Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to Jim and Chick. I wish it were mine, but…
Author: cjudkins@smith-gardner.com
Summary: Logan's thoughts after his discussion with Max
about Cale Industries. Contains
spoilers (kinda) for Camera.
A/N: This is just fluff that popped into my mind when I saw
this ep. Nothing drastic; just one
person's perception. Please R/R.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Logan stared out the window onto
the rain-filled Seattle night. He heard
Max enter the apartment and begin to make her way towards him, but he didn't
turn to greet her as he would have in the past. She seemed to sense his mood as she quietly approached him.
"Heard about your uncle Jonas," she
said into the silence.
"Multiple gun shot wounds to the
chest. No leads, no witnesses. Sound familiar?"
"Same guys who put a hit on you,"
she responded, tapping the wheel of his chair with one toe.
"My uncle's partners," Logan
confirmed.
"Go figure."
"He swore he didn't know what was
going on. Lied right to my face. Didn't even blink." Logan bit down on the anger and pain that
threatened to overwhelm him; that someone in his own family, however distant,
would treat him so callously.
"He paid the price," Max said
softly.
"But his cronies skate off this
unless Eyes Only tells the whole story," Logan replied.
"You know what'll happen if you do
that."
"Government steps in. Everybody acts all shocked. And they seize the assets of Cale Industries
in a show of civic outrage. Confiscate the
company. The trust." Logan stated evenly,
as if he were talking about somebody else entirely.
"And your net worth along with
it." He could tell that Max was
starting to get upset with him.
"I own my apartment. Have some art I can sell. I'll be all right. Cale Industries will be out of the murder business for good."
"So, your idea of going to war is
taking a vow of poverty?" She asked sarcastically. "That'll show 'em, Logan."
"This lifestyle of mine, Max …" he
paused, as if trying to find a way to verbalize the revelation that was dropped
into his lap the minute he saw the hoverdrone outside of his passenger
window. "… is bought and paid for with
money made helping keep people under police surveillance. It took a lot of people dying for me to
finally face the fact that … I've been living a lie," he finished softly.
"What about all the good things
you've accomplished with Eyes Only?" she pleaded. "How ya going to keep that afloat when you're broke?"
It was a question he had been
pondering for most of the night, along with a thousand others. It was a question that he didn't really have
an answer to. Not yet, at least. He smiled slightly to himself. Trust Max to come straight to the
point. How was he going to keep Eyes
Only going without his wealth to back him up?
"Somehow," he replied.
"You know, only a bored rich
liberal white guy would piss away a fortune to prove he wasn't a bored rich
liberal white guy. No body would think
any less of you if you decided to let this one slide," Max stated. She was definitely upset with him. So what else was new. "I would invite you not to be a dope."
The conversation ran through his
mind over and over again. Am I being
a dope? Am I cutting off my nose to
spite my face, to use the old cliché? He wondered. What was the purpose of Eyes Only,
anyway? To bring down those that would
abuse the power they were given to them by the people. To give the people the knowledge that the
injustices that they suffered would not go unpunished. To protect the downtrodden, blah, blah,
woof, woof.
The trouble was, it cost money to
do all these things. Now, when he
needed to buy off an informant or purchase a new piece of equipment or get
someone out of town in a hurry, his money was readily available to fulfill his
needs. If he turned in Cale Industries,
it would be just as he told Max. The
government would seize the company's assets and take over the company. Maybe, just maybe, he could call in a couple
of favors and lessen the blow, but in the end, he would wake up tomorrow
without his fortune to fall back on.
Is this the right thing to
do? If I were to look at it
objectively, it is. Eyes Only's mission
is to protect the people. There isn't any
room for personal feelings. Jonas Cale
and his partners were involved in a plot to build killing machines, and several
people died as a result. If another
person were Eyes Only, that person wouldn't have any qualms about bringing down
Cale Industries, he reasoned with himself.
Which led to another question. How many men, like me, went to bed one
night, only to wake up the next morning to find out that Eyes Only had ruined
his life because of something done by someone in their family? Logan closed his eyes and rubbed his
throbbing temples. When did Eyes
Only become so complicated? he wondered.
Do I turn in the directors of Cale Industries as murderers and
destroy my main source of income, or do I live with the knowledge that I'm
living on blood money and use that blood money to destroy others? Logan sighed deeply and stared out into
the night, looking for answers that were not forthcoming….
"Do Not Attempt to
Adjust Your Set….."
