Backslide

By the time it finally registered in Max's brain that Zack had indeed betrayed her, she had become far too dizzy from lack of oxygen to barely stand. Her knees buckled underneath her just as Lydecker came dashing through the open door, followed by a couple of his men. Zack just let her drop, not caring if she was hurt in the process or not. Dropping to her knees as the room swam around her, she fell on her side on the cold cement floor, eye level with Zack's shiny boots.

"Congratulations soldier," Lydecker was saying, although his voice was thick and far, far away. Zack nodded.

"Thank you, sir."

Lydecker pursed his lips, thoughtfully. "What method did you use to capture the prisoner?"

"Tactic of deceit. Not hard to do," he replied with a faint smile. "The prisoner lives on sentimentalities, one of her greatest weaknesses, sir."

"Well, I must admit, it's good to have her back." Then, turning to his men, "Take her down to C23. She can stay there until we can arrange for better accommodations." The men didn't question their leader.

Silently, they roughly picked Max up, who was losing consciousness quickly, and they began to haul her out of the room. Zack stood beside Lydecker, being the right hand man, arms crossed and a smug smirk planted on his face. As dark blotches began to obscure her vision, Max let her eyes rest weakly on Zack. His expression didn't change-he had done what had been ordered-capture the enemy. Yet, Max felt her life drain out of her and make a puddle on the floor. If Zack, the strongest of all, was defeated, would she really stand a chance?

"Zack…" she whispered to him, her voice fading away. "Don't…don't…forget…" This seemed to strike something in him, which caused him to stand a little bit straighter and erase some of the cruel smirk. Yet Lydecker's hold remained.

Max didn't even remember being taken to the room or anything besides Zack, when she finally snapped to her senses after awakening later on. How could he have sunk so low? How?

At first the only thing she wanted to do was sit and wallow in her pit of self-misery. Yet, that of course would do no one any good. Then she wanted to scream and tear her hair out, strand by strand. She actually fell for such a cheap trick! Brin had warned her that Zack was dangerous and so had the others, but no, she just had to think that Zack had actually changed.

Max rose to her feet and brushed off the seat of her black pants. Lydecker would be coming anytime. He would want to get her into a better pair of clothes and check up on the child.

Quickly, Max surveyed the type of room she was in, searching for a way to escape. The room was a room. That was all. There were no tables, or chairs, or amazingly, no cells to contain her. It was a just a small room with a single door that was her only escape in and out.

Not wanting to just give up so easily, she backed up and ran furiously right into the door, pleading with it to budge at least somewhat. Unfortunately, it didn't and Max ended up on her back, lying on the cement floor. She growled angrily and picked herself back up and rammed the door again. This time, she lashed one of her feet out and kicked the doorknob, blinded by her anger. This process only succeeded in creating a dent in the silver handle. Again and again, she kicked until she fell to the ground.

She was fuming with beads of sweat clinging to her forehead. Lydecker had done that to him. Lydecker had turned Zack away from everyone. Lydecker was the enemy. A flashback of far ago Manticore training came to her. Lydecker. Enemy. Enemy-destroyed. Destroy enemy.

Max actually laughed when she realized that Lydecker's own work was going to turn against him.