Reaching for the Moon by ThePekingNoodle

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Chapter Twenty-Seven: Still Waters Run Deep

Secrets and more secrets and some uninvited guests…

Logan wanted to get right to doing some serious checking up on Max and her background but he ran into a problem almost immediately. Max's presence. He felt uncomfortable letting her know that he was suspicious of exactly where she had come from. Almost as if he was betraying her.  He thought about asking her point blank, but he remembered her response to him when he had asked her if she knew who was after her. Her denial hadn't quite rang true to him. Nathan thought Max didn't remember her childhood. Logan wasn't so sure about that. But if she wouldn't tell Nathan and Annette, he didn't think that she would open up to him. He was going to have to find out the hard way. Problem was that Max had a way of coming up behind him without him even being aware that she was there. He didn't want her to walk up and see herself as the object of his search.

He did do some preliminary work while she was showering, but once he heard the water cut off he closed down the screens. Then he sat there at a loss. He wanted to work on his hack exposing Ratburn but he couldn't do that either. Might as well just tell Max that he was Eyes Only.  For once he cursed his apartment design. Maybe if he had solid walls around all the rooms he could risk it. Finally he decided he might as well do some maintenance work on his systems that he'd been putting off. Maybe he could figure out a way to send Max out of the apartment for a while later.

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Max climbed out of her shower and wrapped a towel around her hair. She quickly dressed in the clothes she had selected earlier and then brushed out her hair, leaving it loose to dry. She really did need to get a blow dryer of her own rather than having to go use Logan's all the time. 

Thinking of Logan reminded her of what she had seen on his computers. She was intensely curious about his systems but she couldn't think of a good way to ask him about them. 

He hadn't mentioned the Ratburn disk to her – she figured he had just assumed he had left it there in his drunken haze the night before. If she told him she had picked it up he was going to start asking awkward questions about her part in the previous night's events and she wasn't ready to answer any of them yet. Her habit of secrecy about her origins was too engrained to allow her to open up easily to anyone. She had never even told Nathan and Annette that she remembered exactly what she was and where she had come from. And they were the people she trusted most in this world. Logan was still too much of an unknown quantity.

She didn't think he would betray her, but she feared that he might be horrified by her true nature. She couldn't stand the thought of him looking at her as if she was a thing instead of a person, of him turning away from her in aversion and disgust.

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When Max walked out to the living area of the apartment she heard Logan clicking away on his keyboard. She strolled into the computer room and he looked up and gave her an abstracted smile.

"Do you ever stop working?" She asked him teasingly.

He shrugged. "I'm doing some routine system maintenance right now. But I'm a perfectionist I guess. I have to be sure my stories are word perfect. It drove my…Valerie…crazy."

Max noticed his hesitation, "It's okay. Kendra told me about Valerie. No biggie."

Logan sighed, "Yeah, well I guess I still don't like to talk about her much. She was one of my failures in life."

"From what I hear, it was her failure not yours." Max didn't know why she felt she needed to reassure him, but something in his eyes told her that he did indeed consider it his failure and he was still taking it hard.

Their eyes met and Max felt a jolt that was different from what she had experienced with him before. It was more of an emotional connection than a physical awareness, as Logan smiled and said to her simply, "Thanks."

There was a silence as they continued to look at each other. Neither one seemed to be able to pull their eyes away. Before it could become awkward the phone shrilled. Logan picked it up. "Hello. Hey, Kendra. Yeah, she's right here as a matter of fact. Hang on." He held the phone out to Max.  "It's Kendra."

Max took the phone and walked into the other room with it. "Hey, Kendra."

"Hey, Max. I was wondering if you wanted to hook up later today."

"I think that would be okay. When?"

"Actually I was thinking about tonight. There's this club I want to go to. My parents would have a fit if they knew, so I was thinking I could say I was heading over to see you guys. Would Logan care if you split with me for a while tonight?"

"I don't think so."

"I know you guys are still honeymooners and all, but hey you gotta have some breathing space, right? I wouldn't ask except, well, I'm supposed to meet someone there. And if my other friends ever knew who it was…just say he isn't a boring rich socialite."

Max laughed. "My lips will be sealed. Actually it's probably good. Logan's working on some big deadline and I think he'd like me gone for a while, even though he's too sweet to say so. Where are we going anyway?"

"It's a place called CRASH."

Max smiled at that. "Why don't you come over here and we can ride over together?"

They made arrangements and she hung up the phone. When she informed Logan of her plan he readily agreed. Of course he assumed they were going to hang out with some of Kendra's friends at one of their homes. Max didn't mention the bar because somehow she didn't think he would be as agreeable to that plan.

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CRASH

When Max and Kendra strolled into CRASH later that evening they looked no different from most of the clientele in their jeans and T-shirts. Max looked around with interest. She had never been in a place quite like it before. Her parents had made sure she was sheltered and pampered, and a street bar like CRASH certainly didn't meet either of those requirements.

The place was crowded and the music was loud. A giant TV screen displayed videos of races, most culminating in spectacular crashes. Max assumed that was where the bar got its name. Kendra started toward an empty table but halfway there Max heard someone calling her name. She turned and saw Original Cindy seated at a large table with several other people. She was waving Max over.

"Kendra, come on." Max grabbed Kendra and pulled her over to the table.

When they arrived, Cindy waved them to two empty seats. "Sketchy, Herbal, this is my girl, Max. Max these two losers are Sketchy and Herbal. They work with me at Jam Pony Messengers."

"This is my friend Kendra. Kendra this is Original Cindy. We met this morning."

"Hey." Kendra smiled at the others and dropped into a chair even as she shot a curious look at Max.

"So, Max, you of Original Cindy's persuasion?" Sketchy asked curiously.  Max gave him a puzzled look.

"I play for the all girl team, is what he means." Cindy explained as she reached over and swatted Sketchy. "Where'd you learn your manners boy? Don't even know the girl and you already asking her personal questions."

Kendra laughed, "Max is married. To my cousin. He is most definitely not a female."

"Figures." Sketchy said gloomily.

They all laughed and Herbal slid over two glasses he had filled from the pitcher of beer that was sitting on the table. "It's all good, all the time," he opined then he seemed to lapse back into his own world.

"He's Rastafarian." Sketchy explained as if Herbal wasn't there. "You know worships the great god, Ganja."

Max smiled and took a gulp of beer.  She felt right at home with these people as if she had always known them. Kendra seemed relaxed as well, even though she kept scanning the room. Suddenly she sat up.

"Max, I see my friend." She paused, "Would you mind if I…I mean you're okay here right?"

Max laughed, "Go ahead. Get me when you're ready to leave."

Kendra was on her way before Max had finished speaking and Max watched, curious to see who she was meeting. Her mouth opened in surprise when Kendra walked up to Bling. She smiled to herself as she wondered what Logan would have to say to that. Not that she thought Kendra would care.

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As soon as Max was gone, Logan pulled up his search algorithms and loaded in the parameters he was interested in. Then he left them to work on their own. The next phase would require his manual intervention but that might not be for hours.

After taking a quick break, he began to work on his Eyes Only Ratburn hack. He had just finished it up and was letting it compile and save when he heard the door open. He reached out and minimized the screen and then turned to greet Max.

The smile on his face faded when, instead of Max, he saw the two thugs from the previous evening standing in the doorway with their guns pointing at him.

End of Chapter Twenty-seven…TBC…