Chapter 6

Max's personal quarters were small and sparse. Still, she had them all to herself. Privilege of her rank. In one corner, she had the shattered remain of her Ninja650. It was turned pointing straight up, headlight toward the ceiling. From where the dashboard had once been connected now hung a few more light bulbs of lower wattage. A machine created solely for the purpose of going fast, was now solely an ornament to read and sculpt by.

She had small table too, and on it was an open suitcase. Inside there were metal files and a bunch of dust, plus a few bottles of chemicals, and standing in the center of it all was the a memento of what ended up being the turning point in her life. The statue of Bast, or what was left of it. Bast may have been the goddess who comprehended all other gods, but 30 years of being so close to the line of fire on Max and Logan had left her with permanent scars. In point of fact, she was now a creation more of glue and Max's memory than her original ceramic and gold composition. In '37 when Judgment Day hit, she couldn't have fenced it for beans. Her street value had been lost, but her value to Max had become priceless. Glue and all.

Tread sat on end of Max's cot staring at Bast. The cot was low to the ground and his knees stuck up in a manner that broke every rule of ergonomics. The mattress sagged adding to the awkwardness.

"I know how you feel," he said to the statue that had, like himself, been repaired too many times. He looked at the door and cocked his head. Super hearing and vision was never fully a trick of genetics. In truth it was a mental technique mastered by martial artists through out the ages. Even regular humans fill in the blanks with what they hear and see. Trained from birth, any one could learn to augment their focus. People did it all the time. Like if you were ever in a room that you thought was completely silent, then a few minutes later you notice the ticking of a clock that you didn't notice before. It was there all the time, but you only now focused on it for some reason. Super hearing used the same principle. You block out what you don't want to hear, and just listen to what you needed too.

He concentrated, trying to focus on only the sounds reaching his ears he needed to, but it was tinny and muffled all at the same time. Too many explosions. Too many loud motors. Too much time since he last hibernated, letting his immune system regenerate. Too much Rock and Roll right up against the speaker. It had all added up to too much hearing loss, even for a genetically enhanced human like him. He was after all a cold a war vintage killing machine.

He shook his head in disgust and took a deep breath.

Then he tried again, and this time he stuck out his tongue. Where the eyes and ears had been pounded relentlessly for almost three quarters of a century, his tongue, tucked more safely inside his head had far less collective trauma than his other senses. Add to that the fact that his high percentage of snake DNA had given him a super sense of taste too. Taste so sensitive he could interpret vibrations through it. Now in his old age he found himself relying on it more and more to cover his other failing senses.

Now with the extra input from his tongue he was able to 'hear' Max through the doors walls and noise. She was organizing a bug out. Now that the Terminators had found this place they had to move.

He thought to himself he should go out there and help. After all, he hadn't briefed her yet, so she didn't know where she was going.

But then the cot was sagging underneath him, and the month of traveling non-stop through the cold was catching up with him.

He slurped to stop the drool of saliva that accompanied using his tongue to listen with, and wiped his chin.

He slumped back on the cot and his head slid down the wall a little. He took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, wincing a little bit, from habit. He'd been wired so tight for so long that relaxing his muscles actually hurt. At least it used to. He smiled as the pang of pain he was expecting never came. He slowly closed his eyes.

Even in this moment there was no real rest. Tread was man haunted by himself and the things he had done. If Max was some kind of Transgenic Messiah, the Tread was either her John the Baptist, or some kind of antichrist.

History is kind to those who are victorious. Sometimes kinder than they are to themselves. Tread was the original thorn in the side of every Committee project. He wiped out more Familure sect's than anyone would ever know. But he still hadn't atoned for his greatest sin.

In 2009 he achieved his greatest and worst accomplishment. It was to be known through out history as The Pulse. The fact was about 200 men had helped him throw America into a postmodern Dark Age. But he was the mastermind. He planed it. He designed the trimmed down V2 inspired rocket that lofted the nuke to 80 miles above America. He was the one who had the FBI and CIA running around in circles, and chasing fake warheads across the country.

So in the end, he was the one responsible for the 8 million people who died as a result the Pulse. It was hard to find a silver lining in that. Even all these years later he would still question weather or not it was worth it. The Pulse had let Max and the original 09' 12 slip through the cracks, something that would never have happened in the digital empire that they escaped into. America got a second chance as those who secretly controlled the world from their keyboard were forced to scramble out into the light of day to stay alive. Tread had shattered the electronic collars that enslaved America, but was it worth it? After all these year that was a question he couldn't answer even to himself.

He got almost three minutes of sleep before he snapped back to his senses. He sat back up straight and then noticed the small puddle of blood on the floor at his feet. He looked down his shirtfront at his T-Shirt, and it too had small fresh patches of blood all over it. It was a side effect of his relaxing, and his ability to heal being compromised. He tensed up again. Tread other gift from his snake DNA was his mutant constrictor. They allowed him to apply pressure to all his wounds simply by tensing the muscles where he was hurt, effectively making a biological tourniquet.

He stood up and looked at the mattress, then put his hand out, double-checking any spots that were hot to his infrared vision, a byproduct of some wolf DNA that had been thrown into his poorly mixed DNA cocktail. Satisfied he had not left a trail, he stood up straight and smiled.

"Lucky I always cover my arse.", he joked dryly to himself.

The door to the small room opened. Jeff held the door with one hand and his new 40 watt phased plasma rifle with the other. Max messed his hair as she went in and he closed the door behind her. Her fatigue shirt was opened and her T-shirt was covered in dirt and filth. Tread put his size 11 boot over the blood puddle on the floor so she couldn't see it. She started to push past him in the small room and he leaned back, bracing an arm against the wall over the cot and trying to make some space without sitting down again, watching the floor to see if he moved his foot. Max was wedged between her table and Tread, and they were pressed up against each other. He looked up from his shoe and noticed they were face to face. She had a slightly annoyed look on her face. He smiled and rolled his eyes a little.

"Ya Know. Twenty years ago copping a feel like this would have made my day." he said.

She cracked a smile and shoved him hard. He fell back on the cot a good amount of force, and his foot planted on his blood puddle slipped, making a dark red boot shaped skid mark on the floor.

"You know what…?" Max went by and flipped up one end of her mattress so it folded over and covered Tread as he was trying to pull himself back into a more comfortable position. She bent over and pulled something out from under the mattress. When she stood up he flipped it back. She took off her fatigue shirt while she spoke.

"If you can still enjoy having a rub up against a broken down old lady like me…"

Tread was repositioning himself to get up again.

"I should probably let you.", she said a moment before she pulled off her T-Shirt.

Tread gawked for a moment, his eyebrows raised…

Max was covered in different sized scars and a few big discolorations that were the result some serious burns. She turned to grab a clean shirt from the pile of clothes she pulled out from under the mattress, then an annoying hand pushed Tread's head the other way and blocked his view of her. He smirked as he realized the hand was his own.

Max glanced at him with his hand blocking his view and smiled too.

"See, you can't even stand to look any more," she taunted.

"Please Max. This is the best sex I've had this decade… or two… or …"

"It's safe to look now." She laughed as she pulled on her fatigue shirt.

"You still got the body of a 20 year old. You could be a centerfold for Playboy…" Tread looked at her face, all smug from being able to fluster him a little, "…or Biotech Frontier's," he mocked back at her.

"Yeah?" she responded, "Well you look like sh*t old man."

She moved the rest of her clean clothes, sat on the cot and started to pull her boots off.

"Give me some good news."

"Huh?"

"I know you didn't ride 3000 miles for a peep show. I want some good news first. It's been a horrible day and it's going to get a lot worse when we try to set up a new base tonight." She tossed her boot without looking and it landed almost right over the bloodstain on the floor. Tread gave it a little push to finish covering it.

"I think I deserve some GOOD news."

"We're wining the war," he said flatly.

"I want news, not propaganda." She fired back, as she took her other boot.

"Seriously. By now we should have all the Great Lakes and Florida in the safe zone. SkyNET's defense grid is smashed. We've also got safe zones in Europe, China, Australia… The war is almost over Max."

She stared at him with disbelief for a moment, then her eyes drifted over to Bast.

"So you're here to take over the West Coast operations personally?"

"Not hardly. You and Krit down in Southern LA have been doing just fine."

"So why are you here?" she looked back at him, real serious this time.

"Is Logan…Ok?" Her chest started to hurt and she braced like she was expecting to be hit.

"Not really," Tread answered solemnly. Max started took a deep breath and stared at Bast.

"He's turned into a real mean old fart." He smiled at her. She looked back at him.

"You bastard!" she leaned over and starting hitting his shoulder with a big mean smile.

"Ouch. Ouch," he said half-heartedly. "No really, last time I saw him he had a nine millimeter to the head of a programmer explaining how important it was for him to check his algorithms. His students hate him."

"And he really misses you." Her smile softened and her eyebrows pushed in giving her that pouty little girl look.

"Does he talk about it?"

"No. He takes it out on people."

Max stood up and dropped her pants. As she stepped out of them she looked at Tread.

"You can look away again."

He turned around with his back to her.

"3000 miles and all I get is bare back. What a gyp.."

She laughed.

"You should see his new chair…"

"He's back in the chair again?" She paused for moment, concerned.

"Yeah. There are only a few strains of pluripotents that he hasn't developed a resistance to. I think he's saving them for special occasions." Max smiled at that.

"It's got these four …"

"You can look now," she interrupted.

"What's the point?" he said turning back with a wry grin. She sat next to him.

"It's got these four treads..."

"He's got four 'Treads'?"

"Yeah," he said responding to her bad pun. "He finally decided to just outnumber me."

"… it raises and lowers him from a sitting to standing position. Goes up and down steps."

"If his new chair was any smarter, we'd have to shoot it as a traitor."

"I can't wait to see it." She said as she leaned over him and reached for her boot.

"You won't … have … to… wait… long…" Tread's last word trailed off as Max lifted the boot into the air revealing the blood stain. She looked at it, then at him.

"Oh god, were you hurt?" She reached down and touched the blood seeing that is was still wet.

"You were hurt!" She stood up and took a few steps back.

"It's nothing… didn't even happen today." Tread said matter of factly trying to allay her fears.

"It didn't? What's up with you?" she said just getting angry.

"You're covered in scars… you're bleeding all over the place."

"Only when I relax." He replied, trying to make a joke of it.

"Oh well then it's Ok." She said loaded with angry sarcasm.

"When's the last time you hibernated?"

Tread paused, half thinking about it, and half not wanting to tell her for fear of her reaction.

"Five… no… five and half years."

"ARE YOU CRAZY! You know you don't heal right unless you hibernate every year and a half. You're immune system must be completely shot by now." She glared at him accusingly.

He rolled his eyes a little and looked away.

"It's not like I've been able to take a month or two off to regenerate and shed my skin. I've been fighting a war."

"We all have. You've always done dumb shit like. When are you going to learn you're not the only person in the fight. Not everything is YOUR private war."

"What am I supposed to do, tell the people who count on me I'm going to take a nap for a month or so." Now Tread had the sarcastic tone. "Keep me safe so I'll be fresh as a daisy when I wake up? I can't think of a single month since the war started that I would have even survived if I were in hibernation. The machines would either have killed me or dissected me after they killed everyone else."

"Well you're on my turf now. We'll get set up at a new location and put you under. I'LL keep you safe till you heal up." She said it like it was decided, then started to get her layers of battle clothing on again.

"We don't have time." Tread returned flat and coldly.

"Like hell we don't. We need you. There's damn few of us left!" There was a petulant tug on every buckle she fastened. "Why do you men always have to play Mr. Tough guy no matter how much you're hurting."

"Max I'm not here on vacation." The serious tone was coupled by THAT look. The one that Tread had when he was giving Max no choice but to listen.

Max never liked not having a choice.

"We'll make time."

Before Tread could argue she jumped in changing the subject, to one that was bugging her.

"What was with you beating that Terminator to death. You weren't THAT strong 25 years ago."

Tread was on the verge of annoyance himself, but he got a sad smile at her diversion tactic. He turned his head and pulled down the hood and showing the back of his neck, and the beginning of the reason for the sadness in that smile. He had 3 little telltale marks arranged in a triangle.

Max's brow furled. Her eyes went soft.

"What have you done? You know how much trouble that one implant I had gave me. Are you crazy."

"It doesn't matter, Max." He stared he into her eyes. It told her what she was afraid to ask.

"I took one too many shortcuts through hot zones. I'm dying of cancer."

"Wha… you…" Her face contorted. "No! You can't be."

"Strong with the force am I, but not that strong." He smiled meekly to himself at his reference to the sacred trilogy, but Max didn't smile back. Her eye's had the tinge of glassyness that happens when you start to cry, but stop yourself.

"Look I'm 76 years old. I'm probably the oldest living organism on the planet with the exception of a few giant sea turtles. I'm only going to last 6 month to a year anyway. Spending them without pain sounds really good. It's a lot better than puking up my guts while a I whither away in front of bunch of people to wrapped up in who I was to bullet in my head."

"Thanks for coming all the way to say goodbye." There was coldness in Max's voice. She knew he wouldn't have bothered to make the trip if there wasn't some ulterior motive, and she wanted to change the subject again before she had to think about loosing some on else she cared about.

"So why are you really here?"

"We need to you to take your troops to Mexico."

"What are you kidding? I haven't left Washington for 24 years. It's my home! I'm not abandoning it now. Not for anyone!"

Tread stood up and faced her.

"How about for everyone?"

"What does that mean?" Max fired back.

Tread rose to his feet and squared himself up. He looked back at Max.

"You ever hear of something called a 'temporal incursion'?"