Chapter 3
Max stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a soft towel. She stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders. She felt good. Really good. Better than she could remember feeling in a long time. Last night had changed her life…
After Alec helped her get out of Crash without any embarrassing scenes with Logan, he walked her to her bike, gave her a little pep-talk and then followed her home to make sure she got there okay before he headed over to Terminal City. Of course, she couldn't sleep and headed up to the space needle to clear her head. She was up there almost all night, reliving her relationship with Logan. The fun, easy times they'd had, the intense and scary times they'd had, the near death experiences…all of it. And by the end, she'd realized that although she did love Logan, things between them hadn't been good for a long time. She started to realize that she'd moved on months ago, and just hadn't realized it. By the time she got home she felt like a new woman. No guilt, no sadness, just a feeling of calm.
She even managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. And, it looked like she might even be on time for work.
Max pulled on her riding gloves and headed out of the building. She stopped short when she noticed someone leaned over messing with her bike.
"Hey!" she yelled at the man she was planning to kill. "Get the HELL away from my bike, Asshole!!!"
Startled, the man jumped up and turned to face her.
"Good morning to you too, Max" he smirked.
"Biggs! What the hell are you doing?" Although she was relieved, she still didn't like anyone touching her bike.
"Chill out Max. I just thought you would like some coffee. I usually eat breakfast around the corner from here and I brought you a cup." He smiled and handed her a styrofoam cup of some really great smelling coffee.
"Thanks" she said taking the cup from him, "but what the hell were you doing to my bike?"
"Oh, I was filling it up with gas. Mole has a little errand he needs us to go on, and you're going to need a full tank."
"What kind of errand?"
"I'll explain it to you later, but the plan is for us to check in at work and then get Alec to do all our deliveries so we don't have to take another personal day. Can't afford to lose our jobs. We need those sector passes."
"Sounds good. Let's go" she said as she checked her gas-cap.
"What's the matter Max? Don't trust me?" he teased as he got on his own bike.
"No, it's not that. I just wanted to make sure it was on tight enough."
"I could see how you would be worried, us X-5's are pretty delicate." He winked at her and headed off to work.
She smiled and headed after him.
OC was looking at her watch when Max and Biggs walked into JamPony. She had just been wondering what was taking them so long. She was afraid that Alec would head out on his first run before the two dark-haired transgenics arrived, and that was NOT part of the plan. How was Alec supposed to get jealous if he didn't see them arrive together, carrying matching coffee cups from the same restaurant?
OC smiled to herself at how easy this was. Men were just so predictable.
Alec was standing at dispatch with Normal when Max and Biggs walked in. His jaw literally dropped when he noted that they were carrying to-go coffee cups from Ned's Diner. They had breakfast together? Max and Biggs had breakfast together? At the diner Alec had introduced Biggs to? Damn!!
He composed himself and continued talking with Normal like nothing was wrong, but the damage had been done. OC had seen the momentary look of shock when he saw Max walk in with Biggs.
As Biggs and Max headed to the time clock to punch in OC caught Biggs eye and gave him a sly wink and nod.
"No." Alec said simply.
"What do you mean, no?" Max asked him, her surprise evident by the tone of her voice.
"I mean I have my own 'little errand' to run today, and I can't do that and cover all of our asses here at the same time."
"Come on people! Packages don't deliver themselves!" Normal's voice interrupted from across the room.
"I'll go get packages for all three of us, you two work this out." Max sighed as she headed over to dispatch leaving the two men to figure our what the plan was going to be.
"What errand?" Biggs asked "Mole didn't mention anything to me when he gave me the instructions for our job."
"Well, Mole is not the only man trying to make TC come together. And I'm sure he didn't specifically tell you to take Max with you. I'm sure that was probably your idea. But sorry pal, you're going to have to trick Max into hanging out with you on your own time. I have a meeting with a very important contact and I can't reschedule." Alec smirked.
"Fine, I can get Dalton to go with me." Biggs gave in.
"Good, now who's going to be the one to tell Max that she's stuck doing all the deliveries while we're out?" Alec and Biggs turned to look in the direction of the temperamental female who was stuffing their three backpacks with packages for the first run.
"Rock, Paper, Scissors?" Biggs suggested.
"Fine. One, two, three…" Alec brought his hand out in a fist signifying 'rock' while Biggs had decided on a flat palm indicating 'paper'.
Biggs smiled brightly and clapped Alec on the shoulder, "Good luck with that man." And headed over to his locker leaving Alec to deal with Max.
A smile spread across Alec's features as a plan formed in his head. Heading to talk to Sketchy instead of Max, he reached inside his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Sketchy, my man!! Wanna make an extra 50 bucks?"
He quickly filled him in on the details of the plan and Sketchy agreed.
Alec found Max waiting outside by the bikes.
"Hey Maxie, change of plans." He took the bags from her and strapped them to the back of his bike.
"I thought you couldn't reschedule your meeting?" she asked.
"I can't, and I didn't." he said as he continued securing the packages. At that moment Sketchy came up behind Alec. "Hey Alec, this is awesome, man! Are you sure it's okay with Normal? Last week he told me that hell would have to freeze over before he let be have a shot at Motor-Pony."
Alec quickly assured Sketchy that he had things under control with Normal. He then handed him the keys to his bike and turned to Max.
"So, we're going to have to take your bike. Think I can drive this time?"
"Are you crazy? You just gave your own bike a death sentence by handing it over to Sketchy. There's no way I'm letting you near mine!!" she shook her head and smiled, mounting her bike and moving forward to make room for Alec to climb on the back.
As they were pulling away, Biggs and OC walked out and saw them speeding down the street. Surprised, they looked at each other before noticing Sketchy trying to kick-start Alec's bike. OC started to laugh, and Biggs just shook his head. Alec was proving to be very easy to manipulate…
"DIX!!" came the frantic voice over the line as the man answered his phone.
"Max?" he recognized her voice instantly.
"I need back-up! Alec's meeting was a set-up! He was ambushed! Four familiars showed up instead of his contact and they have him in the trunk of a white car heading east out of sector six. I need as many X's as you can send me and I need them all now!" Max blazed up to the checkpoint, phone in one hand and sector pass in the other. As she was waived through, she continued giving Dix information as she tailed the car Alec was in.
Four minutes later, the sound of motorcycle engines could be heard by Max. She looked in her rear-view mirror and saw that right behind her 4 X-5's were closing in on her, Biggs and Cece were among them.
As they caught up to her, she gave them all hand signals organizing their plan of attack. Biggs signaled back and it was on.
Max and Cece took the left side, Biggs and Axel took the right side, Zen sped around all of them and passed the white car opening fire on the occupants and he sped by. All of their return-fire was concentrated on him, giving the others a chance to get close. Zen continued going until he was far enough ahead to make his next move, then he spun in a 180 degree turn and headed straight for the car playing an even more dangerous game of chicken as he continued to be fired upon.
Max drove up on the driver's window and punched through it, attacking the driver. Biggs followed her lead on the passenger side as Cece fired into the backseat killing the two familiars back there. Axel pulled in close and jumped off of his motorcycle and onto the back end of the car. Perched low on the bumper, he quickly picked the lock and opened the trunk. Alec smiled as Axel pulled the duct-tape off of his mouth. "It's about time man, that took almost 12 minutes!" Axel smirked back and gave him the finger, before reaching in and pulling Alec to his feet. Alec had already picked the lock on his handcuffs and leg-shackles. The two men jumped up onto the top of the car and from there each man jumped off of the car and onto the back of one of the waiting motorcycles still alongside. Axel jumped onto the back of Cece's bike and Alec jumped on behind Max.
Cece and Max headed off in the direction of Terminal City and left Biggs and Zen to deal with the mess.
Alec had a bullet would low on his right leg and they lost Axel's motorcycle, but that was the only real damage that came out of that scuffle. Max had some cuts on her fingers where her gloves didn't quite cover when she punched through the car window, but cuts were nothing to worry about if you're an X-5.
The next several hours were spent in a planning room off of the main command center trying to figure out how Alec's contact had been compromised and what they were going to do to get the supplies they could no longer get from him.
Alec had played it like it was no big deal, but he knew he had come close to death that afternoon. If he hadn't been trying to one-up Biggs for having breakfast with Max, and then trying to take her on a mission while leaving Alec behind to do all the grunt work, Alec never would have taken Max to his meeting. Really it had been a dumb idea. Most black-market dealers were skiddish and didn't like changes or surprises. Most of them refused to meet with more than one person in order to keep their identities as private as possible. That's why even though he had brought Max, he had left her around the corner and told her she was back-up. It was purely for his ego that she had been there with him and he thanked the blue lady that she was able to organize a rescue before White got a hold of him.
They were going to have to come up with a way to have back-up on all of their missions, even the simple ones. The familiars were getting bolder, and he was going to make damn sure that his people always had the upper hand in that fight. He was done losing his people to those whacked-out bastards.
Several hours later most everyone had cleared out of TC.
Jinx was manning the computer and Luke was monitoring the security cameras.
Alec was sitting at a table looking over maps and working on a plan. He looked a little tired, but there was a determined edge to his features that Max could see even from across the room where she had been working on translating the latest runes. She had been watching Alec for over a half an hour. He looked different tonight. Or maybe it just appeared that way to her. She had started to pay a lot more attention to Alec lately. She had been realizing more and more just how much she enjoyed being around her own kind. It was like being back with her siblings. It was as comfortable as it had been when she was a child back a Manticore. Not the place, Manticore was hell, but the relationships she had had there with the others, had been easy and comfortable. She hadn't felt like she belonged like this since they escaped in '09. Not with Logan, not even with Cindy. She had loved both Logan and Cindy, but there was always an element to it that she knew she shouldn't be there, that she was afraid of the day that just by her being there they could get hurt.
Max got up from her chair and walked across the room to stand beside Alec. "What are you working on?" she asked peering over his shoulder.
"Hmmm?" he asked looking up "What?"
"What are you working on?" she repeated.
"Oh, nothing important. What are you still doing here?"
"Watching you work. You're really committed to this."
"You say that like you're surprised." His eyebrows were drawn together in a very serious look.
"I didn't mean it like that. You always come through Alec. It's like you are taking this personally. It's like you are acting like you are personally responsible for everyone here."
"I could say the same of you, Max"
"I am responsible Alec. I let them out. I took away their home. I pissed off White and caused all of this."
"That's a little melodramatic. White was looking for a way to take down Manticore himself. The familiars had been trying to put a stop to Sandeman's work for years. If you hadn't done it, he would have, and nobody would have survived." He sighed and ran his hands through his hair at the thought.
They were both quiet for a minute.
"Feel like getting out of here?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah. Did you get your bike back from Sketchy?"
He laughed "No, I figured I'd save that trauma for tomorrow. What do you think the odds are that he didn't wreck it?"
"Slim. Very slim." She laughed and picked up her jacket off of the arm of the chair. "Come on, I'll drive you home."
"How about you drive me somewhere else? Let's go get a beer."
"Alec, I'm not in the mood for Crash. I don't want to deal with Logan tonight"
"Who said anything about Crash? Come on, I know a great place not too far from here."
"Alright, but you're buying."
"Me? I'm probably going to have to buy a new motorcycle tomorrow and you want me to buy beer tonight?"
"Alec, you didn't 'buy' your last motorcycle."
"Right. Then ok, I'm buying." She laughed.
"You bet your ass you are."
"Again with my ass, Maxie…" she punched him playfully on his shoulder as they turned and headed out to her bike.