In the shadows
_ _ _
Friday night. The place was packed with people who
wanted to forget, if only for a second, the dreary
sorts of things they had to do to earn a buck.
Max was bored. When had partying all night started to
bore her? But it just couldn't compare to the
excitement of stealing, kicking ass, or generally
saving the world. If she didn't watch out, she was
gonna turn into somebody just like Logan, who was
probably already tucked safely into bed, dreaming
sweet dreams of...what did Logan dream about, anyway?
She suddenly wondered.
"What's on your mind, Boo?" Original Cindy asked,
breaking through into Max's thoughts. Max blinked and
looked at her. "You've been circling in outer space
all night. Not like you."
Increasingly like me, Max thought, shrugging at her
friend's question. She forced a smile and sensed
Original Cindy relax.
"Oh, god, who is that?" Kendra appeared next to them
at the bar, her hair wild and face slick with sweat
from the exertions she'd excused herself for. Max
and Original Cindy both turned to look. "He's
beautiful!"
"Mmm-hmm," Cindy said in her usual disapproving tone,
then glanced at Max.
"Very pretty," Max judged. And the boy who'd captured
their attention was all that and more, with dark hair
and intense blue eyes and the hint of a nicely tuned
physique under his t-shirt and jeans.
"Taken," Original Cindy noted as they watched a woman
in a black dress place herself between them and the
beauty. Kendra sighed and turned away to order a
beer but Max watched a moment longer. Long enough to
see the woman's hand close possessively over the
young man's arm as she handed him a cup of something
strong and alcoholic, which he drained quickly.
"Where's your friend tonight?" Max asked Original
Cindy.
"She's taken up with some man," Original Cindy
replied disapprovingly.
"Sorry," Kendra said, knocking back another beer.
Just another Friday night.
_ _ _
Joey was gonna get lucky tonight. New boy in town,
wins them every time, he thought. At least that was
what his friends back home had advised him before he
left for the big, bad city of Seattle. Things seemed
to be working out well, he thought as he finished off
the drink the mystery woman had brought to him.
She was visibly older than his sixteen years. Then
again, he knew he looked more than sixteen. Eighteen,
at least. Joey also knew he had a smile that made
most women's knees melt. He was gonna put that to
work for him. He'd show the people back at home.
"...my hotel room," the woman murmured to him. She
had to lean in close so he could hear her over the
throbbing beat of the dance music in the club, and
the cheers for a guy who was doing bike tricks up on
the bar. No, this was nothing like home, Joey
thought.
She had to be loaded to have a hotel room, he noted.
Yeah, they were going to use each other real good. He
tossed the empty cup away from him and took a
lurching step. Must have been stronger than he'd
realized. He flashed his killer smile at the woman -
he didn't even know her name! - and he knew this was
going to be the most memorable night of life.
_ _ _
Cold. Joey shivered as he started to emerge from the
deep blackness of the alcoholic stupor he'd fallen
into. He couldn't remember where he was or why it was
so cold. And he couldn't get his eyes open, even as
he continued to shiver and felt his teeth click
against each other in uncontrollable spasms.
He felt like he'd been hit by a truck. A big one.
What the hell did I do? He asked himself. The last
thing he remembered was hooking up with some chick in
a bar. And why the hell was it so cold?
Finally he got his eyes to open. He was in the
bathtub...and it was filled with ice. What the hell?
He started to get up, but his body protested.
Joey turned and saw a telephone resting on the back
of the toilet, just within reach from the bathtub. "I
am never drinking again," he groaned, shifting to
grab the receiver.
That was when he felt it. Something hard and sharp
digging into his back. "What the..." Digging his hand
into the ice, to Joey's horror he felt a pair of deep
slits in the skin of his back, too cold from the ice
to hurt.
"He's awake."
"That's impossible."
The voices came from the other room. Joey opened his
mouth to yell out, scream for help...something...but
there was no sound. He was scared and sick and he
wished like hell he'd never left home as the bathroom
door banged open and two people he'd never seen
before.
"Please," said Joey.
The man looked at the woman with a roll of his eyes.
"Please," Joey requested more frantically.
The woman nodded.
"We're going to knock you out again. To make this
more pleasant for all of us," the man informed Joey,
leaning in close.
"Help me," Joey begged the woman as the man picked up
the telephone and smashed him across the face with
it. And everything went black.
_ _ _
1.
Max's pager went off around 4 a.m. She rose silently
from where she'd been lying, contemplating the world
and where she could score some quick cash, and
pressed the display. Logan. She frowned slightly. Had
to be some kind of serious emergency at this hour.
Minutes later she was blazing on her bike, feeling
the wind tearing through her hair. For those moments,
she was truly free, moving through the atmosphere at
the speed she was meant to move, even if she was
depending on the bike's power rather than her own.
Logan's apartment building was quiet in the middle of
the night, though she did use the front door and the
elevator rather than challenge herself with the
Spiderman routine. Mostly because she wanted to know
what was going on, and quell the small pittipat in
her chest that was caused by worry.
"Logan?" She pushed the door open.
"In here."
The calm, even tenor of his voice made her feel
better as she strolled through the penthouse to the
computer room, where as usual his face was bathed in
the pale blue light from the screen.
"You look like a mad scientist," she commented,
irritated that she'd gone to all the trouble of
actually feeling a human emotion like worry and he
was sitting up here fine as usual.
"There's something I think you'd like to see."
"Obviously, since you got me out of bed at 4 in the
morning." She leaned against the counter, waiting
for him to tell her what was so important.
Instead he looked at her with a mildly amused
expression. Or was that intrigued? Sometimes it was
hard to tell. "I thought you didn't sleep."
"Sleeping's not the only thing to do at 4 a.m.," she
informed him and watched his face darken. For a
second she thought he was actually going to blush as
he turned quickly back to face the computer and began
tapping on keys.
"Sorry I interrupted your evening," he said stiffly.
She shrugged. "'s okay. I can contemplate the
messed-upness of the world at large tomorrow night."
He glanced at her like he didn't believe her, but she
felt him relax.
"Whatcha got?"
"This." Two more clicks on the keyboard and a grainy
black and white image filled the screen. A time code
ran at the bottom, indicating it was a feed from a
security camera.
Max watched as a crowd of men in white coats -
doctors, she supposed - clustered down the hallway.
Once they'd passed, where there had been an empty
space of wall was now occupied by a gurney with a
lumpy figure on it. She squinted, then arched an
eyebrow at the limitations of videotape as compared
to her enhanced visual abilities.
A few long minutes rolled by on the tape without
anything happening. It didn't have sound on it, so
the two of them were alone in the room with only the
soft sound of the computers' constantly running fan.
Max was aware that Logan was watching her while she
watched the tape. She wondered why he didn't fast
forward or something while she listened to him
breathing.
One of the nurses noticed the mystery gurney. She
stopped and then apparently she started yelling,
because other doctors and nurses began to gather
round.
"Keep your eyes on the patient," Logan suggested, so
Max did. The guy was in horrible shape, with most of
his face smashed, his limbs limp and weak. She would
have thought he was dead except she could see the
labored rise and fall of his chest as one of the
nurses held him up while doctors buzzed around like
flies.
"Did you see that?" Logan said suddenly.
Max glanced at him, because she hadn't seen anything.
He met her eyes, then started typing. The video
reversed a few frames and Logan placed his finger
against the screen. "That shadow there."
"It's just a shadow," she said, although tension was
building inside her. The place he'd indicated the
shadow was at the back of the beaten patient's neck.
Where her bar code was.
A few more clicks and taps and Logan zoomed in. The
quality of the picture was mostly lost in the
enlargement, but there was no mistaking it. The
patient had a bar code marked at the back of his
neck.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
"A source brought it to my attention," Logan said.
"The time code's a little more than an hour ago. Just
before you beeped me," Max pointed out. Logan didn't
say anything and turned away, making like busywork on
the computer. "You hacked into the security feed at
the hospital for a little late night viewing fun?"
she asked incredulously.
Logan met her eyes and shrugged a little, as though
to say, What did you expect?
"What do you do when you want to get really wild?"
she asked flirtatiously.
"I had a tip something was going to go down tonight
at Metro Hospital."
"And something did," Max said. "Can we get more on
this guy?"
"Nobody knows more," Logan said. "I went through the
databases. He just appeared out of nowhere in the
hospital hallway."
"With a bar code. People don't just appear with bar
codes on their necks, Logan -"
"I know," he said quietly. "There's only one way to
get more information at this point."
"Go over there and show them my bar code and tell
them we're long-lost siblings, can't you see the
resemblance of the ones and zeros printed on our
skin?" Max snapped. "You had a tip something was
going down, who's to say Lydecker and his guys didn't
have the same information. I go down there, they're
gonna be all over it."
"You're afraid of Lydecker?" Logan asked.
Max frowned, but she didn't say no.
"Then I'll go down there," Logan told her.
"NO!" she cried, making him look at her curiously.
Like he wanted her to explain herself. Which of
course she couldn't. "I'll go."
Logan nodded. "I'll see what I can find out from
here." But as he said it, he was tapping keys again,
re-entering the live pictures coming from the
hospital's security cameras. She looked at him and he
glanced up. "I've got your back."
"Then I'm a lucky girl," she purred and strolled out.
_ _ _
Max burst through the doors into the receiving area,
hoping to create a scene. She hadn't counted on there
already being a scene when she arrived. It was a
violent city from the looks of things as she wove
between the rows of chairs, each of them containing
someone crying, moaning, bleeding or some combination
of the three.
"What's wrong with you?" The nurse behind the counter
gave her a once-over.
"Nothing," Max said, surprised by the question.
"We ain't got time for people there's nothing wrong
with," the nurse said and turned to the man who was
standing too close behind her, bleeding from what
appeared to be a puncture wound to his jugular vein.
Max looked at him in horror, his declining vital
signs registering somewhere in the soldier's part of
her brain. He wasn't going to make it.
"I need a trauma team, now!" the nurse called to
someone behind her, calm as though she saw this sort
of thing a thousand times a night. Which maybe she
did.
A memory overtook Max, a strong one. Were there ever
any that weren't strong, that didn't shake her to the
core of her being? She'd left the house without her
daily dose of tryptophan and now that the sun was
coming up, she needed it right on schedule.
Training exercises. The guns were so heavy in their
little hands, with the bayonets attached to them. The
first few times they'd stabbed and cut their way
through an army of scarecrows, scattering straw
everywhere. Even though they were soldiers, there
was a childlike innocence to their thinking - after
all, they were only six or seven years old. So they
were surprised that morning when they were called out
for exercises that they were no longer facing bodies
stuffed with straw.
They were facing other children, just like them.
Faces painted black with camouflage. Eyes locked on
eyes, the fear palpable between the two forces. But
then something clicked and broke through. Survival.
And the chase was on.
Max blinked, turned her head. Wondered why she was
lying on the floor. Damn it. She started to get up,
still feeling mild twitching in her arms and legs.
Seizure. Just what she needed. Come from nowhere and
knocked her on her ass. And Logan probably watching
on through the security camera.
"Are you all right?" A doctor.
Max nodded, swallowing back nausea and getting to her
feet.
"How long have the seizures been going on?" he asked,
shining a small flashlight into each of her eyes.
"My whole life," she said and he jerked back the
light in surprise. She looked at him and saw he
wasn't so very much older than she was. "That's not
why I'm here."
"It's not?" he looked intrigued, but then he glanced
aside and she knew he was taking in the bleeding,
pathetic masses waiting for care.
"My...husband didn't get home. I'm afraid he might
have gotten into some kind of trouble. He's been
dealing with some people who might be a
little...violent," she explained.
The doctor just looked at her like he couldn't help
her.
Max focused on the video feed she'd seen at Logan's.
"Dark hair...jeans and a t-shirt...they would have
beaten him up pretty bad." She looked pleadingly at
the doctor, who she could tell was ready to make a
break to help someone else. But she needed to know.
So she had to play her trump card. "He's got this
weird tattoo at the back of his neck. Kinda like one
of those codes you see on stuff from before the
pulse. Lines, with numbers..."
"A bar code," the doctor said.
"A bar code, yeah," Max echoed with a simpering yet
innocent smile. It worked every time. "Is he here?
Please -"
"Sit down and stay here," the doctor told her,
steering her to one of the waiting area chairs. "I'll
come back for you when I have a moment."
"Is he here?" Max demanded, but the doctor was
already gone. She made a bit of a face at being left
like this, without the information she wanted, still
feeling shaky. She checked the time on her pager,
knowing she was due at Jam Pony in an hour. Then she
scanned the room for the security camera. It was
hidden, but she located it fairly quickly and shot
Logan a smile, knowing he was watching her.
_ _ _
Logan was frowning into the computer screen. His
stomach only tightened when he saw Max's beatific
smile, obviously for his benefit. He'd watched her
have that seizure. One minute talking to the nurse
and the next minute she was gone, on the floor in
spasms. And sitting there, he couldn't help her.
It made him feel helpless. Powerless. And those
emotions made him angry. Angry at himself, at the
situation he found himself in.
He heard the door behind him and wheeled around.
"Good morning, Bling," he said, greeting his paid
companion.
"You sit up all night again?" Bling inquired, taking
in Logan's appearance.
"If you're going to give me a lecture -" Logan began,
aware that he should have at least gone to wash up.
But he couldn't take his eyes off Max.
"It's your life. I wanted to let you know there's
someone here to see you."
Logan's eyes shot to the screen, but there was Max,
looking surly on the video feed. He looked at Bling,
waiting for some explanation. But Bling had none.
"I've never seen her before and she wouldn't give me
her name."
"Curious," Logan said. "Show her into the living
room." Casting a last glance at Max and hoping she
could look after herself, he wheeled out of the
computer room.
_ _ _
"Where is Max?" Normal demanded of the messengers who
were standing in front of him. Original Cindy,
Sketchy and Herbal looked at each other, remaining
silent, none of them with any answers. "She is on
call. She is supposed to be here," Normal emphasized.
"Maybe she realize we all waiting for something, mon,
and when the time come to wait and the time come to
do, it always better to do than to wait, cause action
is the --"
"Herbal?" Normal interrupted, causing the other man
to look at him. "I don't understand what the hell
you're saying."
"I think he's saying -" Sketchy began, prompting
Normal to make an "ah-ah-ah," sound while shaking his
finger, because when he said he didn't understand
Herbal, he wasn't saying he wanted an explanation.
"It all good, mon," Herbal said with a contented
smile, which made Original Cindy smirk. She was
pretty sure he spouted nonsense just to get to
Normal. And it worked. So word up to the homeboy, far
as she was concerned.
"We have a very important client whose account is
starting today. Do you know what that means? More
packages. Lots of money," Normal enunciated the word
as though he expected the messengers to be unfamiliar
with it. Which they probably were, considering the
pay wasn't great.
"So page her," Original Cindy said, cutting to the
heart of the matter as usual.
"Page her. Of course," Normal said. "Why are you
still standing here? Go! Go!" He waved them away with
his hands, and with simultaneous rolls of their eyes,
the messengers went on their way.
_ _ _
Max's pager went off and she shifted to get it,
glancing first at the video camera. But it wasn't
Logan. The number that displayed belonged to Jam
Pony. Normal was gonna be on the rampage and she had
better things to think about than excuses to give
him. She clicked off the beeper and shifted in her
seat.
Maybe it was time to give up on the good doctor and
do a bit of nosing around on her own. She scanned the
layout, making her decisions. Making a plan. They'd
been taught to always have a plan, and a backup in
case that didn't work out. A means of escape, because
escape meant survival.
"I can take you to see him now," the doctor said,
reappearing in front of her while she was mentally
counting steps to the exit, in case it suddenly
became dark or smoky. Hey, anything could happen.
Max got up, casting a final look at the video camera,
wondering mildly if the good doctor was leading her
into a trap. He'd had enough time to set one up.
But Logan was watching.
_ _ _
Except the computer room was empty and Logan's
attention was focused elsewhere. Standing in the
living room with her back to him as she looked out
the window as a lovely young blond woman, wearing
jeans and a black jacket that swept almost to her
knees. He watched her for a moment without saying
anything and then she must have sensed his presence
because she turned.
He saw it on her face. An expression he recognized
well, having seen it on the faces of the few old
friends who'd come to visit who didn't know. Its
absence was even more disturbing, tipping him off
that the particular old friend had been keeping tabs
on him. Like Valerie. That had been his first clue
she hadn't just come to apologize.
"Gretchen. It's been a long time. What brings you
here?" he asked pleasantly after giving her a moment
to recover.
"It has been a long time," she acknowledged, walking
over to him and placing a dry, chaste kiss on his
cheek. "I would ask how you are but..."
"I'm fine," he answered. The sad look in her blue
eyes pulled at something inside him, something he
hadn't even thought about since he'd last seen her.
"And so are you, by the looks of it."
She nodded. She was older. But so was he, when he
thought about it. It had been a long time since those
carefree college days with their entire futures ahead
of them. "What's it been now, ten years?" she said,
a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"Seven," he said. Seven years since he'd pushed a
little too far and had to head underground to avoid
the government backlash against the press. Funny how
it almost seemed like yesterday.
"I'm in trouble," Gretchen said, and Logan nodded.
The proclamation was not entirely unexpected.
Gretchen glanced around, assuring herself they were
alone and then she moved closer to make up for her
very low tone of voice. "The kind of trouble I need
that requires the help of Eyes Only."
He could only stare at her, stunned by her words.
_ _ _
Friday night. The place was packed with people who
wanted to forget, if only for a second, the dreary
sorts of things they had to do to earn a buck.
Max was bored. When had partying all night started to
bore her? But it just couldn't compare to the
excitement of stealing, kicking ass, or generally
saving the world. If she didn't watch out, she was
gonna turn into somebody just like Logan, who was
probably already tucked safely into bed, dreaming
sweet dreams of...what did Logan dream about, anyway?
She suddenly wondered.
"What's on your mind, Boo?" Original Cindy asked,
breaking through into Max's thoughts. Max blinked and
looked at her. "You've been circling in outer space
all night. Not like you."
Increasingly like me, Max thought, shrugging at her
friend's question. She forced a smile and sensed
Original Cindy relax.
"Oh, god, who is that?" Kendra appeared next to them
at the bar, her hair wild and face slick with sweat
from the exertions she'd excused herself for. Max
and Original Cindy both turned to look. "He's
beautiful!"
"Mmm-hmm," Cindy said in her usual disapproving tone,
then glanced at Max.
"Very pretty," Max judged. And the boy who'd captured
their attention was all that and more, with dark hair
and intense blue eyes and the hint of a nicely tuned
physique under his t-shirt and jeans.
"Taken," Original Cindy noted as they watched a woman
in a black dress place herself between them and the
beauty. Kendra sighed and turned away to order a
beer but Max watched a moment longer. Long enough to
see the woman's hand close possessively over the
young man's arm as she handed him a cup of something
strong and alcoholic, which he drained quickly.
"Where's your friend tonight?" Max asked Original
Cindy.
"She's taken up with some man," Original Cindy
replied disapprovingly.
"Sorry," Kendra said, knocking back another beer.
Just another Friday night.
_ _ _
Joey was gonna get lucky tonight. New boy in town,
wins them every time, he thought. At least that was
what his friends back home had advised him before he
left for the big, bad city of Seattle. Things seemed
to be working out well, he thought as he finished off
the drink the mystery woman had brought to him.
She was visibly older than his sixteen years. Then
again, he knew he looked more than sixteen. Eighteen,
at least. Joey also knew he had a smile that made
most women's knees melt. He was gonna put that to
work for him. He'd show the people back at home.
"...my hotel room," the woman murmured to him. She
had to lean in close so he could hear her over the
throbbing beat of the dance music in the club, and
the cheers for a guy who was doing bike tricks up on
the bar. No, this was nothing like home, Joey
thought.
She had to be loaded to have a hotel room, he noted.
Yeah, they were going to use each other real good. He
tossed the empty cup away from him and took a
lurching step. Must have been stronger than he'd
realized. He flashed his killer smile at the woman -
he didn't even know her name! - and he knew this was
going to be the most memorable night of life.
_ _ _
Cold. Joey shivered as he started to emerge from the
deep blackness of the alcoholic stupor he'd fallen
into. He couldn't remember where he was or why it was
so cold. And he couldn't get his eyes open, even as
he continued to shiver and felt his teeth click
against each other in uncontrollable spasms.
He felt like he'd been hit by a truck. A big one.
What the hell did I do? He asked himself. The last
thing he remembered was hooking up with some chick in
a bar. And why the hell was it so cold?
Finally he got his eyes to open. He was in the
bathtub...and it was filled with ice. What the hell?
He started to get up, but his body protested.
Joey turned and saw a telephone resting on the back
of the toilet, just within reach from the bathtub. "I
am never drinking again," he groaned, shifting to
grab the receiver.
That was when he felt it. Something hard and sharp
digging into his back. "What the..." Digging his hand
into the ice, to Joey's horror he felt a pair of deep
slits in the skin of his back, too cold from the ice
to hurt.
"He's awake."
"That's impossible."
The voices came from the other room. Joey opened his
mouth to yell out, scream for help...something...but
there was no sound. He was scared and sick and he
wished like hell he'd never left home as the bathroom
door banged open and two people he'd never seen
before.
"Please," said Joey.
The man looked at the woman with a roll of his eyes.
"Please," Joey requested more frantically.
The woman nodded.
"We're going to knock you out again. To make this
more pleasant for all of us," the man informed Joey,
leaning in close.
"Help me," Joey begged the woman as the man picked up
the telephone and smashed him across the face with
it. And everything went black.
_ _ _
1.
Max's pager went off around 4 a.m. She rose silently
from where she'd been lying, contemplating the world
and where she could score some quick cash, and
pressed the display. Logan. She frowned slightly. Had
to be some kind of serious emergency at this hour.
Minutes later she was blazing on her bike, feeling
the wind tearing through her hair. For those moments,
she was truly free, moving through the atmosphere at
the speed she was meant to move, even if she was
depending on the bike's power rather than her own.
Logan's apartment building was quiet in the middle of
the night, though she did use the front door and the
elevator rather than challenge herself with the
Spiderman routine. Mostly because she wanted to know
what was going on, and quell the small pittipat in
her chest that was caused by worry.
"Logan?" She pushed the door open.
"In here."
The calm, even tenor of his voice made her feel
better as she strolled through the penthouse to the
computer room, where as usual his face was bathed in
the pale blue light from the screen.
"You look like a mad scientist," she commented,
irritated that she'd gone to all the trouble of
actually feeling a human emotion like worry and he
was sitting up here fine as usual.
"There's something I think you'd like to see."
"Obviously, since you got me out of bed at 4 in the
morning." She leaned against the counter, waiting
for him to tell her what was so important.
Instead he looked at her with a mildly amused
expression. Or was that intrigued? Sometimes it was
hard to tell. "I thought you didn't sleep."
"Sleeping's not the only thing to do at 4 a.m.," she
informed him and watched his face darken. For a
second she thought he was actually going to blush as
he turned quickly back to face the computer and began
tapping on keys.
"Sorry I interrupted your evening," he said stiffly.
She shrugged. "'s okay. I can contemplate the
messed-upness of the world at large tomorrow night."
He glanced at her like he didn't believe her, but she
felt him relax.
"Whatcha got?"
"This." Two more clicks on the keyboard and a grainy
black and white image filled the screen. A time code
ran at the bottom, indicating it was a feed from a
security camera.
Max watched as a crowd of men in white coats -
doctors, she supposed - clustered down the hallway.
Once they'd passed, where there had been an empty
space of wall was now occupied by a gurney with a
lumpy figure on it. She squinted, then arched an
eyebrow at the limitations of videotape as compared
to her enhanced visual abilities.
A few long minutes rolled by on the tape without
anything happening. It didn't have sound on it, so
the two of them were alone in the room with only the
soft sound of the computers' constantly running fan.
Max was aware that Logan was watching her while she
watched the tape. She wondered why he didn't fast
forward or something while she listened to him
breathing.
One of the nurses noticed the mystery gurney. She
stopped and then apparently she started yelling,
because other doctors and nurses began to gather
round.
"Keep your eyes on the patient," Logan suggested, so
Max did. The guy was in horrible shape, with most of
his face smashed, his limbs limp and weak. She would
have thought he was dead except she could see the
labored rise and fall of his chest as one of the
nurses held him up while doctors buzzed around like
flies.
"Did you see that?" Logan said suddenly.
Max glanced at him, because she hadn't seen anything.
He met her eyes, then started typing. The video
reversed a few frames and Logan placed his finger
against the screen. "That shadow there."
"It's just a shadow," she said, although tension was
building inside her. The place he'd indicated the
shadow was at the back of the beaten patient's neck.
Where her bar code was.
A few more clicks and taps and Logan zoomed in. The
quality of the picture was mostly lost in the
enlargement, but there was no mistaking it. The
patient had a bar code marked at the back of his
neck.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
"A source brought it to my attention," Logan said.
"The time code's a little more than an hour ago. Just
before you beeped me," Max pointed out. Logan didn't
say anything and turned away, making like busywork on
the computer. "You hacked into the security feed at
the hospital for a little late night viewing fun?"
she asked incredulously.
Logan met her eyes and shrugged a little, as though
to say, What did you expect?
"What do you do when you want to get really wild?"
she asked flirtatiously.
"I had a tip something was going to go down tonight
at Metro Hospital."
"And something did," Max said. "Can we get more on
this guy?"
"Nobody knows more," Logan said. "I went through the
databases. He just appeared out of nowhere in the
hospital hallway."
"With a bar code. People don't just appear with bar
codes on their necks, Logan -"
"I know," he said quietly. "There's only one way to
get more information at this point."
"Go over there and show them my bar code and tell
them we're long-lost siblings, can't you see the
resemblance of the ones and zeros printed on our
skin?" Max snapped. "You had a tip something was
going down, who's to say Lydecker and his guys didn't
have the same information. I go down there, they're
gonna be all over it."
"You're afraid of Lydecker?" Logan asked.
Max frowned, but she didn't say no.
"Then I'll go down there," Logan told her.
"NO!" she cried, making him look at her curiously.
Like he wanted her to explain herself. Which of
course she couldn't. "I'll go."
Logan nodded. "I'll see what I can find out from
here." But as he said it, he was tapping keys again,
re-entering the live pictures coming from the
hospital's security cameras. She looked at him and he
glanced up. "I've got your back."
"Then I'm a lucky girl," she purred and strolled out.
_ _ _
Max burst through the doors into the receiving area,
hoping to create a scene. She hadn't counted on there
already being a scene when she arrived. It was a
violent city from the looks of things as she wove
between the rows of chairs, each of them containing
someone crying, moaning, bleeding or some combination
of the three.
"What's wrong with you?" The nurse behind the counter
gave her a once-over.
"Nothing," Max said, surprised by the question.
"We ain't got time for people there's nothing wrong
with," the nurse said and turned to the man who was
standing too close behind her, bleeding from what
appeared to be a puncture wound to his jugular vein.
Max looked at him in horror, his declining vital
signs registering somewhere in the soldier's part of
her brain. He wasn't going to make it.
"I need a trauma team, now!" the nurse called to
someone behind her, calm as though she saw this sort
of thing a thousand times a night. Which maybe she
did.
A memory overtook Max, a strong one. Were there ever
any that weren't strong, that didn't shake her to the
core of her being? She'd left the house without her
daily dose of tryptophan and now that the sun was
coming up, she needed it right on schedule.
Training exercises. The guns were so heavy in their
little hands, with the bayonets attached to them. The
first few times they'd stabbed and cut their way
through an army of scarecrows, scattering straw
everywhere. Even though they were soldiers, there
was a childlike innocence to their thinking - after
all, they were only six or seven years old. So they
were surprised that morning when they were called out
for exercises that they were no longer facing bodies
stuffed with straw.
They were facing other children, just like them.
Faces painted black with camouflage. Eyes locked on
eyes, the fear palpable between the two forces. But
then something clicked and broke through. Survival.
And the chase was on.
Max blinked, turned her head. Wondered why she was
lying on the floor. Damn it. She started to get up,
still feeling mild twitching in her arms and legs.
Seizure. Just what she needed. Come from nowhere and
knocked her on her ass. And Logan probably watching
on through the security camera.
"Are you all right?" A doctor.
Max nodded, swallowing back nausea and getting to her
feet.
"How long have the seizures been going on?" he asked,
shining a small flashlight into each of her eyes.
"My whole life," she said and he jerked back the
light in surprise. She looked at him and saw he
wasn't so very much older than she was. "That's not
why I'm here."
"It's not?" he looked intrigued, but then he glanced
aside and she knew he was taking in the bleeding,
pathetic masses waiting for care.
"My...husband didn't get home. I'm afraid he might
have gotten into some kind of trouble. He's been
dealing with some people who might be a
little...violent," she explained.
The doctor just looked at her like he couldn't help
her.
Max focused on the video feed she'd seen at Logan's.
"Dark hair...jeans and a t-shirt...they would have
beaten him up pretty bad." She looked pleadingly at
the doctor, who she could tell was ready to make a
break to help someone else. But she needed to know.
So she had to play her trump card. "He's got this
weird tattoo at the back of his neck. Kinda like one
of those codes you see on stuff from before the
pulse. Lines, with numbers..."
"A bar code," the doctor said.
"A bar code, yeah," Max echoed with a simpering yet
innocent smile. It worked every time. "Is he here?
Please -"
"Sit down and stay here," the doctor told her,
steering her to one of the waiting area chairs. "I'll
come back for you when I have a moment."
"Is he here?" Max demanded, but the doctor was
already gone. She made a bit of a face at being left
like this, without the information she wanted, still
feeling shaky. She checked the time on her pager,
knowing she was due at Jam Pony in an hour. Then she
scanned the room for the security camera. It was
hidden, but she located it fairly quickly and shot
Logan a smile, knowing he was watching her.
_ _ _
Logan was frowning into the computer screen. His
stomach only tightened when he saw Max's beatific
smile, obviously for his benefit. He'd watched her
have that seizure. One minute talking to the nurse
and the next minute she was gone, on the floor in
spasms. And sitting there, he couldn't help her.
It made him feel helpless. Powerless. And those
emotions made him angry. Angry at himself, at the
situation he found himself in.
He heard the door behind him and wheeled around.
"Good morning, Bling," he said, greeting his paid
companion.
"You sit up all night again?" Bling inquired, taking
in Logan's appearance.
"If you're going to give me a lecture -" Logan began,
aware that he should have at least gone to wash up.
But he couldn't take his eyes off Max.
"It's your life. I wanted to let you know there's
someone here to see you."
Logan's eyes shot to the screen, but there was Max,
looking surly on the video feed. He looked at Bling,
waiting for some explanation. But Bling had none.
"I've never seen her before and she wouldn't give me
her name."
"Curious," Logan said. "Show her into the living
room." Casting a last glance at Max and hoping she
could look after herself, he wheeled out of the
computer room.
_ _ _
"Where is Max?" Normal demanded of the messengers who
were standing in front of him. Original Cindy,
Sketchy and Herbal looked at each other, remaining
silent, none of them with any answers. "She is on
call. She is supposed to be here," Normal emphasized.
"Maybe she realize we all waiting for something, mon,
and when the time come to wait and the time come to
do, it always better to do than to wait, cause action
is the --"
"Herbal?" Normal interrupted, causing the other man
to look at him. "I don't understand what the hell
you're saying."
"I think he's saying -" Sketchy began, prompting
Normal to make an "ah-ah-ah," sound while shaking his
finger, because when he said he didn't understand
Herbal, he wasn't saying he wanted an explanation.
"It all good, mon," Herbal said with a contented
smile, which made Original Cindy smirk. She was
pretty sure he spouted nonsense just to get to
Normal. And it worked. So word up to the homeboy, far
as she was concerned.
"We have a very important client whose account is
starting today. Do you know what that means? More
packages. Lots of money," Normal enunciated the word
as though he expected the messengers to be unfamiliar
with it. Which they probably were, considering the
pay wasn't great.
"So page her," Original Cindy said, cutting to the
heart of the matter as usual.
"Page her. Of course," Normal said. "Why are you
still standing here? Go! Go!" He waved them away with
his hands, and with simultaneous rolls of their eyes,
the messengers went on their way.
_ _ _
Max's pager went off and she shifted to get it,
glancing first at the video camera. But it wasn't
Logan. The number that displayed belonged to Jam
Pony. Normal was gonna be on the rampage and she had
better things to think about than excuses to give
him. She clicked off the beeper and shifted in her
seat.
Maybe it was time to give up on the good doctor and
do a bit of nosing around on her own. She scanned the
layout, making her decisions. Making a plan. They'd
been taught to always have a plan, and a backup in
case that didn't work out. A means of escape, because
escape meant survival.
"I can take you to see him now," the doctor said,
reappearing in front of her while she was mentally
counting steps to the exit, in case it suddenly
became dark or smoky. Hey, anything could happen.
Max got up, casting a final look at the video camera,
wondering mildly if the good doctor was leading her
into a trap. He'd had enough time to set one up.
But Logan was watching.
_ _ _
Except the computer room was empty and Logan's
attention was focused elsewhere. Standing in the
living room with her back to him as she looked out
the window as a lovely young blond woman, wearing
jeans and a black jacket that swept almost to her
knees. He watched her for a moment without saying
anything and then she must have sensed his presence
because she turned.
He saw it on her face. An expression he recognized
well, having seen it on the faces of the few old
friends who'd come to visit who didn't know. Its
absence was even more disturbing, tipping him off
that the particular old friend had been keeping tabs
on him. Like Valerie. That had been his first clue
she hadn't just come to apologize.
"Gretchen. It's been a long time. What brings you
here?" he asked pleasantly after giving her a moment
to recover.
"It has been a long time," she acknowledged, walking
over to him and placing a dry, chaste kiss on his
cheek. "I would ask how you are but..."
"I'm fine," he answered. The sad look in her blue
eyes pulled at something inside him, something he
hadn't even thought about since he'd last seen her.
"And so are you, by the looks of it."
She nodded. She was older. But so was he, when he
thought about it. It had been a long time since those
carefree college days with their entire futures ahead
of them. "What's it been now, ten years?" she said,
a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"Seven," he said. Seven years since he'd pushed a
little too far and had to head underground to avoid
the government backlash against the press. Funny how
it almost seemed like yesterday.
"I'm in trouble," Gretchen said, and Logan nodded.
The proclamation was not entirely unexpected.
Gretchen glanced around, assuring herself they were
alone and then she moved closer to make up for her
very low tone of voice. "The kind of trouble I need
that requires the help of Eyes Only."
He could only stare at her, stunned by her words.