Disclaimer: The usual. Own nothing, no money from this, Fox et al.
Author note: I know, it's been a while. I have seriously neglected this fic, and for good reason. No one is reading it. But, I don't like to see things unfinished, so I crudely slapped this together.
Story note: More was supposed to happen, but I got side-tracked again, so this chapter just sets up a few things (gasp, not a plot), no not a plot. Forgive the last section, it is kind of, well crappy.
Special thanks: No one, I have no beta reader anymore, and you will notice that with a vengeance (that's right, you can notice it with a vengeance), this chapter, since I haven't really gone over it much, and I didn't invest a lot of time and effort. So basically, I apologise, this chapter is a load of shaz.
Inundated
Logan awoke to the familiar experience that was the feel and smell of his own bed. He didn't want to open his eyes and discover himself alone in his penthouse with nothing to show for the past few days except one magnificent dream. However, a constant droning finally caught his attention. Traffic. He didn't get traffic noise in his high-rise and fully soundproofed apartment, which meant… no, it couldn't be. He kept his eyes closed, since he knew that when they opened he would find his mind had been playing tricks on him, and he would not be where he wanted to be. He shifted his arm a little to get comfy, and heard and felt a scuffling.
'Spider!'
Logan jumped up and started searching for the offensive creature, only to discover a primitive post-it note – comprising of half a sheet of A4 paper and some sticky tape –had been attached to his arm.
I tried to wake you to say bye, but you told me to go away. Someone's not a morning person, and it's not me.
I would offer you free range over the kitchen, but there isn't anything in it.
Go home, have some breakfast and remember we're going shopping.
You're buying lunch.
Page me,
Max
So his senses did not deceive him he realised, as a small whoop of joy escaped his lips. Folding the note as if it were original biblical text, he placed it with the greatest care in his pants pocket, and then put his pants on. Which in itself was an action to cause much merriment.
It turned out that everything he remembered had happened, and now he was getting out of his bed – which was now Max's – in her bedroom, in her apartment. He walked around for a bit, not snooping, just perusing.
'Needs a lick of paint,' he thought, as he noticed the bare walls and crudely scrubbed out graffiti. A few minutes later, his stomach rumbled, so he checked his watch to see where about in the day he was.
'Eleven! You have got to be joking.' Without much further ado, he rushed out of the apartment and to his car and home.
He got back to his apartment around 11:20am, and went to the fridge to grab some food, since he noticed he had run out cereal when a kernel crunched under foot a few strides in from his half-a-door. Sitting in front of his computer, snacking on some reheats, he had the phone in hand with the honourable intention of calling Max, and arranging a time and place for them to meet, until he nudged the mouse, and on instinct set the computer in motion.
If he hadn't been aware of his own existence, he would have sworn the world exploded. There were that many messages of desperation, he didn't know where to begin or if he would be able to manage it all in… 10 minutes. Probably not, was his conclusion. He picked up the phone again, when another message appeared on his screen, capturing his attention. This alert was urgent; this needed immediate attention about two days ago. He got down to some serious Eyes Only hacking, the phone moving to his lap, where it lay forgotten.
"Damn sugah, relax, you gonna blow a fuse or somethin'," Original Cindy commented as Max stormed around Jam Pony muttering something in a bitter twisted rage.
"Men… finally get together… forgets everything… gonna kill him…" Cindy caught the drift of what was going on between the growls and hisses that were coming from behind Max's clenched teeth.
"What's he forgotten boo?" she asked knowingly, her mind once again set against the opposite sex. Max's head snapped up from her furious storming.
"What? Who? I don't know what you're talking about," Max replied, but there was no way she could make her voice sound as cool, casual and flippant as she would have liked.
"Your boy," she replied, sounding rather tired with the 'we're not like that' attitude.
"He was supposed to call me. We were going to go looking for a new bed for him," Max replied absently and quite quickly.
"And he hasn't paged you? Damn, stupid male," Cindy replied, somewhat surprised. Max just replied with a quick 'Tell me about it' look, which Cindy quickly reconsidered to be more of an 'I'm going to kill him' look.
"I hate to tell you this sugah, but he's out of the chair now, and boys cheat. He's probably just out being a doggy-dog," Cindy informed as she pulled a paper bag from her locker and headed over to the small eating area.
"No way, not Logan," Max said defiantly.
"He's male, it's what they do-"
"No Cindy, you're wrong about him, he's different," Max said, glaring at Original Cindy threateningly. Of course, the doubt had just been raised, and thoughts of Logan making up for lost time or something ridiculous like that kept flashing through her mind. Cindy noticed the anguish on Max's face and decided to change to topic from despicable cheating men.
"Fine, he ain't like that. Maybe he's being held hostage or something. You got lunch?" she jested lightly, wanting to get stuck into her food. Max looked at her blankly for a few seconds as the realisation sank in; she didn't have lunch and that was all Logan's fault. Her fury built greater when she realised she was going to go hungry, and then a thought suddenly occurred to her.
"What do you mean, 'held hostage'?" Max asked quickly.
"Nothing, just the man seems to lead a very mysterious lifestyle. I was only joking, boo," Cindy said, as she finally found a seat and began to hand some of her food to Max.
"Thanks," Max said quietly, her mind on a different path to the food exchanging hands.
She had taken her first bite when the thoughts careening through her head became too much. She walked promptly over to the phone and dialled his all too familiar number.
"What?" Came the sudden, harried and quite short reply when Logan answered his phone. Max held the phone away from her ear and looked at the speaker piece in total disbelief. He had forgotten all about her, and he was being a total ass.
Logan was about to abuse the person on the phone for wasting his time when the line was cut.
For the past hour, ever since he had turned his phone service back on, he had been inundated with calls, and most of them were complete wastes of time. There had been someone trying to get him to change phone companies for about two whole minutes before he could get a word in. His word, not being very politely spoken, but to the point was somewhere along the lines of, 'I don't use any phone companies, my phone is free, so I don't think your plan would be better for me,' followed quickly by an angry stab at the hang-up button. Then someone else followed that call, with an urgent job for Eyes Only, which turned out to be a Laundromat that was purposefully using broken machines, so as to get the money but not actually provide a service. And then that call was followed by someone who just sat on the line, not saying a word.
His instinct quickly got the better of him, so he did a quick search of the previous call to determine its origin. It could always be something important, or someone bad who happened to know his number.
The address flashed on his screen a few seconds later, and he was positive it was the original source of the call. But why did that address seem so familiar?
'Oh, dear,' he thought, as the blood drained from his face.
Fumbling frantically he called the number back immediately, the only notion going through his mind was exactly how dead a person could be.
After slamming the phone down, and being yelled at by Normal about damage to company property, Max stared at the phone in disillusioned fury as she stewed on the immense rage building inside of her. Just as she had turned and was stalking her way back to Original Cindy, the phone rang. Without realising it she was back at the phone, the earpiece crammed uncomfortably close to her ear. The fact that Logan could have this effect on her made her even angrier.
"You have no idea how good you better make this," Max said coldly, knowing instantly from the silence that it was Logan.
"Look, Max, I was about t-"
"About to what, Logan? Call me? Well, news flash, it's already too late. So here I am stuck at work, starving, having to skimp food from the mouth of my friend."
Logan swallowed hard, and realised that his temperature had already gone up a few degrees causing sweat to pop up on his forehead and the palms of his hands.
"Max, there isn't anything I can say except sorry. I got back from your place at about eleven-thirty and the informant net exploded at me. And you know old useless me, I get quite distracted," Logan said, his voice bitter and disappointed with himself.
"You're such an ass Logan. Is this what being your girlfriend is going to be about? Being forgotten all the time because of your precious work?" Max asked scathingly. Logan winced, he deserved that, but it really wasn't a nice thing to think about, especially so early in their relationship.
Max for her part hoped she hadn't overstepped the line with her last few comments. Sure she was pissed at him, but she didn't want to start suggesting they see less of each other all of a sudden. After all, his Eyes Only work had been on hold for nearly a week and mostly for her, and she new it was already built up.
"No, Max. I'm really sorry. I-I don't know what to do," he said, his voice getting sadder by the second.
"Just don't be such an ass, and you better not be cheating on me because I will kill you," Max said, still riled with anger but a little less acidly than her previous statements. She hung up the phone before Logan could stammer his response, and walked back over to her lunch.
"So, I take it your boyfriend ain't bein' held hostage," Cindy said with a smile on her face and a laugh in her voice. Max looked at her pointedly for the emphasis, and cocked an eyebrow.
"What? You yelling loud enough at that boy, everyone could hear you," Cindy said, her sides beginning to shake slightly. Sure enough, when Max scanned the room she noticed many eyes flick away from her and a few that just kept staring.
"Well, I hate to miss lunch," Max retorted irritably, digging into her share of Cindy's food.
Logan stared blankly at his computer screen for several minutes, his mind reeling with the conversation he just had.
'Okay, just give her some time,' he thought, biting into his fingernail nervously. He just hoped that 'some time' wasn't going to be fifty years or more. His final conclusion was to shift back to the Eyes Only stuff, and get it out of the way. There was nothing he could say to Max at the moment to get on her good side. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't even be able to talk with Max if he wanted to. The mood of frustration from earlier had faded, and he returned to the struggles of the Informant Net, sad, depressed and deeply disappointed with himself.
After Max's anger had subsided, which took about two runs; she was feeling a lot more concerned with her actions then when she was yelling at Logan.
'Why was I so angry with him? He forgot lunch, so what? He had tons of work to do I already knew that. Maybe I shouldn't be so greedy, I mean, I have been hogging him for that past couple of days, maybe he just wanted a break from me? Why did I have to push him away so far so quickly? I hope he'll take me back, or forgive me, or forget about the whole thing. Just page me, Logan.' These were the thoughts that tailed Max around for the rest of the day, until work had finished. He hadn't paged, he didn't want her back, and he had obviously cut his losses.
Cindy was leaving when she noticed Max sitting in front of her locker looking at her pager, willing it to shrill.
"What's up boo?" she asked quietly, taking a seat next to Max.
"I think I've already destroyed me and Logan. I didn't need to yell at him so much, he had tons of work, and I kept him from it for ages. He hasn't paged, he doesn't want to speak to me again," Max said sadly, continuing to gaze at her pager.
"Look sugah, Original Cindy goin' break it down a little for ya. Logan screwed up, cause he got all caught up in what ever it is he does to live in that trick apartment of his. And now, 'cause you gave him the yellin' he deserved, you feelin' guilty that he hasn't called you all day. His either stubborn, like all the mens are, or he is scared that you are thinkin' what you think his thinkin'," Cindy explained, dazzling herself a little towards the end of her statement. Max looked at her uncertainly.
"You think? I mean, he doesn't hate me or anything?" Max asked unsurely.
"You got to be jokin'? That man head over heals in love with you girl, there's no way he hates you after something stupid he did," Cindy replied incredulously, sure they were together now, but they still seemed oblivious to their feelings for each other. Max smiled weakly and flushed slightly.
'Loves me? I don't know about that one,' she considered hopefully, wanting to doubt her own negativity.
"What's say we blow this joint and hit Crash," Max said, with a smile on her face, getting up and grabbing her jacket.
"Now you're talking. Let that male stew on what he's done," Original Cindy replied with a laugh.
"After all, I still missed out on lunch," Max said positively, as they headed out the door.
Logan sat quietly by his computer, it was nearly three in the morning and he had just shifted through all his work, none of it being very serious. He sat there tapping the same key repeatedly, staring into space and wishing Max would stop by to yell at him some more. Sure being yelled at wasn't nice, but her stoping by would mean she had forgiven him enough to be there at least, and since that hadn't happened, he just remained stuck in his computer chair hitting the same key again and again staring at the wall.
After sitting in his chair for a while, he got up and shuffled around his apartment a little. First order of business was to clean up all the cereal that lay everywhere. Fetching a broom, this task was fairly smartly wrapped up, so he then moved to the kitchen to have a go at all the leftover mess from Max's wonderful stay.
'Cheating on her? That had to have been a joke, there is no way… no, it was a joke, Max wouldn't believe that,' Logan thought, as he scrubbed at some cheese stuck to the counter-top.
"Stubborn cheese," he muttered, as he got out a fork and began chiselling it off.
A soft beeping noise started coming from the computer, stopping him mid-chisel. He walked over to it and sat down, ready to investigate and most probably file in the 'junk' section. However, the message detailed a meet between a serious underworld figure and the mayor, which was going down in about 20 minutes. Logan sat there, furiously tapping his foot, this was the kind of thing he needed Max to do. Then he realised that he was in fact tapping his foot furiously, this was the kind of thing he could do again, and not put her life at risk.
Grabbing his gun, some delicate electronic recording equipment and his jacket he quickly left the building.
A shadow on his roof undulated slightly.
Logan parked his car and began walking to where the meet was being held. He checked his gun one last time before placing it in his pocket, and then checked all the equipment he had brought with him to record the exchange.
Approaching the building, he noticed sentries doing sweeps of the area, walking around the warehouse in pairs with flashlights shinning. He stopped to observe their patterns, and ascertain if he would have a chance of sneaking through unobserved. They were fairly efficient however; so there was no gap of time long enough to approach the building. Cursing his bad luck and their good planning he sat back in the small shadowed doorway he occupied to consider his options, when he noticed that the pair due around at this moment weren't there. Pausing for a few seconds to determine if they were on their way, he heard no footsteps and so decided they weren't. Quickly and as quietly as he could, he ran to the edge of the building, crouching low the whole time.
He had been fortunate enough to dump the blueprints of the dilapidated warehouse when it was once a major carpet store. Hopefully nothing had changed in twenty years. Popping his head around a corner, he saw the stairs he was aiming for, and a guard at the bottom.
"Damn," he cursed softly, pulling his head back around the corner and resting it against the wall. There was no other way into the building apart from those stairs and the front door, which happened to be where the meeting was being held, so that was a no-no.
In one last fruitless hope, he peeked around the corner again, and found that the guard was no longer there. Taking his chance he scurried to the door, opened it, and began the painfully noisy ascent up the steel stairs. Cringing with each echoing step, he finally made it to the top and the suspended walkway that ran the length of the warehouse.
He glanced down the other end, and noticed the meeting had just started, but that wasn't what had him worried. He faced another great length of steel walkway, and seeing as it was suspended, his heavy footfalls would resound terrifically throughout the warehouse. In a state of distress he almost over looked the fact that there was carpet laid out along the walkway in chunks big enough for him to easily step between.
'Hmph, lucky tonight,' he thought as he quickly came to the end of the walkway, where a pile of carpets were heaped giving him perfect view of below, but also an excellent hiding spot.
Seconds later his devices were set up and all he had to do was sit back and let them record the audio and video of the nasty doings the two most powerful people in the city were planing. He smiled with the information, knowing that he could easily shut these two down, well at least shutdown the Mayor, and he was the one that seemed to be in control.
The conversation had just wound to a close and Logan was delicately packing away all his equipment when two bodyguards came sprinting into the meet, guns drawn.
"There's someone here," one of them shouted to the Mayor.
Not waiting around for a second, Logan began the painfully slow task of making his way back stealthily along the carpeted catwalk. As he turned to see what was going on below, he lost sight of his feet in front of him, which collided with a container, knocking it over and creating one hell of a racket.
Before the curse could cross his lips he heard the distinctive sound of metal hitting metal at high speed off to his left, very closely followed by the actual sound of the bullet exploding from the gun far below. He ran as fast as his newly reinstated legs could carry him toward the safety of the stairwell. Had he have looked back, he may have noticed a shadow fall like a drop of ink from the rafters, cracking the concrete floor on landing, and unleashing an incredible fury on the gun wielders.
Logan ran down the stairs, silence no longer as important as speed, each step resounding throughout the calm morning air. He burst through the door, the cool crisp air stinging his lungs as he pounded along his entry path in the opposite direction. For a second he wondered what had happened to all the guards, and why his exit was so much more painless than his patrol littered ingress.
Sitting in front of his computer, Logan quickly got to work on the Eye's Only hack. Surprisingly, it only took him around half an hour to create the entire suite of hacks, leaving him charged with adrenaline and nothing to do at four in the morning. He realised he should go to bed, but it didn't feel right, as he was hardly in the mood, and more importantly he was missing Max.
He had a shower, and crawled into the guest bed anyway, favouring Max's side in an attempt to feel her warmth, or at least smell her hair on the pillow. Neither happened, so he lay there restlessly, shifting around and staring at the ceiling, sinking further into his lonely sadness.
After several long minutes had passed in wide-eyed thought staring at the ceiling, he got out of bed, threw a robe on, and walked down his hall to a small utility cupboard. Shifting some junk on the floor out of the way, he lifted a secret piece of panelling that revealed an old, solid safe. Several twists of the combination lock later he swung the door open and grabbed a shoebox from inside, then closed the safe again, and replaced the secret floorboard.
Back in his living room he opened the box and took an old tape out, placed it in the machine then sat back on the couch, still cradling the shoebox. He fingered the remote and the screen came alive, the old tape playing was scratchy and distorted for several seconds while the machine adjusted itself. Logan used this time to file through some contents of the box, a sad reminiscent smile on his face.
The room was filled with children's laughter, and Logan looked up at the screen and saw a freshly minted eight-year-old version of himself sitting behind a cake with a paper hat on his head and a toothless smile.
The camera swerved around drunkenly, an indicator that his father was filming, until it stopped and zoomed in on a stunning woman, with a slight glow about her, his mother, this being another indicator his father was filming. The glow of his mother and the joviality of the camera motions were due to one fact, and that was the bulge a five-month-old new baby brother or sister created taking up residence in her womb.
Logan's smile increased with his sadness. His parents were so happy together, and they had reason to be, since they had it all. Each other, a roof over their heads, and a growing family. This was all Logan ever wanted from life, and he had always thought he would have it.
"Just remember Logie, anything you want in life, you can have," his mother had told him, and at the time, his response was a remote control car and a knowing laugh from one of the most significant women in his life. He had always believed it too, that was until his entire family were torn callously away from him many years later. All he wanted was them back, or for it to be a horrible nightmare and he would wake up to the familiar sounds of his younger sister pummelling on his door screaming for him to get out of bed.
It was that point in his life where he took the turn towards a fast life, since nothing mattered anymore, but mainly because he felt so desperately and hopelessly alone. No one wanted him, and no one needed him. The only reason he had hung around on this planet was because of fast cars and fast women, which were enough to crudely band-aid the pain if he kept it chaotic enough.
As the years dragged by, he became bitter and sour with the world that had done nothing for him but deprive him of everything he loved, and everyone that loved him.
So, as he sat there tearing his emotional insides to shreds with the images flashing in front of his eyes, and that brave but utterly heartbreaking smile on his face, all he wanted to do was let it out. But he couldn't. He'd never cried, it wasn't something he felt necessary, since he felt the pain, and all crying did was create anguish for others.
Sometimes he found the deep chill of gloom that occasionally crossed him as refreshing, like he was cleaning out the old wounds of his battered soul. He wasn't really sure, but he knew that at times like these he was more than content to wallow in the depression his world had created for him.
He lay down on the couch, box of photos clutched close to his chest as his head lay on the armrest, allowing him an uninterrupted view of the television. The pain and sorrow etched deeper into his features as the tape jumped forward to his sisters first birthday, and the love and warmth that was now merely electrical signals radiated the air.
Outside, a shadow's heart broke, as a single glistening silver bead slowly descended with the pull of gravity.
