Chapter 6 version 2. Basically a re-write mostly at the suggestion of Nevermore (THANK you!!!). A little more fleshed out. If you read the first version, I'd love to know your thoughts on this version.
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Max became aware of herself in a rush, but could feel numbness in her legs and mind still. She did not open her eyes, but allowed her breathing to quicken and her heart to pound faster, burning off most of the drug that was keeping her sedated. She could still feel the sluggishness, and the reluctance of her muscles to obey her. She wondered, in an unfocused way, if this was what normal people went through when they woke up every morning. Kendra frequently complained of difficulty waking up, and of poor co-ordination before her coffee.
Before she finally opened her eyes, she remembered the dart and the sensation of being picked up and carried. She scented the air and recognized the smell. The room that leapt into her vision when her eyelids rose confirmed her suspicions. It wasn't Manticore, but it was military, and Lydecker had been here. She was dressed in a stiff, blue, utilitarian gown. Mouth dry with fear and the aftermath of the drugs, Max stood, shakily. It was a small, white-walled room with a sealed concrete floor and ceiling. No vents. Just one heavy door, locked. It seemed too bright, and Max felt unsheltered.
She leaned against one wall and slid to a seat. They would leave her here for some time, she decided, knowing that fear in solitary would do much of their interrogation for them. Fear as a motivator had been a repeated lesson during training.
She remembered sitting in a chair, careful to keep herself still. Fidgeting was discouraged with an order the first time, with harsher discipline the second time. None of her siblings had budged a third time. Max tried to remember what the punishment had been, and couldn't. The haze in her mind must be worse than she thought.
She ruled her mind into patient appraisal of the situation. How had Lydecker known to find her? Had someone been following her? Had one of her friends let something slip? Kendra certainly knew enough of the odd things that she could do, and Original Cindy would sometimes get boastful of her abilities. A memory surfaced: Gen had dared her to pick someone's pocket, and with her usual twist of humor, Max had picked Gen's, coming away with a folded piece of paper and a spoon. The paper, when Max unfolded it, was one of the Wanted ads with her own face sketched on it. Gen had burst into peals of laughter and explained that she had found it on a bulletin board behind a band poster and thought it was funny that it looked so much like Max. "You were buy buying cilantro at the time, and I thought we'd get a good laugh out of it later."
At the time, the story had seemed entirely plausible, even funny, but something occurred to Max looking back. The picture had been free of pin holes or tape tears, and the creases were well-worn, as if it had been folded many times. Max recalled their conversations, trying to find suspicious trends. Gen had asked after the other X5s, even tried to meet them, but Max had understood that as only another lost sibling could. Max leaned her forehead against the cool door and sadly thought that Zach had been right - to know the locations of the other X5s would have been a security risk. Indeed, she would have told Gen everything she had known without hesitation.
Max shook her head, and felt that something was wrong. She reached to touch her hair, and only encountered smooth skin. They had shaved her head; no wonder the room seemed too bright. Bastards. This was surely the first stage of reprogramming her. It played out like a lesson in her mind. Remove her from her environment. Take away reminders of her life. Immerse her in training, in re-indoctrination, work her body and mind to its limits again and again, until she'd forgotten that she had ever had any other kind of life; a happy dream of someone else's that never existed.
Fight the system? Refuse to train? Lydecker wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone close to her if he thought it was the motivation she needed. Gen surely had reported about Original Cindy and the others at Jam Pony. Gen... through the fog of drugs, she had the clarity to feel incredibly pissed. Max's trust was rarely given, and that Gen should have gained and used and betrayed that trust so casually was an arrow of pain. And Logan had trusted her, too.
Logan... Max's heart wrenched. How much had she revealed about Logan? Gen knew that Logan was the source of her information. What means would they use to get information from him, she wondered. Would they threaten to kill her? She wasn't afraid of pain or hard training. She wasn't frightened of torture or drugs. But she thought of Kendra and Herbal and Original Cindy... and achingly of Logan, and she realized she was desperately afraid of losing her humanity. She had learned affection and emotion, and to lose that now, to become a machine after having discovered her heart, was more frightening than dying.
Perhaps she could play the system, pretend to go along with everything... and...? She couldn't go on from there. Become a good dog on a leash until she saw an opportunity to escape? Lydecker knew that she'd try that, and he would probably set up daily tests for her loyalty. And in the meantime, what would she do? Kill people for him? Destroy other people's lives to try to save her own? How did that leave her better off than being truly Lydecker's tool? Because she had a good heart? How far would that soothe her conscience? How long, she thought grimly, would she even have a conscience?
Logan would have an answer, she thought, and she felt no older than 9, in the same gown, with the same shaved head. She wanted nothing more than to saunter into Logan's suite, with dinner just out of the oven, and a bottle of wine, which always made her feel like royalty, and tall, tapered candles that would slowly burn down over the evening into stubs that would flicker and go out while they were still talking. And Logan would be able to make her feel like her problems weren't so pressing and he would give her that warm, slow look that melted her knees and made her want to run away and shout and cry with happiness all at the same time. And at least twice, they'd forget what they were talking about, and she would beat him at chess and... the drugs were still in her bloodstream, she decided, because she was daydreaming like a fool, pretending that she would ever be back in Logan's life. She would probably never even be back in her own life.
Max tucked her knees to her chest, and cradled her smooth head, allowing great racking sobs to escape as tears swept down her face. The irony of it all was that she could, finally, fully, admit that she had fallen in love with Logan, and knew, bleakly, that Manticore could take even that from her.
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Max became aware of herself in a rush, but could feel numbness in her legs and mind still. She did not open her eyes, but allowed her breathing to quicken and her heart to pound faster, burning off most of the drug that was keeping her sedated. She could still feel the sluggishness, and the reluctance of her muscles to obey her. She wondered, in an unfocused way, if this was what normal people went through when they woke up every morning. Kendra frequently complained of difficulty waking up, and of poor co-ordination before her coffee.
Before she finally opened her eyes, she remembered the dart and the sensation of being picked up and carried. She scented the air and recognized the smell. The room that leapt into her vision when her eyelids rose confirmed her suspicions. It wasn't Manticore, but it was military, and Lydecker had been here. She was dressed in a stiff, blue, utilitarian gown. Mouth dry with fear and the aftermath of the drugs, Max stood, shakily. It was a small, white-walled room with a sealed concrete floor and ceiling. No vents. Just one heavy door, locked. It seemed too bright, and Max felt unsheltered.
She leaned against one wall and slid to a seat. They would leave her here for some time, she decided, knowing that fear in solitary would do much of their interrogation for them. Fear as a motivator had been a repeated lesson during training.
She remembered sitting in a chair, careful to keep herself still. Fidgeting was discouraged with an order the first time, with harsher discipline the second time. None of her siblings had budged a third time. Max tried to remember what the punishment had been, and couldn't. The haze in her mind must be worse than she thought.
She ruled her mind into patient appraisal of the situation. How had Lydecker known to find her? Had someone been following her? Had one of her friends let something slip? Kendra certainly knew enough of the odd things that she could do, and Original Cindy would sometimes get boastful of her abilities. A memory surfaced: Gen had dared her to pick someone's pocket, and with her usual twist of humor, Max had picked Gen's, coming away with a folded piece of paper and a spoon. The paper, when Max unfolded it, was one of the Wanted ads with her own face sketched on it. Gen had burst into peals of laughter and explained that she had found it on a bulletin board behind a band poster and thought it was funny that it looked so much like Max. "You were buy buying cilantro at the time, and I thought we'd get a good laugh out of it later."
At the time, the story had seemed entirely plausible, even funny, but something occurred to Max looking back. The picture had been free of pin holes or tape tears, and the creases were well-worn, as if it had been folded many times. Max recalled their conversations, trying to find suspicious trends. Gen had asked after the other X5s, even tried to meet them, but Max had understood that as only another lost sibling could. Max leaned her forehead against the cool door and sadly thought that Zach had been right - to know the locations of the other X5s would have been a security risk. Indeed, she would have told Gen everything she had known without hesitation.
Max shook her head, and felt that something was wrong. She reached to touch her hair, and only encountered smooth skin. They had shaved her head; no wonder the room seemed too bright. Bastards. This was surely the first stage of reprogramming her. It played out like a lesson in her mind. Remove her from her environment. Take away reminders of her life. Immerse her in training, in re-indoctrination, work her body and mind to its limits again and again, until she'd forgotten that she had ever had any other kind of life; a happy dream of someone else's that never existed.
Fight the system? Refuse to train? Lydecker wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone close to her if he thought it was the motivation she needed. Gen surely had reported about Original Cindy and the others at Jam Pony. Gen... through the fog of drugs, she had the clarity to feel incredibly pissed. Max's trust was rarely given, and that Gen should have gained and used and betrayed that trust so casually was an arrow of pain. And Logan had trusted her, too.
Logan... Max's heart wrenched. How much had she revealed about Logan? Gen knew that Logan was the source of her information. What means would they use to get information from him, she wondered. Would they threaten to kill her? She wasn't afraid of pain or hard training. She wasn't frightened of torture or drugs. But she thought of Kendra and Herbal and Original Cindy... and achingly of Logan, and she realized she was desperately afraid of losing her humanity. She had learned affection and emotion, and to lose that now, to become a machine after having discovered her heart, was more frightening than dying.
Perhaps she could play the system, pretend to go along with everything... and...? She couldn't go on from there. Become a good dog on a leash until she saw an opportunity to escape? Lydecker knew that she'd try that, and he would probably set up daily tests for her loyalty. And in the meantime, what would she do? Kill people for him? Destroy other people's lives to try to save her own? How did that leave her better off than being truly Lydecker's tool? Because she had a good heart? How far would that soothe her conscience? How long, she thought grimly, would she even have a conscience?
Logan would have an answer, she thought, and she felt no older than 9, in the same gown, with the same shaved head. She wanted nothing more than to saunter into Logan's suite, with dinner just out of the oven, and a bottle of wine, which always made her feel like royalty, and tall, tapered candles that would slowly burn down over the evening into stubs that would flicker and go out while they were still talking. And Logan would be able to make her feel like her problems weren't so pressing and he would give her that warm, slow look that melted her knees and made her want to run away and shout and cry with happiness all at the same time. And at least twice, they'd forget what they were talking about, and she would beat him at chess and... the drugs were still in her bloodstream, she decided, because she was daydreaming like a fool, pretending that she would ever be back in Logan's life. She would probably never even be back in her own life.
Max tucked her knees to her chest, and cradled her smooth head, allowing great racking sobs to escape as tears swept down her face. The irony of it all was that she could, finally, fully, admit that she had fallen in love with Logan, and knew, bleakly, that Manticore could take even that from her.