Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I know it has been awhile... a long while, sorry...since my last update, but after spring break the activities (and the homework, blah) have just been piling in. So instead of mi proyecto de espanol, what do I work on? Fanfiction! (And there was much rejoicing....yay.) ; )
CHAPTER 3
Naturally, after the little motel incident, the rest of the trip was pretty much smooth sailing.
In shotgun, Logan kept Ray entranced with stories of pre-Pulse television, while Max found herself captivated by the white blips that peppered the now deserted interstate. Unfortunately there were only so many times one could whip her head back and forth before spotting the dotted lines swept even transgenic senses into a lovely whirl of nausea. But Max, being the stubborn feline she was, was absolutely determined to push the limit. Instead of letting the dotted lines swallow into a solid blur, she was unwavering in her quest to spot each and every individual paint slash. Any distraction, even a nauseous one, was welcome to keep her eyes from wandering to her seatmate.
"I swear to God," Alec mumbled. "If you whip your head back one more time, I am going to throw up for you."
Of their own volition, Max found her eyes sweeping towards Alec. His head was tilted back against the seat, and he almost looked peaceful enough to be asleep, like she had found him earlier this morning. Only in his sleep he hadn't looked so remote and cold, like some sort of exotic god only to be hailed, never approached. In slumber, he had looked lifetimes younger. His jaw relaxed; his forehead smoothed down, no longer filled by wrinkles of worry.
"Oh, so you can speak." So of course, the sarcastic comment was pummeled by his stony silence. Trying another tactic, she asked, "So, what happens when we get back to Seattle?"
"Terminal City."
"Seattle."
"Terminal City."
"Whatever."
Suddenly, Alec dropped the facade of semi-sleeping serenity. Snapping upright, he turned to her, one leg hiked up on the seat, closing the ever widening gap between them. "No Max, not whatever," he growled. Very succinctly, he continued, "Terminal. City."
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is in Seattle, you could find one of a million places to shut yourself up and wallow in your self-pity. In Terminal City, there are only a few hundred. You'd be a lot easier to baby-sit and less likely to be able to run off. Again."
"Baby-sit?" Max asked, feeling her irritation flare. "Baby-sit?"
"Yes, Max. Baby-sit." He was treating her like a two-year old. Not just by words, but tone also.
Her ire arched sky high. Tired of being compliant to his unspoken clout, she felt herself begin to release a tirade. "How dare you...?"
But Alec had already whirled around. Facing front, he tapped Logan lightly on the shoulder. "Pull over, buddy." Logan seemed ready to protest - with due cause, seeing as they had just taken a bathroom break thirty minutes ago, and it wasn't like there were even the remotest signs of civilization in sight - but off of Alec's stern glower, he fell into subservience.
Alec didn't even wait for the car to come to a full and complete stop. When the car slowed enough for his liking, he hopped out. Walking calmly around the car, he swung open Max's door and casually but firmly gripped her bicep. "Let's go for a little walk, Max." There it was: that imperious, condescending tone again. The only thing that kept Max from clocking him upside the head was the fact that there was a very impressionable six-year old quietly watching them from the front seat. It was time for her to do the right thing, be the bigger man, sort of.
So she waited until she was absolutely convinced they were fully enclosed by the nearby forest to make a pass for his back of his skull. Which was sure enough intercepted by Alec's stronger grip. So now he had both her hands pinned, just great. So much for not making a total fool out of herself. She glared at him, as if daring him to humiliate her even more, for some reason her appetite for degradation had yet to be satisfied. Alec, on the other hand, seemed calm and contemplative; as if searching for the right words to say whatever he had to disclose.
He suddenly released her and Max stumbled back a bit. He turned and walked a small ways away, coiling his fingers through the masses of brown locks. "Things aren't the same anymore," he began quietly. Though he was turned away, Max couldn't help but feel as if he was suppressing an injured air. The atmosphere around him was both arousing and disturbing. Even birds had paused their crooning, as if breathlessly clawing onto his next words. Something intangible about the setting sucked the wind out of Max's sails and the hushed electric hum cooled her resentment.
"I know, Alec."
Alec scoffed, cynical and hollow. The sound wafted passed Max, moving her with something akin to shame and pity. He looked over his shoulder, dully smirking at her ignorance. "No Max, you don't know." He spun around and meandered back towards her. He halted within a few feet of her, gauging her reaction. "After you first left, everyone hated you. Joshua hated you. I hated you. You were the one who told all of us to stick around and you turned out to be the first one to skip town. You, the high and mighty 452, the savior of transgenics, ran off. You said so yourself Max, 'It figures you'd forget the one good thing Manticore taught us: never abandon your unit!' " Alec had started quiet enough, but as he neared the end he finished off all but shouting. He hunched over a few seconds and forced his uneven breathing to slow, gulping down his ache.
Max said nothing. She stared at the crown of his head and wondered at the bitter monstrosity she'd created. But even that was probably giving her too much credit. The sun didn't rise and set on her. But something informed her that she could take credit for this. Part of the Alec she'd known had been destroyed. Max could feel it in him. It was like she'd taken a sledge hammer to the fundamental nature of Alec. She'd broken part of him, and she had absolutely no idea how to fix him back together.
Straightening, Alec came even closer to Max, until he was within inches of her. The sunlight's fingers stretched for his back, leaving her in his shadow. "But the more we realized you weren't coming back, the less we began to care. We don't care about you. When I spread the word that I'd be gone a couple of weeks to bring your sorry butt back, they just shrugged their shoulders." Max could feel him drifting away. It was as if the longer he talked, the more the wall was built between them. Each word was a brick, sealing him off. It started at their feet, working gradually up until it covered his eyes and she couldn't scale over. A steadfast, safe blockade. "Don't get any romantic notions, Max. Don't slink back into Terminal City and hope to find a couple hundred freaks that hate you. You're not even worth that."
"Then why did you come back for me?" she asked softly.
Alec frowned in disappointment, as if she had just missed some essential truth. He covered it quickly with a blank facade, almost before Max could wonder at the bleak glower. "Exposure," he lied.
"We're already exposed. We came out of that closet a long time ago."
"I mean, no one else knew you were gone. We kept under wraps. How could we build up good public relations when our front man was off gallivanting across the East Coast?"
*****
And of course Alec was right. They hadn't cared. And it was more acutely painful than any scenario she'd conjured up. At least with good old, home grown loathing there was a definite place to stand. Inside the gates of Terminal City, oppressed by the roving and restless crowds and dense Seattle fog, she had no ground to stand on. She didn't exist. On first spotting, the Manticorians looked at her with blank curiosity, and then they shrugged their shoulders to one another before going on about their business. Being on the backburner would have been a blessing; she had been thrown off the stove. Home sweet home.
And it - in a word - sucked.
For several weeks Max moved at a painstakingly slow pace in reintegrating herself into the freaks society. She avoided the Command Center like Trent Lott would avoid East St. Louis or Harlem. With the exception of Ray - who was given daily doses of Max's blood to avoid melting into a puddle of genetic pulp - she could go without speaking to a living soul for days at a time. It was a bleak existence for Max, but at least it was an honest one. She had committed her crime in Terminal City and she was more than prepared to serve her time here. And serve she did. From garbage disposal to sewer runs to laundry to bed pans, Max became a jack - or a jill, however one preferred to look at it - of all trades.
But every cloud had that cliched silver lining, and Ray was hers. His sweet little smile and easy-going friendship - not to mention his ornery curiosity - had won over every resident in the freaks' haven almost instantly, despite his pedigree. Pregnant X5's doted on him while the X8's adopted him as their mascot. Seeing his blond head scamper through the dumps with his newfound friends on their quest for treasures made Max's heart soar.
But with everyone else, even Logan, she became a soundless shadow, alleviating loads with a passive grace. But Ray, her tiny champion, always brought out her former fire and love for life. When her self-assigned tasks were finished and no one else seemed to need her help, she and Ray would tramp through alleys, pretending to be on Bourbon Street, and suddenly their meager rations transformed into crawfish poboys and sugary beignets. They spent their nights huddled against each other fabricating fantastic stories in the darkness.
Life had slipped into a somewhat lethargic, but companionable survival. Apart from her charge, life held no real joys, but no real sorrows either. She decided in the end that being ignored was probably better than being hated. For the most part, Max was okay.
*****
Max let the crate slip from her hands with a liberated sigh, uncaring about the angry "thump!" it made when colliding with the ground. "Hey!" came the annoyed yell, soon followed by a six foot, some odd inched lizard-man and his usual entourage - a cloud of cigar smoke. If you give a transgen a box of Cuban cigars, he'll ask for a light. But if you drop his box of Cubans, he'll load his shotgun - which was still hanging at his side, ready to spring into action. The transgen gently probed at the box with sensitive, scaly fingers; like a mother would hover over a dropped infant. "You could have done some serious damage there Max!" From his squat on the dank and grimy pavement, he pinned her with an ominous glare. "And then I'd have to do some serious damage," he finished curtly.
"Don't worry about it Mole. If those cigars could survive the turbulent sea-sickness on the boat trip from Cuba, plus the mishandling they had to cope with on the ride to Seattle, not too mention the hell the black market put them through, I highly doubt that dropping it a couple of measly inches will put too many new dents in your babies."
Mole gazed up at her with shock, chomping heavily on his cigar. After a few moments he said, "So the ice queen does indeed speak. With the exception of Ray, not too many of us have been graced with more than five words from your queenly maw. That had to be like..." he pretended to tick off the words on his rough fingertips. "...fifty. My, the gods are smiling on me now aren't they?"
Max beamed at him, another rarity for her. And for some reason - sarcasm aside - Mole really did feel blessed. She shrugged in her old devil-may-care manner. "Well, I had to rejoin the three-ring circus social elite sometime, didn't I?"
Having already decided the cigars weren't maimed in their mistreatment, Mole rose to his feet. With something that could almost be misconstrued as a smile, he thumped her on the shoulder playfully. "Good to have you back, Max," he said with the tiniest hint of sincere enthusiasm. He quickly fell back into his normal menacing pose, propped up against the slime-slick walls of the compound, thick arms heavily crossed over his chest. "Don't get me wrong. I don't like ya. But having you with some bite is much better than having you playing 'tame'."
"So...you don't hate me?" Max asked, suddenly needing his approval - not that she'd ever admit it to him.
"Heck no," Mole said. "You won me fifty bucks. Why should I hate you?"
Max's brow puckered in confusion, trying to make the connection between her recent excursion and his fifty bucks. It was a lost cause. "So, how exactly did I win you fifty bucks?"
"I bet Dix that you'd run." He continued to himself, pensively sucking his cigar. "Well, actually Dix owes me a hundred now, seeing as I said I'd be the first you'd really talk to. I could buy myself a whole 'nother case of merchandise."
Max took the blow to her dented - but fully intact - pride with her usual grace: none. An angry flush swam up her chest and across her cheeks. "You what?!?"
"I bet Dix that you'd run," he repeated even more matter-of-factly than the last time. "You're a Niner. It's what you do: heavy commitment results in running. You know, despite popular opinion, I'm not a complete idiot. I took those little psych classes. You had a Type-A case of commitment-phobia." He glanced in her direction. His eyes were not imperious by any means, just practical. He shrugged again and puffed thoughtfully. "I just knew it would happen, nothing personal."
Astonishingly, Max actually chuckled. "So I guess this makes you my new shrink, huh? That's good, seeing how my self-prognosis was a little less objective than it should be." She paused, suddenly pensive. "So why exactly did Dix bet against you? He could've spotted the same characteristic a million miles away."
Now Mole did smile, not an unpleasant change from his ever-present scowl. "I think he mentioned something about liking 'long shots'." And Max laughed in response: belly deep, soul deep, hunched over, piss-your-pants-roaring. Not that the remark was even funny, it just felt so good to laugh. The floodgates had been blasted, releasing months of suppressed moments of levity. She had felt guilty for even smiling for so long, knowing she was the cause of Original Cindy's untimely end. But now in the midst of adversity on all sides - not to mention the little audience she'd collected with her jovial outburst - she felt ready to laugh again. Hope flared.
Swallowing the last of her giggles, Max looked up at Mole, who seemed a bit self-conscious by being so close to the spotlight of several transgenics' curiosity. Squaring her shoulders with a happy sigh, she stuck out her hand. "Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Max. I am a chocaholic, X5 Niner with a serious commitment complex and a need for anger management."
Mole gave the perimeter a surreptitious once over. When he was convinced the coast was clear and all freaks had returned to business as usual, he slipped his palm into hers. "I'm Mole. The chain-smoking transgen with a trigger-happy finger, any number of serious social disorders, and a blatant disrespect for authority."
Again, another swell of laughter swallowed Max, and even the stoic Mole couldn't help but chuckle. Picking up his cigars, Mole and Max strolled down the alley, catching up on each other's lives.
Alec stood up from behind a nearby dumpster and stared after the retreating duo. A mirthless smile crossed his face as he denied any traces of jealousy. Pretending he was happy, Alec strolled back toward the command center; hands in his back pockets, shoulders slumped.
*****
Yeah, Max was okay.
So it really wasn't all that surprising when her world flipped upside down yet again.
It was merely ironic. Just when both when Max was avoiding Alec the most, the ice was cracked between them: at the hands of Dix and Mole.
Max's first trip back to the command center. She wiped her palms on her grimy jeans, popped her neck, and tried to force the palpitations of her thudding heart to cease. "Max, you are an absolutely pitiful excuse for a barcode baby," she whispered to herself. "Now get in there and hand the list to Dix right now." With her old bite, she flung the door open. She strode in, pointedly ignoring the curious stares - they seemed to become more and more frequent these days -, and waltzed right up to the cycloptic unnatural form of human life, who seemed busy poring over some ancient Minoan. She threw the information down on the table. Completely unfazed by her show of annoyance, Dix glanced up dismally from his dusty texts. "To what do we owe this honor?"
"You asked for the list of needed supplies suggested by the pregnant X5's." She fingered the sheet of recycled paper. "You asked. I delivered."
"I didn't ask for it," he drawled, returning to his transcripts.
Max blinked. "But Mole said that you..."
"I asked for it." A sturdy arm circled around her waist to retrieve the paper in question, before bringing it to his face and studying it carefully. Even while scouring the list, two hazel eyes occasionally glanced over the slip of paper to scrutinize the messenger.
Alec.
Across the room, Mole smirked. Max caught it. "I'm going to kill you," she mouthed. Sensing the interchange between the two, Alec asked "Should we leave you two alone?" Hastily returning her attention to more urgent demands on her sanity - the man within six inches of her suddenly suffocating personal space - she spat out a quick "no." She glared at Mole again for added effect, which only engorged his pleasure at her present discomfort. He saluted crisply and promptly left the building.
"Chicken," she muttered. Alec's curious eyes fell on her again, simultaneously pounding her into the ground and pitching her through the air. His eyebrows lifted with that usual imperious tone. Max felt her submissive shield snap. "Why are you so suddenly concerned about the welfare of some pregnant chicks, Alec? Are a few of the incoming brats yours?" she accused.
The cores of Alec's pupils froze over, spreading their liquid ice across his irises until his entire eyes were as hard and cold as glass beads. All warmth and curiosity vanished as his entire body stiffened in response, solid as stone. Staring down at her, his eyes tried to read her soul, as if trying unravel the mysteries of her constant spite. Hot fire blazed across his eyes, but instead of thawing his demeanor it only made the chill more harsh and acute. The breath froze in her lungs, clinging to the interior sacs like frost on a windowpane.
And then in the very far off space, Dix coughed. The moment passed, but the memory was a hovering ghost, unwilling to be forgotten even in death. Alec caught his himself, visibly relaxed, and stalked past Max. The few dozen trangenics meandering around the command center parted like the Red Sea for their commander. Obviously the chill of his disposition wafted across them as well, for almost all heads turned back to her accusingly as they heard to door slam at his exit.
Dix whistled appreciatively. Mole, appearing out of nowhere - no small feat for a man of his stature -, nodded in agreement. "You sure now how to treat 'em there, Max." She whirled around brusquely, obviously still itching for a long-awaited fight. "What are you talking about, you overgrown Geico ad?"
Mole blew on his cigar, shaking his head disappointedly. "Now you see, you got the wrong genus there. Geckos are teeming with cute and lacking in spice. Not my style."
"Whatever," she huffed.
"The point is: that poor X5 was worried sick over you the past few months. Can't count how many times I saw him wandering TC in the middle of the night."
Dix nodded his head in concurrence. "Yeah. In the end, you leaving TC was the best and worst thing to happen to him. On the one hand, he took command better than anyone could have expected..."
"On the other hand," Mole continued. "Only when Logan got a lead on you did he get more than a couple hours of sleep a night. The night you got back was probably the fullest night's sleep he had in months."
Max slumped back against a nearby makeshift table, feeling oddly weak around the knees. "I had no idea...he never even..." In the end, she refused to believe it. "He said no one cared."
Both Mole and Dix's eyebrows shot up. "No one?" Dix repeated doubtfully, sneaking a glance at the still swaying door Alec had disappeared through. Max nodded, trying to feel better at being able to brush off the sudden charge of emotions only moments ago. But the memory of the hotel room and the woody rendezvous were not so easily swayed; their confident grip preyed on the back of her mind.
In particular, the sudden longing she had felt when - for a split second - his gaze had fallen on her lips.
*****
I know I'm crossing over the Max/Mole friendship, but I can't shake the idea that those two have the best chemistry. (Huh, they have better chemistry than Max and Logan...just kidding.)
A/N: I know it has been awhile... a long while, sorry...since my last update, but after spring break the activities (and the homework, blah) have just been piling in. So instead of mi proyecto de espanol, what do I work on? Fanfiction! (And there was much rejoicing....yay.) ; )
CHAPTER 3
Naturally, after the little motel incident, the rest of the trip was pretty much smooth sailing.
In shotgun, Logan kept Ray entranced with stories of pre-Pulse television, while Max found herself captivated by the white blips that peppered the now deserted interstate. Unfortunately there were only so many times one could whip her head back and forth before spotting the dotted lines swept even transgenic senses into a lovely whirl of nausea. But Max, being the stubborn feline she was, was absolutely determined to push the limit. Instead of letting the dotted lines swallow into a solid blur, she was unwavering in her quest to spot each and every individual paint slash. Any distraction, even a nauseous one, was welcome to keep her eyes from wandering to her seatmate.
"I swear to God," Alec mumbled. "If you whip your head back one more time, I am going to throw up for you."
Of their own volition, Max found her eyes sweeping towards Alec. His head was tilted back against the seat, and he almost looked peaceful enough to be asleep, like she had found him earlier this morning. Only in his sleep he hadn't looked so remote and cold, like some sort of exotic god only to be hailed, never approached. In slumber, he had looked lifetimes younger. His jaw relaxed; his forehead smoothed down, no longer filled by wrinkles of worry.
"Oh, so you can speak." So of course, the sarcastic comment was pummeled by his stony silence. Trying another tactic, she asked, "So, what happens when we get back to Seattle?"
"Terminal City."
"Seattle."
"Terminal City."
"Whatever."
Suddenly, Alec dropped the facade of semi-sleeping serenity. Snapping upright, he turned to her, one leg hiked up on the seat, closing the ever widening gap between them. "No Max, not whatever," he growled. Very succinctly, he continued, "Terminal. City."
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is in Seattle, you could find one of a million places to shut yourself up and wallow in your self-pity. In Terminal City, there are only a few hundred. You'd be a lot easier to baby-sit and less likely to be able to run off. Again."
"Baby-sit?" Max asked, feeling her irritation flare. "Baby-sit?"
"Yes, Max. Baby-sit." He was treating her like a two-year old. Not just by words, but tone also.
Her ire arched sky high. Tired of being compliant to his unspoken clout, she felt herself begin to release a tirade. "How dare you...?"
But Alec had already whirled around. Facing front, he tapped Logan lightly on the shoulder. "Pull over, buddy." Logan seemed ready to protest - with due cause, seeing as they had just taken a bathroom break thirty minutes ago, and it wasn't like there were even the remotest signs of civilization in sight - but off of Alec's stern glower, he fell into subservience.
Alec didn't even wait for the car to come to a full and complete stop. When the car slowed enough for his liking, he hopped out. Walking calmly around the car, he swung open Max's door and casually but firmly gripped her bicep. "Let's go for a little walk, Max." There it was: that imperious, condescending tone again. The only thing that kept Max from clocking him upside the head was the fact that there was a very impressionable six-year old quietly watching them from the front seat. It was time for her to do the right thing, be the bigger man, sort of.
So she waited until she was absolutely convinced they were fully enclosed by the nearby forest to make a pass for his back of his skull. Which was sure enough intercepted by Alec's stronger grip. So now he had both her hands pinned, just great. So much for not making a total fool out of herself. She glared at him, as if daring him to humiliate her even more, for some reason her appetite for degradation had yet to be satisfied. Alec, on the other hand, seemed calm and contemplative; as if searching for the right words to say whatever he had to disclose.
He suddenly released her and Max stumbled back a bit. He turned and walked a small ways away, coiling his fingers through the masses of brown locks. "Things aren't the same anymore," he began quietly. Though he was turned away, Max couldn't help but feel as if he was suppressing an injured air. The atmosphere around him was both arousing and disturbing. Even birds had paused their crooning, as if breathlessly clawing onto his next words. Something intangible about the setting sucked the wind out of Max's sails and the hushed electric hum cooled her resentment.
"I know, Alec."
Alec scoffed, cynical and hollow. The sound wafted passed Max, moving her with something akin to shame and pity. He looked over his shoulder, dully smirking at her ignorance. "No Max, you don't know." He spun around and meandered back towards her. He halted within a few feet of her, gauging her reaction. "After you first left, everyone hated you. Joshua hated you. I hated you. You were the one who told all of us to stick around and you turned out to be the first one to skip town. You, the high and mighty 452, the savior of transgenics, ran off. You said so yourself Max, 'It figures you'd forget the one good thing Manticore taught us: never abandon your unit!' " Alec had started quiet enough, but as he neared the end he finished off all but shouting. He hunched over a few seconds and forced his uneven breathing to slow, gulping down his ache.
Max said nothing. She stared at the crown of his head and wondered at the bitter monstrosity she'd created. But even that was probably giving her too much credit. The sun didn't rise and set on her. But something informed her that she could take credit for this. Part of the Alec she'd known had been destroyed. Max could feel it in him. It was like she'd taken a sledge hammer to the fundamental nature of Alec. She'd broken part of him, and she had absolutely no idea how to fix him back together.
Straightening, Alec came even closer to Max, until he was within inches of her. The sunlight's fingers stretched for his back, leaving her in his shadow. "But the more we realized you weren't coming back, the less we began to care. We don't care about you. When I spread the word that I'd be gone a couple of weeks to bring your sorry butt back, they just shrugged their shoulders." Max could feel him drifting away. It was as if the longer he talked, the more the wall was built between them. Each word was a brick, sealing him off. It started at their feet, working gradually up until it covered his eyes and she couldn't scale over. A steadfast, safe blockade. "Don't get any romantic notions, Max. Don't slink back into Terminal City and hope to find a couple hundred freaks that hate you. You're not even worth that."
"Then why did you come back for me?" she asked softly.
Alec frowned in disappointment, as if she had just missed some essential truth. He covered it quickly with a blank facade, almost before Max could wonder at the bleak glower. "Exposure," he lied.
"We're already exposed. We came out of that closet a long time ago."
"I mean, no one else knew you were gone. We kept under wraps. How could we build up good public relations when our front man was off gallivanting across the East Coast?"
*****
And of course Alec was right. They hadn't cared. And it was more acutely painful than any scenario she'd conjured up. At least with good old, home grown loathing there was a definite place to stand. Inside the gates of Terminal City, oppressed by the roving and restless crowds and dense Seattle fog, she had no ground to stand on. She didn't exist. On first spotting, the Manticorians looked at her with blank curiosity, and then they shrugged their shoulders to one another before going on about their business. Being on the backburner would have been a blessing; she had been thrown off the stove. Home sweet home.
And it - in a word - sucked.
For several weeks Max moved at a painstakingly slow pace in reintegrating herself into the freaks society. She avoided the Command Center like Trent Lott would avoid East St. Louis or Harlem. With the exception of Ray - who was given daily doses of Max's blood to avoid melting into a puddle of genetic pulp - she could go without speaking to a living soul for days at a time. It was a bleak existence for Max, but at least it was an honest one. She had committed her crime in Terminal City and she was more than prepared to serve her time here. And serve she did. From garbage disposal to sewer runs to laundry to bed pans, Max became a jack - or a jill, however one preferred to look at it - of all trades.
But every cloud had that cliched silver lining, and Ray was hers. His sweet little smile and easy-going friendship - not to mention his ornery curiosity - had won over every resident in the freaks' haven almost instantly, despite his pedigree. Pregnant X5's doted on him while the X8's adopted him as their mascot. Seeing his blond head scamper through the dumps with his newfound friends on their quest for treasures made Max's heart soar.
But with everyone else, even Logan, she became a soundless shadow, alleviating loads with a passive grace. But Ray, her tiny champion, always brought out her former fire and love for life. When her self-assigned tasks were finished and no one else seemed to need her help, she and Ray would tramp through alleys, pretending to be on Bourbon Street, and suddenly their meager rations transformed into crawfish poboys and sugary beignets. They spent their nights huddled against each other fabricating fantastic stories in the darkness.
Life had slipped into a somewhat lethargic, but companionable survival. Apart from her charge, life held no real joys, but no real sorrows either. She decided in the end that being ignored was probably better than being hated. For the most part, Max was okay.
*****
Max let the crate slip from her hands with a liberated sigh, uncaring about the angry "thump!" it made when colliding with the ground. "Hey!" came the annoyed yell, soon followed by a six foot, some odd inched lizard-man and his usual entourage - a cloud of cigar smoke. If you give a transgen a box of Cuban cigars, he'll ask for a light. But if you drop his box of Cubans, he'll load his shotgun - which was still hanging at his side, ready to spring into action. The transgen gently probed at the box with sensitive, scaly fingers; like a mother would hover over a dropped infant. "You could have done some serious damage there Max!" From his squat on the dank and grimy pavement, he pinned her with an ominous glare. "And then I'd have to do some serious damage," he finished curtly.
"Don't worry about it Mole. If those cigars could survive the turbulent sea-sickness on the boat trip from Cuba, plus the mishandling they had to cope with on the ride to Seattle, not too mention the hell the black market put them through, I highly doubt that dropping it a couple of measly inches will put too many new dents in your babies."
Mole gazed up at her with shock, chomping heavily on his cigar. After a few moments he said, "So the ice queen does indeed speak. With the exception of Ray, not too many of us have been graced with more than five words from your queenly maw. That had to be like..." he pretended to tick off the words on his rough fingertips. "...fifty. My, the gods are smiling on me now aren't they?"
Max beamed at him, another rarity for her. And for some reason - sarcasm aside - Mole really did feel blessed. She shrugged in her old devil-may-care manner. "Well, I had to rejoin the three-ring circus social elite sometime, didn't I?"
Having already decided the cigars weren't maimed in their mistreatment, Mole rose to his feet. With something that could almost be misconstrued as a smile, he thumped her on the shoulder playfully. "Good to have you back, Max," he said with the tiniest hint of sincere enthusiasm. He quickly fell back into his normal menacing pose, propped up against the slime-slick walls of the compound, thick arms heavily crossed over his chest. "Don't get me wrong. I don't like ya. But having you with some bite is much better than having you playing 'tame'."
"So...you don't hate me?" Max asked, suddenly needing his approval - not that she'd ever admit it to him.
"Heck no," Mole said. "You won me fifty bucks. Why should I hate you?"
Max's brow puckered in confusion, trying to make the connection between her recent excursion and his fifty bucks. It was a lost cause. "So, how exactly did I win you fifty bucks?"
"I bet Dix that you'd run." He continued to himself, pensively sucking his cigar. "Well, actually Dix owes me a hundred now, seeing as I said I'd be the first you'd really talk to. I could buy myself a whole 'nother case of merchandise."
Max took the blow to her dented - but fully intact - pride with her usual grace: none. An angry flush swam up her chest and across her cheeks. "You what?!?"
"I bet Dix that you'd run," he repeated even more matter-of-factly than the last time. "You're a Niner. It's what you do: heavy commitment results in running. You know, despite popular opinion, I'm not a complete idiot. I took those little psych classes. You had a Type-A case of commitment-phobia." He glanced in her direction. His eyes were not imperious by any means, just practical. He shrugged again and puffed thoughtfully. "I just knew it would happen, nothing personal."
Astonishingly, Max actually chuckled. "So I guess this makes you my new shrink, huh? That's good, seeing how my self-prognosis was a little less objective than it should be." She paused, suddenly pensive. "So why exactly did Dix bet against you? He could've spotted the same characteristic a million miles away."
Now Mole did smile, not an unpleasant change from his ever-present scowl. "I think he mentioned something about liking 'long shots'." And Max laughed in response: belly deep, soul deep, hunched over, piss-your-pants-roaring. Not that the remark was even funny, it just felt so good to laugh. The floodgates had been blasted, releasing months of suppressed moments of levity. She had felt guilty for even smiling for so long, knowing she was the cause of Original Cindy's untimely end. But now in the midst of adversity on all sides - not to mention the little audience she'd collected with her jovial outburst - she felt ready to laugh again. Hope flared.
Swallowing the last of her giggles, Max looked up at Mole, who seemed a bit self-conscious by being so close to the spotlight of several transgenics' curiosity. Squaring her shoulders with a happy sigh, she stuck out her hand. "Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Max. I am a chocaholic, X5 Niner with a serious commitment complex and a need for anger management."
Mole gave the perimeter a surreptitious once over. When he was convinced the coast was clear and all freaks had returned to business as usual, he slipped his palm into hers. "I'm Mole. The chain-smoking transgen with a trigger-happy finger, any number of serious social disorders, and a blatant disrespect for authority."
Again, another swell of laughter swallowed Max, and even the stoic Mole couldn't help but chuckle. Picking up his cigars, Mole and Max strolled down the alley, catching up on each other's lives.
Alec stood up from behind a nearby dumpster and stared after the retreating duo. A mirthless smile crossed his face as he denied any traces of jealousy. Pretending he was happy, Alec strolled back toward the command center; hands in his back pockets, shoulders slumped.
*****
Yeah, Max was okay.
So it really wasn't all that surprising when her world flipped upside down yet again.
It was merely ironic. Just when both when Max was avoiding Alec the most, the ice was cracked between them: at the hands of Dix and Mole.
Max's first trip back to the command center. She wiped her palms on her grimy jeans, popped her neck, and tried to force the palpitations of her thudding heart to cease. "Max, you are an absolutely pitiful excuse for a barcode baby," she whispered to herself. "Now get in there and hand the list to Dix right now." With her old bite, she flung the door open. She strode in, pointedly ignoring the curious stares - they seemed to become more and more frequent these days -, and waltzed right up to the cycloptic unnatural form of human life, who seemed busy poring over some ancient Minoan. She threw the information down on the table. Completely unfazed by her show of annoyance, Dix glanced up dismally from his dusty texts. "To what do we owe this honor?"
"You asked for the list of needed supplies suggested by the pregnant X5's." She fingered the sheet of recycled paper. "You asked. I delivered."
"I didn't ask for it," he drawled, returning to his transcripts.
Max blinked. "But Mole said that you..."
"I asked for it." A sturdy arm circled around her waist to retrieve the paper in question, before bringing it to his face and studying it carefully. Even while scouring the list, two hazel eyes occasionally glanced over the slip of paper to scrutinize the messenger.
Alec.
Across the room, Mole smirked. Max caught it. "I'm going to kill you," she mouthed. Sensing the interchange between the two, Alec asked "Should we leave you two alone?" Hastily returning her attention to more urgent demands on her sanity - the man within six inches of her suddenly suffocating personal space - she spat out a quick "no." She glared at Mole again for added effect, which only engorged his pleasure at her present discomfort. He saluted crisply and promptly left the building.
"Chicken," she muttered. Alec's curious eyes fell on her again, simultaneously pounding her into the ground and pitching her through the air. His eyebrows lifted with that usual imperious tone. Max felt her submissive shield snap. "Why are you so suddenly concerned about the welfare of some pregnant chicks, Alec? Are a few of the incoming brats yours?" she accused.
The cores of Alec's pupils froze over, spreading their liquid ice across his irises until his entire eyes were as hard and cold as glass beads. All warmth and curiosity vanished as his entire body stiffened in response, solid as stone. Staring down at her, his eyes tried to read her soul, as if trying unravel the mysteries of her constant spite. Hot fire blazed across his eyes, but instead of thawing his demeanor it only made the chill more harsh and acute. The breath froze in her lungs, clinging to the interior sacs like frost on a windowpane.
And then in the very far off space, Dix coughed. The moment passed, but the memory was a hovering ghost, unwilling to be forgotten even in death. Alec caught his himself, visibly relaxed, and stalked past Max. The few dozen trangenics meandering around the command center parted like the Red Sea for their commander. Obviously the chill of his disposition wafted across them as well, for almost all heads turned back to her accusingly as they heard to door slam at his exit.
Dix whistled appreciatively. Mole, appearing out of nowhere - no small feat for a man of his stature -, nodded in agreement. "You sure now how to treat 'em there, Max." She whirled around brusquely, obviously still itching for a long-awaited fight. "What are you talking about, you overgrown Geico ad?"
Mole blew on his cigar, shaking his head disappointedly. "Now you see, you got the wrong genus there. Geckos are teeming with cute and lacking in spice. Not my style."
"Whatever," she huffed.
"The point is: that poor X5 was worried sick over you the past few months. Can't count how many times I saw him wandering TC in the middle of the night."
Dix nodded his head in concurrence. "Yeah. In the end, you leaving TC was the best and worst thing to happen to him. On the one hand, he took command better than anyone could have expected..."
"On the other hand," Mole continued. "Only when Logan got a lead on you did he get more than a couple hours of sleep a night. The night you got back was probably the fullest night's sleep he had in months."
Max slumped back against a nearby makeshift table, feeling oddly weak around the knees. "I had no idea...he never even..." In the end, she refused to believe it. "He said no one cared."
Both Mole and Dix's eyebrows shot up. "No one?" Dix repeated doubtfully, sneaking a glance at the still swaying door Alec had disappeared through. Max nodded, trying to feel better at being able to brush off the sudden charge of emotions only moments ago. But the memory of the hotel room and the woody rendezvous were not so easily swayed; their confident grip preyed on the back of her mind.
In particular, the sudden longing she had felt when - for a split second - his gaze had fallen on her lips.
*****
I know I'm crossing over the Max/Mole friendship, but I can't shake the idea that those two have the best chemistry. (Huh, they have better chemistry than Max and Logan...just kidding.)