Feeding The Enigma
Disclaimer: Anything you could sue me for isn't mine
This is an AU story
This distance was most infuriating, he never seemed to be progressing let alone nearing the end. Having encountered a road sign about an hour ago showing him to be a mere 23 miles away from the post-pulse cesspit of Seattle, the walk was becoming most tedious. That strange man at the Manticore site was not 452, Lydecker was alive, and the more he thought about it he desired to finish the job, letting him go was a mistake he intended to rectify with utmost haste. His ears picked up the deep growl of a motorcycle approaching him from behind. Turning he saw a large man on a chopper, his long hair and black clothes blowing in the wind as he sped towards the small man. Rumandello smirked sickly; this tedious walk wasn't essentially one he had to endure.
Logan Cale lat length ways over his couch, staring out of the skylight as dark settled across Seattle. It was 7.40 and he was bored stiff, not in a ''There is nothing to do' kind of way, more of a 'There is only one thing I want to do' way. He wanted to see her, wanted to see her smirk as she insulted somebody he had never heard of and probably never would short of her amusing little tales. Her eyes deep and mischievous, yet not as shallow in their emotional depth as usual, most people show how they feel quite fluently, but not Max. She was the emotional enigma, somebody who kept you guessing as to how certain things affected her. Obviously she would show certain base feelings such as anger and enjoyment (mostly of his cooking), but he always found himself admiring the way she had little quirks that let slip anything more complex.
He had noticed these little things that let him know, certain sparkles of her eyes, little almost unnoticeable blushes and flicks of her hair. It was small acts like these that grabbed him and slapped him around the mouth demanding his attention, making him curse the days he had convinced himself that she was nothing more than an escaped lab rat. But having said that he was willing to try any method to curb his seemingly insatiable appetite for her presence, even lying to himself, struggling with the fact her body blew his mind.
Raising his wrist he scowled at the fact it was now only 7.48, and let his arm flop down with a thud, he really hated being bored, and yet he knew if he attempted anything else he wouldn't do a particularly good job due to absence of mind. At his age was he meant to feel like this? It threw him back to when he was at college, the anticipation, but it wasn't quite like this, because he wasn't just getting a 'shag', hell he hadn't even thought about her like that. Well not in the last ten minutes anyway, but he had now. Seeing her was different, it was like finding a part of himself he never knew he'd lost, somehow she made him feel elated, forgetful and yet not completely unlike himself when he wasn't with her. He could be himself and she wouldn't try and kill him or run off. Problem was she had.
Damn it.
He couldn't even remember having done something wrong; hell he couldn't remember a great deal except from feeling like shit after getting to the Manticore site, which is when his memory stated to fade, up until his hazy vision located him on his bed and Max making a beeline for the exit. Despite his initial shock he figured she would just fill him in when she next paid him a visit, a visit that never came. It had been 8 long mentally festering days, ones in which he was forced to confirm his feelings towards her in, feelings that he wasn't sure he wanted, because every time he got them the usual happened, somebody disappeared. They all fucked off and left him, Asha, Val, hell even Bling bailed after he started to feel like that about a woman.
Max had kept to the narrative, Letting him get attached, then deserting him. Yet another thing set her apart from all others he had ever known though, she had come back. He wasn't sure why, maybe it wouldn't even last, but if she came back it would break the habit of his lifetime, and would give him hope that possibly he wouldn't die a sad lonely old man left for a fake foreign arse-bandit.
Only 7.54.
Rolling onto his side he ran his hand through his hair, if she kept on fucking his life up like this he wasn't going to be able to do anything besides wait for the next chance to see her. It was an exquisite sense of failure as a man, to depend on the eyes of one girl to save you from an alcohol fuelled vendetta against everything he hated about himself personified in the city he looked down on. Men were supposed to drink beer, fuck the bitch and then go out with the lads and impress them with tales of how he screwed her but he doesn't give a shit. College frat party style sex with random women, getting pissed, these things were his lineage as a male, and he knew he hated the thought of it almost as much as he did the feeling he was a failure for doing so. Never being one to socialise with that crowd, even at college, was how he became such a crack wiz with computers, and that sense of being an outsider maybe led to him being so messed up over his own impulses, the ones to do the right thing and the others, the ones like he got when some jock laughed at him with his mate.
He blasted one between the legs with his boot and hammered shit out of the other one with his fists. It was the last time had ever had trouble, from anybody beside himself. He couldn't understand the subtle shade of grey called normality that lay between each of his desires, the ones to help and the one to further himself or destroy. He guessed he was just an all or nothing guy, and the balance between each polar impulse he received was hard to sustain, maybe eve…
"Well are you gonna get up and feed me or what?" Max asked amused, looking down at a startled Logan whom had lost time in self-contemplation.
"Hey, I didn't see you there" he laughed trying to shake the embarrassment of being court think a load of self-deprecating bullshit. Sitting up and scratching the back of his head he stood and turned to see her, she had moved from the behind the couch to the kitchen in a matter of seconds without him hearing her, which was slightly disconcerting considering she wanted something from him.
"Quick on your feet aren't you?" He commented as he approached
"You should see me when I'm really hungry"
"What are you now?"
"Hmm, I'd describe it as peckish" She smiled, and noticed a look of though cross his face. "What's up?"
"Nothing much. So any preference today?" He asked without looking at her, his head was buried in his fridge, scanning over possibilities and things he'd rather save for later.
"I'm not fussed, although I wouldn't mind something I can get my teeth into" She added, just incase he suggested soup or something, she wanted solid chewy goodness.
"Right…erm…, ah I got it." He pulled something out and she asked while he was shutting the door.
"What amazing culinary miracle in the god of the kitchen going to bestow upon me today?"
"Pork sandwich"
"Well that's an anti climax"
"Your telling me"
"Eh?" She wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, it sounded a little too serious for their patented light banter
"I haven't been out foraging, which I'm afraid to say limits us to this. Hardly what you'd expect of 'The god of the kitchen'" He was a little pissed off that he couldn't impress her with his cooking once more.
"It's a damn site more than I'm used to, don't go thinking I'm going to throw it back in your face. Where the hell did you get pork anyway?" She asked as he started getting it all sorted. He was uptight, she could tell, he didn't strike her as the kind of guy who lost sleep over the lack of contents in his refrigerator.
"A farmer friend of mine just outside the city, I managed to get partridge from him once"
"Really?" she put on a thick playful sarcastic 'I don't care' voice that made his ears prick up.
"Now were did I put that tabasco sauce?" He pretended to say to himself, and her eyes opened in mock shock
"Bring it on," She laughed. He passed her a plate and nodded his head towards the couch he had previously occupied, "Pig in bread on the second date, you lady killer"
"Do you want me to eat that?" He smirked, looking over his shoulder at her he saw a look of pride on her face, her mouth full and her eyes rolled towards the ceiling, her face that of defiant ignorance to his offer/threat. "Consider yourself killed." He laughed.
The night was quiet and moonlit, the trees still in the windless night. The light of the sector checkpoint illuminated a 10-foot circumference, within which stood a large armed guard. Growling as it slowed down the bike carrying the hunter rolled to a stop at the sector checkpoint. The large burly guard came out carrying an automatic.
"Sector pass?" He grunted.
Rumandello raised his head and scowled at the Cop, his eyes flickering alive with flame. The man's eyes glared in horrific shock and he raised the barrel of his gun, unloading into the small biker who flew from the vehicle with the force of impact, crashing down to the road with a sickeningly heavy thud.The guard was panting, his finger clicking on his trigger, the magazine as dry as his mouth had suddenly become.
Whatever he had seen in his eyes scared him rigid, and with the fear of god he approached shakily the fallen victim of his weapon. Looking down the small man's flesh had been punctured in countless places across his body, his trench coat and under lying garments littered with holes, the scarf wrapped around his mouth and neck now presenting two just less than an inch punctures. Gulping he knew he was dead, but then why was there no blood? Bending down over the corpse he prodded freshly made chest cavity with the barrel of his gun, only to hit something solid. It felt like metal.
His face was one of sheer terror as the eyes flicked open, their ghostly flame burning into his screaming eyes. The sound unrelenting pain rang through the outer city limits as the small bullet ridden corpse crushed bone and tore free vital parts of anatomy.
Looking up from the crimson scene he gazed over the tall buildings and their glowing lights, inside the urban sprawl he would find him, 452, and Lydecker. Both would find their demise. The initiator of Manticore, Lydecker and its only surviving creation, 452, both renegade, and both being hunted by Manticore's biggest mistake and biggest success.
Donald he would find in the hospital, once he located it. Visiting hours were well and truly over.
Let the hunt begin.
