VIA MEMORIUS - AMANTE Y TRAICIÓN
"Max?" Alec glanced around the interior of the abandoned factory, searching for her. She came out of the shadows to his left, shoved her hands in her pockets.
"What do you want?" she asked. "I figured you'd be sleeping or something."
"I'm fine. Thanks for asking." he muttered, walking over to her. "I ran into Zack downstairs."
"Yeah?" she sighed. "I'm worried about him. I wish I knew how to help him." She looked at him, smiled sadly, shrugged. "Sorry. I know you don't care." She didn't like having him stand there in this unhappy place, looking so much like Ben and reminding her all too well what had happened there.
"If it helps, he told me where he was going." Alec said, then instantly regretted the words as he belatedly realized the significance of Zack's destination. Max looked at him.
"Where did he go?" she asked; Alec didn't answer for a minute. He was too busy trying to think of a way to save his neck. Max narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "Alec?"
"Hang on, I'm thinking." he said.
"Alec, where did he go?" Max repeated her question, and this time her voice was dead serious. Alec avoided her eyes, but she grabbed his arm. He winced as renewed pain from his injuries shot through his body, thinking it not at all suitable that she be trying to kick his ass this soon after his accident.
"He went to Logan's." he finally said; Max's eyes widened.
"Why?"
"How should I know? He was talking like a freaking psycho, going on about you, and then said he was going to Logan's." he shrugged, slightly bored with the topic already. A thought hit him suddenly. "Hey, you wanna get some pizza?"
"Alec, what exactly did Zack say?"
"If I tell you can we get pizza?"
"No, but if you tell me then I won't throw you off this tower right now."
"Okay, that sounds pretty good." he said, then quickly continued, "First he called me Alec, which really threw me off because I thought I was supposed to be Ben around him..." he shrugged. "Well, anyway, so I told him he could call me whatever he wanted, but that didn't seem to make him very happy." He looked at her. "Max, have I ever told you that your brother can be really-"
"Just get on with the story, Alec." she hissed. This was far worse than she had imagined it could be, and she'd imagined the frightening scenario of Alec talking to Zack without her supervision as a bad one.
"Right." She was so rude. "Anyway, so after that he started babbling something about you and him, wondering if you were really brother and sister. I told him that you two could really hit it off, you know, especially with you and Logan and the virus and everything..." Max's face paled as he heard this. "That seemed to confuse him more than anything else, and then he sort of wandered off. I asked him where he was going, and he said Logan's. Then I came inside to find you." Max stared at him for a few moments, amazed at his unfaltering, continued ability to ruin her life.
"Give me your phone." she said after she'd finally recovered. He handed her his cell and she dialed Logan's number. It started to ring; while she waited, she turned to glare at him once more.
"What?" he asked, after she'd been staring at him for almost a full thirty seconds. It was unsettling him; what was her problem?
"Alec," she began, not at all calmly, "Tell me how it is that you talked to Zack for under ten seconds and yet may have succeeded in destroying any chance for us to have an uncomplicated familial relationship, as well as possibly putting Logan in mortal danger?" she waited. "Well?!"
"What can I say?" he shrugged, more amused than ashamed. "It's an art, Max. I'll teach you sometime."
"No thank-you." she spat at him, hanging up after what must have been the tenth ring. Then she took Alec by his injured arm, and hauled him painfully downstairs to her motorcycle.
Logan choked as Zack's grip tightened around his neck; his mind whirled,
trying to stay conscious and think of a way to stop Max's brother from killing
him at the same time. Zack's determined eyes bored into his frightened ones.
Suddenly, the telephone rang. Zack ignored it, tightening his hand around Logan's neck even more. It rang eleven times before the answering machine finally picked up; luckily for Zack, the volume was turned down so he didn't have to listen to whoever would call this low-life traitor son of a bitch. He concentrated on the mission at hand.
But then the computer started beeping. Zack turned to glare at it, and read 'Satellite link established. Press enter to transmit.' His eyes narrowed, but Logan's hand shot out and he tapped the 'enter' key before Zack could react. Immediately, the Eyes Only image appeared on the screen- Logan's eyes with red and white banners around them.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom video bulletin..." the transmission began. Zack swallowed hard, his eyes widening as a memory hit him.
Zack was filled with purpose as he stood in the shooting booth, his
hand holding a gun outstretched toward an image of Eyes Only. He fired, again
and again and again, hitting the bulls-eye every time: right in the centre of
Eyes Only's face. He sensed the doctors standing behind him, heard their
impressed comments. Manticore... he was in Manticore.
Logan was looking at him; Zack slowly met his eyes. The doctors in
Manticore had wanted him to kill Logan... why? For the first time Zack started
having doubt about what he was doing; his grip on Logan's neck faltered
slightly, and Logan was able to breathe again.
"Zack?" He asked tentatively after a few moments. For a guy who was just about two seconds from death, he was pretty calm. It annoyed Zack.
"... traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city." the transmission continued on the screen. "New information has come to light about the Project Manticore Facility. Manticore-trained doctors and scientists have been performing covert procedures on prisoners involving mind control, employing techniques such as exposure to propaganda and subliminal messages, torture, and psychological manipulation. All this is done in order to turn the prisoner into an obedient slave ready to do Manticore's bidding. Recently, a failed attempt on the life of a high official in the Eyes Only informant net was carried out by one such prisoner." An image of the Manticore chimera symbol like the one that Zack had drawn for Alyssa appeared with the caption '330417291559.' His barcode number. Rage engulfed Zack and he let go of Logan, slamming his hand down on the desk.
"You're betraying me right now!" he yelled. He pointed a finger at the computer. "Turn it off!"
"I can't." Logan said.
"Wrong answer." Zack bit out, and reached out a hand to snap Logan's neck. "Listen to it, Zack." the man said quickly. Zack glared at him, but something made him stop. Why? Because Max trusts him, the answer came to him. He listened.
"Members of the Manticore staff have perpetrated crimes against this individual; but he has escaped you. And now, the tables have been turned: Manticore wants you dead for the information you have. Only you know how to reverse the wrongs that have been done to this man. This message is going straight to you, right out of Seattle and across the United States. Eyes Only knows who you are, and you will be punished. Come forward, and a deal may still be possible." Slowly, Zack lowered his outstretched hand and looked at Logan; confusion entered his eyes as he stared at the man.
"You're helping me?"
"That's right."
"But- I just heard you." He shook his head. "You were talking to Lydecker…" "A lot's happened since you've been gone, Zack." Logan said. Without any way to verify this, Zack was hesitant to either believe or dibelieve him. But he certainly didn't trust him. But Max does, his internal voice reminded him. Shut up, he told it.
"I know my mission." he said, but he sounded more confused than sure now. "Who gave you that mission, Zack?" Logan asked. Zack stopped, looked at him, searched his mind.
He was strapped to a chair; a laser was burning into his eye. He tried
to close it, protect himself, but there was something holding his lid open. He
was in pain; such terrible pain. His entire being was saturated with agony. And
on the screen behind the laser, a picture of Eyes Only. Words flashed across the
screen: 'Enemy,' it said. 'Target,' 'Agitator,' 'Subversive,' 'Traitor,'
'Turncoat,' 'Traitor,' 'Betrayed,' 'Traitor,' 'Enemy,' 'Enemy,' 'Target,'
'Target.'
Later, he was sitting down at a table, in an office. His mind was
clouded; he couldn't remember anything except the words and the image of Eyes
Only on the screen. He hated Eyes Only. The same woman who he'd held hostage in
the medical bay while Max lay dead slapped a picture down on the table in front
of him. He looked down at it; Eyes Only. "Your mission," she said, "is to
eliminate the target." "Eliminate the target." he repeated emotionlessly.
Slowly, a smile spread over her features. She motioned to someone behind Zack,
and a man came and led him back to his bunk.
"Who was it, Zack?" Logan asked again; Zack backed away from him.
"It was..." He swallowed hard. "It was Manticore." He looked down at his hands with wild eyes; they were shaking.
"But Manticore is the enemy." Logan feigned confusion.
"I know that!" he snapped. Was he mocking him? But Logan did not look amused.
"Zack, they did something to you. I'm your friend but they wanted you to kill me. If you do it then you'll be working for them again."
"I..." He swallowed again. "We escaped."
"That's right. You don't have to do what they tell you anymore."
"They're the enemy." he repeated Logan's words.
"Yes. Not me."
"You betrayed us." Zack said slowly. "I remember. You and Lydecker were working together. Against us. Max died..."
"Yes, she died." Logan stood up, startling Zack. Wasn't this guy supposed to be in a wheelchair? Maybe his memories really were messed up... "She died in my arms."
"You killed her." he insisted, but the argument sounded weak now even to his ears.
"No. She died because she went back for Brin. Both you and I thought she shouldn't have done that, but she wouldn't listen."
"Brin..." Zack trailed off.
"That's a beautiful drawing, Brin."
"Thank you, Zack." Dark almond eyes gazing up at him, small smile on beautiful face, voice full of love.
"Hello?" he picked the phone up off the kitchen counter in his apartment;
he was in San Diego but he was getting sick of the tourists, thinking of moving
on soon. He grabbed a handful of popcorn out of a nearby bowl and popped it in
his mouth as he waited for whoever had called him to respond.
"Hey, it's me, Brin." She sounded frightened, she was breathing hard. He swallowed the mouthful of popcorn. What was she doing calling him?
"What?" he almost growled.
"I know I'm not supposed to contact you," she said, echoing his thoughts. "But I had no choice." Zack threw away the bag of popcorn and leaned forward in his chair, eyes hardening. "I had a close call with Lydecker's people in LA," she continued. "I need your help." The shake in her voice was so slight that anyone who didn't know her as well as he did would have easily missed it.
"Tell me." he said.
"I'll explain everything when I see you." Her voice was hurried; he didn't waste any time.
"Meet me in the alley behind that Pakistani restaurant we went to last year- do you remember?"
"When?" she asked. He glanced at the clock, estimated how long it would take to get to her.
"Tomorrow." he told her. "Eight AM."
"I'll be there," she said, and hung up. Zack stood immediately, put his few possessions together in a duffel bag and put an envelope containing next month's rent in cash for the landlord by the door. Then he left San Diego and never looked back.
"I don't want to die." His sweet baby sister: beautiful, hopeful,
innocent, kind, thoughtful, loving, doomed. "Please... don't let me die."
Zack hurried through the halls of Manticore, Max close on his heels. The
radio silence was suddenly broken by Logan's voice.
"Syl, Krit, unfriendlies behind you. 25 metres and closing."
"Take them out." Lydecker's emotionless order. Zack heard gunshots over the comm as he and Max continued through the facility. The target was primed; all they had to do was get to the perimetre so Lydecker could detonate and Manticore would cease to exist. Or so Logan had promised; Zack thought that was a little too easy. But there wasn't time for worrying about that now; he glanced behind him and saw that Max was still safely in tow.
"It's Brin." Lydecker's voice crackled in his ears. "She's heading for the lab." "Which way is she coming?" he heard Max ask, both in his ear on the radio and behind him in person. He whirled on her, his hopes for a clean mission falling. This was why he couldn't be sure about her, couldn't give her the call-in number, couldn't trust tell her with where the others were. She let emotions rule her too much; he wouldn't let it get her killed.
"They're onto us!" he yelled at her. "There's no time!"
"I won't let her take one for good old Manticore!" She was angry; for a moment, Zack almost agreed with her and that scared him. He was losing his objectivity. Max whirled on a nearby surveillance camera, addressing Logan. "Which way?"
"Back the way you came, first corridor on your left." Logan's voice came after a short pause; Zack cursed him inwardly for giving Max information that could easily get her blown up along with the lab or, at the very least, captured. Max turned to him.
"Go." she said firmly; for a moment, he looked at her, torn between the thought of leaving her to who knew what fate and knowing that he had to go and see if Syl and Krit were okay. Part of him was also surprised that she was giving him an order, and saying it like a natural. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
In the end, after deliberating for a split-second, he left. It was the biggest mistake of his life: bigger than giving Brin back to Manticore, bigger than letting Tinga have a family, bigger than leaving Ben alone for five years when he needed him most and coming back only when he was already lost. Zack turned and ran in the opposite direction, not knowing that the next time he saw Max he would be too late to save her.
Zack was firing into the trees; he was in the yard of Manticore. The X7s
were converging fast on his position; he didn't know how they moved so fast.
They didn't even seem to be communicating.
"Do you know who I am?" Max's voice suddenly came over the comm. A moment later he heard a shot off in the distance and on the radio, and his heart quickened with fear when Max said nothing more. He shot again into the bushes as he caught sight of a twelve-year-old clone of Jondy through the foliage. A bullet ripped into his shouler, catching him off-guard, and he fell to the ground, hitting hard. Instantly, several X7s, one a copy of Max at about age eleven, converged around him, holding their guns emotionlessly on him as he stared at them, dazed. He looked up at the clone of himself at fourteen and searched for some recognition in the boy's eyes, but there was none. The night was cold, and no stars graced the cloudy heavens.
Zack was handed over by his likeness and the clones of his brothers and
sisters to guards, who transferred him to a gurney and wheeled him into a
hospital emergency room within the Manticore facility.
"Max!" he yelled as he caught sight of her on another gurney; her skin was pale and blood had trickled from her nose and crusted against her face. She didn't respond to his yell; he heard a flatline from her heart monitor and his own heart jumped with fear. Hands pushed him down as he struggled against the flimsy nylon restraints holding him to the gurney. He wanted to go to her, wake her up, but they pushed him back and he was too weak to resist them.
"I remember." he said slowly to Logan. "Brin was turned. She was trying
to stop us from completing the objective. Max went back to save her. She still
loved Brin, but I knew she wasn't one of us anymore... Max made it out, but the
X7s caught her in the yard. They caught me, too." he hesitated. "I saw her- on
the gurney. She was dead."
"You saved her." Logan agreed. Zack looked at him, and he repeated, "You saved her life. You looked out for her."
"Zack, Zack... wake up." Zack's eyes snapped open and he stiffened,
anticipating danger. He threw his blankets off himself and on to the floor,
sitting up, surveying the room quickly. He wasn't prepared for Max's frightened
face gazing at him from the end of his bed, with the room around her silent and
still.
"What's wrong?" he asked, now fully awake; he moved down the bed on his knees to get a better look at her. He made out tears in her eyes with his night vision as she looked at him from the between the metal bars of his bed's footboard. Max came around to the side of his bed and climbed up onto it. She curled into a ball and laid her head on his knees.
"I saw Jack." she whispered; her shoulder was shaking when he laid a hand on it, but not from any seizure. "Ben was right. He was in the Bad Place. They were drinking his blood."
"Max..." He wanted to say 'you should have stayed in bed,' but something stopped him. He squeezed her shoulder through the government-issue gown. The way she was lying gave him a clear view of her barcode, and for some reason tonight looking at it troubled him, though he'd seen it thousands of times before. He reached out and touched it; Max shivered.
"I'm scared, Zack." she whispered. Zack reached down and picked up one of the blankets that had fallen to the floor in his haste to sit up, and wrapped it around Max's shoulders. She hugged his ankles with her small hands; her fingers were like ice. Her teeth were chattering.
"Don't worry." he said, laying his palm on her head gently. Her hair was almost an inch long; Lydecker would be getting someone to cut it off again soon. Max's hair always grew so fast. Zack wondered briefly what she'd look like with the long hair some of the nurses had but shrugged off the thought.
"What if they take me away?" she asked, voicing the concern that Zack himself felt for his littlest sister. She shook almost as much as Jack had; Zack worked hard to hide this fact from the guards, as he did when any of the others had seizures. But it was inevitable that one day she would shake while outside the saftey of their off-duty time in the barracks, just as Jack had. And then he would not be able to protect her.
This was why Zack was planning an escape. Max didn't know about it; neither did Brin or Zane or most of the others. Ben had found out accidentally with Jace one night, which irritated Zack because it meant that he had not been able to properly maintain op-sec. He had intended only to keep the plan between himself, Jondy, and Eva. Jace was frightened of it, and Ben seemed to disapprove, but as for the others- he knew they would follow his orders when the time came. They were going to wait until the first warm day of spring; Zack worried that it was too cold for them to attempt it in the winter, and many of the guards took vacation during the spring so security would be more lax if they waited until then.
"Zack?" Max's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "What if they take me away?" she asked again, this more fearfully. She'd thought his silence had been doubt, but Zack never doubted.
"Don't worry." he said, stroking her head gently. He liked the way the short hair felt against his hand, and the gesture seemed to calm her slightly. Her teeth stopped chattering, and she snuggled down further into the blankets. "I'll take care of you, Maxie." he whispered. "I won't let anyone hurt you."
"I promised I would protect her." Zack's voice shook slightly as he
spoke, and it was so soft that Logan almost had to strain to hear his words.
"You didn't let her down." he said. "Even if it meant going back to Manticore, even if it meant dying, you still always came through for her."
"What did they do to me?" Zack breathed. "I- I thought I was dead, but they fixed me up, turned me into something else..." He touched his chest, and murmered in a pained whisper, "I don't even have a heart anymore."
"You still have a soul, though. That's what counts, Zack." a voice from the doorway; Zack whirled and saw Max, her eyes filled with tears, Alec or Ben or whoever behind her, rolling his eyes at her emotion-filled words.
"I heard the nurses talking about souls again today." Brin said; it
was way past lights out, but none of them could sleep. Ben had just told one of
his scariest stories yet, but Zack wouldn't let on that he was as frightened as
any of them. So instead, he focused on keeping the others in check.
"Stop worrying about that, Brin." he said. She was too sensitive; this was the third time she'd brought up the question of whether or not they had souls, and it annoyed Zack. But what he wouldn't admit, what annoyed him more, was that he didn't yet have an answer for her.
"I want to know, too." Jondy said stubbornly.
"What does it matter?" Jace asked. "We're us, that's who we are. Who cares if we have souls or not?"
"It matters." Max said softly. She was even more sensitive, more emotional, than Brin.
"We do." Ben said firmly. "Everyone has a soul."
"How do you know?" Krit challenged; Krit was always challenging, always tough. Zack liked that; he always excelled in his training because of his confrontational nature, though he had to be kept in check more often than the others. But no matter; it was the mark of a good soldier.
Ben shrugged, not bothering to answer Krit's question. Zack was glad; he had heard enough of Ben's stories for one night, and it irritated him that sometimes his siblings couldn't get enough of them. More often than not after an evening of particularly frightening stories, the night ended with a huddled group of five or six frightened children piled into his bed. A result which always occurred in this situation was that Zack got no sleep, though he always noticed Ben snoring contentedly in his own bed. But the others never learned, and he couldn't understand it.
"What do you think, Zack?" Max fixed pensive eyes on him, hauling him out of his thoughts. As soon as she asked this, all the children turned to him; waiting, expectant, patient. They wanted his answer, and what he said would be truth. He looked at them, their young faces; their loving, trusting eyes.
"Of course we have souls." he answered firmly. He wanted them to be happy. "We're good soldiers." He wanted them to go to sleep. At this, both Max and Brin averted their eyes from him, and he suddenly and curiously found himself ashamed.
"Max..." Zack dropped his hand from his chest.
"Oh, that's a shame." Sarcasm; Zack had never found a use for it, but Alec certainly seemed to from what he had observed, and quite regularly. "It looks like you were wrong, Max. No rescue mission needed here." Alec remarked, sounding bored at this turn of events. "Logan has actually taken care of himself for a change."
"Shut up, Alec." Max said in a distracted voice. She walked over to Zack, tossing Logan a smile as she passed him, relieved that he was alive. She touched her brother's arm.
"It's okay." she said softly; Zack's eyes blurred with tears that he tried unsuccessfully to blink back. Alec looked uncomfortable, and after glancing around the room for several moments, he turned and left. Max reached up to hug Zack.
"I'm sorry, Max." he whispered into her hair.
"You've got nothing to be sorry for." she said. She looked sadly over at Logan over Zack's shoulder and repeated, with more emphasis, "Nothing. And you're home now."
"I'm sorry I didn't trust you, Max." he said. "I've been so confused."
"I don't blame you." she said, pulling back from him and managing a smile. "I didn't know how to handle any of this either." She glanced down at her hands. "I didn't want to lie to you, Zack. But I didn't know how much you'd remembered. I was so scared that the same thing as the first time you came back would happen again." She looked up at him; her voice shook slightly. "I wished I could have made you understand- I didn't know what they'd done to you until it was too late." Zack listened to her, sensed the pain in her voice, but didn't know how to comfort her because he didn't understand what she was saying. "And when the doctor said you'd go after Logan again-" Zack's head reeled as she said this.
He was strapped to a chair; a laser burned into his eye. He tried to
close it, protect himself, but there was something holding his lid open. He was
in pain. And the screen behind the laser- a picture of Eyes Only. Words flashed
across the scree. 'Enemy,' 'Target,' 'Agitator,' 'Subversive,' 'Traitor,'
'Turncoat,' 'Traitor' again, 'Betrayed,' 'Traitor' a third time, 'Enemy,'
'Enemy' repeated, 'Target,' and 'Target' again.
The Steelhead known as British Eddie hooked him up to the blood-filtering
machine, smiled down at him; Zack cleaned the weapon in his hands emotionlessly
and paid no attention to Eddie's grin, nor to his hand when it clapped him on
the shoulder. "You look right pretty, my boy without your skin and all." the man
said, turning to his blue-haired friend for agreement, who smiled and nodded
like the idiot Zack had observed him to be. "Makes you look cool." Eddie added;
Zack made no response, so the man shrugged and walked away.
"Zack! Max's voice, high with fear and gentle with love at the same time.
He was holding Alec in the air by his throat; he turned on Max and pointed his
gun at her, not realizing who she was. "Zack." his sister spoke his name again,
her voice filled with hope. Still, he did not remember her. "It's me," she said,
begging with her eyes for him to recognize her. "Max."
"Who are you?" he asked, emotionlessly.
"Zack, it's me." this time he could hear barely-contained tears in her voice. "Zack? It's Max." Zack had begun to remember: this was Max, a girl he'd grown up with, a girl he'd protected, a member of his team.
"You're an X5." he told her; she stared at him. "Show me your barcode."
"Max, show it to him already." he heard Alec choke out as he held him aloft in the air; he ignored him and watched as Max turned around and moved her hair aside. When he caught sight of the familiar barcode, he slowly lowered his weapon. He dropped Alec to the ground.
"Youre 452." he said. "I know you. You're in my unit." She hesitated before answering, and when she did her voice was sad, though he didn't understand why. She was a soldier under his command; there was no need for emotions in the identifications process.
"That's right." she said finally. Then she tried one last time, in an almost desperate voice, "I'm Max."
"Max." he repeated, though the name held little meaning nor sense to him. Names were not what he identified the members of his unit by, designations and barcodes were. Still, she seemed a bit uplifted by him speaking her name, and even in his strictly military mindset he supposed that was good.
"He's been working against us the whole time!" He was yelling at Max; he
was angry, he was devastated. She didn't understand. She was locked up, he would
have saved her, but she was against him. Why was she against him? He loved her.
"That's the reason the mission went wrong!" His mind screamed, It's the
reason you and I died, Max!
"Just undo these handcuffs." she said slowly. "We can talk about it." Anger overwhelmed Zack. What was wrong with her?
"He's a traitor! Why don't you believe me?"
"You've got it all wrong!" her voice was desperate. "They did something to you back at Manticore!" Sorrow engulfed him. Yes, they'd tortured him at Manticore. Because of Logan. It was Logan's fault, why couldn't she see that? It was because of him that Zack had become the monster he was... it was all his fault.
"I died for you!" Zack screamed, and she recoiled from him in pain.
"Traitor!" Zack screamed at Logan, holding a gun on him where he lay on
the floor. Suddenly, Zack was struck to the ground by someone on a motorcycle.
The gun went flying from his hand, but when he regained his feet he headed for
it quickly. Someone kicked him from behind, sending him tumbling to the ground a
second time. He turned on his attacker. Max.
"Zack don't do this!" she cried, grabbing him. What was she doing? Why was she protecting him? He betrayed them both! And now Max was betraying Zack. Why?
"Out of my way, Max." he yelled; they fought though he didn't want to. Why didn't she understand what he was trying to do? It was all for her, for their siblings. Why couldn't she see that? Why did she want to stop him?
They each got in a few good kicks and punches before Max threw him onto the windshield of one of the cars parked nearby. Zack saw her immediately go rushing toward Logan, and he rushed after her, angry, pushing her down, pinning her under him against the cold cement floor of the parkade. Logan, nearby, paralyzed and unable to reach the gun that was only one or two feet from his hand, watched him as he picked her up and threw her against a nearby cement pole. She laid there, dazed; Zack hadn't wanted to hurt her. But she was trying to stop him from completing his mission. She shouldn't have interfered, but he would have to deal with her later. Right now, he picked up the gun, pointed it at Logan, and prepared to fire.
Suddenly, he heard a sound like a fire being doused with water, and a strange sensation came over him. His body shook; it wasn't exactly painful, but it was discomfort on every level of his awareness. He managed to turn his head to look at Max; she had disconnected some wires and touched them to a trail of soapy water that he was standing in. The shock traveled through the water and into his implants, synthetic organs, face-plate, and cybernetic arm.
Shock, anger, betrayal, pain, love, agony, lament, fear, sorrow... a barrage of emotions hit Zack as he gazed into the anguished face of his sister. After a moment, she removed the cables from the water; his body stopped convulsing, and he toppled to the ground, blackness overtaking his senses.
When he woke up, Zack had no longer existed. Nothing had existed; he was no one. So, someone had given him an identity. And he'd accepted it. Perhaps even more than letting Manticore recapture Brin, or abandoning Ben, or letting Max die, accepting the life he was fed and abandoning the mission, his family, was the biggest mistake of Zack's life. It was his recession into exactly what they had all wanted so desperately to get away from. At twelve, he had been able to fight against them and escape; at twenty-three, they caught him and they manipulated him, and this time he could not resist.
Zack staggered away from Max, back against the window, his eyes wild as
he stared at her in shock. It was raining outside; the water splashed against
the glass with satisfying 'plunks.'
"Zack-" she was surprised, concerned. She took a step toward him.
"It was you." he breathed. "You're the one."
"What are you talking about?" she asked cautiously.
"You sent me to that ranch, you took me away from the others!" He swallowed. "You hurt me. You tried to kill me."
"No." Her voice shook.
"Yes." he jerked a finger at her. "You electrocuted me, Max, I remember!"
"How did you-" she stopped, looked at Logan, who wore a shocked and almost sick expression. "The doctor said you wouldn't be able to remember that." she managed, turning slowly back to face her brother. "He said you wouldn't remember anything that happened since the cranial implant was first switched on."
"Yeah? Well, he was wrong." Zack bit out in a pained voice, "I remember."
"Max!" Zack was on a gurney, being wheeled into a hospital room. Max
was on another gurney; he heard a flatline from her heart monitor. Hands were
pushing him down; he struggled against them but he was too weak.
"Internal paddles."
"Charge to 30."
"Charged."
"Clear."
He heard them administer the shock to her heart, and the jolt of electricity shot through her body. The flatline tone continued.
"30 again." The paddles were charged again.
"Clear."
They shocked her a second time, but still the dead sound of the heart monitor droned in the room. Zack watched on, panicked. He saw a woman walk into the room, stared at her, willed her to save Max.
"What's her condition?" the woman asked as she gazed at Max, ignoring him. Zack held his breath.
"The bullet went clean through." the first doctor said. "Her right ventricle is collapsed. She's gone." No, she can't be gone, Zack's mind screamed. Save her, please!
"Is there damage to any other organs?" the woman asked; one of the doctors that had been working on Max shook his head, and she nodded brusquely. "Prep her for harvesting." A surge of horror and adrenaline shot through Zack; he ripped the flimsy gurney-straps holding him back and sprung to his feet, incapacitating a guard and sweeping up his weapon. Then he managed to grab the woman even as she fled from the room, and held the gun on the doctors.
"Bring her back!" he yelled... And then, when he realized there was only one way to save her, he leaned in close and whispered desperately in her ear, "Fight them, Maxie. Promise me you'll fight them." Fully intending to close his eyes and never open them again, as Zack or as anyone, he put the gun to his head. "X5-599, I've got a heart for you." And he pulled the trigger; it didn't hurt.
He'd died for her, had been happy to do it, had been comforted in the last moments of his life with the thought of her being saved. She hadn't deserved to die like that, there in that room in the place they said they'd never go back to; he didn't know if he deserved it, either, but she certainly deserved it less. No remorse, no anger, no distress at doing what he had to do. Just calm, certain clarity, peace in knowing that he would save her life, that she would fight, and that, because he had loved her and trained her for her entire life, she would not let him down.
But he had not died, and now he knew: she had betrayed him after all.
"You tried to kill me." he breathed, his eyes wild as he stared at her.
"After everything I did for you!" his hands were shaking. Why did she do it? How
could she? Didn't she know what he'd sacrificed for her, what he would sacrifice
for her again in a second, without even having to be asked?
"No." Max protested; her voice was weak, helpless. "Zack-"
"Yes!" he cut her off. "You tried to kill me! And then when I didn't die you took me away from the others so I couldn't protect them! You know what my responsibilities are; you know how much they mean to me! Why did you do that to me, Max?"
"No, that's not how it happened!" her voice pleaded with him to understand. "You were going to kill Logan. I didn't know what else to do!" She was desperate for him to believe her; they'd been so close to fixing everything and here it was snatched away from her again. Wouldn't she ever be happy, a normal girl with a normal family? The cruel, true answer was 'no,' she knew, but she didn't want to face it.
"How could you?" he stared at her. "How could you try to kill me, Max? I love you; I've protected you our whole lives! How could you betray me?"
"I didn't, Zack!"
"You endangered the others! Who the hell did you think was going to look after them after I was gone, Max?"
"I don't know." She hugged herself, tears threatening. She looked up at him, the scared child again, the little sister looking to him for answers. Only he didn't want to give them; he was too angry to be her big brother right now. She'd betrayed him; what did she deserve?
"What would you have done?" her soft question broke through his thoughts, floored him for a moment, then he recovered himself and glared at her.
"I would have made a decision for the good of the unit, Max." He looked at Logan. "You'd know that if you weren't so caught up in your emotions."
"Hey." Logan said. "It was emotions that made Max so determined to rescue you from those Steelheads in the first place." Zack glared at him, but Logan pressed the issue. "And I don't remember you making a decision for the good of the unit when you put that bullet in your head."
"Logan." Max said, sounding as surprised as Zack felt that he would dare to speak of that.
"Stay out of this." he snapped at Logan, his voice shaking with anger; he was taken slightly aback when he realized he'd just echoed one of his memories. But what really irritated Zack about Logan's words was that the guy was right. Sacrificing himself to save Max's life hadn't been an objective decision, hadn't been the best thing for the unit; it had been only the best thing for Max. He'd made the decision purely on emotion. This realization hit Zack hard; emotions were a weakness, a phony sentimentality, a lie. Yet he had saved Max's life because in his heart he knew he had to. He swallowed hard.
"Zack-" Max tried again.
"I have to get out of here." he interrupted her, bolting past her toward the door without meeting her eyes. Max turned and watched his receding form, then glanced at Logan, wishing she could fall into his arms for comfort. She blinked back her tears and followed her brother.
