Blah Blah Woof Woof

Zack

"What are you doing here?" Zack demanded.

He let himself into Logan's apartment and found Max chilling in living room even though Logan had implied she wouldn't be around.

Max took off her earphones, raised her eyebrows at him and gestured at the laptop opened in front of her. There were two tabs on the screen. One was an excel sheet with columns and columns of numbers and the other was a research paper on epigenetics in schizophrenia. There was a notebook beside her with untidy scribbling, presumably notes of some sort.

"Back from Timbuktu so soon?" she retorted.

"Ran out of gas, never made it there."

Zack crossed his arms and studied Max. She looked much better than last time he saw her. It wasn't so much in the lack of tremors or the skin colour, although admittedly those were markedly improved, but the general spark and ease that was Max.

Those meds really did a good job. Lydecker wasn't bullshitting him. However, seizures were a side effect Zack was willing to live with for freedom. Although his seizures had never been anything like the ones that hit Max.

"You look better," he observed.

She shrugged. "I feel better."

Max still wore the thick bandage on her hand, presumably to keep up her normal girl charade as it should be well-mended. She had wrapped it differently so that she was able to use her hand and was idly twirling a pen around in it.

Logan, who had been in the kitchen preparing food, came out at the sound of conversation. He narrowed his eyes and looked between the two of them, somehow sensing from this innocent enough exchange that some major action had gone down. "So what did you two get up to last week?"

"We were torn between Toy Story 2 or an ill-advised rescue attempt," said Max.

"Since sequels are always worse than the originals, we went with the sensible decision," Zack added.

"Yeah? How did that go?"

"Got Brin out of there. Lost her to Lydecker. She developed a fluke genetic disease that only Manticore can fix supposedly so she opted for living hell over death," said Zack shortly.

"He was telling the truth by the way," said Max to Zack. She gestured at her laptop again. "I did a lit search on it. Not a single other person in the world had the expertise to save her even if she had weeks to live and they felt so inclined to get involved."

"Didn't Lydecker recognise you? Why did you go too? Wasn't it dangerous?" Logan asked Max. He looked Max up and down, needing to confirm that she was safe and sound considering this update. Despite her full and complete health, Logan's frown only tightened.

"He was blindfolded," Max explained. "And someone need to be ready with the getaway car while Zack did the super hero heavy lifting ass-kick infiltrating stuff. No big deal."

"You didn't think to maybe clue me in? Pick up the phone. Leave a note or something?" Logan sounded annoyed that he was left out of the loop on this mission.

Zack didn't know which one of them decided this. It hadn't been a point of discussion, just a given expectation that it would be easier to operate without Logan. Neither of them bothered looping Logan back in with an update about the aftermath. The only reason Max was bringing it up now was to deflect Logan's suspicions.

"You didn't tell me about gate-crashing my genetics conference so don't turn around and call me out for stealing one of your Eyes Only jobs from under your nose without telling you," said Max, evenly, but in a way that suggested she was ready to argue this all night.

It was exactly the sort of fight a real couple might have even though they were both convinced they were in a sham relationship. Zack was saved from witnessing this argument by the oven timer going off in the kitchen. Logan went away to check on dinner.

Leaving them with the following words of wisdom: "You're wrong though, Toy Story just keeps getting better. You should have watched the sequel."

"What happened with Brin?" Zack asked Max once Logan was out of earshot.

"She's alright," said Max. "I saw the next morning in med-bay. Not cured, but better. She was awake and talking. I don't think she was exactly thrilled but she wasn't complaining. The bed beside her was free so I dunno I guess you could check yourself in, maybe see first-hand."

This, Zack realised, was the first time that Max had extended the Manticore welcome. Up until now, she had stayed silent on the matter. One quick trip back home to charge up the brainwashing. Although the offer didn't seem especially genuine, manipulative or desperate. Just snide. It was Max needling him, getting back for all the crap he had thrown her way.

"I would but I've got some coupons to use up and I need to wash my hair so it's just not good timing," Zack retorted.

"Why don't you want to go back? I mean what do you have that I don't?" Max asked, setting her laptop on the coffee table to focus solely on Zack. "Friends…a place to belong…someone the care about? No offence, but I'm not picking up any of that. You're just all about op-sec. It just seems like a bit of a waste that's all."

"You can't put a price on freedom and independence."

"But you can put a risk level on it and deem it too dangerous which you have done," Max argued.

Max wasn't wrong. Zack sacrificed a lot of these things in his efforts to look out for the others. Everywhere he went was always temporary and he always lied and kept everyone a distance so he couldn't say that the belonged anywhere or had true friends.

The others managed to carve out lives for themselves. Tinga was married with one kid and one on the way and ran a bakery. It was like she stepped right out of a rom-com, complete with the quirky outfits and long perfect hair. Zack would do anything to keep her and her kids safe. Initially, Zack was pissed that she bought kids into this world but once he looked into Chase's eyes for the first time he was won over.

"You do have all those things right now," Zack pointed out. "What's it gonna be like to drop 'em? You obviously care about all these people and them about you. How does this end if not in heartbreak? Let's pretend like everyone gets to live. They still have to live without you. That sucks."

Max shrugged, but looked away and didn't meet his eyes. She probably hadn't thought this far ahead and would refuse to think about it now that Zack raised the point.

"A little but that's life," Max admitted. "Hundreds of thousands of norms in the service to do the same. They get deployed all over constantly and leave their families behind. It's not an outrageous sacrifice in the name of serving our country."

It didn't escape Zack that this was the same logic he used for the sacrifices he made. They were arguing the same point at each from different camps. Looking for a halfway ground that didn't exist was only taking them further away from agreement.

"They get a choice. They get names and identities and recognition," said Zack.

"Get over it, Zack," said Max with an eye roll. "Manticore calls me one number, the university calls me by a different number and social security by another one. It's just part of being a modern citizen."

To demonstrate, Max pulled up the university website and tapped in an eight-digit number for a username and a password to get access onto the online course resources.

"If that's your biggest problem, you live a treasured life and you should thank everyone serving our country and their sacrifices so that you can obsess over trivial issues," she continued.

Zack has heard plenty of these sorts of lectures during his childhood to last him a lifetime and didn't especially appreciate hearing this one again from Max. Coming from her though, it sounded different, sounded reasonable, raising doubt in him for the first time that maybe he was skewing and twisting facts to irrationally hate on Manticore.

And then Zack just had to remember all the torture that was inflicted upon them in in the guise of training and medical research. Just like that the doubt was all gone. It was good, Zack supposed, that Max could box all these memories away and happily serve Manticore. It meant that she was content with her choices and her options. If Brin turned out just like Max, well, that wasn't so bad. There were worse ways for her to be.

"Never," Zack promised.

They dropped it.

Zack wouldn't have dropped it with any of the rest of his family. Max was family, sure, but she was a stranger too so things were a little different. It was just easier to disengage rather than disagree. It was not a compromise that he wouldn't have reached with the others. He would browbeat them until they came around to his line of thinking, but they were all on the same page on the Manticore topic.

It was good timing because Logan returned to the living room. Time again to pretend like they were only casual ex-colleagues and not a bunch of kids who forged into a family in their childhood hell that would hold them together forever.

"Thanks for coming back," Logan said to Zack in a meaningful way. "I appreciate it."

Max raised her eyebrows at this exchange.

"An Eyes Only thing," said Logan.

It was a purely personal thing though. A Logan Cale medical problem so Logan was begging for a pint of transgenic blood that might improve his odds of survival and recovery from a risky upcoming surgery.

Logan hadn't used the check-in phone number to contact Zack. Presumably, Logan had correctly deduced that Zack would not appreciate, let alone consider such a request, on a line meant for emergencies.

Zack agreed to it, not to help Logan, which was a happy coincidence. No, Zack's acquiescence was mostly an airtight excuse for him to check in on Max now that she had been released from Manticore without making her suspicious. He probably could spy on her without her getting caught but he didn't want to take the chance and he wanted more intel than spying alone would have provided.

For Logan, Zack's only explicit catch was that Max couldn't know a thing (and, implicitly: an open and immediate no-holds barred and no-questions-asked return favour).

Both of men were quite happy with this for quite different reasons.

For Zack, it was that he figured Max would probably have an ethical problem with giving away Manticore blood. Donation wasn't quite as extreme as Brin being sold to the Chinese but the same underlying principle of Manticore property only being allowed to belong completely to Manticore. Something like that could tip their fragile partnership. Max might feel compelled to stop it, meaning selling out to Manticore against their arrangement. Unlikely, perhaps, but likely enough that Zack wouldn't risk it.

He didn't care about Logan's reasons. It would be some macho pride bullshit. Zack didn't need to hear it. He just wanted to flush some pints of blood and then hit California. A visit to check up on Jondy was long overdue and he wouldn't mind some sunshine for a change.

Max didn't seem too curious about these specifics. She didn't get a chance to say anything before there was a knock on the door.

"Another visitor," said Zack to Logan pointedly. He knew that Bling, Logan's physiotherapist, would be here to help with the blood donation, but the person at the door was decidedly not Bling based on her clicking heels and lilac perfume.

"It's Cammie," said Max, standing up to answer it. "She's late."

Cammie breezed in by Max, not even acknowledging the late comment. She held a plate of snickerdoodles that she set down on the coffee table. "My mother's secret recipe, as made my sister, beautiful and life changing I'm told, and she thanks you for dessert, advice and time."

"You're told?" echoed Logan.

"I don't eat carbs. You know that, silly. Never had so much as a bite."

Cammie was tall and well-manicured with dyed blonde hair and ridiculous dietary retractions. This was all Zack needed to know to make a dozen judgements and assumptions. The key one being that she was not a threat. It made sense that her family was friends with Logan. They clearly came from the same affluent circles. The connection to Max was less clear.

"They smell fantastic," Logan admired. "I think you might be making a bad life choice shunning these from your life with your carb restrictions."

Cammie shrugged. "Gotta do what you gotta do."

Suddenly, she seemed to see Zack. She looked him up and down. "Well, hello there. Who is this friend of yours Logan you've been hiding?"

Max rolled her eyes. "Sam, this is Cammie. Her older sister is a friend of Logan's and she's a friend of mine. Cammie, this is Sam. He has a girlfriend. And we're late for dance class so let's go."

With this, Max dragged Cammie out the apartment and only paused to pick up a dance bag.

"Um," said Zack, gesturing vaguely at their backs and then helped himself to a snickerdoodle.

Logan shrugged and gestured for Zack to hand over a cookie. "Cammie is a little…intense. And I guess you're her type so if you so much as blink too slowly then you'll find yourself on a date with her in an Italian restaurant and discussing attending an upcoming wedding."

"Right," said Zack but he doubted that Cammie's abilities extended as far as being able to steamroll Zack into something like that. He took another snickerdoodle and idly asked: "What's the carb thing?"

"She's an ex-professional dancer and still a little fanatical about weight," Logan explained a little distractedly. "Bling's on route, you all good, yeah?"

Presumably Logan didn't even question Max's clean eating life style and put it down to a dancer thing rather than the truth which was that Max was brainwashed super soldier that ate of a set menu of optimal approved foods. It went without saying that snickerdoodles were not on the menu.

Food could be another tool to de-brainwash Max. She had always always hated porridge and refused to eat it. She wouldn't be cajoled, bribed or threatened, meaning that she starved while one of the others ate her portion or hid evidence from their handlers. Or, at least, that's how it went up until the escape.

After the escape, it seemed like Max's picky eating had been caught out and cracked down on because Zack had seen Max eat porridge before her Jam Pony shift and saw a huge box of the stuff not only in Logan's apartment but at her one too. It was one thing to eat for fuel. This was Zack's usual approach to food. However, it was another thing altogether to actively go out of your way and eat a disliked food out of habit or obedience or whatever it was that controlled Max's food choices.

"Yeah, just make it quick," said Zack.

True to Logan's word, Bling arrived soon and managed to extract a pint of blood with minimal fuss or hassle. This was quite a feat given Zack's general aversion to needles and anyone in the healthcare community touching him.

Zack was on the road by sundown, and in California by the next morning. Jondy was alone in the bar she worked at. It was empty and reeking of stale drink and smoke. She was half-heartedly wiping down tables and full-heartedly belting along to the song on the juke-box.

This time her hair was bright pink and in a high sleek ponytail. She liked to experiment with make-up and hair and had never looked the same anytime Zack visited. He would approve her chameleon appearance except her looks were usually dramatic and loud and called attention where she should be blended in, but that was Jondy.

"You're not telling me how to look or dress, Zack," she had told him fiercely when he objected. "Don't you fucking dare. If I shave my head and get a swastika tattoo on my forehead it's because I chose to, my body, my choice, you don't get a vote. Tell me to leave, fine, forbid me from taking a modelling job, whatever, but not what to look like."

And so, even when Jondy had conventional brown hair, she wore ridiculous clothes and stood out like the sun. Children stared at her and stuck-up middle agents people judged her on the street. There was absolutely no talking to her about it, which was endless frustrating, but a welcomed antidote to Max's regulation-approved conventional and bland wardrobe and lifestyle choices.

"Hey, sis, thinking of trying out for America's Got talent?" said Zack, helping himself to a beer, and sitting down at the bar.

She looked up, startled, but quickly recovered. "Well, look who it is, Zachery himself, blessing me with his presence. What fires have you been putting out that kept you away so long?"

"All kinds, forest, electric, chemical," said Zack.

"All that and no burns," Jondy said. "You're such a hero, Zachery."

"Speaking of-" She ducked into the back room for a moment and emerged with some newspapers and pages and plonked them down on the bar in front of Zack. "Here's a new rescue mission for you."

It was intel on Ben's murder spree, gleaned from morgues and databases and witnesses before Lydecker's people swooped in and shut down the investigations. The report was thorough. Jondy had been actively seeking out this information, putting herself in the line of fire. Going by her report, Ben had cleared the bay area and had started working his way through Oregon and was on track to Seattle and Max.

"Jondy," he started.

"I know," she interrupted the lecture before he could get started. "Look, I didn't go after him, I minded my own business, didn't make contact, but you know I can only play so dumb and deaf, Zack, so here it is. Go stop him. I'm fine, everything is fine here, I'm not the one you need looking out for right now."

"I know," Zack agreed. He took a swig of his beer. "So, what's going on here?"

They drank and shot the breeze and hung out in the bar until it was due to reopen and they had to make themselves scarce.

Finally, Zack bought up Max. "Hey, you know, I've seen Max."

Jondy's eyes light up and then she immediately became guarded. "And? She out or in?"

"She didn't escape," Zack confirmed, not sugar coating it, not opting for any uncertain language, and laid it out as factually as he could. "She's on a long-term op and living it up but has no intention of staying out."

"But? I'm hearing a but," said Jondy.

"But I'm doing my best to change her mind," said Zack. "You know Max though, she's impossible once she's got her mind set to something."

"That she is," said Jondy, smiling, but it was hard, humourless smile. Her and Max had been partnered up in the escape but she abandoned Max. It was tactically sound, the right decision, but one she had always regretted, and hearing that it cost Max her freedom must be eating at her.

"I'd try to talk her out, you know I would in a heartbeat, but that's not what you're asking, is it?"

"I am asking for your wisdom on how to handle Max," said Zack.

Jondy had plenty of it.

Zack was back in Seattle within the week, just in the time to walk into the clutches of Cammie. Zack was usually, but not always, right, and not right about Cammie. Logan's predictions about pasta and wedding talk weren't quite on the mark but they weren't far off. They ended up on a date. In a French restaurant. Then, it was a shitty night club, beer and sex.

It was repeated sex. Not an anonymous once-off hook-up that Zack typically favoured. He still couldn't say quite how it happened, but it had happened and he could see it continuing, if sporadically and casually. And he was okay with that. Another reason to hit Seattle – watch Max, deal with Logan and hook-up with Cammie. Weddings were a deal breaker.

"Ugh, Max, and her stupid punctuality," Cammie complained, checking her phone and grimacing and the screen, as they lay in bed. "She has like six lives, I don't know how she does it and consistently does it all on time. She's a freak of nature, and makes me look shitty."

Zack shrugged. "To-do lists and filofax planner," he clarified. He saw the workings of Max's system at Jam Pony, and it was true, she operated masterfully, but it was nothing impossible.

"Nah, not yet, I'm not ready for you to disappear again, five more minutes," Cammie said, dropping her phone.

"What's Max's deal anyway?" Zack added, all faux-casual. The original, and supposed benefit of this relationship with Cammie, was to suss out Max. The timing had finally coming to probe.

"Max is a dance prodigy, and she literally doesn't even know it," Cammie bemoaned. "It's sickening. I mean she works hard, she puts in the hours and practise, and blood, sweat and tears, but it still seems to be so effortless for her. She is one of the most talented people I know, and she should be unbearable, and I wish she was so I could resent her, but she's so nice and humble. She's the worst. And the best."

"You go to school together too?"

"We share a couple of classes. Why?"

"I just can't picture Max outside of Jam Pony with regular people. It's like finding out your teachers don't sleep as school when your kid and you run into them on the street."

"Oh? Since she was your manager, she didn't mix with the plebs?" asked Cammie.

"No. Not like that." Zack shook his head. "It's just…Max in a lab coat? Max in a tutu? Max in her church clothes? Those seem like Maxes from parallel worlds."

The only one that part of Max that made sense was Jam Pony.

Zack didn't know what that said about Max or Jam Pony (it was a weird place).

Manticore loyalist solider Max, obviously, was the strangest of all.

So…. that looked nothing like 'Blah, Blah, Woof, Woof'. But the episode plot is basically moot. Zack never killed that guy and Lydecker isn't trying to re-capture Max. The only thing that remains is Logan's surgery. So, here's a little chapter about Zack trying to figure out what to do about Max.