When he emerged into the crisp air Max was roaring off on her Ninja. He
watched her taillights shrink into the night and reached into his pocket
for his cell. He dialed. Two rings.
'Hello?' Her voice was teary.
'Asha' He greeted her seriously. 'I need to come and see you'
'Sorry Alec' and for the first time he heard something like real steel in her voice, 'I'm not in the mood for tonight's episode of Everybody Loves Max. Maybe some other time'
'That's not gonna cut it Asha.' He demonstrated a little metal of his own. 'Don't make me hunt you down'
'Fine', she just sounded resigned now as she told him her address. 'Do you know it?'
'Yeah. Sector 5. Nice neighbourhood.'
'Whatever. I'm on the top floor. Don't take out any of my people'
She hung up and he slid the phone into his jacket. He walked to his bike and slid on board, starting the engine. The night air ripped through his hair as he drove through the silent Seattle streets. He felt a feral grin slide across his face, there was nothing like a motorbike for chasing away the blues.
He approached the building by rooftop. It was not the most welcoming of communities and except for two sentries, the street was empty. He assessed the sentries with a military eye. They were well positioned, occupying middle floors of nearby buildings, invisible from street level and overshadowed enough to make it difficult for even him to see them. He was about to feel impressed when one of them began to smoke a cigarette, lighting himself up like a Christmas tree. Amateurs, he thought derisively, and was soon lifting Asha's skylight.
She didn't seem surprised when he walked into a room laughably referred to by the group as a 'kitchen'. She didn't even acknowledge him until after she had dismissed the two underfed looking ordinaries standing with her at the 'table', a large plank of wood propped up by a couple of A-frames.
'Alec' she said gravely. There was no sign of the tears he had heard when he spoke to her a bare 20 minutes before.
'Asha' he replied. 'I just love what you've done with the place. Very postmodern.'
'Thanks. Why don't you take a seat?' and she gestured limply at the rubble as she pulled up an upturned milk crate and sat down on it. 'You'll forgive me if I don't make myself comfortable. I have some questions'
She looked up at him. 'Let me guess. It has something to do with Max'
'Yes and no. How long were you fucking Logan?'
She winced. 'Give me one reason for answering that question, Alec. One reason for telling you something that's none of your business'
'That's where you're wrong' He leaned over her so that she could get a good look in his eyes. 'Max is our leader. It affects her; it affects her ability to do her duty. It becomes my business.'
She was well past the point where she retained the capacity to feel fear and her voice was even faintly amused. 'You think I'm gonna buy that? You think I'm gonna accept your militaristic all for one, one for all bullshit? Don't kid yourself Alec. You're just like all the other guys she meets. You want her to look up to you. You want to be a major part of her life. Most of all, you just want to fuck her.'
By the time he regained any sense of his actions she was against the wall with her feet off the ground, anchored only by his hand around her neck. He let go and stared at her where she had crumpled to the floor. He didn't want to think about the reasons behind his reaction and he didn't apologise when he sat down next to her. He waited until she had finished gulping in air.
'How long were you fucking him?'
'Hard to say' and she gave a strangled gasp of laughter. 'He was so devastated when I met him, he told me that his girlfriend had been murdered and I thought "Hey join the club" because every body loses loved ones. I was busy, in and out, until I was more in than out and then one day we were falling into bed.'
She had paused and seemed lost in the memories. Alec didn't want to hear the grimy details, the thought of Logan having sex at all made him want to throw up. 'What happened when she came back? When he knew she was alive?'
'You should have seen him' and her mouth made an expression that looked vaguely disdainful. 'He was so happy and so guilty at once. Begging me not to tell her. I thought I could deal, because I had known all along that he loved her but when he asked me to cover it up I wanted to kill him. I didn't kill him, just kept on fighting the good fight like a good little comrade.
'It only ever happened one more time after that. I went there very early in the morning. Can't remember why but I did. Maybe I invented a reason. He was working and I kissed him. We ended up making love on his desk, disks were going everywhere, paper.'
She tailed off and he tried to focus on something other than the imagery she had implanted in his mind.
'Afterwards, he didn't even bother asking me not to tell her. Just zipped up his pants and picked up the disks. Went about his business. He knew I would keep my mouth shut.'
He couldn't think of the next question. It was all so revolting. Even a dickhead like Logan should have been able to keep it in his pants after Max came back. He even felt sorry for Asha, who was a big girl and probably should have known better. If the guy weren't already dead he would probably be thinking of really painful ways to kill him. Even as it stood, he was tempted to return to the morgue and further dismember the corpse.
He snapped out of it, remembering his official reason for coming, the reason he would be giving anybody back at T.C. who asked. Asha was still just sitting there, staring vacantly into space. A ring of purple bruising was appearing on her neck. He felt a pang of regret and brushed it aside. In some ways, Asha was as much a soldier as he was and she would understand.
'Who took him out?'
She looked blank so he prompted her. 'Logan.'
'Oh. ummm.' She struggled to focus. 'Gangsters. Just local hoods, really. They're kind of connected to the Mayor's office, couple of minor drug rings, black market cultural product. That knife work on his chest was a trademark of one of their guys,' she explained as he shot her a questioning look.
He honed in on the detail. 'Was?'
She shrugged. 'I had to do something'.
'How did you find the body?'
'It was left in a stolen car and parked outside a police station. It was a couple of days before anybody noticed the smell and well, we've been keeping an eye out for the body of an associate so the anonymous corpse was a bit of a red flag. Luckily' and she almost gagged on the word, 'I was the one checking out the lead'.
He narrowed his eyes, assessing the security risk was imperative. Logan had been privy to quite a lot of information. 'Do you think he told them anything?'
For the first time that evening she smiled. Alec watched with morbid fascination as her mouth twisted upwards and her clear blue eyes remained completely dead. 'There was a note on the body. A warning. For Eyes Only. They didn't even know who they had'
Now that he knew, he had to leave. Asha was more of a corpse than Logan's empty body. He had no training for this, he had felt grief but been unable to speak it. There was no way he could ease hers. He contemplated leaving the way he came but decided to go out the front way. Give those complacent sentries something to meditate on.
'Well' he announced. 'Can't say it's been fun. Good Luck with your resistance and all.' He moved to the door, before he could regret his flippancy and was almost away when he heard her voice.
'Alec?'
'Yeah?'
'If you think Max was in the dark about Logan and I, you're as stupid as he was.'
Outside of Terminal City, Alec was still thinking about what Asha had said. Had he allowed wishful thinking to get in the way of an honest assessment of the situation? He didn't want to believe that Max had knowingly allowed Logan to play her, but did that mean she hadn't?
The guard at the sewer entrance looked up as he advanced and they had a brief conversation. A new batch of transgenics had come through about 4 hours before: a couple of X series and a scaly looking transhuman with a forked tongue. Gripp the guard, an X six in testosterone overdrive, gained great amusement from speculating on what benefits a forked tongue might have in his dealings with the female of the species. Alec didn't feel like laughing, but he did anyway.
He walked towards Max's rooms, saying hi to those he recognised and nodding to those he didn't. She wasn't there so he tried the mess hall. It had once been a staff cafeteria for a major chemical corporation and now fed all of Terminal City. It was largely empty, the exception being a cosy transhuman couple gnawing on what looked like cow bones. He nodded to them as well and tried his last option, the command centre.
It was 3am but the command center was not entirely deserted. Mole and Luke occupied one corner. Luke appeared to be making yet another procurement master list. Mole, who bore the unofficial role of procurement coordinator, seemed to be arguing with him about every item on that list. An X 5, probably a new arrival, was answering the questions of another X 5, whose name he thought was Cali.
In the middle of the room, was Max.
She saw him.
'Alec! Come over here would you?'
She was standing with an open file in her hand, looking concerned. Her hair was still tightly pulled back against her head, she showed no sign of having slept, but she didn't seem to be tired either. She glanced at him.
'You aiight?'
'Yeah'
She looked skeptical.
Great, he thought. Her boyfriend dies and she's worried about my health and happiness.
'Tired That's all.'
She looked him up and down, trying to remember the last time he had slept. She couldn't. Things had been busy and Alec had put himself in charge of food procurement She watched him walk closer, stifling her amusement when he scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand like a sleepy child.
'I want you to meet somebody. This is.' she trailed off.
'Emerald' supplied an unknown voice.
Alec was startled, he hadn't noticed anybody standing with Max. Now that he looked closely there was quite clearly a girl with a document right there.
'Hey. Nice name' He couldn't figure out the reason for it though. Her eyes and hair were a nondescript brown, her skin tone not at all green. She was thin, bony really, and he wondered if she was a norm.
'Thanks. Chose it myself' She interrupted his train of thought. Not a norm then.
He tilted his head and tried to place her series. No luck.
'Emerald has some intell. I think you should hear it' Max looked at Emerald and smiled slightly, signaling her to go ahead.
A/N thanks to those who read and responded, you three made my week! : ) Hope everybody likes this new chapter, be sure and review because even if you think it's dodgy, I'd like to know!
'Hello?' Her voice was teary.
'Asha' He greeted her seriously. 'I need to come and see you'
'Sorry Alec' and for the first time he heard something like real steel in her voice, 'I'm not in the mood for tonight's episode of Everybody Loves Max. Maybe some other time'
'That's not gonna cut it Asha.' He demonstrated a little metal of his own. 'Don't make me hunt you down'
'Fine', she just sounded resigned now as she told him her address. 'Do you know it?'
'Yeah. Sector 5. Nice neighbourhood.'
'Whatever. I'm on the top floor. Don't take out any of my people'
She hung up and he slid the phone into his jacket. He walked to his bike and slid on board, starting the engine. The night air ripped through his hair as he drove through the silent Seattle streets. He felt a feral grin slide across his face, there was nothing like a motorbike for chasing away the blues.
He approached the building by rooftop. It was not the most welcoming of communities and except for two sentries, the street was empty. He assessed the sentries with a military eye. They were well positioned, occupying middle floors of nearby buildings, invisible from street level and overshadowed enough to make it difficult for even him to see them. He was about to feel impressed when one of them began to smoke a cigarette, lighting himself up like a Christmas tree. Amateurs, he thought derisively, and was soon lifting Asha's skylight.
She didn't seem surprised when he walked into a room laughably referred to by the group as a 'kitchen'. She didn't even acknowledge him until after she had dismissed the two underfed looking ordinaries standing with her at the 'table', a large plank of wood propped up by a couple of A-frames.
'Alec' she said gravely. There was no sign of the tears he had heard when he spoke to her a bare 20 minutes before.
'Asha' he replied. 'I just love what you've done with the place. Very postmodern.'
'Thanks. Why don't you take a seat?' and she gestured limply at the rubble as she pulled up an upturned milk crate and sat down on it. 'You'll forgive me if I don't make myself comfortable. I have some questions'
She looked up at him. 'Let me guess. It has something to do with Max'
'Yes and no. How long were you fucking Logan?'
She winced. 'Give me one reason for answering that question, Alec. One reason for telling you something that's none of your business'
'That's where you're wrong' He leaned over her so that she could get a good look in his eyes. 'Max is our leader. It affects her; it affects her ability to do her duty. It becomes my business.'
She was well past the point where she retained the capacity to feel fear and her voice was even faintly amused. 'You think I'm gonna buy that? You think I'm gonna accept your militaristic all for one, one for all bullshit? Don't kid yourself Alec. You're just like all the other guys she meets. You want her to look up to you. You want to be a major part of her life. Most of all, you just want to fuck her.'
By the time he regained any sense of his actions she was against the wall with her feet off the ground, anchored only by his hand around her neck. He let go and stared at her where she had crumpled to the floor. He didn't want to think about the reasons behind his reaction and he didn't apologise when he sat down next to her. He waited until she had finished gulping in air.
'How long were you fucking him?'
'Hard to say' and she gave a strangled gasp of laughter. 'He was so devastated when I met him, he told me that his girlfriend had been murdered and I thought "Hey join the club" because every body loses loved ones. I was busy, in and out, until I was more in than out and then one day we were falling into bed.'
She had paused and seemed lost in the memories. Alec didn't want to hear the grimy details, the thought of Logan having sex at all made him want to throw up. 'What happened when she came back? When he knew she was alive?'
'You should have seen him' and her mouth made an expression that looked vaguely disdainful. 'He was so happy and so guilty at once. Begging me not to tell her. I thought I could deal, because I had known all along that he loved her but when he asked me to cover it up I wanted to kill him. I didn't kill him, just kept on fighting the good fight like a good little comrade.
'It only ever happened one more time after that. I went there very early in the morning. Can't remember why but I did. Maybe I invented a reason. He was working and I kissed him. We ended up making love on his desk, disks were going everywhere, paper.'
She tailed off and he tried to focus on something other than the imagery she had implanted in his mind.
'Afterwards, he didn't even bother asking me not to tell her. Just zipped up his pants and picked up the disks. Went about his business. He knew I would keep my mouth shut.'
He couldn't think of the next question. It was all so revolting. Even a dickhead like Logan should have been able to keep it in his pants after Max came back. He even felt sorry for Asha, who was a big girl and probably should have known better. If the guy weren't already dead he would probably be thinking of really painful ways to kill him. Even as it stood, he was tempted to return to the morgue and further dismember the corpse.
He snapped out of it, remembering his official reason for coming, the reason he would be giving anybody back at T.C. who asked. Asha was still just sitting there, staring vacantly into space. A ring of purple bruising was appearing on her neck. He felt a pang of regret and brushed it aside. In some ways, Asha was as much a soldier as he was and she would understand.
'Who took him out?'
She looked blank so he prompted her. 'Logan.'
'Oh. ummm.' She struggled to focus. 'Gangsters. Just local hoods, really. They're kind of connected to the Mayor's office, couple of minor drug rings, black market cultural product. That knife work on his chest was a trademark of one of their guys,' she explained as he shot her a questioning look.
He honed in on the detail. 'Was?'
She shrugged. 'I had to do something'.
'How did you find the body?'
'It was left in a stolen car and parked outside a police station. It was a couple of days before anybody noticed the smell and well, we've been keeping an eye out for the body of an associate so the anonymous corpse was a bit of a red flag. Luckily' and she almost gagged on the word, 'I was the one checking out the lead'.
He narrowed his eyes, assessing the security risk was imperative. Logan had been privy to quite a lot of information. 'Do you think he told them anything?'
For the first time that evening she smiled. Alec watched with morbid fascination as her mouth twisted upwards and her clear blue eyes remained completely dead. 'There was a note on the body. A warning. For Eyes Only. They didn't even know who they had'
Now that he knew, he had to leave. Asha was more of a corpse than Logan's empty body. He had no training for this, he had felt grief but been unable to speak it. There was no way he could ease hers. He contemplated leaving the way he came but decided to go out the front way. Give those complacent sentries something to meditate on.
'Well' he announced. 'Can't say it's been fun. Good Luck with your resistance and all.' He moved to the door, before he could regret his flippancy and was almost away when he heard her voice.
'Alec?'
'Yeah?'
'If you think Max was in the dark about Logan and I, you're as stupid as he was.'
Outside of Terminal City, Alec was still thinking about what Asha had said. Had he allowed wishful thinking to get in the way of an honest assessment of the situation? He didn't want to believe that Max had knowingly allowed Logan to play her, but did that mean she hadn't?
The guard at the sewer entrance looked up as he advanced and they had a brief conversation. A new batch of transgenics had come through about 4 hours before: a couple of X series and a scaly looking transhuman with a forked tongue. Gripp the guard, an X six in testosterone overdrive, gained great amusement from speculating on what benefits a forked tongue might have in his dealings with the female of the species. Alec didn't feel like laughing, but he did anyway.
He walked towards Max's rooms, saying hi to those he recognised and nodding to those he didn't. She wasn't there so he tried the mess hall. It had once been a staff cafeteria for a major chemical corporation and now fed all of Terminal City. It was largely empty, the exception being a cosy transhuman couple gnawing on what looked like cow bones. He nodded to them as well and tried his last option, the command centre.
It was 3am but the command center was not entirely deserted. Mole and Luke occupied one corner. Luke appeared to be making yet another procurement master list. Mole, who bore the unofficial role of procurement coordinator, seemed to be arguing with him about every item on that list. An X 5, probably a new arrival, was answering the questions of another X 5, whose name he thought was Cali.
In the middle of the room, was Max.
She saw him.
'Alec! Come over here would you?'
She was standing with an open file in her hand, looking concerned. Her hair was still tightly pulled back against her head, she showed no sign of having slept, but she didn't seem to be tired either. She glanced at him.
'You aiight?'
'Yeah'
She looked skeptical.
Great, he thought. Her boyfriend dies and she's worried about my health and happiness.
'Tired That's all.'
She looked him up and down, trying to remember the last time he had slept. She couldn't. Things had been busy and Alec had put himself in charge of food procurement She watched him walk closer, stifling her amusement when he scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand like a sleepy child.
'I want you to meet somebody. This is.' she trailed off.
'Emerald' supplied an unknown voice.
Alec was startled, he hadn't noticed anybody standing with Max. Now that he looked closely there was quite clearly a girl with a document right there.
'Hey. Nice name' He couldn't figure out the reason for it though. Her eyes and hair were a nondescript brown, her skin tone not at all green. She was thin, bony really, and he wondered if she was a norm.
'Thanks. Chose it myself' She interrupted his train of thought. Not a norm then.
He tilted his head and tried to place her series. No luck.
'Emerald has some intell. I think you should hear it' Max looked at Emerald and smiled slightly, signaling her to go ahead.
A/N thanks to those who read and responded, you three made my week! : ) Hope everybody likes this new chapter, be sure and review because even if you think it's dodgy, I'd like to know!