A Glimpse of light through the night by Dark Blaze (2003)
Timeline: Takes place right after 'Hello, Goodbye'.
Summary: Three weeks after leaving Logan and Seattle behind, Max comes back to find things have changed and Logan has gone missing.
Disclaimer: Dark Angel and its characters are copyright 2000-2002 Twentieth Century Fox Studios and James Cameron and Charles Eglee. The original fiction and additional characters noted here are copyright 2003 Dark Blaze.
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CHAPTER 02
Logan's Apartment, Fogle Towers
Max walked slowly, scanning her surroundings as she concentrated on sudden movements and faint sounds, anything to indicate her that Logan was there.
Opening the door to Logan's room slowly, she couldn't help but feel a smile
crossing her face from the sight of the apartment, where she had spent most of
her time with Logan.
But the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that there was something wrong
would not come to a stop. As she was met with a deadly silence, she hoped to
find him in his bedroom, sleeping peacefully with no troubles of the world even
for at least a few hours.
To her dismay the bed was empty, neatly made as if he hadn't gone to bed yet.
Closing the door behind her casually yet with care to not make a noise, she
headed for the hall to proceed with her investigation of the rest of the rooms.
That was when she realized that there was no humming noise coming from the
computer room, nor was there any blue light escaping the computer room from the
monitors.
As she got there, she leaned against the doorframe as she would always do when
she came over. The view before her under normal circumstances would have pleased
her, thinking that Logan was willing to have a break and possibly some fun, but
this was not the time.
The computer systems were shut down and the hard drives were missing from their
casings. She looked amongst the equipment for any indication that would tell her
the Informant Net was safe from unwanted access and exposure, but her hopes were
drowned in despair, as she couldn't find any evidence to show that Logan was the
one that had taken the drivers or if he was alright.
The unexpected dreadful thought hit her; 'Could it be? Eyes Only was no more?'
Worried for the worse, she started calling for him in a quiet voice.
"Logan?"
She started walking towards the living room and then into the kitchen.
The fridge was somewhat full, but what really surprised Max was the fact that it
contained nothing of what she would usually find when raiding Logan's fridge.
It was filled with snacks, leftovers from fast food, Chinese take-out packages
and a slice of pizza on a plate. A small sad smile crossed her face as she took
notice that there was also lots of milk in the fridge, something strange since
Logan didn't usually drink much milk unless he was sharing with her and since
she wasn't coming around anymore…
Closing the fridge she came to the conclusion that she was alone in the
apartment, yet couldn't help but call out for him once more.
"Logan where are you?"
Again, nothing… Logan was not there, not in his room, not lost into his Eyes
Only world with his expensive advanced computers; nowhere.
A glint of light caught her sight, turning towards its direction Max saw the
chess board, the same one she used to spend endless hours with Logan constantly
teasing each other and trying to out win the other.
Her fingers idled at the side of the board, then slid along from the black pawns
to the white, till a sign of recognition crossed her face and she brought her
fingertips to touch her lips, letting a soft gasp escape them.
The figures of the chess game were positioned in the exact same order as when
they had played their last chess game, but never got to finish, before their
lives that couldn't get any worse became hell and Logan nearly died again. Yet
Logan hadn't moved a single piece, not one figurine from that night. It was as
if he still had hope that they would continue that game in the future, together.
All of a sudden a very faint noise came from somewhere, barely audible but Max
was still able to pick it up. Her senses went to overdrive and if one was to
look at her at that exact moment it would appear as if her ears perked up.
She moved within the shadows, concentrating on the sound she had heard just mere
seconds ago, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound.
Undetected still, a dark figure quietly stood in a crouched position near the
entrance of the skylight, continuing to watch the female below with great
interest carefully gazing at her every movement for any sudden changes.
Unexpectedly the young woman inside the room turned and looked towards the
skylight, almost as if she knew that there was someone there. The look in her
eyes showed no emotions, only determination. She was obviously concentrating on
something outside the apartment, causing the now even more cautious figure to
move back slowly.
That hasty move, no matter how much the figure tried to make noiseless was his
downfall. It was all that Max needed to verify her concern that there was indeed
someone up there, watching her.
'Anyone could be up there' Max thought to herself. 'But not many would be able
to access the skylight to gain access to the inside of the penthouse, unless
they were from Manticore. Oh no… Manticore… here… Logan…'
The pieces started to fit together into a picture that Max could not dare to
visualize for the impact of its truth would be hard to believe yet devastating
at the same time.
This was no time for thoroughly analyzing the situation, there would be time for
that after the assumed Manticore Operative was dealt with.
In order to disorient her soon-to-be opponent Max stopped looking towards the
skylight and instead looked ahead towards the windows, then casually started
walking away from the window panel to come to an abrupt stop, turn and run full
speed towards it; with a fluid and elegant jump through the open portion of the
window with no supports to assist her.
Everything happened in such swift measure that a normal human eye would have
been unable to perceive what just took place.
A sudden cry of surprise came from the roof and with it a few deep thumps which
were probably from the punches shared between Max and the assailant.
Within a few seconds having past since the time Max jumped up through the
penthouse skylight and onto the roof, two figures in black fell through the
window and onto the apartment's floor with a thud and a groan eliciting from
them. Their shadows were dancing on the walls against the moonlight invading the
rooms through the translucent windows.
From the fall her adversary was still disoriented, trying shakily to get up and
stand on his two feet; this was the opportunity Max was looking for. Wasting no
time and without hesitation she back flipped expertly towards the intruder,
knocking the air out of his lungs and sending him crashing into one of the
bookshelves.
The force with which he was struck into the bookshelf resulted in knocking some
books out of their place and onto the floor.
By now Max was fully alert and going back into her combat training, landing
lightly on the wooden floor and standing in a crouch position as if a feline
ready to pounce on her prey.
Hovering in a circular pattern around the fallen person, Max stood watching his
every move carefully analyzing possible threats that would arouse from him and
taking in his outfit.
He was dressed in a completely black outfit. His face was not well shown in the
darkness of the room, yet the dim light that fell through made only his
chocolate eyes visible.
As more of the moonlight came into contact with the dark figure, more of his
features could be seen. He wasn't wearing a mask which gave a better view of the
person.
The unknown assailant revealed itself now as a beautiful young woman with long
blond hair; her face now bearing a cut lip and frightened with shock eyes.
Max's eyes widened with shock as she stood there, recognizing all of a sudden
the intruder as her sister Syl.
"Syl??"
Hearing the all too familiar voice the young woman relaxed a bit and tried to
produce a smile.
"Maxie?"
Seeing the woman above her smile and nod her calm demeanour returned to take
place after her fighting stance that was there only moments ago before
introductions were made.
"Maxie, it's so good to see you," Syl tried to speak but the pain in her chest
from the fight minutes earlier were causing her to cough in between sentences.
"Then it's true, you really are alive."
"Yeah, alive and kicking"
"Welcome back baby sister. By the way, nice moves." Syl managed to bring out
before a set of coughs took over again. Even though she was genetically
engineered girl, the all too quick fight with Max and the fall from the roof
took quite a toll on her.
Max blushed with embarrassment and tried to look down and away; she didn't quite
expect to come across her sister when she made that jump. Looking back at Syl
she said, "Sorry about that. Are you alright?"
Syl looked up and into her sister's eyes filled with concern for her well being,
and to put her mind to ease she gave her a half-smile and said, "I'll live. You
pack quite a punch little sister."
By now Max's face was passing through various shades of red, but eventually she
managed to keep it under control, in order to help out her sister. Leaning over
her, she looked for any signs that would indicate bad health, she noticed Syl
was having a hard time trying to get up.
"Need any help?"
"Yeah, help me get up and into the guest room sis."
"Sure."
Max put her sister's right arm over her shoulders and holding her waist they
lifted her up. Together side by side they slowly walked through the hallway and
into the guest room where Syl with a little bit of help from Max leaned over and
lied on the bed.
Max instinctively reached for her sister's feet in order to remove her shoes,
but came up empty handed as she was barefoot and judging by the look in the
room, she was the resident that had concerned Max.
Prior to visiting the living room, she had checked inside the guest room, where
she came across a ruffled bed and female garments in the drawers amongst her own
that she didn't recognize. Signs of surprise and hurt came across Max's face as
she took in the surroundings, noticing the changes that were made during her
absence. 'Could Logan have gotten over me so quickly? Would he do that? I
wouldn't blame him if he did move on; it wasn't like they were really like that
anymore. And I'm sure that blonde Asha was there to comfort him.'
But now, seeing that it was Syl and not Asha, an air of calmness filled Max's
body before remembering the fact that Logan wasn't there and Syl was here.
'Something must be wrong' unable to keep the questions from reaching the
surface, Max asked, "Syl not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you
doing here? Where's Logan?"
After recovering for a few moments Syl replied to her, "We came to visit and
check up him. We were worried about him, since…" she trailed off not wanting to
bring back bad memories with the words that were sure to come. "It's good to
have you back little sister. Logan never stopped crying when you were… away…"
"Where is he Syl? Why isn't he here?"
"Max you better come and sit down…"
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