Facing Death

By: lfbrox

Story: Set in early second season. Logan can walk (just because I like him to). And lots of transgenics are on the run and the other X-series are all out too. Lydecker, Renfro and White are the enemies – as a team this time.

Rating: R (or more for later chapters)

AN1: Thanks guys for your kind reviews. And sorry it took so long to update. But don't sweat it. You will see in that chapter, that I finally entered the bad guys. So enjoy.

AN2: This is the first chapter ever that has been beta-read. So thanks a lot to you Ace. You truly are "Sombody's Angel" J Let's see if the readers notice that my oh so popular spelling and punctuation errors are gone.

Chapter 6: Pancakes, hang-overs and audio devices

"…Back at Crash he pulled out his black motorcycle from behind a dumpster and sped away into the night, careful as not to be detected by anyone."

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He stood in the shadows in front of Fogle towers and waited until he saw the lights being turned on in the penthouse. 'Good. He's home' Zack thought and quietly and quickly used the rain-pipe on the side of the building to climb up the building across Fogle towers – as he had done every night for the past 4 months.

He crawled into a slightly open window of the building – everything concealed by the shadows of the night. He adjusted the camera that was pointed at Logan's penthouse and checked where Logan was located. He wasn't surprised to find a yawning Logan in front of his computers, checking his e-mails. He zoomed in on the screen to see if Logan had gotten anything interesting.

After a few minutes Logan yawned again and shut down his computers. He turned off the lights in the penthouse and moved to his bedroom, where he took off his shoes and shirt and went to the bathroom. Precisely 8 minutes later he returned to his bedroom, slipped under the covers, turned off the light and quickly fell asleep.

Figuring that nothing else would happen tonight, Zack adjusted the camera again to observe the whole apartment and moved over to another piece of equipment, which he turned on. The apparatus came to life and Zack routinely punched in some codes and adjusted the frequency before moving the microphone closer to his mouth.

"X5-599 reporting in. Over." Zack said in his usual unemotional and soldier-style voice.

He waited a minute before a voice answered him. "Lydecker here. Report 599."

"Target at usual location. Asleep. 452 at her place. Apparently they have found someone to cure the virus. Don't know who – yet. Trying to get more intel from her friends – unsuccessful so far. Operation 'Reunion' not been detected as far as I could see from target's e-mails. Observation location sill not compromised. Visual surveillance clear and intact. Await further instruction on how to proceed sir. Over." Zack finished his report and awaited his new instructions while automatically shifting into an attention posture, even though Lydecker could not see him.

"Visual is not enough to gather the required information. We need audio device installed inside the target's location. Must be undetectable, highly sensitive device. No intel so far on the device detecting programs target has. Pick up device tomorrow morning. 9am sharp. Sector 6. Your employer will give you the address for the pick up. Install device and transfer frequency to us by tomorrow night. Understood."

"Yes sir" Zack replied.

"Good. Over." With that Lydecker ended the contact.

Zack turned off the equipment and resumed his usual nightly position, observing a sleeping Logan Cale.

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The next morning Max took a quick shower, changed into her work clothes, woke up an uncooperative and heavily hung-over Cindy and pushed her baby out of the door. On her way over to Logan's to pick up her bicycle she considered her options. She could just pick up her bicycle and cycle to work, or she could see if Logan had already gotten up and prepared the breakfast he had offered her the night before. He knew she loved food, so maybe he had gotten up early just in case she decided to come up.

Once she arrived at Fogle towers, Max decided to check if he was awake or not. If he was still asleep she would sneak out again. But in case he had bothered to get up, she didn't want to disappoint him by not showing up. Satisfied with her logic she rode up to the penthouse and silently picked the lock so as not to wake Logan.

But as soon as she had the door open, a smell reached her nose that was almost as delicious as Logan's scent. She smiled and closed the door loudly announcing her presence and moved closer to the kitchen.

Logan heard the door slam shut and turned around to greet Max with a warm smile. "So you made it, huh?" he said nonchalantly, but his eyes betrayed his casual tone. He was deliriously happy that she was there. After the events of last night he wasn't sure if he would see her again anytime soon. But now, as he saw Max sway into the kitchen dressed in her biking gear, wearing a smile and looking so relaxed, he couldn't hide the boyish and partly triumphant grin that spread across his scruffy bearded face.

Max returned his grin. And as it was the most natural thing in the world, she plopped down on one of the kitchen stools and observed Logan, who wore loose sweat pants and a well-worn t-shirt. She wondered briefly if he had slept in those clothes but then turned her attention back to the food he was piling on plates.

As if they were a normal couple, Logan chatted about his exciting drive home last night and his run in with a sector cop, and placed a steaming cup of real coffee in front of her, followed by plates of food that included fluffy chocolate chip pancakes, cinnamon French toast and waffles. He poured some juice for the two of them and joined Max on the counter, where she was already digging into the food.

"God Logan. This is delicious. The best. Don't get me wrong, I love the dinners you cook, but this is like an orgy of desserts, and you know how much I love desserts." Max complimented him and grabbed some more syrup to go with the stack of pancakes she had piled on her plate.

"Glad you like it. Maybe you wanna trade one of your meal tickets and instead of dinner I'll fix you breakfast." Logan offered with a smile, enjoying watching her digging into the food.

At his words, Max eyes widened. She swallowed her mouthful of pancakes and asked incredulously, "Instead? Instead of dinner? How about in addition to dinner?"

"Well. Maybe that can be arranged" Logan chuckled at Max's outburst and poured some more coffee. Then he added, "Maybe you don't even have to go home between the two meals."

Max smiled, knowing what he meant, but instead of agreeing she replied, "What are we gonna do all day? From breakfast to dinner is a very long time."

"I meant it the other way around, Max." Logan clarified, having missed her playful tone.

"I know Logan. Just pulling your leg" Max replied and refilled her plate for the third time. They continued to talk casually over breakfast, avoiding any juicy or otherwise complicated topics. After another 20 minutes Max thanked him for breakfast and hurried to work, being late – again.

Logan cleared the dishes from the counter and began putting things away, unconsciously whistling while doing so, because now Max had left her ninja at his place 'forcing' her to come back tonight.

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Jam Pony, 8 am:

Max wheeled her bicycle in, greeted Normal unusually cheerfully and went to the back where the lockers were to see if Cindy had actually made it out of bed. What she found there forced her to giggle.

A half-asleep Cindy was half-lying, half-sitting on the bench with her eyes closed and her shirt inside out. Next to her, on the floor, a still drunk, and almost unconscious Sketchy lay on the floor trying to find a position where he didn't feel like throwing up. Herbal, who had gone home to celebrate his independence after dropping Sketchy off, still looked quite stoned and wasn't even in the mood to distribute the wisdoms of the great Ja.

Zack and Alec were just getting ready to go on their first run, but after seeing Max coming they waited, eager to find out who would get teased first.

"Look at you guys," Max sing-songed while plopping down next to OC. "One night of fun and you're unable to move the next day. You must really be getting old."

"Boo…I swear…Never…Never, ever again will I drink that much during the week…Never, ever again." OC almost whispered, so as not to hurt her head with her own loud voice.

"Hey Max," Sketchy's slightly slurred voice greeted her from the floor. "Don't worry. By tonight I'm gonna be fit enough to get my drink on again. Swear to god."

"Do whatever you have to do. I'm not gonna watch you repeat last night's events again. Thank the blue lady that you can't afford it. I'm outta here. Don't want Normal to bust my chops too just because you guys look and smell like shit." Max said and got off the bench. She tried to drag a struggling OC with her to keep her away from Normal's punishment. But after a few seconds gave it up and walked with Alec and Zack to the counter, hoping to distract Normal from the pile of drunken uselessness in the back of the place.

"Thanks for taking Sketchy and Herbal home last night." Max said to Zack.

"Yeah. I wonder why they still have a job. They have no discipline," Zack replied.

"Yeah. That's right. They should go home and get some rest after work and show up on time every single morning out of grim determination and religious conviction for the task of delivering packages and get nothing in return but lousy tips and a muscle spasm after peddling though this broken, contaminated city. I couldn't agree more. No discipline those slackers." Alec muttered next to Zack, the sarcasm evident in his voice.

Even Max had to laugh at that, but Zack didn't react and instead ignored Alec. He stepped up to Normal's dispatcher coordination center (as Normal liked to call it) to receive his first package to deliver and the pick up location for the package Lydecker mentioned.

As he was the most reliable messenger, Zack was sure Normal would give that pick up to him, as it had been ordered by the 'customer' – Lydecker – that it had to be picked up at 9am sharp. And Normal couldn't trust any of his slackers to keep that appointment time.

As expected, the pick up order was given to Zack, who sped up on his bicycle without even saying a word. Max and Alec took their packages and offered to take the packages for the others to them in the back. Normal cocked an eyebrow, sensing that something was wrong, but dismissed it quickly. As long as he got rid of the packages and as long as he got a signature, who cared. And he had too often wandered the path of a near heart-attack by screaming at his messengers. So he let it slip. This time.

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Zack quickly made his way through the streets of Seattle to his pick-up destination. He waited 5 more minutes until it was 9am sharp then knocked on the door of a run down old office building.

The door opened slowly and an old, apparently homeless guy opened the door.

"Jam Pony messenger. You got a package?" Zack asked coldly.

"You got the pay?" the old man answered, hiding the small package behind his back and sticking out his slightly shaky and completely dirty hand to Zack. Zack grabbed a $20 note out of his pocket and gave it to the old man, careful not to tough the dirty individual.

"Here's your package" the old man said, threw the package to Zack and quickly closed the door. His instructions were to wait another 20 minutes until the messenger left, and then he could leave too. Eager to let those 20 minutes start as soon as possible and buy some good booze with his newly acquired fortune he just shut the door in the messenger's face, waiting patiently for the 20 minutes to pass.

Zack carefully stuffed the package into his backpack and left to deliver the package he had gotten from Normal. Because he was disciplined. He could wait until after work to open the package and figure out how to install the device in Logan's penthouse.

AN: Sorry to all the Zack fans. I had to make him the bad guy. But I don't care, I never really liked the guy anyways. I wonder why? Anyway, hope you liked it. Now back to Hormones for now, in case you haven't noticed, I alternate in posting chapters for my stories.

Be nice little readers and review.

Lfbrox