When Zack returned to the barracks after dinner it was dark, none of them had seen Max all day and at first he didn't see his younger sister there either. Then he saw her huddled in the far corner of the room next to her cot. A small bundle of grey wrapped up in one of the Manticore gowns.
"Lights out, everyone into bed." Zack barked out the order.
"What about Max?" Jondy spoke up.
"I'll take care of her." Zack answered. "I said get into bed soldier!"
"But I'm not tired!" Jondy argued she had a little of Max's tenacity.
"You never are. I didn't say you had to sleep. Lay down, that's an order you shouldn't challenge." Zack growled he was standing mere inches from her face. "All of you!" He turned his voice ringing out clear in the quiet room.
Jondy's body tensed. "I want to see Max."
"She'll be fine." Zack answered her softly hearing the door lock click shut for the night. "I'll make sure of it Jondy."
Jondy nodded and dutifully climbed into bed. "Ben tell us a story?"
Zack strode purposefully over to Max's bed and sat down near the headboard being positioned almost directly above her. "Maxie?"
Ben began softly to tell the others the story of the good place telling them how Ash was there now and that he was safe and no one could yell at him anymore.
Max sat hunched over facing the corner of the room. Her back was to Zack, her small rounded shoulders jerking up and down in a rhythmic motion. Zack was almost certain that Max was crying, but the hallow yet steady voice that answered him proved him wrong.
"I failed him," she croaked out softly just as Zack was about to lay a hand on her shoulder, a hand he quickly withdrew.
"How many classes did you have?" Zack asked.
"Three," Max answered softly her shoulders still shaking, "not that it matters. . ."
"Then it can't possibly be you fault Max." He said softly.
"It is! I should have been ready! I shouldn't have-" Max insisted.
"No Max there was nothing you could have done, I talked to Colonel Lydecker. Ash had a genetic defect; he was allergic to the nuts in the waffles. Zack reached out and spun her around to look at him so that she would see in his eyes that it was the truth.
"No one knew-" Zack trailed off when he saw her.
Red rimmed, guilt ridden, dark brown eyes met with his own compassionate blue ones. That wasn't what had stopped him, but it was what he saw next. In Max's hand was an ordinary pushpin from one of the bulletin boards in the cafeteria, in the other a balled up, well used tissue. Zack had spun her so fast that she didn't have time to stop. Doubled over on her knees she was busily poking the pin into her wrist- neatly, rhythmically, precisely, and disciplined, watching tiny drops of blood form from each hole she made. She didn't flinch. She didn't say "Ouch!" or anything. The look on her face never changed from the mixture or self-hatred and guilt hidden under that perfect Manticore mask. Max just huddled there stabbing and whipping away the blood with a tissue, stabbing and staunching like a robot. For one horrifying moment Zack was powerless to do anything. The wrist of the hand that held the pin was already covered in hundreds of little red dots. Zack did the only thing he could and smacked her hand hard, the sound echoing over the lull of Ben's voice and sending the pin scattering out across the floor and spinning away from her.
Max gasped up at him as if coming out of a trance. "I made Ash die. . ."
"No," Zack was on the floor next to her his hands grabbing her by the wrists, now her small face crumbled. The others craned their necks to see what was going on from the vantage points of their beds. In the bed right across from her Brin had the best view.
Zack wrapped his arms around her in a hug, more to hold her still and keep her from hurting herself then to comfort her. He ripped strips of material off of the end of her sheet and careful wrapped up her wrists, still holding her. If any of the officers got one look at it they'd send her down to the physiologists ward and possibly give her shocks. There was always the threat of something being seriously wrong with her and them chaining her up in the basement with the nomies. It was a good thing both their gowns and fatigues had long sleeves.
"Max, why?" Zack shook his head.
"Zack," she started to answer him, "I," she hung her head, "I just don't know. I failed him, I failed all of you, I. . ." She was going to say she'd killed Ash, but she was crying again and couldn't continue. Max had failed at missions before once or twice, but it had never cost her anything and certainly not anybody. Her hands twitched ever so slightly and she was sure she'd end up in the basement with the nomies.
Zack held her close, stiffly as to not show his true feelings, which would be interpreted as a weakness by the others. None the less he was very worried about Max.
"Max," Zack said softly, "you need to rest, lets get you into bed."
The five-year-old girl resisted the eight-year-old boy, verbally and bodily. Zack gave up and scooped Max up off the floor and deposited her on her cot. This time Max didn't fight and he could tell by the dead weight of her small body that they had her drugged up on something. Max curled up in a ball on her side her eyes hallow and empty. Her nervous system was shot her twitching hands were a personification of this. Max whimpered softly turning so that her back was to the rest of the company. She was showing the strength of the weakening effect this event had on her and she was ashamed by it.
"Maxie," Zack sat down on the foot of her cot and Max squirmed back to bring herself closer to him. "it's okay. It wasn't your fault. no one thinks it is. No one blames you."
Curt, simple, guarded, Zack's emotions were rapped up in the Manticore military fashion. Emotions we weakness, weakness was intolerable in a soldier. Still he had to look out for his agonizing little sister. He had to keep her safe from the physiologists and the nomies, but most of all herself.
"Colonel Lydecker does and Ash would." Max's voice was a hallow echo of her true self.
"No, that's not true. Colonel Lydecker's just using it against you to make you want to train harder in the medical class." Zack new the way the old man's mind worked. "Ash wouldn't blame you, you tried to help him where no one else could." Zack surprised himself by moving from the foot of the bed and crawling up besides her wrapping himself around her to comfort her. "He loved you, you were his little sister."
Max's whimpering grew louder with Zack's words, but quieted somewhat the moment she scooted backwards to bring her body to meet his and held the hand he had draped over her side. "Ash blames me! He said so . . . Colonel Lydecker yelled at me and Ash yelled at me and. . ." Max was crying again.
Zack new then exactly what had happened. Colonel Lydecker must have spent the day conditioning Max in one of the empty classrooms. Her eyes held open wide so that there was no way she could turn away she would have been forced to watch a movie that she would come to believe as the truth. Once someone was conditioned into believing something, it was useless to try and convince them of anything else. Zack new it was useless, but he had to try for Max's sake. Softly but firmly he told her again what had really happened during lunch that day.
Max eventually quieted down safe and comfortable in Zack's arms listening to him tell her stories over the sound of Ben's story. Stupid tales of how Ash died, it not being her fault, and how she tried to save him. She'd never known Zack was a good story teller. She'd never known him to lie before either and it made her angry. Sleep won out over anger, guilt and pain as she listened to the polished monotone tone of his voice. It was good to know that someone cared that she was hurt, upset and scared about Ash's death by her own hand. Max had seen the video Colonel Lydecker had of herself snapping and strangling Ash. It played over and over again from the four different camera angles of the surveillance equipment in the mess hall. She saw it all again as her eyes started to drift close, the rage on her own face as she had jumped Ash who was just going up to get more food. Her own strong hands clasping around his neck and beating on his chest. Zack was telling her a made up tale intended to make her feel better but it wasn't. When Max finally fell asleep because her body needed rest and she wasn't really tired, it was the sound of Zack's voice, the pain in her arms, and the warmth of his close body that lulled her off to sleep.