Logan adjusted the microphone that clipped onto his ear, with a small extension that stopped about an inch short of his mouth. Sighing, he pulled the painted paperbag over his head and lifted the remote, pointed it at the small, black box that would start his cable hack, and hit the 'ON' button.
"This is an Eyes Only streaming freedom bulletin." His sign-language was sloppy. "It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in the city."
Across Seattle, Max opened a soda and shuffled herself a little bit. The couch she was sitting on was older than she was, a virtual eyesore in her otherwise mediocre apartment. Slowly, she brought the can to her lips and slurped loudly, trying to annoy the other X5 beside her.
"Do you mind?" Alec asked sarcastically. "I'm trying to pay attention the the underground Mafia business.. Stuff."
Max smiled, her attention unwavering from the TV in front of her. "Bull shit," she laughed. "He's talking about the Steelheads."
"Fingers Only!" She nailed him in the ribs with her elbow, watching Logan's hands comically dance in front of the large paper bag. It was indelicately decorated with a smiley face and the words "Eyes Only".
"If I recall, it was your Steelhead buddies that ripped out his vocal co--" Logan promptly held up a sign reading "PEACE OUT" and the two of them laughed some more. Max hated herself for laughing at the further-disabled Logan, but his Fingers Only broadcasts were too much to bear. She looked at Alec for a moment, more out of a habit of looking around than anything else.
Her voice wasn't exactly looking for his sympathy, more his understanding. "If your brother was a murderer, would you want people to know?"
"I'd want him stopped," he pointed out.
"I'm on it, Logan."
"Let me help."
"I don't want your help."
"Why not? What's going on? What are you not telling me?"
"Back off and let me handle this."
"Max?" His tone was still joking, even though her smile had instantly faded.
"What, Ben- Alec?" Max almost bit her tongue right in half. That was the only time she'd ever made that mistake. He gave her an odd look."I did not mean to..."
"Uh, yeah." Max could tell that he couldn't care less about her slip of the tongue. "Who's Ben? You never did explain that to me."
"Fingers Only," she smiled. "He's Fingers Only."
"Tell me about the Good Place."
"Where no one ever gets punished." Ben smiled.
"And no one gets yelled at."
"And nobody disappears. And when you wake up in the morning, you can stay in bed as long as--"
"Maaaax..." Alec waved a hand in front of her face and she jumped.
"What the hell are you doing here anyway?" she snapped.
"Gee, the Steelheads are using my place for their HQ now, so I figured, since you said I could stay here--"
Max didn't care for his silly, smart-ass remarks. "Don't you have an apartment yet?"
He nodded. "And there's some steriod-hungry Steelheads living in it." Max groaned.
"It wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't- Yeah," she explained. Oh, right. That. That little thing she'd totally forgotten about while flashing back to Brother Ben killing people.
"Yeah," he agreed. A Twinkie commercial started and they ignored each other.
. . . . . .
"Knock, knock," Max called, rounding one of Logan's separator panes. If her memory served her correctly, this was the one she'd thrown Alec through a year earlier. Her mind was preoccupied with finding other things to throw him through when Logan appeared.
"Hey," she chirped. "Want Alec for a week? I've had it up to here--" she indicated the top of her head-- "with his 'morning, sweetheart,' garbage." Logan laughed inaudibly and it tore at her heart. Being voiceless was really getting to him, no matter how amusing it was for everyone else. He leaned on a pane across from hers, listening to her attentively. She tried to avert her eyes from the light scar on his neck, and finally managed to keep them on his face.
"Yknow, if we got back you back in the chair and fixed you up with a creepy computer voice, you could be the next Steven Hawkings." This still didn't evoke so much as a grin from Logan. "Or you could mope."
There was an uncomfortable quiet. Max anxiously tapped her right foot.
"The silence is killing me," she said flatly. "We gotta find a way to get your voice back." He simply shrugged at her.