Chapter Three: Two Too Many
Logan muttered and cried out in his sleep haunted by images permanently etched in his brain. It was all the same, down to the detail, he and Max finding themselves surrounded by guards. Feeling again the bullet bury itself in his flesh and cause him to stumble. Having to watch in agonizing slow motion as the soldier hit one knee and fired, wanting to stop the act but unable to get up. She fell from her lofty perch to the ground while he bled his life out on the dark pavement. He leapt up again just as he had in real life, somehow finding the strength to fight off the burning agony in his leg, running to her, cradling her in his arms trying desperately to keep her awake, alive and with him. As he looked at her dying face through a teary eye she glared at him, "This is all your fault Logan!" She shouted, "You should have tried harder! But no! Mr. I Want to Save the World was too embarrassed to practice his gift! I hope you're happy…" The words faded into Zach's voice as Max went limp in his arms and looking up he found Zach's gloating face floating above him, "I told you this would happen! You allowed her to fall for all that phony sentimentality. You allowed her to love you instead of insisting she move on. She stayed for you and she died for you!"
"No!" Logan shouted into suddenly empty air, denying his guilt. And suddenly he was alone, surrounded by darkness and chilled by a mist that caressed him with cold fingers. Somewhere out of the dark a voice was telling him he was unfit to go on living that he should just kill himself. He nodded to himself in sad agreement, his life was a hollow thing, something without meaning. Looking down he found the gun had materialized back in his hands, cold and hard. He raised it to his temple his finger tensing on the trigger….
Logan was abruptly awakened from the nightmare by a sharp slap on his arm. Logan jumped in his seat, blinking heavily and trying in the first anxious moments of consciousness to orient himself.
"Wake up damn it," Zach growled looking sharply at him, "I have enough of my own nightmares to deal with, without having to listen to yours."
Logan glared back at Zach, wanting to be mad at him for the manner in which he was returned to consciousness, but at the same time he was grateful to be released from the horrid images that had flooded his mind. He leaned back in his seat taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly as he realized it had only been a dream that time. His own guilt about the incident was bleeding into his dreams giving them a release of sorts. He felt miserable though, depressed about what had happened and physically rotten for the rude awakening at Zach's hands. He closed his eyes again and pretended to go back to sleep. It was not to be however, as the images were only sharper allowing him to see every detail of the events of that night. With another sigh this one in frustration, he opened his eyes, watching as the forested scenery sped by the vehicle.
He crossed his arms behind his head looking back at Zach again, "You know there's something I don't understand. Why aren't we flying? Especially since this is a time critical operation."
"Don't have the money or the contacts," Zach said pointedly, "Unless you are willing to cough up some of yours."
Logan laughed despite himself, "My finances are not what they used to be. Which brings me to something else. You guys got all this ability, you have smarts… yet none of you seem to own your own vehicle, legally or otherwise. It ends up we are always taking my car. I don't get it," Zach said nothing, not even acknowledging him by looking at him. Logan shrugged and resorted to staring out the window, squinting suddenly, "Where are we anyway?"
"South of Portland someplace," Zach said distantly, "We should make Yreka by morning."
Logan slowly nodded his head, beginning to wonder what had possessed him to get involved with this. His lust for revenge was dulled now, and he wondered again and again if he could really hold his own in a combat situation. He had the ability but he was not trained as a soldier not like Zach. Butterflies rose up in his stomach suddenly. He knew in his soul that the only reason he had offered his assistance was to go out in a blaze of glory, and to do something worthwhile in the process. Logan knew that this was a headlong trip to his death…
But first they had to get Tinga and Company out of harms way, and he didn't even know the particulars of the situation. He had tried to get the information out of Zach several times with no satisfactory response. That worried him, he had a feeling that Zach didn't really know himself and that was unlike Zach. Grudgingly Logan admitted to himself that Zach was a very well prepared individual, having all the details worked out well in advance of any operation he choose to get involved with. That he didn't have the details of this one down did not sit well at all.
"Now I want you to tell me something," Zach said out of the blue cutting into Logan's runaway train of thought.
Logan didn't like the tone, "What?" He responded against his will.
"Did Max suffer?"
Logan sat and stared at him his mouth slightly agape. The audacity of the question cut Logan deeply, he couldn't even speak for long moments. He finally forced himself to answer the question, Zach being her family, had a right to know. He looked down at his hands his brow furrowing and swallowing hard against the lump that was suddenly there, "She went pretty quickly," Logan whispered hoarsely. Watching again in his mind the events that had permanently removed Max from his life.
Zach's eyes were suddenly hard on Logan's face, "Why didn't you stop them?" He asked raggedly, "You have our ability and training, I've seen it in you, yet you did nothing to stop them? What kind of a partner are you?"
"I told you… I was wounded," Logan reiterated defensively, "And surrounded by soldiers with guns. I did what I could, I convinced her to leave me behind," Logan swallowed again, "She hesitated about thirty seconds too long," Zach nodded his mouth thin as if he didn't buy the excuse. Logan shifted looking angrily at Zach, "And I suppose you would have just jumped right up and continued fighting? Give me a break, super-soldier you may be bullet proof you are not."
"Anything…"
"… Is better than going back to Manticore," Logan interrupted, "You've worn that dogma out Zach."
"I'd have found a way to help her," Zach said is voice raw with emotion he had tried to suppress to this point.
"And you would have been dead right there beside her. You can't convince me that your way would have been better, you are not my better Zach as much as you want to think so. Genetically enhanced does not equate to genetically superior. Your biggest fault is your single mindedness in all things, everything with you is about the mission. The mission is not your life. You have yet to learn to temper your reactions with rational common sense thought. When we first met I'd have attributed it to your age, now you have no excuse," Logan pressed fed up with his whole attitude. The two of them went silent for a long time, Zach's jaw worked heavily and Logan could almost hear his teeth grinding. There were two too many fiercely independent men sitting in this vehicle, neither of them wanted to be wrong. When Logan spoke again it was in a much less accusatory tone, "Besides the game has changed… Lydecker is not trying to capture you guys anymore, it isn't even an option. He and whoever runs his department want the X-5's Dead. Or had you not been keeping up on current events?"
Zach's face turned grimmer, "I know…" He said simply, "All but seven of us killed by Manticore in the past five years. We're becoming an endangered species."
Several hours later they switched and Logan drove while Zach slept, leaving him only the radio and his own thoughts for company. He had spouted some brave words to Zach, but he wasn't sure that Zach had not been right. Was there something else he could have done to prevent Max's death? He wanted to say no, but it always came back to the fact that he had not practiced not like he should have in his abilities. They were not honed to a fine reactive edge like they should have been. And maybe just maybe if he had the situation would have gone a different way.
Twenty-twenty hindsight… Logan's mouth thinned as he wrenched his thoughts away from the past a moment to consider what was in store ahead in Yreka. Two Manticore's leading two squads of soldiers, the odds were going to be heavily against them, and he wondered dully at their chances of success. Normally he would say pretty slim, but he had seen what Max could do on any given day and he had also seen the results when several of them teamed up, so perhaps this was not so much a lost cause after all.
All he was really hoping was that Lydecker would be there, Logan wanted his pound of flesh from the man, and he didn't care what it would cost him personally.
They pulled into the town just before daybreak, actually just outside of town, finding a dirt road that led off the old I-5 freeway and into the surrounding scrub. It would not do them or Tinga any good to get captured as they pulled into town right into Lydecker's waiting clutches. Logan turned off the lights relying on his enhanced sight. It had improved drastically since the ability first manifested itself and now Logan was pretty much in control of it. Everything tinged slightly green in the predawn light as they bumped down the unimproved road that rimmed the town.
Yreka was settled in a small valley in the rolling foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountain range. It was still early spring here, just a slight bit of frost still on the ground from the almost frozen temperatures, but blooms were starting show themselves a precursor to the coming warmer weather.
Logan stopped the van behind a small stand of pine trees and killed the engine. He and Zach silently got out and moved to the rim of the valley looking down at the sleepy looking town. It was hard to see through the trees interspersed between the buildings. Only the larger buildings could be seen, their roofs peeking out of the surrounding evergreen.
Zach crouched down and Logan followed suit as he studied the layout of the town, "Tinga said that they were pinned in on the West End of town in one of the houses. Here's the address," Zach said as he pulled out a map of the town and laid it out between them, "It's not going to be easy, There are a lot of places for Lydecker's men to be set up."
They spent long hours pouring over the map and coming up with a plan of attack to get them in and out. Again Logan had a feeling that there was more to this op than what he and Zach had been given. Again he couldn't explain to himself why he knew that, only that he did. They were walking into something more than a rescue operation.
