Chapter 3: Hope, Only in dreams 3/7



Eight months. It feels like an eternity. Eight long months and still there is no one. Still there is nothing. Maybe Logan has had better luck with finding a cure. I can't call him. I could technically, there was nothing stopping me physically from picking up the phone and dialing the number seared into my heart. I just can't make my hand and my head understand my heart, or something like that.

I've settled down into a nice little place in Virginia. Its a small town and it reminds me of the town Logan and I visited, Cape Haven if I remember right, which I always do. For years I've run to the cities to get lost. With their crowded and impossible situations it was always the best place to hide. I don't know why I'm staying here; maybe I want to be found.

I have an apartment, a job at a little dinner, a car, I even have some friends but it isn't the same. My apartment lacks a certain someone, my job lacks the freedom and is dull as all hell, my car doesn't ride like my bike did and my friends aren't the same. I should be happy I have everything that anyone could want. Safety, security, and I could have love if I wanted it. Plenty of guys have tried. But short of my heat cycles I don't want to touch or see another guy again.

I have dreams at night, when I sleep that is. I dream I'm back in Seattle playing cat burglar to Logan's Eyes Only. I dream that I never left, that Manticore never won, and that Logan and I are together overcoming all odds and smiling in the face of danger. I dream of a perfect life.

I've kept in contact with Joshua after I ran into him a few months back. Seems he's had better luck. He wasn't ready to be released into the world. None of them were. Hardly a day goes by that there isn't a headline in the news about some mutant. I guess that's one of the reasons I like this small town. News from the cities travels slower. Still everyday I wake up regretting my choice to let them out. Most of them are dead or captured now anyway I'm sure.

Slowly I'm giving up on the past and creating a new life. My friends all tell me that time will heal my wounds. Not that they know about my wounds. I never told them the truth. They think Logan is dead, to me he is. They don't know I'm some genetically engineered killing machine. They don't even know my name is Max. I'm going by Hannah now days. Still every night I go home and tell myself my name is Max, Logan isn't dead and that I have to find a scientist to help me. Max, my name is Max. Some days it works better then others.

Hannah, my name is Hannah. I lost the love of my life to an unfortunate illness, I held him in my arms as he slipped away. I have an apartment in Hope, Virginia. I work as a waitress in a dinner. I have friends. Zoe is a fellow waitress and a sympathetic ear. Whenever I talk about my lost love Luke she gets all misty eyed and gives me a hug. Claire also a fellow waitress lives at home with her sick father and her dog Angel. Emily is Claire's daughter and incredibly cute, her father was killed in a riot over food three years ago a month before she was born. Michael runs the local bar; he inherited it from his father who also died in the food riots. This is my life now.

Max is only a dream.





Eight months. Asha hasn't bugged me about my insane little quest since I sent her away two months ago. Instead she tries her hardest to be good to me and do what I want. I think she just humors me because she wants me. Her pity drowns me sometimes and I have to leave the room and escape.

I followed Max to New York and lost her after that. That was a month ago and I have no real hope of finding her. She really is gone. And yet life still goes on.

The days seem to blur together somehow. I never remember anymore what day it is and so I got a watch with the date on it so that when Asha asks if I know what day it is I can tell her. It cost me a ridiculous amount of money but it saved me from more of her pity and those looks of condemnation. I'd buy a million of them if they could make her disappear every once in awhile.

But that is mean. Asha only wants what is best for me. She watches out for me more then she should and at times she is a great person to talk to. It's only when I get lost in one of these moods that I talk bad about her.

Today I'm in one of those moods. Today is a bad day. I found a copy of the medical notes that our Manticore scientist made up. I still haven't found anyone else to develop a cure and even if I had there would be no way now for me to contact Max about it.

I want to hold her again. Thoughts like this pop into my head a million times a day.

I want to hear her laugh.

I want her sarcastic criticism.

My life without her is hollow. The whole city of Seattle wonders what happened to the great Eyes Only. Has he lost his will to live? Why does he hunt for more trouble? Why does he seem to dig for danger? He never would have risked it all a year ago.

He had reason to play it safe a year ago. He had reason to live a year ago.

Sometimes I hear noises and think that she has come back. I think she's picking my lock or revving her bike. What I'd give for a phone call, just to hear her voice.

At night I dream she is still here with me. We talk and laugh. I cook and then we play chess. She hunts down the bad guys and I run Eyes Only broadcasts with pride and life.

This is my life now, an assortment of bad dreams all culminating in one awful mix of days, broken only by my freedom and release at night when I have the woman I love in my arms.

But I wake up and the shadow in the background is from my chair, the bike on the road is not Max's and the lock picking is in my head. Max is only a dream now.