Backslide

Cindy whistled, obviously impressed, and stood. She walked over to him, strutting as usual, Max noticed. "So, you plannin' to stay here or what?" Cindy asked Zack. He straightened himself against the wall, and glanced at Max, looking for affirmation. She shrugged.

"I'll see," he replied. He walked over to Max, gently pushing past Original Cindy and crouched down next to Max, looking up at her. "We gotta talk," he whispered to her.

"Uh…Zack, she knows," Max told him, referring to 'she' as Original Cindy. His eyes widened.

"You told her?" he asked, his voice barely a hiss with surprise invading in.

"I had to. There were some other people after me and it was just getting crazy and," she sighed and combed her fingers through her dark curls, "We'll talk about that later-okay? But, what else do you need to talk to me about?"

"The…well…" he glanced back at Original Cindy who immediately looked away and starting humming, pretending not to be interested. "The baby," he said, lowering his voice a decibel.

Max grimaced. "This really isn't the time to be having this conversation." Zack stood and ran his fingers through his blond hair, clasping his hands in his head like it was going to roll off his shoulders.

"You're right. Some other time." The phone shrilly rang and Cindy ran to get it in the other room. She was heard mumbling before she called for Max.

"Just a sec, I'll be right back," she told Zack and headed out to retrieve the phone from Cindy.

"Hello?" she said into the phone after Original Cindy gave it to her.

"Max? Yeah, it's Logan."

"Logan?" she asked, a little surprised that he would actually call instead of paging her like he always did.

"There's been a slight problem. Well, actually there is a rather big problem."

"And that would be?"

"You haven't looked out your window lately, have you?"

"No. I'm not one for admiring the scenery of garbage outside," she said sarcastically.

"Please do that then," he told her. Max rested the phone on the counter and walked over the window and parted the curtains. Below her, Lydecker's men ran like little black ants. They were constantly stopping people and checking to see if they had a bar code. Lydecker could be seen sitting comfortably in his Jeep. Max gasped and hurried back to the phone.

"You still there?" she asked.

"Yes. I take it that you've seen the display around town."

"Uh-huh," she answered. "Not exactly what I like to wake up to every morning."

"Probably best if you stay inside and keep safe. I doubt that they're going to go through apartments. Looks like Lydecker got the word that you guys aren't being used for typical soldier work. He's probably thinking that both you and Zack are on the move. He'll be checking cars and streets, stuff like that."

"What if he does decide to move up to apartments and buildings?" There was a long pause and Max could only hear the moaning dial tone. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Logan spoke first.

"That could become a problem. Do you want to stay with me?" he offered, trying to be helpful.

"No, it'll be best if I just wait it out, I guess. I don't like the idea of it, but staying with Lydecker isn't much better," she told him, realizing that Logan didn't know that Zack was with her.

"True."

"Talk to you later, Logan," she said.


"Yep." She hung up the phone on the wall and laid her head against the wall. Zack stood up and walked towards her, hands across his chest.

"You ok?" he asked, obviously worried.

"Could be better. Just found out that Lydecker's searching the streets and cars for us."

"Great," he bit.

"Yeah, we're not going anywhere for awhile."

"We can't just stay up here. We gotta keep on the move."

"He'll kill us if we leave, or put us back in those cells." Max shivered instinctively remembering how awful it had been. Her comment seemed to hit a nerve in Zack and he nodded reluctantly.

"We'll stay for awhile. Not long though. They're bound to come and looking for us up here."

"Agreed," she told him.