The Second Key
By Be Boring
Chapter 15: The Watchers
Kay had thrown herself into Logan's old bedroom before anyone in Foggle Towers could ask her what was wrong. Her entire body was shaking uncontrollably and her gut felt like it was exploding. She knew she needed to calm down, but she couldn't get the wave of emotions to leave her. Everything seemed to be coming apart. How could Max ever think she would hand over all these transgenics to the cult? She would never do that, these people trusted her and she had no thoughts of betraying that trust. In fact, it was almost precious to her now. They were the only ones left that trusted her, everyone else had left her behind.
A soft knock on the door made her jump, her senses were going wild right now with how upset she was and that tiny noise felt like a gunshot going off in her head. "Come in."
Joshua stepped nervously through the door and was immediately worried by what he saw. He had thought she was upset about something, but there was no expression on her face. Other than her shaking, there was no sign that she even had any emotions whatsoever. He had to remind himself that unlike Max, Kay didn't like letting other people see her emotions.
"Everything okay?"
Kay painstakingly forced a smile. "Yeah big guy, everything's okay. How're Ty and Ray?"
"Ty sleeping. Ray still playing checkers."
She nodded. "Good, at least they're fine. Did someone get you those diapers?"
He scrunched his nose and nodded. She could tell diaper-changing wasn't one of his favorite activities. An uncomfortable silence passed between them, then Joshua tried to ask his question again. "Everything really okay?"
Kay sighed and shrugged. "As okay as it's ever gonna be again. It's nothing to worry yourself about. I think we should focus on getting you and Ty back into Terminal City. You're better off in there with Max and the others."
He shook his head fiercely. "Ty go back, I won't."
She looked up at him, almost needing to tilt her head back all the way back to make eye contact with him. "What are you talking about? You have to go back."
"Why? Joshua wants to stay here."
"Why would you want to stay with us? Things aren't going to be easy here, and what if we get discovered? I don't want you getting caught in the middle of it."
"Joshua knows what he's doing. I want to look for Father."
Well, that would be easy to take care of. "Joshua, Sandeman is in Terminal City. He's been there for a while now."
Joshua looked down at her angrily. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't Max tell me?"
She shrugged. "I have no idea big guy, but he's been there. I lived with him for a while, I know he's there. I'm sure he'd love to see you. Why don't you go back?"
His eyes flashed. "Father can wait. Max knows what she's doing, she doesn't need Joshua. You need me. I can help."
"Are you saying I don't know what I'm doing?" she teased lightly, hoping to get him to cheer up slightly. He had a rather vicious temper, she could see that.
"I will stay and help," he said, completely ignoring her attempt at a joke. Kay sighed and sat down on Logan's old bed. She wasn't going to change his mind, that was obvious.
"Fine, you can stay. Just don't tell me I didn't warn you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some stuff I need to get out."
Brin sat back in the passenger seat of Zack's car, her nerves going wild. Where was Max? She had run off after they left JamPony, saying she needed to be alone for a while. Original Cindy had no idea where she'd gone, so they decided to head back to Terminal City. Eventually Max would come back once she was cooled off. They would just have wait till then.
Alec and Jondy were in the back seat of the car, staring silently out the windows. Jondy's mind was racing. She hadn't known what it would be like to see Kay, and she certainly hadn't expected that! She recognized her! She remembered when White had captured her and that weird little boy, Kay had been the one to rescue them. At the time Kay had been blonde, but she was still recognizable under those red curls. No wonder Kay hadn't wanted to tell Jondy her name at the time, she apparently had recognized her and didn't want her to get mad when she realized who'd saved her.
Alec sat in dead silence. He remembered how Kay had been before they had thought she was dead, and it was very different from this. No wonder Max had been so upset. He knew one thing about how Max operated, and that was that she always wanted a confrontation when she was mad. She had insulted Kay to try and get her to fight, that was just Max's way of dealing with things. If she had fought Kay she would have felt better and might have been able to deal with her feelings, but since Kay just closed up and left, she had no closure. That had surprised him, the Kay he knew wouldn't have let Max insult her and then just walk out, she would have jumped on her despite the fact that they were close. Something big had changed, that was for sure.
Zack could clearly see all the people in his car, and he kept letting his eyes wander over them to keep himself from thinking about what Kay had said to him. The fact that she had turned away the name he'd given her and went back to her designation was more painful than he would have expected. He'd wanted to make her understand why he had done what he did, but he knew she wouldn't see it. He didn't blame her. He had completely betrayed her with what he did. Now he was worried about what she'd do with the other transgenics. As much as he didn't want to believe it, what Max had said was true, Kay could very easily hand the transgenics over to White. He wouldn't have believed it when Max said it, but the look in Kay's eyes as she gave up her name had chilled him to the bone.
The gates of Terminal City loomed in front of them. The silence in the car was nothing to compare to the silence in there. The transgenics were slowly realizing that more of them were gone, and there was obvious mourning. Friends in there were separated from close friends that had left. Families were split apart all because of the fear they felt of the psy-ops. Where the psy-ops were now was the big question. They didn't have Sate along as their leader, so did they just split up and go their separate ways to try and fit in to life in the real world? Or did they find a place where they could all be together? The thought that the freaks and psy-ops were together never crossed their minds.
The basement of Foggle Towers was horribly chilly and breezy, but Kay was completely overheated and didn't even notice. Her anger was spilling over; her anger at Sandeman for making her what she was, her anger at the cult for causing Sandeman to make her, and most of all her anger at herself for not fighting back when she should have. She should have fought back when Max insulted her, she should have fought back as a child when she was being beaten, she should have fought back all those times she was in heat in Manticore and someone showed up to ease her burden, and she should have fought back when Ben tried to become closer to her.
Somehow everything that happened to her seemed to trace back either to Ben or Sandeman. Her creator had made her what she was and gave her so much importance, but Ben had ruined her. If she had never fallen in love with him, she would be helping Max fight the Coming right now. Her night with Ames never would have happened, Zack would have shown up and freed her without coming across them being so comfortable. She had been internally suffering over Ben's death and had needed a relief, Ames just happened to be there. She might have slept with any one of the guards in the mood she was in, and maybe then Zack wouldn't have been so angry.
Loving Ben had made her more emotional. Being taken advantage of during her heat cycle was nothing new, but her extra emotions made her furious with Zack. The worst thing for her about being in love with Ben was that it made her desperately want to feel that kind of love again. It had felt good to be with Ames because she needed to be held, and it hurt her so much more that her friends hated her for needing to feel that. Now she just needed to get these emotions out.
Sate was lying on the floor, almost unconscious. His body was weak and exhausted, but that didn't bother her a bit. She would wake him up her own way.
Seeing his body jump when she kicked him felt good, seeing his good eye finally show the pain he was feeling as she beat him furiously was even better. Every bit of rage, frustration, and sadness was now focused on him. It was easier to make him the cause of her pain simply because she couldn't tear Ben apart for making her weak. Her shoulders were finally screaming under the force of her blows, her fists throbbing from the impacts. Her breathing became ragged as her body slowly exhausted itself, but she didn't stop until his body went limp. After taking a few deep breaths, she moved a hand to his throat to look for a pulse. It was still there, but it was faint.
"Kay?"
Kay's head whirled around as she heard Joshua's voice behind her. His eyes were stunned, he had apparently been watching through the entire beating. She blushed slightly, he shouldn't have had to see that.
"Sorry about that big guy, but I told you I had some stuff I needed to get out."
"You shouldn't do that. He can't fight back."
"I know he can't fight back, but I don't see anything wrong with that. You know he'd do the same thing to any of us."
"Don't matter. You already beat him, you don't need to do more."
Kay put her hands on her hips. "If I remember right, you shouldn't be talking. I heard about your confrontation with White, you beat him long after he couldn't fight back."
"Joshua was angry, but that was different. I was angry at him, you aren't angry at Sate. You're angry at someone else. If you want to hurt someone, hurt Joshua."
Kay looked up at him in shock. "Joshua, I couldn't hit you. Why would I ever want to do that? You're my friend."
"I'm your only friend. No other friends care. You're alone."
She felt her blood boiling, but she could see what he was trying to do. He wanted to make her angry enough so she'd hit him, but he didn't understand that that would only make her feel worse.
"I'm not going to hit you, Joshua. I'm not going to hit the only friend I've got left." She stepped forward and hugged him. "I appreciate the offer though, you have no idea how nice a thought it is that you would let me hit you so I'd feel better."
He hugged her back, nearly popping her eyes out of her head. "Hit me any time."
She chuckled, she would never take him up on that offer.
The door to Sandeman's old house was slowly opened, making no noise. Max stepped through silently, tears streaming down her face. Even though she couldn't touch Logan, he was the only person that could comfort her. As usual, his back was turned to her as he typed away at the computer. She could see the reflection of his face on the computer screen and nearly burst into full out sobs because of the relief it was to see him again.
Logan finally saw her reflection in his screen and turned around. Just seeing the look on her face made him want to hold her, even if it meant his death. Still, he knew she would never let him do that.
"What's wrong?"
"Everything," she whispered so softly that he could hardly hear her.
"Start at the beginning," he said, gesturing to a chair not too far away from him. As she sat down, he reached into one of the drawers of the desk and pulled out his latex gloves. The least he could do was hold her hand, she needed something from him.
"The psy-ops scared most of the people out of Terminal City because they were following their leader Sate. He was on the news broadcast earlier."
Logan had seen that broadcast and had wondered what Kay was doing with the X2s and a Familiar, but had never thought that Familiar was leading the psy-ops. "Now we don't know where the other transgenics, the psy-ops, Kay, or even White are. I used to think we had a chance at life, but not anymore. Too many things are going wrong that we never counted on and I don't know how we're going to pull through it."
He reached out and brushed some strands of hair out of her face. "I don't know how you're going to make it, but I know you will. Max, you've never given up on a thing in your life and I don't want you to start now. Things will get better, they have to. At least you know things can't get worse."
She forced a smile. "Haven't you learned by now that whenever someone says that, things somehow manage to get worse?"
"I didn't know you were superstitious."
"I'm not, it's just something I've learned from experience."
Ames looked down at the picture of Ray in his wallet as he paced around his room. I'm coming for you buddy, don't worry. It hurt to look at the picture, but he did it anyway. It gave him the strength to keep going with what he believed to be a pointless mission.
So far Ames had almost nothing to do with the plan to kill 452 other than ordering some of the necessities. Things like handcuffs and chains were rather obvious, but there also had to be cages, platforms, simple weapons like knives, guns, and tasers, an electric chair, and the strangest thing of all, a new acid that was proven to kill someone by eating away at their skin. The thought gave him chills, he had only seen an acid-eaten body once when he was a child and it had given him nightmares for weeks.
They had given Maverick the job of rounding up regular humans who wanted to destroy the transgenics. So far they had a couple hundred people, but they knew they would need a lot more if this was ever going to work. They weren't too worried though, the number seemed to multiply daily. There was no shortage of people willing to publicly torture what they viewed as freaks. The only thing that bothered Ames was that there was one way this could seriously backfire on them. What if they were forced to fight some of the transgenics and they were mistaken to be one of them by the people? He could tell none of the others had even considered that possibility.
The big thing to do now was to watch the news and see if anything new had come up with the transgenics. They knew the population in Terminal City was much lower than it had been previously, but they were the only other group than the transgenics that knew that. Sate's information had been good other than the fact that they didn't know where the rest of the freaks were.
Lenore walked into the room without bothering to knock. Ames scowled as she made herself comfortable in his chair behind the desk. Sliding his wallet back into his pocket, he prepared himself for dealing with something unpleasant. That seemed to be the only time she ever came to talk to him. This time she reached into her purse, pulled out a magazine, and slapped it down on his desk. He leaned over and looked down at it, it was a copy of the New World Weekly tabloid. On the cover was a picture of the Caduceus on Sate's arm. He picked it up and flipped to where the main story was. Running his eyes over the article, he was stunned to realize it was a full description of the cult and everything was true. It even mentioned the part of how 452's body was covered in runes predicting the Coming.
"How did this happen?" Lenore asked stiffly. Ames rolled his eyes.
"How am I supposed to know? My father has been living in Terminal City near 452, and she's connected to Eyes Only. Even though I shot up his penthouse, he still has his contacts. It wouldn't surprise me if he has a contact at this magazine."
Lenore frowned. "It sounds possible, but it doesn't seem right. You do know that this means we'll have to speed up our plans."
"Why? This is just another silly tabloid as far as people are concerned. Not many out there pay much attention to every story they read in these things. Most people will probably just laugh at it."
"Most people, but not all. We still have to hurry things up. We might have to find a new way for the Coming to happen, perhaps we should break away from the rituals. As long as it happens I don't see what the problem is."
"Why not just set it off at the football stadium when all those people are watching the transgenics die? It would be easy with them all grouped together and people might just assume it has something to do with the transgenics, maybe they'll think they brought diseases with them out of Manticore."
Lenore smiled slightly, which was a rare occurrence in her life. "That's a good idea. We'll have to send Thula to the lab immediately, the virus needs to be ready in time. When is the last order going to be in?"
"The acid will take the longest, it should make it here the day after tomorrow."
"Good. At least the people should really believe that the transgenics caused the viruses, they actually could have something like that. From what we know, every Manticore-based virus is based off our pathogen. It can only be destroyed by the same formula that will save the rest of humanity. Too bad we don't know who the anti-key is, we could get rid of the threat before they get a chance to stop us."
Ames shrugged. "The anti-key family has been around so long, they probably don't even know who they are themselves. You know what the legends say, the original anti-key didn't pass on the truth to his family about what they were. Whoever is in this family, they have no more of an idea about what they are than anyone else does. The only thing we can go on is that all the members the family has in the cult have been male."
"It's a start, but I hope our records of our people don't show a few candidates for that position."
Ames frowned. "It's not like we'd be able to question them either, they have no idea who they are."
Max and Logan were sitting in a comfortable silence. They hadn't talked nearly as much as Max would have expected, but she was just fine this way. They didn't need to talk to be happy around each other, which was something new for her. She usually hated just sitting around someone without saying anything, but with Logan it wasn't too bad.
She turned her head towards a soft thump outside. Logan raised an eyebrow. "What? Did you hear something?"
"Is anyone outside?"
Logan looked up at the clock. "No, that would just be the neighbor dropping off my magazines. Since quite a few of them lately have been giving out true stuff, I figured I would start reading them. It helps me get ready for a broadcast, I'm planning on my first one soon. I'm not sure what it'll be about, but I'm pretty sure it'll be something transgenic-related."
"Why does your neighbor drop them off?"
"I noticed she always looks at these magazines, so I give her the money and she gets me a copy of each. She's a trustworthy person, she hasn't run off with the couple dollars I've given her yet."
Max stood up and walked out to look down at the front porch where, sure enough, there was a stack of magazines lying there. Looking both ways before opening the door, she reached out and grabbed the stack off the porch. Flipping through them, she paused on the New World Weekly.
"Oh God, did Sandeman manage to contact someone at this magazine?"
Logan looked up. "Let me see."
She handed him the magazine, allowing her hand to brush his since he was wearing the latex gloves. She almost smiled as she watched his forehead furrow as he read the article. She loved how he looked when he was concentrating, it was almost cute. "Did you find anything different?"
He held up the magazine and pointed to the name at the top of the column. "It was written by Sketchy."
Max's eyes widened as she took the tabloid out of his hand. Sure enough, Sketchy's real name was printed at the top of the page. "I don't think Sandeman could have come across him by chance. It had to have been Kay."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "Kay? Why would she have given Sketchy that story?"
"To get attention off us. That's what some of the others wanted to do all along, but I didn't want to. What if it sent people into a panic and they stopped thinking about giving us freedom to live normally? I want to be around when my people get to live like everyone else."
"I thought you said you didn't know where Kay was? When would she have gotten the chance to give Sketchy the story?"
"Today. We went to see everyone at JamPony, that's why I'm not in Terminal City right now. When we got there, she was talking to Normal and Sketchy in Normal's office. We didn't leave on the best of terms. I'll bet anything that's what she was doing there. Sketchy must have really rushed to get this in before the deadline."
"Did you guys fight?"
She nodded, still staring down at the magazine. "I didn't know how angry I still was with her until I saw her face again. Could we talk about something else? I came here to cheer up, not to talk about what's making me upset."
Logan thought for a moment, then smiled. "Would supper interest you?"
"After the food we've been eating in Terminal City, you have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that!"
He chuckled and walked into the kitchen. "At least I'm still able to get the good stuff." He pulled out the chicken he had in the refrigerator. Max blushed as her stomach growled loud enough for him to hear. "Well, maybe I should have gotten two chickens! Or three, or four, or five, or..."
Max pulled on the gloves in her pocket and threw a spoon at him, still blushing. "I don't eat that much!"
"Oh please, you're better than a garbage disposal when it comes to getting rid of my food. At least I'll never have to worry about leftovers."
The childish bickering went on the entire time the chicken was in the oven, neither one paying attention to who was standing at the window.
Lenore was just about to leave, and Ames couldn't have been happier. It's about time! Just as she reached the door, her cellphone went off. She pulled it out of her purse.
"Hello? Fen'os tol. Really? Is there anyone near you to help? How soon can they get there? Good, I want you to take her alive."
"Who was it?" Ames asked as soon as she hung up the phone. She turned to him with a pleased smile on her face. Wow, two smiles in ten minutes. Should I be honored to witness this historical occasion?
"That was Isaac. He's at your father's old house in Seattle, and it seems that 452 is there. He said she is having dinner with a man with dark blonde hair and glasses. Do you have any idea who he's talking about?"
"That man has been around several times when I've encountered 452, so it doesn't surprise me she's with him now. Will Isaac be able to capture her?"
Lenore frowned at him. "I have faith in him. He's proven to be more capable than you."
She didn't even notice how close Ames was to firing his gun at her head as she walked out of the room.
Max was in ecstasy as she took her first bite of the chicken. Logan tried hard not to laugh at the pleased expression on her face.
"I take it I'm still a good cook even if I'm not living in a fancy place?"
"Ou ave o iea!" she exclaimed through her mouthful of chicken. Logan rolled his eyes.
"Your table manners haven't improved I see."
"Ut up!!!" she snapped, sending little bits of chicken onto the table. She giggled as he threw his hands up into the air in surrender. No sooner had his hands gone up than a gunshot rang out. Max jumped to her feet and was in a fighting stance instantly, then darted to her left just as a shot was fired at her. She felt something whiz past her ear. Turning her head in that direction, she saw a tall man in his late twenties with light brown hair and very serious green eyes shooting at her. Even as she was running she realized that the gun was a tranquilizer gun, not a regular gun.
Feeling her confidence grow, Max headed straight for him. Just as she reached him, she recognized him. Wasn't he one of the Phalanxes? No sooner had the thought gone through her head than Levanna stepped up behind her and slammed the butt of her gun against Max's head.
Logan turned his head just slightly from his position on the ground. The tranquilizer dart had hit him, but just barely. Not all of the drug was in his system, so while things were still a little blurry, they were manageable. He could see the two Phalanxes dragging Max away, but he couldn't get up to help her. The room seemed to be swimming in front of his eyes, there was no way he'd be able to walk straight even if he could get up.
Levanna tapped Isaac on the back as she flung Max over her shoulder. "Are we taking her to the football stadium or are we keeping her someplace else?"
"The football stadium. As soon as the last orders are in, we start the festivities," he said with a strange light in his eye.
Logan slowly took in the words he was hearing, struggling to stay conscious. Had they said a football stadium? Why were they taking Max there? What festivities? His mind was still pondering over this as he slid into unconsciousness. No one saw the other shape sliding away from the window after watching the entire scene.
Kay held Ray's hand as they walked down the street. She had promised him she would find a place to get him ice cream, it might be the last chance he would have in a while. Besides, as long as they both kept their hoods up they looked just like any other mother and child walking around the city.
Ray was bouncing up and down with excitement. Food at Terminal City was not to his tastes at all. "Are we there yet?"
Kay rolled her eyes. "Didn't you just ask that a couple minutes ago?"
"Yeah, and you said no. Are we there now?"
"No, just hold on. I'll tell you when we're there."
"Are we almost there?"
"No, we've got a ways to go yet."
"Is that it?"
Kay sighed and shook her head. She didn't understand how people could do this day in and day out with their kids. She was glad this was only a temporary arrangement. There was no way she could handle being a mother in this day and age.
"Here we go," she said with relief as they reached probably the only running Dairy Queen in the state. There were people walking all over the place. Even if they didn't have the money to pay for ice cream, they still came in to get out of the cold. As they got into line, Kay overheard the conversation next to her.
"It should be Thursday, or so I heard. I can't wait to get my hands on some of those freaks. I hear there's even going to be acid there. Are you going?"
"Of course, I wouldn't miss something like this for the world. It's about time we got the chance to do something. How are we going to get them?"
"We're just gonna run into the city and grab them. They're even giving us tasers and stuff to help us. It should be big, there's gonna be something like 300 people going in and grabbing them, then about 5,000 going to the stadium to watch the fun."
"It's the stadium just outside of town, right?"
"Yeah, they needed something that would be able to hold everyone who would want to watch. It's too bad we couldn't get rid of all of them this way."
Kay bought Ray his ice cream and dragged him out the door as fast as she could. He was too preoccupied with his ice cream to care. Kay's mind was racing, that was bad news for her. This would get rid of a lot of transgenics, especially since there weren't too many left in Terminal City. One thing confused her though. Why were all these people getting together now? Why hadn't they done it earlier? No one outside of the transgenics knew that Terminal City was much emptier now than it had been.
Well, that wasn't exactly true. The realization hit her suddenly, the Conclave knew about the escape. Sate had told them, so they would definitely know. They must be going after Max. But why would they need all these people if they just want Max? That answer came to her just as quickly. Oh God, they're going to release the Coming! It would be the perfect move for them, most of the people would think they were getting sick off something from the transgenics. They would be getting rid of a ton of transgenics while getting started on the Coming at the same time. She had to stop this, it was what she was made to do. Someone needed to get the information out to the people. There was no way she could go to Sketchy for help, he wouldn't ever help her again no matter what the story was.
Logan. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before. He was the perfect solution. He most likely hated her, but he would stop this. Once people knew about what was really going on, they would hopefully change their minds about the massacre.
It seemed to take forever to get to Sandeman's old house, but they finally reached it. Ray was right behind her, he didn't seem to have any problem keeping up with her. His strength seemed to grow by the day. Just as she ran up to the door, she noticed something. The window just outside the kitchen was shattered. Had Logan been robbed?
The inside was completely silent, there was no sign of anyone living there. Perhaps Logan had gone to the market or something. "Logan?" There was no answer. She instinctively headed for the kitchen to see if there was any damage. As soon as she stepped in, she saw Logan laying right next to the kitchen table. She dropped Ray's hand and kneeled down beside him.
"Logan? Can you hear me?" She tapped the side of his face gently. He seemed to be breathing, but it was rather deep, like he was sleeping. She felt his pulse. It was still going strong and steady, so he wasn't dying. Running her eyes over his body, she noticed a wound in his side. It wasn't deep or serious, it was like something had nicked him. Her eyes lifted to the window, the shot must have come from there. Walking over to the window and positioning herself so she could see about where the bullet had landed, she decided that by the way Logan was laying he must have been sitting in his chair when he was hit. Letting her mind set up the scenario, she finally concluded about where the bullet would have wound up.
She found a mark in the wood in the entrance to the hallway that showed something had hit it, perhaps the bullet had torn through here too. Heading in the same direction, she finally spotted something lying on the floor. Thank God Logan kept his home immaculate, otherwise she never would have found it. Leaning down to take a closer look, she realized it wasn't a bullet but a tranquilizer dart. Feeling a rush of panic, she ran back into the kitchen.
God, please let me be wrong, let me be wrong. Her eyes were closed as she entered the kitchen, but she forced them open. Ray remained silent when he saw the horrified look on her face. She had been right. There were two places set at the table.