AN: Awww, so many reviews! I am so touched!

First, to reply a few questions. MSS is an acronym for Ministry of State Security, the Chinese version of FBI. Haha, and Ray works for them, yes. I made that up in my last story, and I absolutely loved that idea. So that's one you are getting it here again. And it will be of major importance when Ray's chapter comes out.

And for all you Kai lovers, his chapter is coming up next! And I promise you, it's...shocking, to say at least. Haha.

Anyway, here is Max's story. Read, enjoy and review!

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I put off the visit of others for a while, not intentionally though. It was just too difficult to locate them. Finally I managed to hear from Mr. Dickinson, who kept contact with Max's parents, of Max's address. It seemed he now lives in California. Since I had a relative easy schedule, I was prepared in no more than a week and packed off to the state of sunshine.

When I arrived in LA, California it was one of those beautiful golden day. The sunlight was so pure and the sky so blue, and the air were filled with the pungent smell of citrus trees. Indeed, very gorgeous city. It took me a long time to locate Max's residence. The directions I got from Mr. Dickinson led me to the edge of the city, where neat blacktop streets and concrete-and-steel buildings melted into emerald meadows and shadowy trees. It is on this little driveway before the backdrop of parks and forests that I finally found Max's home. It was a most beautiful place, one of those million-dollars estates. Judging from what I can from the outside, the house was large, but not exceedingly so. I can catch also a glimpse of the backyard and beautiful fauna in there. Feeling excited to see my old friend again, I went up and pressed the doorbell.

The door opened promptly to reveal Max. He was tall, but slimmer than ever and leaning on the underfed side. His blonde hair was shorter than I remembered, but his blue eyes held the same smiling sparkle. "Chief!" He cried happily and gave me a hug, "I heard from Mr. Dickinson that you might come to visit, and boy, am I excited! I have been expecting you all week."

"It's good to see you after all those while, Max." I said with a smile.

"Don't stand at the door." Max said with eager excitement in his voice, "Come in, come in."

I followed him into the house as he closed the door behind him. The interior looked just as beautiful as the outside. The floor was of shiny oaken wood, the furniture were luxurious looking. The decoration was excellent, if slightly cold. Max gestured for me to sit on the sofa, while he went to fetch some drinks. What else other than canned, carbonated drinks? How not surprising.

"So, Chief, how is everything going for you? What kind of work do you do now?" Max asked with his signature smile.

"As well as it can get." I replied, "I am working for Erzentech in Tokyo, mainly on the development of AI."

"Wow!" Max said with amazement, "Erzentech? The most prominent technology corporation in Asia? Totally wicked! So is your work going well?"

"Fairly well," I answered, "We are nearing a breakthrough in information syntax. And Dizzi is a great help."

"I can imagine that." Max said with a laugh, "Speaking of Dizzi, where is she? I am really not used to a Chief without the talking laptop."

I laughed too, "I put her in a computer that she loves very much and absolutely refused to leave."

More laughter. And then Max asked me, "Have you visited the others?"

"Only Tyson." I replied, "He is working as a beyblade designer and engineer these days."

Max's eyes widened and he stared, "You are joking! Tyson? Engineer? Will wonder never cease?"

"Apparently not." I answered, laughing.

"So is he doing good?" Max continued to ask.

I hesitated for a few seconds. The first thing came to my mind was Yakima's wretched confession. Then Tyson's carefree and oblivious demeanour surfaced in my mind also, and Yakima's endless patience and smile. I really couldn't say, so I answered, "He is fine. It is Tyson we are talking about."

"Too true." Max said, nodding.

There was a moment of thoughtful silence as we sipped our drinks. Finally I asked, "So how are things going with you, Max? What do you do now?"

He answered, "I am well enough. I work for Triton BioCorp, doing researches and experimentations on transgenic organisms and such."

"You are a bioengineer? Amazing!" I said with astonishment. I have never imagined Max becoming a geneticist.

"It is amazing, fun and rewarding too." Max said with a giant grin, "Let me show you one of the fruits of my labours."

With that he whistled. Responding to his call a bird fluttered in. It was small, yet its tail was exceedingly long. It was of a glowing scarlet colour, streaked by gold. Its beak and talons were also gold. I stared at this bird, for it looked vaguely familiar.

"He reminds you of something?" Max laughed, "Me too, that's why I named him Dranzer."

"Dranzer!" I cried out amazed. This little bird indeed looked like a miniature version of our team captain's awesome bird of fire.

The bird turned to me and glared at me with its fierce little eyes. It snorted and blew some steaming gas out of its nostrils. With a "whoosh" sound a stream of blue fire ignited before me, nearly burning off my hair. With a dumb shriek I shrank back, not understanding what just happened.

Max laughed even harder as the bird settled on his shoulder. He pulled me up and said, "Don't worry, this little thing's flame will never get to the degree of the real Dranzer. That's as much as he can give."

"But how can this little bird spew fire?" I was still beside myself, "What did you do to it?"

"It's nothing too special." Max explained, "Some marine bird can spew hot gas or liquid out of their nostril to fend off enemies. I borrowed these genes and modified them, and then inserted these genes into those birds. This little thing can spew phosphorus solution out of its nostrils, that's why it burns."

I said dubiously, "It sounds simple enough when you put it like that. But it is very, very unnerving to see it so suddenly." Then I asked in a brighter voice, "Have you tried to make something that would look like Draciel?"

"I am working on it." Max said eagerly, "Squeezed between breeding..."

Just then a sound of someone entering the house cut him off mid-sentence. We both raised our heads to look. I saw a young woman about Max's age entering the house and walking towards us. She was somewhat tall, with a pale, oval shaped face, and sleek chestnut hair wrapped tightly in a bun. She would look very pretty if she smiled, but right now she was wearing a subtle frown that made her look stern.

"I didn't see you at church today, Max." She said in a rather quiet voice, not looking our way. When her eyes finally caught sight of me, she paused for a second and said, "I see you have guest."

Max stood up immediately and half dragged her to the couch. "I am sorry I am not at the church today," He said, there was a sudden tenderness and restrain in his voice that I have never heard before, "My old friend came to visit today. Here, this is Kenny, but we call him Chief. And Chief, this is Anne, a...good friend of mine." Max blushed a bit when he said the last sentence.

We exchanged our greetings and shook hands, before sitting down again. Max went and fetched more drinks. Over the slightly sizzling carbonated sugary drinks, I heard Anne ask, "So you are Max's friend? How did you know him?"

"I know him from a long time ago." I said, smiling, "I was on his beyblade team, as the chief engineer. Surely Max has told you about that."

Her face twitched the slightest, and she said. "So I see you were part of that...team."

I did not understand her awkwardness, but I took it only as part of making a first acquaintance, so I didn't dwell on it. She asked again, "So what kind of work do you do?"

I replied, "Oh I am a computer engineer. I work on the development of AI?"

"AI?" She asked, puzzled.

"It's an acronym for Artificial intelligence." I explained, "Are you familiar with this field?"

"Artificial intelligence?" She said, her green eyes widening with faint hints of displeasure in them, "You mean trying to make computers humane?"

"Yes, in a way of speaking." I answered, noticing her look and not capturing its relevance, "Like all that you have read in science fiction. We are nearing a breakthrough, and we estimated in a year we should be able to produce something that can strike a simple conversation."

The look on Anne's face now was sterner still. She asked me calmly, though her voice was a shade higher, "Don't you find that morally degrading?"

I almost spilt my drink on the pure white carpet at that. "What?" I asked, "I don't understand you."

I looked at Max, who was now eyeing the girl with a pleading look in his eyes. But Anne ignored that completely, and said to me, enunciating each word carefully, "I take you are not religious, are you?"

"I am an atheist, if that's what you mean." I replied, still slightly puzzled.

She murmured, very quietly, but I heard nonetheless, "Another poor soul snarled by the devil."

I stared at her, shocked, and not knowing what to say. Max had a pained look on his face. There was a tense silence. Suddenly the red bird that sat on Max's shoulder let out a shriek and shook its vast wings, stirring the air. That seems to touch a fine-tuned spring in that girl. Anne turned a disgusted look at the bird, which shrieked again indignantly and breathed out another blast of blue flame. Anne leaped up. "I don't think today is a good day for talking." She said hurriedly, "I won't disturb your reunion with your friend anymore. I will call you again some later time."

She turned and left, as fast and suddenly as she had came. I stared dumbly, like an idiot. All of this seemed just slightly on the strange side to me. Next to me, I heard Max let out a big groan. "Great." He muttered miserably, "I am definite now. Every time she sees me she hates me even more."

"Erm, I hope I didn't cause you any problem..." I apologized uncertainly.

"No, no, it has nothing to do with you." Max said hurriedly. He stared at the plush carpet on the floor for a second before burying his head in his hands, "It's me, just me. I don't know what to do anymore."

Again, I have absolute no idea what he was talking about, nor do I have any idea what to say in response. I just stared at him blankly and waited for him to go on. He did go on, after a moment.

"Chief, do you have a girlfriend?" He asked me with some urgency in his voice.

I answered brightly, trying to lighten up his mood, "Unfortunately, no. Who knows, maybe I am fated to stay a bachelor all my life."

He didn't laugh at that, and I thought that was odd. Max usually laughs at every joke, even if it was horrible. He would laugh just to be polite to the teller of the joke. There was more silence. Then he started again.

"When I first arrived in this small community I didn't know anyone, and it was dreadfully boring. Then one day Anne knocked on the door and offered me batch of cookies and the schedule for community events. She was a very nice girl, Chief." He said in slightly dazed voice, "She laughs a lot, and she was fun. She was awfully pretty too. I took her out to movies, concerts and dinners. I thought it was going to work."

I ventured a question, "So what went wrong?"

Max shook his head and laughed mirthlessly, "She was a devout Christian, a fundamentalist. There were just way too many things we would never agree on. She was appalled when she heard I am an atheist, and a geneticist to boot. I am 'ensnared by Satan' to 'work against God', 'meddling in His creations'." The bitterness in his voice has reached a saturation point in the last sentence.

"I am sure you can settle your differences." I said, rather weakly. I am not good at counselling, that's for sure. "It's really not necessary for you to share the same beliefs."

Again Max shook his head and said, "I thought so too at the beginning. But you don't know Anne. Her stubbornness is more than Tyson's. She lived in a Christian family and community. And she is determined to show me 'the path to God'. Oh, and did I tell you that everyone who lives within a three mile radius from this house is a devout fundamentalist?" He laughed wryly and shook his head once again.

I stared at him silently, frozen. I have never seen Max so crestfallen before. For the hours that I remained, he did not cheer up either. It made me afraid in someway, to see a person so optimistic like Max to struggle with such a problem. I was depressed as well, to see my friend thus. Even when I was on my way back to downtown LA, I couldn't find the heart to cheer up. Both Tyson and Max looked happy enough on the first glance, but I would find out not too much later that they are not without their problems. That made me question, am I really as happy as I seem and want to believe?

I don't know. I wish I could say yes, but one can never know.