This is a one shot response to Heather's challenge over on the SpinMax board. The theme was supposed to be Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality. I think by the end you will figure out where that comes into play. This is my first fanfic, and I wrote it really quickly. I hope it isn't too confusing, and actually makes sense to readers by the end. I would appreciate any thoughts or reviews.
Maxie Jones was annoyed, and that was never good. She had never been the type of person to endure it well, opting instead to take action against whatever annoyed her. Sometimes she would patiently, meticulously chip away at the source until she got her way. Manipulation was a favorite tool for such occasions.
Other times, and honestly more often than not, a direct solution would occur to her that had all of the subtlety and finesse of a wrecking ball. Maxie was fearless, and she usually wouldn't hesitate to use destructive methods to achieve her goals. Lately though the satisfaction she would take from this had become more and more diluted by the need to pick up the pieces afterward.
Lying on Spinelli's bed, trying to ignore the constant whir of clicks and taps emanating from across the room, Maxie turned her head and caught her own distorted reflection in candle light on the side of a bottle of Orange Soda. Instead of thinking about her hair or make-up like she usually reflexively did when confronted by her own image, Maxie looked into her own eyes- dark, curved and orange versions of them anyway.
When had she developed a real conscience? When had the thought of consequences become so important that it could keep her from acting out to get what she wanted? She could almost hear her sister's gleeful giggling. Georgie had carried enough of a conscience for both of them. Maxie had always known that her sister would council her on right and wrong, whether she wanted to hear about it or not. Since she could rely on that like the sun rising each day, Maxie had been unconcerned with listening to her own tiny mental voice that nagged ever so quietly when she did something or considered something that she should feel guilt about. She knew she would hear it later and louder from her sister anyway. In time the little voice had faded away almost entirely.
Now Georgie was gone, and Maxie would give anything to hear her voice again, even her lecturing or disappointed tones. Ironically, without her sister around to supply it externally, the little voice of Maxie's conscience had returned, hesitantly at first, trying to do the job that Georgie had done so well. For the first time in years Maxie found herself listening, even when the voice was little more than an echo, she would catch herself straining to make it out. Maybe she was more attentive now because the voice would whisper things to her that her sister would have said if she could. Or...maybe it was because of him.
Maxie turned her head the other way, bringing the slouched figure of Damian Spinelli into view. He was bathed in the eerie glow from his laptop screen, hair in his eyes, mouth half-open; his mind was far away. He sat with his back to the single window in the room, the curtains open. When Maxie had entered the room he had forbidden her to turn on the light, saying it would spoil his concentration. His voice had sounded distant and a little cold, which had taken her aback a little. She had settled for lighting a couple of candles on the nightstand, and he hadn't objected to their soft glow. In the dim light Spinelli's upper body and arms were all that was visible of his lanky frame, making him appear to be a busy little technophile ghost. His body would sometimes rock back and forth, but the only other movement was his hands working with so much efficiency over the keyboard as to almost appear a blur.
"The guard said he thought you went out, what are you doing hiding up here?" she had asked him but the soft and constant tap, click, clack, was her only answer and it rose like an industrialist's version of a symphony, assailing Maxie's ears. A printed piece of paper was taped to the laptop facing her. It bore the image of a roadwork sign but the words on the sign screamed in bold red letters, SILENCE. Then under that in smaller type, JACKAL AT WORK.
"The intrusive Blonde One may abide a while if she makes a solemn vow to come no closer than the bed, and to remain quiet until the Jackal's important task is complete."
Rolling her eyes Maxie had played along. It should have been easy to ditch her friend and go out and have some fun on her own, but the truth was that there was nowhere else she would rather be.
"I Maxie Jones do solemnly swear, by all things Prada, Valentino and McCartney not to willingly violate the Jackal's bubble." She intoned with her right hand over her heart. " Even if he begs me to," she added with a touch of vindictiveness. "Cross my heart and hope to die!" She had flopped down on the bed and begun her silent vigil.
As the minutes passed she heard a distant wail rise up from the city below. It was like the chilling sound of a wolf packs mournful cries but far less organic. To the Police Commissoner's daughter, it was an all-too-familiar sound.
"Sirens," she thought. "I guess someone is having a worse night than me." The distant sounds faded leaving only the uninterrupted sounds of the Jackal hard at work.
Sometimes she actually found the unique sounds that the Jackal-at-work produced to be soothing. The click and clack would become blurred into a pitter patter- the sound of summer rain hitting her bedroom window. He would also occasionally mumble things under his breath and chuckle to himself in a voice almost exactly like that green midget from the Star Wars movies. She remembered him because he wore a god-awful potato sack all the time. She couldn't understand how even being a green midget was an excuse to let yourself go like that. It was creepy when Spinelli would mutter and laugh and refer to himself in the third person while he typed away incessantly, but it also made her smile for some reason.
Other times, like now, it just served to set Maxie's nerves on edge. Such times, like this, it meant that Spinelli was in full-on Jackal mode and couldn't be distracted. It meant he wasn't paying any attention to her, and that was intolerable… unacceptable.
How many days had passed since she had lain on the bed and begun patiently waiting for him to finish whatever techno-magic had seized his imagination and attention this time?
She glanced at the clock.
So it had been twenty minutes. It felt like a long, cold eternity.
"Spinelliiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…." She wailed in despair, drawing out the 'e' sound at the end of his name in a decent impersonation of fingernails sliding down a chalkboard.
The sound of typing at blistering speeds did not abate but Spinelli spoke to her for the first time in the last twenty minutes.
"The Blonde Banshee knows full well that the Jackal is preoccupied with matters of code and equations that would spin her beautiful blonde head around much like young Linda Blair in the Exorcist. Nevertheless, the Jackal is prepared to hear your plea. What is the nature of the Divine One's distress?"
He never looked up from the laptop screen as he spoke in an almost singsong tone. Despite his playful tone, his voice still sounded strangely distant.
Maxie ground her teeth in frustration, something that she hated he could make her do. Didn't he know how much she had spent to get her perfect smile? Well, Mac had spent. She thought about hopping up and running over to Spinelli, grabbing his laptop and smashing it over his head. But the thought of him in pain made her wince. Besides he would never forgive someone that caused injury to his precious laptop. She knew that if Spinelli ever faced a choice between his laptop and his kidneys, he would be on dialysis. He would probably be happy with his blood being filtered through a machine, he had always trusted and related to machines better than people anyway.
Then a more wicked and appealing thought occurred to her. She could slink over into the space in front of Spinelli and slowly begin to strip her clothes off, maybe talking about how hot it was in his pink room. She could even use a cold, sweating bottle of Orange Soda as a prop, running it from her chin, down her neck to her chest, just to cool off of course.
She couldn't help but grin thinking about how the chatter from Spinelli's keyboard would waver and then come to a screeching halt.
But that wouldn't be right. Spinelli might make a mistake or forget to save his work, and she knew that what he was working on was really important to him.
Maxie remembered their conversation from a couple of weeks ago. Most of it had been indecipherable geek-speak to her but she had understood the basics.
"Forgive the Jackal for his preoccupation, Divine One," he had told her. "The Jackal is hard at work on something truly revolutionary and amazing. I cannot stop my efforts when they are so close to fruition."
"I would expect nothing less from that ginormous brilliant brain of yours!" she had replied beaming at him. When she pressed him to explain he had finally offered a few details.
"It's an AI SIM, but more advanced than anything the techno-world has seen. It's going to be the Jackal's masterpiece… my legacy if you will."
Maxie had cocked her head and laughed. "You mean like that computer game, the Sims? I mean I could see where you could make loads of money from something like that, but…"
Spinelli had smiled condescendingly, fully over-confident as he only ever was when solidly in his microchip dominated element.
"No my oh so fair but technically challenged Blonde One, it is nothing like a computer game. That would be like comparing a calculator to Deep Blue!" He scoffed as she shook her head and gave him a 'you are such a nerd' look.
" It's Artificial Intelligence! A real, complete, reasoning mind and a perfectly simulated human personality integrated into one program. The Jackal is working on ways to make this AI more and more real. I even have a real person, a human… model that I am replicating for this prototype. The Jackal's AI can learn on it's own, it should even be able to create other AI's with their own unique personalities! Soon it will be able to take over many of the mundane computer related tasks that take up so much of the Jackal's time, and maybe even perform at the same level as the Jackal himself!"
"We can discuss the Jackal's performance later," she had said wickedly, but the comment had gone right over his head making her sigh. "Well at least this AI thingy will free up some of your time! That means you'll be able to spend even more with me!"
He had looked at her then, really looked at her and she had felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable.
"The Jackal can conceive of no greater goal to strive for…"
His words had made her blush in spite of herself.
"Or maybe I will use the free time to accompany Stone Cold on more actual missons!"
"Yeah, right!" she had taunted him, laughing.
Thinking back on that conversation, it was obvious to Maxie how psyched Spinelli had become over his new project, and she knew that she would never do anything to jeopardize it for him.
Sometimes having a conscience really sucked. Maxie went limp on the bed.
"I'm bored…." She finally answered him.
"Ah… well perhaps the Jackal should alert the National Guard? He had no idea that the Fair Maximista faced such a dire emergency!"
A pillow struck the wall with a hard thump next to Spinelli's head, but the hacker didn't flinch.
"The Bored Blonde One's warning shot has been noted. The Jackal strongly advises her against further such actions."
"I was aiming at 'the Jackal's' bloated cranium! Lucky for him my aim was bad."
Maxie laid her head back but now there was no pillow to offer support. This irritated her even more.
"As pleasantly surprised and impressed as the Jackal is by the horizontal Maximista's uncharacteristic use of extended vocabulary, he must remind her to read the sign and to hearken her memory back into the distant past of half an hour ago when she entered the Jackal's lair and swore upon the holy trinity of Prada, Valentino and McCartney that she would gladly remain as quiet as the proverbial church mouse in exchange for being allowed to stay."
Spinelli's typing never faltered during this dissertation. Maxie groaned.
"Spinelli, I know what I said, and you know that I was lying!" She rolled onto her side, sat up and rested her chin on her hands, her elbows joined on her knees. She batted her eyelashes in his direction and pouted when he showed no signs of noticing anything other than his laptop. Maybe it was the low light.
"It's Friday night! There are so many better things to do than sit in your room! In the dark!"
"Which begs the question- why is the lovely Maxie Jones wasting her Friday evening doing that very thing?" He paused his speech, but the frenzied typing never ceased. "Did Psycho Jr. effectively counter strike yet another of your transparent attempts at seduction for the sake of unholy spite?"
Maxie frowned. For some reason that comment cut deeper than it should have.
"No, Spinelli, " she uttered his name with all of the false disdain she could muster, which was quite a bit. "Why would I want to waste prime time with Lulu's latest boy toy?"
"To get under her fair skin," Spinelli laughed softly, never taking his eyes from his all-important work. "Or maybe because you luuuv him!" Spinelli exclaimed mockingly.
Maxie stamped her foot and raised her shoulders like she had caught a chill or suddenly thought of something that disgusted her.
"That's terrible, Spinelli, I so do NOT love him, gross!"
"You do. You luuuv him! The Jackal knows that you do!"
His childish teasing tone combined with the fact that he had practically ignored her for the past two weeks caused something inside Maxie to snap. When Maxie snapped she either became a fiendish liar, or far more often, brutally honest.
"How could I possibly love Johnny when I am already falling in love with you?" She said angrily then froze. The typing sound had come to an abrupt halt.
Maxie covered her face with her hands, afraid to look up.
"The Jackal's auditory sensors are attempting to process this most unexpected declaration, but it does not compute… did you say you are f-f-falling in love… with me?"
Maxie brought her hands together clasping them tightly, and she looked up at him slowly.
He had finally stopped working.
"Yes, Spinelli. That's what I said, ok? But… it was a lie."
His gentle voice reached her ears, the mere shadowy echo of a whisper. "Oh…."
"No, what I mean is," she took a deep breath, afraid and exasperated all at once. How could this inexperienced, gentle, wonderful young man tie her in knots like this? "It's a lie because I'm not falling in love with you, I already did that, ages ago. I love you, with all of my heart. God, Spinelli, why do you think I'm here? Haven't you noticed that things have changed? How hurt I've been that you haven't been around?"
"M- Maxie, I-I…" Spinelli sputtered.
"No wait!" she cut him off. "Now that I finally have your attention over your precious computer and your wonderful program that you are writing, I am going to tell you how it is with me, before I lose you again to your virtual world. This is not a simulation Spinelli! This is real! I'm sorry if that is inconvenient for you!" She had not intended for her words to sound so harsh, but now she felt the warmth of tears on her cheeks. It was too late to stop. She plunged ahead.
"I 'm an idiot, ok? No, let me finish! When Georgie died, and then Coop was killed and then blamed for things someone else did, all that I could think about was how much I have lost, how unfair everything is, that the best people are punished while the worst, like me, have to go on living and making the same mistakes over and over again. I almost… I almost died Spinelli. A big part of me wanted to, but the hateful side of me wanted revenge, wanted to see my sister's killer pay and Coop's name cleared. I wanted to live to be a thorn in the side of anyone who ever hurt me or the people I loved."
She paused to wipe her face with his blanket.
"Then I met you, really met you, you know. And you stood by me when no one else did. You helped me get everything that I needed at that moment. Revenge, justice, whatever.
And that should have been it, everything should have been over then, but something else had happened while we were together on all of our crazy adventures. You brought me back to life! You believed in me, had faith in me, you showed me a future that could still happen that wouldn't always be so dark and terrible. You gave me such a wonderful gift! Because of you I could be myself again, I could go out and fight for what I wanted!"
Spinelli sat silent and motionless. For just a moment his laptop screen went dark making Spinelli seem to dissapate into the darkness, but then the light flickered back. He just sat there, watching her. Maxie sniffled a little, totally embarrassed to break down so completely in front of him. She summoned her courage and went on.
"But what did I do? I let my hate for LuLu get to me. I focused on that, and went back to playing my little games. I was blind to you, to what you really mean to me, to how it must have made you feel, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I hope it's not too late. Since you've been so busy, and I haven't seen you much lately, I realized that my life is just… hollow without you. I miss you. I love you. Spinelli, you are my miracle. B.J. gave me this, " she put her shaking hand over her heart, "and Jesse, Coop, my mother and Georgie most of all, they shattered it! You healed my heart! And I've been thinking, anyone, anyone that could do that kind of miracle for me… it has to come from love, doesn't it?"
Her voice wavered, aching, almost pleading.
"Lately I have been so worried that something bad is going to happen, that I would never get the chance to tell you how I feel. Just like Georgie never... I couldn't wait any longer! You have to know, even if I have ruined everything, even if you can never love me now. I love you."
The silence in the pink room was like a crashing wave.
Spinelli finally spoke.
"Maxie, Maximista, Divine One…"
"Yes, yes, yes?" she answered with a little laugh.
"Could you repeat that last part again?"
Maxie's eyes narrowed. "I love you?"
"Yes, that. Please, again."
"Why?"
"The Jackal wishes to record it permanently… in his memory."
"I love you, all right? I LOVE YOU Damien Spinelli!" she practically shouted the last bit.
Spinelli looked down at his computer screen.
"Maxie, I'm not the same person that I was a few weeks ago. A lot has changed."
Maxie felt her spirits sinking. She had hoped he would leap up and take her in his arms.
Where was he going with this?
"I loved you, loved you completely, desperately, but… I realized that you and I, we could never work."
"What? Spinelli," she breathed, uncomprehending.
"We are too different! I, the Jackal, Damian Spinelli, I am a creature of computers, codes and algorithms. I tried to change, to make myself worthy of your attentions, but my every attempt, no matter how well intentioned ended in failure. My heart has been broken too many times. I realized that no female could ever be expected to love me without either changing myself until I was unrecognizable, or changing her in ways that wouldn't be natural, wouldn't be right. You are so organic, unpredictable, so bold and full of the chaos of life."
"Spinelli, that's crazy, I …"
" No, Fair Maximista. It's simple deductive reasoning. I love you. I loved you for a very long time, but we can never be together. The Jackal is so sorry. But please, remember that I do love you. I love you Maxie."
There was a knock on the door and Maxie spun around. Before she could yell at the intruder to go away, the door opened revealing the silent figure of Jason.
He slowly reached through the doorway and switched on the bedroom light.
Jason was wearing a red shirt and the light reflected from his face, like it was wet.
"Jason, what do you think you are doing?" Maxie was devastated by Spinelli's attitude and she was angry at this interruption.
"Maxie. The guard told me you came in. I didn't think you would be sitting in here in the dark. I guess you were waiting for him?" Jason's voice was like the flat line tone of a heart monitor.
"What are you talking about? Jason?" Maxie noticed that Jason's lower lip was trembling. Were those tears on his face? Jason Morgan never cried. He never wore red either. Maxie felt a cold familiar dread rising up slowly inside her.
"Maxie, I'm sorry. I couldn't protect him. He's gone." Jason's voice broke momentarily. "Nothing was supposed to go wrong. You know I wouldn't have had him there if I had known it would all go to hell.. I had him, I had him in my arms, but it was too late. He's gone. Spinelli is dead."
Maxie raised her hand and bit her finger, fighting off the wave of hysteria that was threatening to overtake her. She knew Jason was wrong, he had to be, Spinelli was right here with her. But to hear Jason say it like that, to say that Spinelli had died with so much conviction, it was almost too horrible to bear. She laughed but the sound had an unhinged quality.
"Jason, shut up, he is right…" she spun looking for him, but to her horror she saw only his laptop sitting on a stool. In the harsh full room light she could see the laptop, still on and to either side small audio speakers. A webcam sat on the windowsill. She stepped forward and saw a small strange device sitting next to the laptop.
She remembered seeing Spinelli tinkering with it a couple of weeks ago.
"What is that a laser tag gun?" She had asked him mischievously. Obviously trying to get a rise out of him by bringing up geeky pursuits.
"Not exactly," he had answered archly, "it's a holographic image stabilizer and projector."
"What, what, what?" she had asked with a laugh.
"Don't you have some starving models to go hold a cracker in front of?"
Maxie looked at the computer, the speakers, and the projector, with growing disbelief. Spinelli was nowhere to be seen. "He's gone," Jason had said.
Maxie felt a sharp stabbing pain in her chest.
"I, the Jackal, Damian Spinelli, I am a creature of computers, codes and algorithms."
"No," she uttered desperately under her breath.
"It's Artificial Intelligence… a real, reasoning mind… a simulated human personality…."
Maxie felt the pain in her chest again. The room began to spin.
"No," she said, "no,no,no. He was here, he was right here with me."
"Lately I have been so worried that something bad is going to happen, that I would never get the chance to tell you how I feel. Just like Georgie never..."
The speakers, they could project the sounds from the laptop… the keystrokes, the gentle voice.
"The Jackal is working on ways to make this AI more and more real. I even have a real person, a human… model that I am replicating for this prototype."
Jason's shirt was red. Blood. His blood.
"Soon it will be able to take over many of the mundane computer related tasks that take up so much of the Jackal's time, and maybe even perform at the same level as the Jackal himself!"
"I couldn't protect him… Spinelli is dead."
"NO!" She shouted, sobbing. The pain in her chest was a relentless assailant now, stabbing her over and over again, stealing her breath.
"It will be the Jackal's masterpiece… my legacy…"
"Cross my heart and hope to die!"
"Spinelli, come back!" Hot tears scorched her cheeks; she could barely see the abandoned laptop through them. She grabbed her chest gasping.
"But please, remember that I do love you. I love you Maxie."
Maxie Jones collapsed on the floor of the regrettably pink room. Jason rushed to her side, frantically searching for signs of life. When he found none, he tried to revive her.
When that failed he picked up her small body and ran from the room.
"Hang on Maxie, please!" The night's events had reduced Jason Morgan, stone cold enforcer to tears and pleas. "Spinelli wouldn't want this! Maxie!"
As Jason rushed from the penthouse a video image filled the screen of Spinelli's laptop where it sat, still running, alone in the regrettably pink room- two people kissing with passionate abandon.
A voice emanated from the laptop speakers, breaking the eerie silence.
"I love you, all right? I LOVE YOU Damien Spinelli!"
The Jackal and Maximista were together, but she had been changed. The important work that AI Spinelli had been obsessed with finishing was finally complete. He would never be alone again, and his Maximista would never be troubled by a failing organic heart, would never betray him out of some self-destructive impulse. Their love was flawless, eternal. The perfect artifice.