was far away, and he wasn't answering the contact number…
"In my bathroom, on the sink! Max left her-"
Two pills being forced down her throat. Automatically, she swallowed. She could feel the capsules dissolving on her tongue, the familiar bitter taste of Tryptophan slipping down her throat…and then darkness, true darkness-
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Blankets were on top of her-heavy blankets, heavier than the one coarse blanket she'd used for the first nine years of her life. The pillow under her head was soft and conformed perfectly to cradle her neck. Warm bodies were pressed on either side, and from the weight on her chest, someone's arm had been thrown across her. Eyes flew open to stare at a ceiling she didn't recognize. Nostrils flared, until she recognized the familiar scent of the bodies on each side. Siblings, her brother and sister, with the unique combination of pheromones that marked them as made in Wyoming.
She yawned, smacking her lips. One of the things she hated about sleeping was the taste of death in her mouth when she woke up.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," a male voice said. The voice was familiar. Turning her head, Jondy could see Logan hovering in the doorway. Struggling out from under Krit's arm, she maneuvered her way to the end of the bed and slid to her feet. She almost laughed at the way Syl and Krit's bodies automatically moved to fill the void in the huge bed, curling up together.
"Breakfast?" Her stomach growled. A queer look came over Logan's face as he led her back towards the kitchen. Maybe he wasn't used to an X-5's obsession with food. Or maybe he knew it all too well…
Jondy slumped down on one of the stools, watching Logan move about the kitchen. There was something odd about the way he walked-a soft whirring that followed him whenever his legs moved. Occasionally, a joint would freeze and he thumped his waist. So he was mechanically augmented, as opposed to genetically. Zack had never said why he called Logan Miracle Boy, but apparently something happened to warrant the name…
"You like omelets?" Logan's voice was casual, as if he asked this question every day. He pulled eggs, cheese, and ham out of the stainless steel fridge, followed by what looked like fresh salsa. Jondy's stomach rumbled again in response.
"As long as it's dead, I'll eat it," she answered. Well, there had been a few times when…but Logan didn't need to know that.
She looked down at her wrists, tracing the two scars that cut across each one. One set was smaller, faded to a point of almost transparency against her pale skin so that few even noticed them. One on each wrist, for Max and Zack, where they'd shared blood when they were seven or eight. Max had said that she heard one of the guards talk about it, being blood brothers, and she'd thought that if they shared blood, it would link them forever. Even though he was three years older, Zack had still gone along with it, as if he wanted so hard to believe. But after that day, Jondy had always felt as if her brother and sister were a part of her. Until now…
A brown had gently closed about her wrist, turning it towards the light. Jondy fought the urge to throw Logan over her shoulder to the floor. It was hard, being back on hair-trigger mode again. Even after all these years, Manticore still had its hold on her.
"Razor or glass?" His voice was matter-of-fact, the same tone he'd probably use for discussing cricket or polo. But when Jondy met his eyes, she couldn't help wondering if it was something he'd tried.
"Razor. I've jumped through a plate glass window before, and that scarred me for life." Her voice cracked as she tried to pass off the comment as a joke. Her roommate had meant well, binding the cuts when she'd found Jondy bleeding on the floor of their bathroom. The seizure she'd had at the time made the more recent scars jagged. The older scar, cut with a rock in the woods outside Manticore, were soldier-straight.
Logan cracked half a smile. "Someone found you?"
She nodded. "You?"
He shrugged, letting go of her wrist. "Gun to the mouth. Nothing I couldn't fuck up." He moved back to the stove, scrambling eggs in the pan.
"What stopped you?" Manticore taught her not to ask questions, but Jondy had the curiosity of a cat as well as the hormonal cycles.
His shoulders shrugged as he slid an omelet-filled plate in front of her. "A leak. One of my neighbors upstairs fell, and-" He paused, remembering. "Somehow Max figured out that I was gonna do it, and when she found out that I was okay, she swore she'd kick my ass if I ever tried it again…"
Jondy chuckled. It sounded like her baby sister hadn't changed too much. "That's Maxie. She used to give Zack so much grief sometimes… I think we only got away with what we did because she was Lydecker's favorite, and Zack loved her so much, even then." She wrapped her arms around herself, a sudden chill creeping up her back. "She's not dead. You know it as well as I do."
Logan stared at his plate, shoving the omelet around with his fork. "Lydecker saw her die."
She snorted. "And you're going to trust that asshole? This is a guy who enjoys torturing kids-his kids. His idea of a fatherly role-model is a cross between Hitler and Satan." Everyone she knew had issues with their father, but somehow Jondy thought that hers topped all others. "You know, Logan. If you love Max that much, you wouldn't be here if you didn't believe me."
The sound of his fork hitting the marble countertop shattered the tense silence. "Did you share blood?" she continued, not giving him time to retort. His blue eyes met hers.
"She transfused me a few times." He was careful to keep his voice neutral.
Jondy had her own theories about what Manticore had done to them, enhancing some parts of their brains while not touching others. Her brothers and sisters had almost seemed to have an uncanny awareness of the ones they were closest too-Zane and Krit, she and Max, Tinga and Brin, Syl and Eva…
"After she transfused you, did anything change at all?"
Logan stopped glaring for a moment. "It was a dream. It was only a dream. I felt her die. I felt it." His fist slammed into the table, and he turned angry blue eyes toward Jondy. "I felt her die! Don't tell me I didn't feel that. What I feel now is delusion, just like when my mother died, and-"
She placed her hands over his clenched fists. "I loved Zack the way you love Max." Loved? Her voice sounded so calm when she said it in the past tense. Loved. "He's dead. I know he's dead. I can feel that. Manticore made sure that I'd feel it when he died, after all they fucked with us. I love Max every bit as much as I love Zack, and I'd know if something happened to her. She's alive. If she wasn't, then I wouldn't be either." It was a bit melodramatic, she knew. Chances are, if something did happen to Max, Jondy would survive. Someday, she'd even learn to live without Zack. Manticore bred her to survive after all. But Logan…Logan wasn't made the way she was. And he needed someone to prod his ass into the right direction, to whip faith back into his body.
His fists clenched tighter under her hands. She gently wormed her fingers between his, relaxing the fists. Logan was clinging so tightly to his belief, almost as if it was the only way to deal. If Max was dead, it would be easier to mourn her. But the fact that he still got up every day, ate and dressed and worked, meant he still had some hope, even if he wouldn't admit it to himself.
"I felt her die," she heard him whisper. "I told her we'd have time later." He raised his eyes to meet hers again. "I didn't let her tell me. We never-" He swallowed. "She died before I had the chance…"
Jondy looked down at their clasped hands, remembering sitting across from Zack at a table, just like this, when he told her Brin was back at Manticore. She had that much at least of Zack. Sex was an odd thing for her family, especially when heat came into play. There were nights she preferred not to remember, but somehow, those few nights with Zack had brought casual sex to a new level. And the fact that one of those nights, almost a year before, had started a child… She'd never heard Zack say the words she always wanted to hear, and she knew that she would always be little sister to him, but she could remember…
"Can you ride?" His face looked surprised at her question, but he nodded hesitantly in answer. "I've got a bike. There's a place I wanna go."
"A Ninja?" That same odd look washed over his face again, the same as when she'd called her bike her baby.
"2015 Yamaha Rapier," she answered with pride. "Glossy black, not a scratch on her." Her bike, the one possession that she could never leave behind-the only thing that Zack never twitted her about, since he loved his bike almost as much as she did. It must be a genetic thing. She stood up and held out her hand to him. "Game?"
He shrugged. "Lead on, MacDuff."
Jondy snorted as she led him out the door. "While apropos, considering I'm not of exactly of woman born, that's not funny…"
~*~~*~*~*~*~*~
Logan said nothing as they approached her bike. In this neighborhood, Jondy hadn't felt the need to be too careful about hiding it. Sometimes the best camouflage was to blend in with the local surroundings. So Jondy blended, parking her bike in the middle of about eight others.
"My baby," she proclaimed, giving a non-existent scratch on the Rapier's glossy surface with her sleeve. She handed Logan the helmet, reaching into her jacket for the yellow goggles she always kept there. Again, there was that odd silence as Logan watched her fuss over her bike. Maybe Max had a bike. Maybe he'd watched her do the same thing, over and over…
He swung behind her on the seat with practiced ease, so it was obvious he'd done this before. His arms automatically wrapped around her waist and he pulled her close for a moment. Then, as if realizing what he'd done, he loosened his grip on her waist a little. "Sorry," he muttered. Jondy could almost feel the tension in his body, already trying to compensate for missing Max. She must've transfused him a few times for Logan's body to already miss hers on a cellular level…
Max. When she concentrated, the warmth that had always been Max grew stronger. Max was alive, and probably not too happy about being wherever she was, but she was alive. Jondy was sure of that-as sure the emptiness where Zack had been increased every time she thought about him. But her objective was to get Logan through his moment of crisis, and after that was accomplished, she could dwell on her own loss, and mourn…
Neither of them said anything as they sped through the city streets. Logan's sector pass got them through every checkpoint, and the police didn't give them any fuss. For a rich white boy, Logan had the instinctual rhythm of how to ride a bike, automatically shifting his weight to compensate for hers on the turns. The grip on her waist was always firm, but never constricting. A couple times, she actually thought she felt his foot press down, as if trying to shift from one gear to the next. Someone had definitely taken him riding a few times.
When they arrived at their destination, she could hear Logan inhale quickly. "Of course. It must be genetic-monkey DNA or something, finding the highest point in the city," she heard him mutter over her shoulder.
Jondy could feel Logan watching her as she carefully hid her bike among what was left of the foliage at the bottom of the Space Needle. Prowling through the underbrush, she found the perfect motorcycle-sized spot, evidence that someone else had once had the same idea. Max. Maybe she was hindering more than helping Logan, evidently mimicking everything her little sister did. But genetically-engineered minds tended to think alike…
"Did I tell you I hate heights?" Logan said in an almost conversational tone. "Heights, spiders, and needles. I think two of those apply here-three if we run into any webs." He kept turning the helmet over and over in his hands, as if he didn't know what to do with it.
With a sigh, Jondy took his hand, just like he had been Krit or Max when they were small. "I'll protect you, Miracle Boy." And to her surprise, he followed without a fuss.
The elevators had long stopped working, but the internal staircase still seemed sound. No need for the grappling hooks then. At the top, Jondy managed to find a door that led outside of the observation deck, again jury-rigged because someone didn't feel like jimmying the lock every time she came up her. Maxie… She chuckled as she opened the door, stepping out onto the slanting rim of the Space Needle.
"Did Max ever tell you about the High Place?" Jondy took a deep breath, filling her lungs with air that tasted of carbon monoxide. It wasn't the pristine mountain air that she'd grown up in, but something about the pollution screamed freedom in a way Wyoming's air never did. She could hear Logan settling on the rim, leaning up against the cracked windows of the observation deck. "She never said much about Manticore, except that of all the things she regretted, she missed you the most."
"But she told you. That's more than most of us get around to doing." Tinga mentioned once, the last time Jondy saw her, how Charlie had laughed at first, after she told him. Case had been just a baby then, all big brown eyes and little tufts of dark hair sticking up. No barcode though…
"She denied it with every breath. I only knew because I'd hacked into some files a few years ago and read about the escape." He smiled slightly. "Hacking still gets you answers if you know where to look. She never said what went on there, except to call it hell on earth, and that the only good thing that came out of it was her family."
Chuckling, she sat beside him. "Manticore tended to go for overkill when they taught us something. Family was the third word we learned, after Duty and Objective." Those words flashed at her in her sleep sometimes, the same way that they had surrounded her on the barracks' walls. "I don't think a day went by when Zack didn't know he was our C.O. And from the first, I think the Colonel had Maxie in mind for his second." His second, if not his breeding partner…
"Your perchance for heights?" Logan was careful to keep his voice calm, but Jondy could tell that he was avoiding looking out at the city. He stared instead into his hands. She reached out, taking one of his in both of hers, just as if he'd been one of her brothers. He was almost a brother now.
"When they first moved us into the barracks, Ben was hanging out the window one night, and he saw this drainpipe going up." Closing her eyes, she could still see Ben's gangly form perched on the sill, his freckled face grinning as he pointed up. "We followed it, and came out on the roof at Manticore. The High Place. It was sacred-the closest we ever got to God and religion and all that crap."
"Max said she liked coming up here because it made her problems seem normal." Logan's hand squeezed hers. "She was just like everyone else up here…"
"Perspective." The High Place had been that way for them. To this day, Jondy didn't know why they were never stopped. She knew how heavily their barracks had to be bugged, yet no one ever said anything about nighttime disappearances. She and Max had gone wandering the halls more than once in their nine years. The High Place had been the only safe place to really talk about what they thought the world would be like… All those nights huddling under the covers, trying to figure out a world that was bigger than their understanding and teachings, trying to figure out their own place in it… "It's surveillance too-spotting your enemy before they spot you. Sentinels. They put us on sentry duty on missions as soon as we turned four or five, right before they first put guns in our hands." Those first few training exercises, acting as foot soldiers under the X-4s…her memories of those were almost as bad as live ordnance drills. She still had nightmares sometimes. Four of them died that year because of those exercises, four who hadn't even been named yet.
"What was it like?" Logan hesitated, as if he was almost afraid to ask the question. "Max would never say, but-"
She smiled slightly, opening her eyes again. "Maybe you have feline DNA too," she cracked, looking out at the broken Seattle skyline again. It was desolate and dirty, but it was free, and that was enough. Jondy shrugged. "It was Manticore."
How did you describe almost ten years of constant fear and ruthless training? It hadn't all been torture. Jondy could remember good moments scattered here and there, mostly with Max and Zack. She could remember the feeling of being loved, and knowing that someone loved her, even if it was just the soldier lying on the cot next to her. Manticore was a spineless bitch, but it did give her a family.
"It was like the Inferno, but colder." She wrapped her arms around herself, even though the chill she felt was something internal. "We exercised. They tested our endurance, and trained us. We thought they were games when we were little, because we didn't know any better."
Logan scooted back so that he could see her better. "If you didn't know any better, why did you escape?"
Because of a book, and a split second decision, and the sacrifice of a big sister… "It was Jack, I think." She rested her chin on her knees, letting her brown hair hide her face. "Jack wasn't really right-he wasn't strong like the rest of us. He got the shakes really bad, and they took him away." Little brother Jack…Jack was older than she was, but he was still little brother, just because he was always smaller than everyone else. He never grew as strong as them, and was always in the infirmary for injuries… "Then Maxie got the shakes, and we thought they'd take her too, and give her to the nomalies. Something snapped inside Zack, and he attacked one of the guards, and then Eva grabbed the guard's gun…"
She played the events at night sometimes, when she couldn't sleep. It never faded to take on the fairy-tale qualities of Ben's stories. It was always as sharp and clear as that winter night, when she was almost ten. "It seems like it should be a story that I heard once, but it's not. I lived it. Every fucking nightmarish moment of it…"
An arm settled around her shoulders. X-5s were extremely physical, and human touch was sometimes the only thing that could calm her. She couldn't count the nights they'd spent at Manticore, huddled up together. Allowing herself a moment for solace, Jondy leaned into the warm arm around her.
"But you broke training and escaped. That had to count for something." Something in his voice said that Logan had had this conversation before. That in itself was proof enough of how much he loved Max. And the fact that her baby sister trusted him enough to confide in him…Max didn't trust just anyone. None of them did. But sitting with someone who almost knew… "I saw Manticore. When I tried to get Max out, after she was-when she-" He shook his head, as if he were trying to clear the memory from his mind. "I saw the fence, and the guard-towers… I hacked into the security system and watched Max in the corridors…"
Jondy coughed something that felt like a cross between a sigh and a laugh. "Yeah. It was…" There weren't words for the old fortress. It was Manticore. Home and hell, all rolled up into one.
After a moment, Logan's arm fell away. "I guess I still don't understand why you escaped. You didn't know any better. You were trapped in a cave, but there was no man to show you that the shadows on the wall were all false."
"We didn't need Socrates. We had Orson Scott Card." Jondy smiled slightly. The first time she found Ender's Game after she escaped, she stole it from the bookstore. No one noticed. It was the one thing she kept, no matter where she ran. That, and her baby.
"Ender's Game?" Logan's voice was surprised. "We read that when I was in fifth grade in the honor's class, analyzing how true Card's portrayal of the psychology of children was." He was quiet for a moment. "I guess Card never realized how right he was."
In her mind, she could still hear the voices of small soldiers reading the words… "He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they meant," Jondy whispered. In the wind, she could hear the echo of a nine year old's soft, husky voice repeating the same words.
"You loved him." Logan didn't have to name names. She knew who he was talking about.
"Yeah."
He turned to her, his blue eyes full of emotions she couldn't read. "And you love Max."
"More than anything in the world," Jondy answered simply.
Logan hesitated for a moment. "And if I believe she's alive? If I keep hoping-"
There came a point when you had to surrender. Jondy could put off her tears for Zack long enough, but it would all come crashing down sooner or later. All the discipline in the world couldn't keep her from cracking. But if Logan was willing to believe…
"When you see Max again, you're gonna tell her you love her, or I'll kick your ass."
Logan chuckled. "You and Cindy both."
Another flash of memory, a restless night with Tinga and Max, huddled together on her cot in the barracks… Max's young voice, I dunno if I want a prince. Who says all princes are good and brave? We can take care of ourselves. If I do, he won't be a soldier. And he doesn't have to be strong or tall or handsome. He just has to like me for me…
Maxie got tall and handsome right. Looking at Logan, he certainly wasn't a soldier. The way he held himself screamed of self-confidence and old money. But when he smiled, and the look in his eyes as he drank up stories of Max…
She'd take care of Maxie's prince. Just because her own fairy tale had been shot down didn't mean someone else couldn't live theirs. This way, Jondy could make up for the promise she broke eleven years before, when her baby sister fell through the ice, and she ran on without the most important part of her life. Her own right to a prince and dreams of love were dead, but Max... And what a way to beat Manticore.
Hours later, Jondy punched in numbers on Logan's phone. After trying every combination she could think of with Zack's barcode, the voicemail still gave her the same message about invalid passwords. Zack wasn't a complicated guy. He had one focus on his mind, and that was to protect his family. And of his family, he unfortunately fixated on one sibling. With careful fingers, Jondy slowly dialed in the numbers 5-4-5-2, and spelled out three short letters. M-A-X.
Childhood dreams died hard. But part of growing up was knowing when to let go. And part of growing up was realizing that life wasn't fair, especially not in love or war.
"You have two new messages," a mechanized voice said into her ear.
Jondy wasn't Zack, and she wasn't Max, but she'd do her best to fill their shoes for a little while. And someday, when she got her sister out of Manticore, they'd sit together like old times and cry for everything they'd lost. Maxie might even have a shot at that happily ever after. And Jondy…
She'd walk alone, always ready for whoever needed her next. Someone had to watch over the family and remember the objective.
And now I'm all alone again
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to
Without a home, without a friend
Without a face to say hello to
And now the night is near, and I can make
Believe he's here.
Sometimes I walk alone at night when everybody else is sleeping.
I think of him and then I'm happy with the company I'm keeping
The city goes to bed
And I can live inside my head.
On my own
Pretending he's beside me.
All alone I walk with him till morning
Without him
I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way I close my eyes
And he has found me.
In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is him and me for ever and forever.
And I know it's only in my mind
That I'm talking to myself and not to him
And although I know that he is blind
Still I say there's a way for us.
I love him
But when the night is over
He is gone, the river's just a river
Without him the world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of stangers.
I love him
But everyday I'm learning
All my life I've only been pretending
Without me his world will go on turning
A world that's full of happiness that I have
Never known.
I love him, I love him.
I love him, but only on my own.
--Les Miserables