28. Obsession
When Max came to, her ears were ringing. She was soaking wet and very cold. Alec was stroking her face, which freaked her out. She batted away his hand, and rolled to her side. For a second she was very dizzy; she almost vomited. She looked around, and wasn't very happy with what she saw. While she was unconscious, Alec had carried her all the way to the top of the Space Needle. She felt completely violated. She started to shiver.
Great, she thought, this is just getting better and better.
Then she had another thought, that if Alec didn't kill her, she was going to die anyway, from exhaustion.
She sat up, and he loomed over her. "Max," he said earnestly. "I love you. I guess you knew that. I've wanted to tell you for a long time."
"Alec," she said flatly, "you just tried to rape me."
"No. No!" he said. "I love you."
"You don't love me," she said, and she almost started to cry. "You don't even know what you're saying!"
"I want you to come away with me," he said inexorably. "Forget all this bullshit. Forget about Logan and White and all of those idiots."
She used her heels to push herself away from him. "Alec," she said carefully, "can you tell me where Logan is?"
"Who cares?" he yelled, startling her. He sounded furious. He jumped to his feet. "Why are we talking about Logan? I left Logan in the woods, and I haven't seen him since!" He started to say something else, then his eyes clouded over, and he just stared off into the distance.
She felt a dark wave of terror. What did he mean? She got to her knees. Then she got to her feet. She felt stretched out, thin and lightheaded. The roof of the observation deck was cold and slick under her bare feet. She took a step forward, and struck him with the flat of her hand. He went down on one knee. "Where the hell is Logan?" she yelled, right in his face. "What did you do?"
Then a strange thing happened; Alec became self-aware. It was as if an old friend had sidled up and hooked an arm around his shoulders, whispering in his ear: "Something is terribly wrong." Alec tried to catch that thought, he really did. He felt very strongly that it was important to examine it. Unfortunately, there were too many threads radiating away and he wasn't sure which one to follow. He hesitated, and then he was sucked under again.
He was running through the jungle with blood on his hands and Special Forces on his heels. He jumped a murky stream, and stumbled into a clearing. Hot sunshine baked through the break in the verdant canopy. He was surprised to see a sleek great cat dozing languidly in the fork of a tree. She unfolded lazily, and dropped to the ground. She padded toward him, her long tail hooked into the shape of a question mark. "Yes," he said happily. She put a velvety paw on either of his shoulders, looking into his eyes. Then she raked her claws across his face.
Alec shook his head, bewildered and hurt. The tower swayed minutely in the wind. The rain, hitting the deck was incessant, booming. Each drop jabbed him like a needle. He felt skinned. All his nerves and muscles were on the outside, exposed to the elements. His synapses shuffled randomly through his memories, showing him moments and then snatching them away. He had trained hard, and done what they told him. He had been a good soldier, and now he wanted his reward. Why was she being so selfish? Max could be childish; she always had to have everything her way. He was fed up with the unfairness of it all. All Max wanted to do was talk about that rotten Logan.
He loved her. Couldn't she see that? The world was spinning, and she was the only point of focus. He had loved her forever. He was sure of it. They were soul mates, partners, and a perfect genetic match. She had only been created to be with him. He looked up at her. She was an angel.
"If I can't have you, neither can anybody else," he said. He leapt.
Max rolled away, coming to her feet in a liquid motion. They exchanged blows, each blocking the other. They were playing for keeps, and the stakes were deadly. The ground was nearly one hundred and eighty-four meters below. The circular roof slanted sharply, and there was a central dais housing an aircraft warning beacon. There wasn't much room for sparring. Battling viciously for supremacy, Max recognized a sinister satisfaction so primal it was almost arousal. This was why she had been built. In the wind and the rain, high above the rest of the world, she left ordinary time, and was ensnared in snarling animal confusion.
She kicked sideways, hitting his throat. Alec gagged and faltered, then sprang at her, striking with his fist and catching her below her breast on the side of her rib cage. She sucked in air, jumping back. She rose up on her toes. He charged her, and she kicked again, but he blocked her with his forearm. She punched him, but it was risky getting too close, his reach was longer. He backpedaled, then dove at her. She sidestepped, hammering him between the shoulder blades with her hands clenched together. He staggered, then twisted sharply to face her, already throwing a punch. She ducked, sliding backwards on the slippery deck.
He snapped a double kick, causing her to stumble. She was hurting, and her strength was trickling away. He snaked his arms around her from behind, squeezing her. He lifted her off her feet. He buried his face in her hair. She struggled wildly, kicking the air. She took a deep breath, and head-butted him.
He made a sound, and she managed to wriggle away. She turned and clawed at him, catching the corner of his military issue T-shirt, and ripping it away from the neckband. He grabbed a handful of the shirt at the nape of his neck, and yanked it over his head. He wadded it into a ball, and tossed it into the sky. It unfurled with a wet snap, like a flag, and the wind carried it away.
Growling, he leapt on her, and they crashed to the platform, struggling. His naked chest was greasy with rainwater, and she was able to squirm out from under him. Max rolled away and came to her feet with a prismatic grenade in her hand. She had a grenade in her hand, and it was live. "Oh, shit," she said. She yelled at him, "Why do you even have this? It's useless!"
She threw it away, as far and as high as she could get it.
Original Cindy, out on a run, skidded to a stop. Everybody was looking up into the sky, so she did too. There seemed to be fireworks going on over by the Space Needle. They were really kind of pretty, and she smiled, momentarily forgetting her troubles. They looked just like a rainbow.
Max executed a jumping kick and got a piece of his chin. He jumped back and then forward. He made forceful contact with a roundhouse punch, and she tasted salt and rust, falling. She skidded down to the edge of the platform, scrabbling madly with her fingers. She could get no purchase at all, and she fell over the edge. Alec lunged, and landed flat on his stomach, sliding forward. He caught her by the wrist. It looked like he was going to keep sliding, and that they were both going to fall. Then he braced his feet. Max dangled in the wind; for a moment she caught a glimpse of Puget Sound. She couldn't get up her other arm. Her wounded shoulder was nonfunctional. She was completely at his mercy.
He pulled her back up. When her feet touched, he put a hand on the small of her back and shoved her in the direction of the warning beacon. She fell gracelessly, with a splat. She lay on her stomach, twitching and breathing hard. She was finished.
He sank to his knees on the wet platform. "I wasn't going to hurt you," he said, enunciating carefully, because it was hard to talk.
She managed to turn herself over so she could watch him. She was horrified to see that he was crying. "Make it stop, Max," he said. His eyes were haunted, and in them Max thought she caught a glimpse of the person she knew to be Alec. "Oh, God," he cried. "I don't know what's going on!"
She tried to sit up.
"My head!" he said. "I can't think. I can't take it any more."
She couldn't move. She didn't have the strength.
"Manticore never fixed me! They said they did, but they didn't!"
She couldn't answer.
"I can't stand it! You have to kill me," he said. "I want you to kill me. Make it stop before I get any worse."
"She won't kill you," said a voice. "But I will." Gun in hand, Logan stepped out on the roof.
"That better not be the Ruger I gave to Max,"Alec said, with considerable annoyance.
Logan closed one eye and sighted. He fired
To be continued. . ..