Author's Note: How about that? I finally update in under a week (barely) and ff.net isn't even up! Well, that laptop idea is working beautifully, for some reason the change of scenery does wonders for my muse.
Munchi: Thank you, I can't believe I missed that. I guess I forgot that it was Alec who knew about Logan finding out, not Max. I changed it now. See, this is why I love reviewers: they give honest opinions and tell you when you've messed up! :P
Disclaimer: My psychiatrist tells me that my life's goal of owning DA is unrealistic, but what does he know?
Dust In The Wind
By Be Boring
Chapter 8: Start The Clock
With the fuming rage that his boss was in, Otto was very smartly keeping his mouth shut. He simply leaned back into the wall as he watched White pace through the hallways, occasionally getting into a fight with someone on his cell phone as he kicked anything in his path out of the way. Everyone in the building seemed to freeze as he went past, as if hoping that he wouldn't see them if they didn't move.
"God dammit!" White yelled as he sent his fist straight through a window as he was passing by. "She's a known fugitive and there's blood running down her face! There's no fucking way that she could have just disappeared! You!" Otto cringed as White whirled to face him. "Aren't you supposed to be working for me?" At Otto's nervous nod, White almost smiled. "Then why don't you see if you can find anything out! Do you even have a theory?"
"Well, she might have some friends outside of the transgenics that she could turn to for help. Perhaps she's staying with one of them until things cool down." Knowing that had been a rather obvious thing to say, he tried to come up with a little more as he saw White's temper start to flare up again. "Have you checked her old workplace, that bike messenger place? She must have some good friends from work that would help her out, maybe she went there." He felt an immense rush of relief as White stepped back, apparently thinking over what he had said.
"That would make sense, especially seeing as how we don't have any other ideas right now. Call for backup, I'm heading there now."
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He had been out of Terminal City for nearly twenty-four hours now, but once again Alec found himself ducking behind a corner to avoid a group of transgenic-haters. It seemed that the guys he and Joshua had beaten up for killing Biggs had given the police a description of him. While they had done what he'd told them to and gotten out of town, every transgenic hunter in Seattle knew what he looked like. He'd already received a few glances from strangers on the street, so he had taken to moving around only when the area was fairly empty. It was starting to become exhaustive.
I'm never going to make it back to Terminal City today at the rate I'm going. I'll need to find someplace to hide out. Unfortunately, there was only one place he could think of that he wouldn't be found: JamPony. Normal would do practically anything for him, although asking him to hide a transgenic fugitive for a while might be a rather high request. Most people wouldn't do it if they knew what was good for them.
It still took over an hour to reach JamPony, especially since he had to sneak past the sector police. The emptiness was what struck him first, but he couldn't say he was surprised. The reputation of this place had gone downhill quickly because of its history with transgenics. Who in their right minds would want to work here?
"Are my eyes deceiving me?" Normal's face had lit up the moment his eyes had landed on Alec.
"Nope," he said with a rather forced smile. Unfortunately, he thought miserably. Well, beggars couldn't be choosers.
"What brings you through here? Not that I'm not glad you're here, but I thought you were holed up in Terminal City?"
"I was, and I'm headed back there, but I think I'm gonna need a place to stay for a little while," Alec said tentatively. It wasn't that he was afraid Normal wouldn't help him out, it was just that he might do it a little too enthusiastically.
"Look, let's talk about this in my office. I have feds swarming all over the place around here. I was a little rougher with Max when she came in, but I wasn't about to attempt to manhandle you."
The mental images that could have been conjured by what Normal had said were lost on Alec when he heard Max's name. "Max came here? When?"
"Around noon yesterday, and she wasn't looking too good. She had blood coming from her eyes, plus it didn't look like she'd been taking care of herself too well."
Blood coming from her eyes? That didn't sound too good. What could have made that happen? "Where is she right now?"
"Upstairs where…" Normal didn't get the chance to finish before Alec had taken off up the stairs.
Max had been flopped out on her back on the floor trying to keep her overcharged body relaxed, when Alec came flying up out of the stairway. She sat bolt upright, frowning as her forehead banged against the table next to her and sent it smashing into the wall. That would leave a mark. "Alec, what are you doing here? Normal didn't start making calls after I got here, did he?"
"No, I just kind of turned up without warning. When were you planning on coming back? Everybody's going nuts, things have been going to hell without you."
Max didn't quite want to announce her decision to leave town just yet. "What's going on?"
"Didn't you see the hack?"
Now he had her attention. She vaguely remembered hearing something that sounded like a hack while the doctors were reactivating the implant, but she didn't really hear the details. "Logan made another Eyes Only hack? How did he get everything set up again?"
"Well, technically I made the hack, but everything was already set up at Sandeman's house. You must not have seen the hack then. I guess it's a good thing you're sitting down."
Max could see this was something important. "What's going on? What was so big that Logan not only needed to make an Eyes Only hack, but couldn't do it himself?"
"Do you remember the group of newcomers that we got just before White took you? Well, the one who said she was X4-452 was actually a Familiar. I don't know what she was doing in Terminal City, but she latched onto Logan right away after you left. We were at Sandeman's house when she showed up, so he went out to head her off and had me do the hack for him. I don't know what happened after that though because he took our ride back to Terminal City with her, so I had to get back on my own. That's why I'm here. Now spill it, why didn't you let us know you were alright? I would have thought the first thing you'd do would be to come back and let everyone know that you weren't in danger."
So much for holding off telling him. "I guess I didn't really plan on going back there. I'm too dangerous to have there. As long as I'm far away from here, the cult shouldn't be too focused on the rest of you. After all, I'm supposed to be some sort of weapon against this Coming thing."
Alec couldn't help it, the stress of the journey to JamPony had worn him thin and he wasn't in the best mood anymore. "Quit the bullshit Max, this has nothing to do with how worried you are about everybody. I know you see yourself as this high and mighty savior for our kind, but this noble thing is only a cover. That might be at the back of your mind, but you're just doing the same thing you tried last time, you're running away. Things are getting too tough so you're just going to run and hide. And don't fool yourself into thinking that you're doing it all for 'our people' as you like to put it, you're doing it because things have just become too uncomfortable with Logan!"
Now Max climbed to her feet. "Since when is it your place to tell me why I make the decisions I do? You don't have a clue what goes on in my head, but I can assure you that Logan is not the reason I'm leaving! Besides, he thinks I'm with you!"
"Not anymore. How stupid do you think that man is? All he has to do is listen to us together a little bit and he knows that us being together right now is ridiculous. In fact, that's what he did. Even though he's doing a pretty good job of hiding it, it's driving him nuts that he doesn't know where you are. If you're going to wimp out, at least let him know you're doing it!"
"You know what? You can tell him. I'm not putting him in any more danger than he already is, especially now that we know there's a Familiar in Terminal City.
"He's a big boy, I'm sure he's not going to mind the danger. You know what I think? For this big tough show you always put on, I think you're nothing but a coward. You can't handle too much when it comes to feelings, so you act like you don't care and get as far away from the problem as you can. Well I'm not buying it, and I know that nobody else does either. The only person you're fooling is yourself. Do you really think you're going to be happy once you're away from here? No, you're going to be miserable and wish you could come back, but you'll talk yourself out of it and spend all of your time lying to yourself by saying you don't need anybody here and they don't need you. Newsflash, you need us all more than you think."
Max's hands had balled themselves into tight fists. "I'm surprised that doesn't sound familiar to you, Alec. Isn't that what you do all the time? But you know what, I've always had enough respect for your privacy to let you handle it on your own! I've never told you what I thought you were doing wrong, why can't you do the same for me?"
"Because we're living in very different conditions now. When one thing goes wrong in Terminal City, it starts a chain reaction. Everybody's life there practically depends on the lives of everyone around them. When one person is miserable, it spreads, and the fact is that what you're about to do is going to make life there extremely depressing for a long time. You're important to everyone there, Max, and knowing that you wanted to leave is going to send everyone right over the edge. Listen, if you're this set on going away, at least come back to Terminal City for a while and let everyone know in person what your plans are. You owe that much to them."
Max leaned down and picked up the hooded jacket that Normal had lent to her. "I'll think about it, but I think I need to be alone right now. Seeing as how you aren't going to go away, I'll leave first."
She stormed down the stairs, now regretting that she hadn't just punched him. The look on his face would have been worth it. Who did he think he was? Then there was the fact that Logan knew she had been lying to him for the last few weeks. She especially didn't want to face him now. As long as they were both available, there was always that sense of hope. If there was going to be hope for them, then why couldn't the virus be gone?
Max knew she was getting stares as she made her way towards the door, pulling up the hood of her jacket the whole way. Before Normal could say anything, she was past him and out into the rare bright sunlight. She had hardly gone ten steps when a horribly familiar black car came squealing around the corner. She was frozen momentarily, but then turned and took off running. There was nowhere to hide now; the chase was on.
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Logan couldn't help but wander aimlessly through the Rec Center. Even without Max here, it was business as usual. There had been a couple new people brought in earlier that morning, psy-ops were being sent out to bring in supplies since they could usually convince people to unknowingly give up food and other necessities, and X series were being sent on scouting missions to see where the soldiers were positioned at different points in time. It was like they hadn't missed a beat.
At the sight of an X8 scurrying away from the far corner of the room, Logan made his way toward Mole, which happened to be the exact direction the kid had been coming from. Am I really surprised?
"What do you want?" Mole asked without even bothering to look up. At the moment, he was staring at one of the guns that a psy-ops had brought in. "Damn thing's hardly operable," he grumbled under his breath.
"Where's Joshua? I've been looking for him." Logan had been so out of it lately that he hadn't even thought about the tall transgenic. Now he felt guilty, because he was sure that Joshua was suffering from Max's disappearance just as much, if not more, than anyone else. He may have been annoyed by Max thinking that she had to take care of him all the time, but he still had some dependence on her. It was more emotional that anything else though.
"He's stuck watching that ordinary girl, she's been having some bad headaches lately."
"Thanks," Logan muttered, wandering away while deep in thought. He had been thinking about getting out of the city, but he had completely forgotten about the other two regular people here in Terminal City. They were having the same annoying symptoms that he was, they probably wanted to get out of here just as much as he did. Sketchy might want to stay to make another attempt at getting an interview out of someone, but even he had to be thinking about getting away from everything here. Many of the residents were becoming increasingly depressed, they had gotten out of one prison just to be trapped someplace else, this time with people trying to kill them. This just wasn't a cheery place to live right now.
"Hey Logan," Joshua said with a weary smile when he answered the door.
Logan glanced behind him to where Original Cindy was laying on a dusty old sofa. "Is it bad?"
Joshua shrugged. "She says it hurts, but big fella can't help. Air here is bad."
"Yeah, it isn't exactly making me feel great either. Do you think she'd mind if I came in?"
Original Cindy pushed herself up onto her elbows, giving him an annoyed look through the bags under her eyes. "Why don't you ask the boo yourself, instead of drillin' doggy-dog? Ya may as well come in, it's not like I'm gonna be chasin' you out of these digs on my own steam."
Logan forced a smile and came in to sit by her feet on the couch. "Is the headache worse than usual?"
"Feels like someone done smacked me upside the head with a sledgehammer. They weren't this bad when we first came here, but it keeps gettin' worse. I just wanna get back to my crib."
"I'm working on that. My headaches aren't as bad since I got some real fresh air yesterday, but I know they're going to get worse. As much as I want to help everyone here, I'm not sure that I'll be much help right here on location. I might be better off helping from a distance."
A flash of understanding went through Original Cindy's eyes, but she didn't say anything. Joshua lowered himself into the chair he had obviously been using before, seeing as how it had one of Sandeman's old books on the arm of it. "Do they know anything about Max?"
"No more than they did before. Minx doesn't know where White is, and I'm pretty sure she's telling the truth. That just sounds like how he runs his operation, so as few people as possible are going to know where he is and what he's doing."
Original Cindy's voice took on an unusually harsh tone. "And just what was that bitch doin' here in the first place?"
Logan leaned against the back of the couch. "As I understand it, White would try and get his son's location out of Max while she tried to get anything she could from people here. It seems she was repaying a debt to him, so the cult knew nothing about this."
There seemed to be a low growl in the back of Joshua's throat, but nobody commented on it. Actually, there wasn't any time to. As they sat quietly for a moment, an odd thudding noise came from the hall. Joshua had just moved to check it out when the door opened and Gem came in, half-dragging Sketchy along with her. His eyes were unfocused, gazing distractedly into space as he winced from all of the jolts Gem was giving him as she helped him along.
She finally just deposited him on the floor, wiping a few strands of hair out of her eyes. "He was drinking with some of his X5 buddies when one of those headaches came on. When it finally got bad enough for him to complain about, the others just ignored him. Then Chase got sick of his muttering about it under his breath and just whacked him in the back of the head, saying it couldn't have hurt that bad. He must have had a pretty bad migraine because it pretty much knocked him senseless. I can't get him to talk normally."
Joshua leaned down and lifted Sketchy up to place him the chair he had just vacated. "Good thing you were there."
She sighed and plopped down onto the floor. "He got lucky, I had just made it there when it happened. It's too bad though, I had been really looking forward to relaxing. Mole won't get off our backs, every five minutes he wants someone to go out and see the positions of the ordinary soldiers. Everyone got so pissed at him that I had to make the entire round to see where the soldiers were myself! Talk about exhausting."
Logan's attitude changed from politely interested to hanging on every word in an instant. "Do you mean that you know where all the soldiers are right now?"
"Unless they moved drastically in the last five minutes, then yeah. Why?"
"We were just talking about getting out of here before you walked in. Would you say there are any weak spots in their guard?"
Gem was silent for a moment, seemingly uncomfortable with everyone's eyes upon her; even Sketchy's, unfocused though they were. "Well, you could always go out through the sewers out on the east side, the ones that bring you up in the old industrial center outside of Terminal City. Of course, there's not many of you, it shouldn't be too difficult to get past them anywhere. I would just take the way that the new groups generally take. I happen to know for a fact that you left that way yesterday." At Logan's questioning look, she said, "We have our own guards in places you might not expect, and they saw you and Alec leaving, as well as you and Minx coming back. That's as good a path as any, even if you're all ordinaries. No offense," she added after a short pause.
Since Sketchy was hardly in any condition to give an opinion, Logan turned to look down at Original Cindy. "So, what do you think?"
She stared steadily back at him. "I think that I want outta this joint, and I want out yesterday."
********************
Alec was still grumbling over how stubborn Max was being when Normal came flying up the stairs. "I didn't see it happen, but one of the messengers just came in and said she saw Max running from a black car. What's going on?"
Normal never got his answer, Alec was out the door too quickly.
********************
Max rounded yet another corner at top speed, trying to cut through alleys that the car couldn't fit through. It didn't seem to work though, it just popped up somewhere else every time she thought she was safe. As the car squealed into the alley right behind her, she grabbed a dumpster and sent it flying into the way. That only slowed White down for a moment, car insurance was the farthest thing from his mind. He didn't care how smashed up his vehicle was, he could always get another one. The important thing was getting to 452 and stopping her from escaping before he found out where his son was.
Although she couldn't feel pain, Max was aware that her body was wearing out much faster than it should have been with the implant. I'm overstressing myself too much, I won't last as long with the implant at the rate I'm going. She could already feel a slight shudder run through her body whenever she slowed down. Eventually the seizures were going to come back, and she would have to find a way to shake White for good or end up being captured again. She hadn't risked her health just to have that happen.
A few more turns and a few more shudders made the severity of the situation much more obvious to her. Her body was falling apart quickly, she was going to have to stop this now. She slowed her speed ever so slightly, then as soon as the car was near enough behind her she threw herself up into a high back flip, spinning in the air so that she landed on the hood of the car facing White. She only saw his stunned face through the windshield for a moment, then she slammed her fist through the windshield, grabbed him by the throat, pulled him out through the glass, and threw him as hard as she could into the wall of the nearest building.
"Still feeling no pain?" she said with a laugh, feeling her stress turn into a strange form of hysteria with startling speed. "If not, I can change that."
White barely had time to roll out of the way before Max's heel dug into the pavement where his head had just been. The freak has gone nuts, he realized with a sort of numb shock. She had started bleeding from the eyes again, making her look more intimidating than he'd ever found her.
That odd laugh escaped her again. "Think you can take me?"
He moved to his feet, feeling his entire body tense in preparation for the inevitable fight. "That shouldn't even be a question, it should just be common knowledge."
"You're about to find out how untrue that is."
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Author's Note: Yup, I'm gonna say it. Just leave me a little review! And I'm going to have to ask that it be an actual review of my story, not a negative rant about something that I like that has nothing to do with the story. To the person who did this, (I'm sure they know who they are) there is a lovely little response to you in the review area from someone who at least had the decency to apologize to me beforehand for what they were about to do.
