Max rides out of the Citadel on a stolen bike, and he means to stay away.
He leaves because he has to – standing beside Furiosa on the hood of Joe's car, he's already champing at the bit, uneasy with the crowds, the crush. He's moving before he quite knows what he's doing – he thinks, later, it might be more from habit than choice. There'd been other places in other times, half-remembered ghost towns elsewhere in the waste, and other people he'd stopped to help (tried to help, one ghost spits back) but he'd left them too. He left them all. Better that way. Stay too long in one place and the ghosts start to gather. Stay too long and there might be more ghosts to add to his list.
Max rides out of the Citadel because its standard protocol, its what he does, and it's what's best for them all, anyway. He doesn't want to bring the ghosts there. Not to that place, that new green place, which the Wives had dared to call their future, where Furiosa had dared to lay her hope. He doesn't want to see the specters gather in the doorways, congregating in this new, green, good place, like they did in the dark corners of his mind. Besides, Furiosa had nodded at him, smiling, raised up on the platform like a conqueror, a god, and it had felt like understanding, a blessing, permission. Whatever it had been, he'd taken it and run.
So Max rides out of the Citadel on a stolen bike, and he means to stay away.
And he does – for a week, then a month, then half a year, until the days blur into one long cycle of survive, survive, survive, and he half thinks the Citadel was just a dream. Somewhere along the way the voices in his head become more real than the memory of Furiosa and the Wives. The Girl is at his side, waking or sleeping, mostly mute, except when the dreams get real bad. And they do – oh they do – but he's used to it, after all these years, and his demons are as familiar to him as the shimmering wasteland horizon. He feels himself slipping, his mind teetering on the brink of something not-quite-human, not-quite-Max, something from before-the-Citadel, but he's too busy surviving to fight the decline. The ghosts keep him company, keep his reflexes sharp, even when he doesn't meet anyone flesh and blood for weeks on end.
Max rides out of the Citadel on a stolen bike, and he means to stay away.
Never mind that he never wanders too far east, roaming up and down the mountains, across the Flats and back again, survive, survive, survive, but never north, never south, like something in the west is calling to him, some siren song of the wasteland. There's the unsettling feeling that he left something behind. Like leaving the house without your keys – no no no no. But he never had much to begin with, and his car is gone, so he does his best to ignore the phantom discomfort. He has enough phantoms to deal with, anyway.
Max rode out of the Citadel on a stolen bike, and he meant to stay away.
But that's where he ends up, despite his best intentions.
It's necessity that does it – necessity in the form of a bullet in his shoulder, the mangled remains of his leg brace, and a raiding party on his tail that he just can't shake. They sneak up on him in the night, make the mistake of thinking three men are enough to hold him down while they hack off his brace for salvage, and end up with three corpses for their trouble. Max is back on his bike and speeding across the waste while they're still roaring in outrage, but not before a well-aimed bullet lodges itself square in the meat of his shoulder. The pain is bad, but capture is worse, and he pushes his bike as fast as it will go.
He rides for the Red Rills, hoping his bike will give him an advantage in the hilly terrain, but any edge he gains in speed is lost in guzzoline. The sun is rising somewhere behind him, throwing his shadow across the dust, and the shadows of his pursuers are looming larger and larger with every heartbeat. He hasn't got the time or the tank-capacity to play around. So he flies forward, the sloping terrain pointing him towards the western horizon.
There's somewhere safe to the west, he recalls, some half-remembered dream. A green place, the ghosts whisper. A good place. Better off without him. He meant to stay away. Meant to do a lot of things, he thinks. His shoulder is throbbing. He's low on guzzoline. He can hear the war cries of the raiding party behind him.
The wind changes, and he hears the shout even over the roar of the motors – "At 'im, boys!"
He turns suddenly, drawing the heavy pistol he keeps in a holster across the handlebars, and fires over his shoulder at the pursuers. He sees them all now, spread out behind him; four bikes and a car, all light and manoeuvrable and built for speed, the closest only twenty metres back. His first few shots take them by surprise, sending one of the bikes swerving straight into a sandbank. Then Max is facing front again, speeding forward, eyes fixed on the horizon in search of a half-remembered silhouette.
He spots it, after what seems like hours, as the raiders scream abuse at him and hurl lances that never quite reach their mark. The hulking mass of the place he thought he'd dreamed, crouched in the distance like a tiny imperfection on the pockmarked face of the wasteland. A stronghold – a citadel – The Citadel. There's a whining sound from somewhere behind him, and Max ducks his head, watching a metal-tipped lance go flying past his face to slam into the sand. They've closed the gap. Survive, survive, survive. He just needs a little more time.
He turns back and fires again, hits the windscreen of the car once, twice, three times, swerves wildly to avoid another lance, leans forward over the handlebars to coax a little more speed from the bike. A lance grazes his cheek, breaking the skin, but when Max looks towards the Citadel it's closer than it was before. He reloads the pistol one handed, turns again and fires, turns back and swerves. Reload, turn, fire, turn, swerve. Ignore the pain in his shoulder, the throbbing of his knee in its brutalised brace. Survive, survive, survive.
Then, a sound he does not expect. The roar of the other motorbikes fades away, and the car engine too, till the only sound is the sputtering hum of his own bike and the wind in his ears. He looks over his shoulder to see the raiding party rolling to a stop in the middle of the plain, shouting and shaking their fists at him as they fade into the distance. Had they given up? Wandered too far out of their own territory? Lost interest in their quarry? Whatever the reason, Max is not about to waste the opportunity. He grunts in satisfaction and turns back to face the Citadel.
He barely has a chance to register the ground falling away in a sheer drop less than ten metres in front of him, and then The Girl is there, ghost eyes wide and tiny hands held up to stop him.
Watch out for the fall, Pa!
Max wrenches savagely on the brakes, feels the back wheel lift off the ground, and then he is flying over the handlebars and skidding across the sand – sand in his eyes, burning like fire – thrown over the edge by the force of his momentum. For one long, dream-like heartbeat he is falling. He sees the ghosts gathering on the ground below, reaching up to welcome him. Survive, survive, survive. He sees The Girl, standing right in the middle, pale eyes wide in her dirty face. Look at that cliff, Pa! It's a long way d-
He hits the side of the crag and the world goes black.