Chapter five: Big Brother is watching... (But so are the bad guys.)
Bling sighed as he watched over Logan's unconscious form. He wondered if he should keep Max's little visit a secret from the shell of a man lying in the hospital bed beside him. It could be completely devastating for Logan to know that she 'd come and then just ran out on him again. To know that Bling had seen her and yet been unable to make her stay. But then again, it could do even more damage if Logan thought that, after all that he'd been through, Max didn't even give a damn. At least she'd come. She'd given him blood, and that surely had to mean something. But would Logan see it that way? Would it be better if he didn't say anything?
//What are we going to do with you, my friend?// Bling asked himself silently. //What the heck are we going to do with you?//
He sighed and rubbed at his tired eyes. It had been almost two days since Max had come and gone. Almost four days that Bling had maintained this near-silent vigil. Yet Bling was afraid to sleep. Afraid that he'd wake up to find that Logan had been taken by Manticore. He glanced at his cold coffee and sighed again.
//I've spent too much time around X5's, I'm almost getting as paranoid as they are.// He told himself. Yet he was loath to go even as far as the coffee machine to get more coffee. //I'll talk the next nurse that checks on him into doing it for me.// Bling decided.
Bling shuddered as the feeling of being watched, a feeling that he'd been ignoring for days, intensified. He prayed that some of them were friendly eyes. There was little doubt after all that some of them were hostile. //Are you out there Max? What about you Zack? Krit, are watching over our friend here? Are you looking out for black helicopters and suspicious activities?//
Bling looked up as a nurse came into the room. She wasn't one that he'd seen before and he was immediately on guard. He looked at her carefully, but, tired as he was, it wasn't until he looked into her hard ice-blue eyes that rec ognition hit. Blonde hair, blue eyes, straight back..
"Syl." He muttered, putting a name to the X5 in front of him. Syl, X5-701, one of the good guys. He instantly relaxed.
"You look like shit, Bling." Syl replied smoothly. She said it as a statement of fact, her voice showing no hint of emotion. However, Bling knew her well enough to recognize that the ever so slight quirk of her lip showed she meant it good-naturedly.
"Gee, thanks." Bling replied lightly in return.
Had he not learnt to read the slight signals in her body language, he would have been offended. Syl was one of the most guarded members of X5 that Bling had ever met. So guarded, in fact, that she made Zack look relatively open and impulsive. She was hard, thick-skinned, but not cruel. She just didn't let anybody close, not even her siblings.
"Go home and get some sleep." Syl continued as if he hadn't said anything. Again her voice was all but emotionless, again it was only the movement of her lips that indicated any feelings. This time it was compassion. Syl had learnt a trick that even most X5's hadn't. She'd learnt how to guard her eyes. "You're useless like that, and... well let's just say that you don't need to worry." Syl 's eyes flickered towards the window ever so briefly as she said the last part. But it wasn't as much a betrayal of her thoughts as it was a calculated move. The action was intentional, an unspoken message aimed at Bling and nobody else.
"B.B. huh?" Bling asked, using the code name for Zack in case the room was bugged. (Which it most likely was.)'B.B.' Big brother.
"Go home Bling. Get some rest." Not quite an order, but it might as well have been.
Bling nodded and stood. He grabbed his jacket and was almost at the door when he turned to look at Syl again. "If he wakes up..." He paused, debating with himself. "Tell him she was here."
Syl nodded and watched Bling leave. What Bling didn't know was that Manticore was already here. They wouldn't move Logan until he woke up. Until they were sure that he was stable. But when they did... Well they wouldn't have any attacks of conscience about gunning through Bling to get to him. Syl just hoped that Zack's plan would work. After all, Eyes Only had done so much for them, for all of them. The least that they could do was keep him out of the white hell.
Syl sighed as she hooked a bag of blood up to Logan's IV. After all, she was a trained nurse. And the enemy didn't know her face. That was why Zack had placed her in the hospital staff. Even if he had needed to pull a few Eyes Only strings to get her there.
"Okay, Logan Cale," She said quietly as she checked his vitals. "You just take as long as you need to wake up. Until you wake up you'll be safe right here." //Stay asleep Logan, we're not ready for you to wake up yet. Until you wake, your condition won't be considered stable. Just sleep and heal. We won't let you down Logan, you've helped us too many times. But please don't wake up just yet.//
TBC...