PART TWENTY : " Parley "

Logan felt consciousness return, fuzzy light slowly replacing darkness, solidifying into a room. He became aware that a man fitting Max's description of Legion stood in the corner, observing him intently.

"Mr. Cale. I'm very pleased to meet you. I do apologize for the trouble my associates have caused you. Hopefully they haven't caused you too much duress."

Logan smiled grimly, noticing that his arms and legs were strapped securely to what seemed to be a fairly sturdy chair.

"Not at all. I was just thinking the other day about getting one of these for friends and family. Think they'd appreciate the gesture?"

Legion leaned back and laughed. "Splendid! Even faced with the unknown, the imperturbable Logan Cale releases his reserve of wit and wile. Admirable." He grinned.

Nutcase. Logan's first thought permeated his brain. Or Wack-Job, as Max would say. But better to amuse him for now than to perturb him. "Indeed. I'll take it. Now if you'll loosen the shackles, I'll write a check for it. You do deliver, yes?"

"My apologies, I'm afraid you'll have to sample the merchandise a bit longer. Interestingly enough, the Conclave has discovered the secret behind the miraculous recovery from your original spine-damaging injury. Transfusions from at least two different transgenic sources. No surprise to me of course, there are very few and limited ways you could have reversed the effects of that particular injury. You have been a busy bee... of course they wanted to kill you outright. Pollution of the natural selection and all that. Fortunately for you, I talked them out of it."

Logan nodded. "Much obliged. But what do you want me for? It's not like I can do anything to the Conclave..."

"On the contrary. You've done a great deal of damage to the Conclave in the past, Logan. May I call you Logan? Or perhaps Eyes Only?"

Logan looked at Legion blankly, as he had practiced in depth for just such occasions. "Logan is fine. I only associate with Eyes Only."

Legion chuckled. "Oh, you're much too modest. You were running this Eyes Only scam from your apartment for some time before meeting our little transgenic, then when the Conclave finally traced your signal and destroyed your home you started again from Terminal City. Oh, don't worry, they haven't tracked you down again. Here only I know your 'secret identity.'"

He leaned over to Logan and whispered, "It'll be our little secret." He straightened back up. "Well, perhaps not just ours, Mister White suspects as well it seems. It appears he was the individual who traced your signal originally. Not too bright for such a brilliant man, running a secret identity from the same location you live in? Even if it wasn't registered in your name, one can't help but leave fingerprints and DNA traces. Well, no matter. We all have our little quirks, eh?"

Logan looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Well if you don't want me because of Eyes Only and you're not going to let them kill me; why am I here?"

Legion smiled mysteriously. "I must admit to enjoying our little chat, but I really have a schedule to keep." He walked over to a door and opened it.

He called out "Is it Max? Am I being used as leverage so she'll get rid of the remains of Manticore?"

Legion paused and glanced back at him. "What an extraordinary fellow..." he commented to himself, closing the door behind him.

* * * * *

"Why did they have to take Logan? I mean, if they'd taken Lydecker we'd have all year to plan his rescue, if he didn't talk them to death first with his soldier spiel..."

Joshua watched Max as she paced back and forth, working herself into a dither. After leaving the conference room, they had gone to the control room and checked to see if any word on Logan had turned up. Then they'd gone to her bike and they calibrated it. Three times. Listening to her rant, he wondered if she'd start tearing things apart.

"Max..."

"Maybe I should just take out Sci Tech and be done with it. But then would I be shooting my own foot, and what if they killed him anyway?" She kicked a bottle and sent it whistling through the air and over the fence. Joshua watched as the bottle sped out of sight.

"Uh... Max..."

"Not to mention that Logan knows how to take care of himself, why the fire-truck didn't he take them out with those guns he always has hidden, god knows he's always trying to pawn them off on me... ooph..."

She walked right into Joshua.

"What? Oh... sorry big fella. What did you want to say?" Max sat down.

He sat down next to her. "You shouldn't go alone."

Max gathered herself to argue, but Joshua cut her off. "Father meant for you to lead. Not to be alone. Even dreams I have lately are Father telling me... saying you were made to make Conclave go down. But not alone. You go alone, you don't come back. Simple as that."

She didn't smile. "I'm trying to lead them, Joshua. That's what this whole year has been about."

"No. You're in charge, yes. But not leading, still hiding. Because of people. Because of Conclave. Even with troops, we send in two parts. Them and you. We can't fight like that, they need you to lead them against the Conclave."

Max looked exasperated. "We are going up against the Conclave..."

Joshua stood again. "No! For you this is about Logan. But there's more to see... the... uh..." he struggled to remember the expression.

"...the big picture?" she filled in.

Joshua looked thankful at her. "Yes! The big picture. Father was part of Conclave, but he knew it was wrong and left. He made you to come into the big picture. Conclave going down. But not because of just you. Because you're in charge. Father meant you to lead us."

He took a step back, and looked down. "Lead us into the light, Max. Don't go into it alone."

Max was starting to get a headache. Four people pouring their heart to her in one day was a bit much, even for her. But it seemed they all had a message to deliver.

She nodded and stood. 'You're right. It's been about Logan, for me. Maybe I need to get my head on straight… I don't know. I'm playing this all by instinct."

Joshua shook his head. "Some instinct good. But training good too." He pointed back at the barracks. "That's all they have."

"I know." she sighed. "But sometimes..."

A voice from behind them interrupted. "...sometimes you have to stop running and do what's right."

Max's head snapped in the direction of the voice, and Joshua turned to see Sam, Max's genetic twin from California. Max and Joshua looked at each other then back at the girl before them.

An amused expression crossed Sam's face. "Don't everyone say hi at once... I hear you've got a scenario going on."

Max shrugged. "Alec is working on it. What are you doing here?"

"Long story, but we're here now. My family's settling in at the barracks. I was heading to sit in on the briefing, but heard you two bickering like hens." She chuckled.

"We were having a private conversation." Max bluntly told her. "But incidentally, that was pretty close to what I was going to say. Sometimes you do have to stop hiding and fight back. That's not hard. Doing what's right, that's sometimes harder to figure out." She sized Sam up. "Alec could probably use your help, his experience is mostly with single unit missions, not team efforts. If you're planning to stay for a while, that is."

Sam snapped to attention and saluted. "X5-453, ready for duty." Then an amused smirk crossed her face. "For now..."

Max gave her directions to where the briefing was taking place, and Sam wandered off. She looked at Joshua with a bewildered look. "She's sure changed her attitude..."

Now it was Joshua's turn to shrug. "Father used to say time changes people in one of only two ways, for the better or for the worse."

"Yeah, well, sometimes Father sounds like a stuffy SOB. Ok, big fella. Let's go lead this group into battle."

Joshua grinned at her and followed.