Not Quite Dead – Chapter Nine

Taya Guevera

Logan was at his usual place, sitting in front of his computer, still living in the dilapidated house that Joshua used to call home. Occasionally he would check in with Terminal City (namely Max) via computer link up, but other than that, he was continuing to rebuild his Eyes Only operation. That's why, when Donald Lydecker walked through the front door, he was more than a little surprised.

"Dek. Didn't think I'd be seeing you any time in the near future. To what do I owe this house visit?"

Taking in the surroundings, Lydecker had to admit that his original opinion of Logan Cale wasn't that of a person who lived in a place like this. He took him to be more of an upper class man. Noticing his glances around the room, Logan got up and walked over to the fireplace. It was still winter in Seattle, and the cold was insanely unbearable in this house as compared to his previous residence.

"There was an emergency and I had to relocate in a hurry."

Nodding in understanding, Lydecker crossed over to the bookshelf and started to look through the titles before answering Cale's earlier question.

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I would check in and see whether you had any new information in regards to the X5 I gave you information on."

Now understanding, Logan threw a couple of logs onto the now roaring fire and took a seat back at his computer.

"Well, we've had some developments, but nothing terribly important yet."

"Developments such as?"

"White's been tipped that she's there, so my guy is bringing her back here as soon as I can get the paperwork done."

"Your guy being?"

"Alec."

"Ah, 494. He was the textbook soldier before Berrisford."

"Alec," Logan stressed, making sure Lydecker knew that the X5 had a real name, not just a number, "went to Australia a few days ago just to watch her and keep tabs on her movements. But he found out that White's been tipped to her existence as well, so it became essential to get her out of there. "

"And you're bringing her back here."

"To Seattle, yes."

"Are you going to tell Max?"

There was a pause while Lydecker absentmindedly flicked through the pages of a book, but his attention was on the man behind the computer. Logan kept eye contact with him, but found he couldn't answer the question. Putting the book back on the shelf, Lydecker took a seat on the chair next to the table and rested his arm on the armrest. Idly tapping his fingers on it, he lowered his voice and continued.

"Every Manticore soldier that was under my command knows the story of Eva and how I shot her to prevent an escape. It's been one of the many controlling devices we've had with the remaining X5's that were stationed at our bases. To tell Max now that her older sister, her unit's 2IC has been alive all this time could do more damage than good at this point."

Finding his voice, Logan pushed down the guilt he felt at making such an important decision for someone who wasn't there to understand.

"The original idea wasn't to bring her back at all. But since the 'objective' has changed, and she's coming back, Alec and I have decided that it would be easiest to maintain the story that she is X5-391 aka Mischa and that she was a unit member of Alec's until she was sent on a deep cover mission that took her to Australia. Whether Mischa wants to tell Max who she really is is up to her."

Nodding again, Lydecker kept looking at Logan, his mind ticking over the possible advantages there would be should 494 be able to successfully bring 391 back to Terminal City. After a few minutes silence, he stood again and nodded silently to Logan, who was still seated behind his computer. Walking towards the door, he turned.

"I'll be in touch."

"Anyone know where Alec is?"

It was just another day in a broken world with Max trying to make that broken world a little more transgenic friendly. She had been hard at work with a few other X5's finding rooms for the newer transgenics who had shown up after the incident at Jam Pony, but it had been a few days now and she hadn't seen Alec, let alone heard anyone talk about him.

Sitting at the desk in the Command Center, polishing his pump action shot gun (his baby) and chewing on the end of his ever smoking cigar, Mole shrugged.

"Haven't heard from Princess since he left to see Logan a few days back."

Max had been walking past the table where Mole had his feet up, but stopped short when he mentioned Logan's name. She hadn't heard from him in the past week, and was surprised that he would ask Alec to do something for him. Especially with the 'I'm with him, not you. We're over. Get used to it' speech she had given him only months before.

"Really. He went to see Logan?"

"Yeah. Said he wouldn't be long. But then again, with Princess' attention span together with the fact that he's able to walk out and about with the ordinaries again, chances are that he's conducting a little 'supply and demand'."

Rolling her eyes at his innuendo, Max walked up the stairs to the computer terminal set up for the usually frequent computer link ups with Logan back at Joshua's house. Seeing Luke playing around with some computer hardware at the other table, she took a seat infront of the screen and pressed the space bar. Luke had set it up earlier that when the program was running, they could connect with the other terminal, much like a regular phone call, by pressing the space bar. To disconnect worked the same way.

Logan's face appeared almost instantaneously.

"Hello? "

"Hey you."

"Max. Hey. What's up?"

"Mole mentioned that Alec met up with you the other day."

"Yeah, I had something I wanted to ask him to do for me."

"Have you heard from him since?"

Logan swallowed. He had hoped that since she hadn't contacted him yet, that he wouldn't have to worry about her worrying when she couldn't get in touch with Alec. Of course, he should have known better. Ever since Terminal City became the headquarters for the Transgenics within Seattle, and Max it's leader, Alec had become the second in charge, much to Logan's chagrin, but it seemed that it was position that he was actually made for.

"Ah, actually I heard from him yesterday."

"Where the hell is he? There's stuff here that he's supposed to be helping out with."

"Um, right. Well, there was an Eye's Only thing I needed him to do for me. It's taken a little longer than either of us thought it would."

"Really. And you didn't think that I should be in the loop about this?"

"Max, it's not like that. It was something that I needed Alec to do. With your new job as leader of the Transgenics of Seattle, I couldn't really ask you to do this for me."

"Do what? What is Alec doing?"

"He's checking on a lead we got about a transgenic…. From his unit back at Manticore."

"Someone from his old unit?"

"Yeah. He didn't know that she had made it, so when we got a heads up on her location, I thought the best person to follow it up would be Alec himself."

"Right. And just where is her location?"

"It's ah, well, it's kind of in Australia."

"Australia?"

"Yeah."

"What is she doing over there?"

"Alec remembered something about her going on a deep cover mission that took her there, and she was there when Manticore was taken down, so she's stayed there since."

Logan realized that he was just rambling, but there was no way he could just blurt out the truth. Sure, this was Max, the girl of his dreams, but he wasn't going to let her in on this 'mission' until it was absolutely necessary.

"So he's in Australia, searching for a Unit member."

"Right."

"But neither of you thought that you should maybe, just possibly let me know that he was going out of the country for a few days."

"Well.. no."

"No?"

"Max, it was a last minute thing. Both Alec and myself thought he'd be back by now, but there have been some changes to the original plan."

"Changes."

"Yeah."

"Do I get to know what those are, or am I not on the need to know list yet?"

"Well, I think I'll leave it to Alec's discretion."

"You're leaving it to Alec's discretion to let me in the loop."

"That's what I said."

"Logan."

"Max."

"Fine. Whatever. Forget I ever asked about anything. When you hear from Alec next, tell him that I'm pissed with him, more than usual."

"Right."

"Oh, and tell him that when he gets his ass back to Seattle, that he'd better have a damn good excuse for his little sojourn abroad."

"Max, I already told you—"

"As if I believe you Logan. You and Alec have never been all buddy-buddy, and now I'm supposed to believe that you're covering his ass for him? Right. Just tell him what I said."

Without waiting for his reply, Max hit the spacebar and cut the connection.

"Trouble in paradise?"

Turning in her seat, she saw Mole standing on the stairs, his shotgun now resting against his shoulder, his cigar still smoking.

"Shut up Mole. Isn't there some sort of security thing you're supposed to be looking at?"

"No need to bite my head off oh fearless leader of ours, just askin'"

"Well, it's none of your business."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Good."

Watching Mole walk away and out the door, Max turned her chair back to the computer screen that was now blank apart from the floating screen saver that Luke had made of Joshua's flag waving in the wind above their 'City." Lightly touching the screen, she tried to remember what her life was like before she destroyed Manticore and turned it's creations out into the hostile world that wasn't ready for them.

She knew that there was something that Logan wasn't telling her about why Alec was in Australia supposedly looking for an ex-Unit member of his from the good ol' Manticore days, but that wasn't the issue. Since she had broken him out of Jail that time he had been mistaken for Ben and held for the murder of Timothy Ryan which led to her telling him about how she had killed him in the forrest that day, they had formed a friendship that was closer and deeper than any friendships that either of them had had before. Maybe it was because of their shared childhood experiences together with the last year of spending so much time together, but it caused Max to worry about him quite a lot. He was a lot like a brother, but at the same time he wasn't. She supposed that was because technically, he was a copy of Ben, who had been her brother, but because at the same time, they were so different, he was the non brother brother that she never had.

Shaking her head at the irony of it, she got out of the chair, remembering that she had a 'lunch date' with Joshua that she had been looking forward to all day. Since the siege at Jam Pony, she realized that Joshua had grown up a lot, become a lot more independent, but at the same time, he was still the little boy that wanted to know everything and anything. Spending time with her Big Fella was a lot like having a vacation without leaving home, which is why she loved spending time with him.