Chapter Two - 17th June, 2003:

"Hello, Mr. Steel."

"Rachel…"

Max looked at Rachel, almost in disbelief. She looked exactly the same as she had done two years ago, with the exception of her hair, which was now past her shoulders and almost reaching waist-length. She wasn't tanned; he doubted that she'd even want to sunbathe, or even go out in the sun without some kind of sunblock.

"I thought you'd left," Max said bluntly, and Rachel shrugged her shoulders, a very non-Rachel thing to do.

"I came back," she said just as bluntly, before realizing that they were blocking the way of other passengers. "Come on, we'd better find a less crowded area," she added, grabbing Max's free arm and dragging him through the airport, heading back towards the coffee place she had vacated just over an hour before.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to promote Rachel?"

Sitting down at the same table, Rachel ordered two white coffees, one for herself and one for Max, despite not knowing if he drunk coffee or not. Neither made any attempt at talking while they waited for their coffee; instead, Rachel began scratching the skin around a scab, then began to pick it in nervousness.

"It'll start bleeding again," Max said, no emotion in a voice, almost sounding like a parent telling their child not to pick their scabs for the thousandth time, and getting beyond caring about the fact.

"Would you have attempted to block the promotion if you had known?"

"I don't care," Rachel said, her eyes focused on a burn mark on the table. "Some of the injuries I've received were a lot worse."

"It doesn't mean that it won't hurt and bleed if you keep picking it."

"No, I wouldn't. She'd be happy, I…I don't want to prevent that."

"Steel, I don't care. I'm not your child, you're not my father, so just quit it." Rachel picked her scab one last time, then folded her arms on the table, and stared at Max. "Happy now?"

"A little," Max said grudgingly, wondering where this new personality had come from. It was more defensive, more on edge, more…like Kat.

"Hermano, she's gone to Russia."

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing," Rachel snapped quickly, then was all smiles and cheerful when the waitress brought their coffee up. "Nothing beyond what's considered normal for us, anyway." She reached over and grabbed four packets of sugar, opening each and dumping the contents into her coffee one by one.

"You can't fool me, Rache. Do you honestly think no one can see your scars?"

"Yeah, I know, Jeff sent her on a mission there, to capture Psycho."

Rachel blanched for a moment, then hid her face behind her coffee cup as she took a sip. One single, very small sip before she slammed the cup back onto the table with a look of revulsion on her face.

"There's a reason it tastes so bitter: you forgot to stir the sugar in." Max was holding a teaspoon in his hand, which Rachel grabbed and dunked into the coffee. "I thought you didn't drink coffee, anyway."

"I don't," she snapped, taking another sip of coffee, this time managing to take a couple without spitting the liquid back out. "Not usually, anyway."

"No, I meant for good. She told me just before she left. She didn't want you to know."

"Then why drink it now?" Max asked, genuinely curious. Realizing that he hadn't even touched his own coffee, he dumped the contents of a packet of sugar into his cup, stirred and attempted to drink it.

"Because…" Rachel began, then shook her head. "Do you really need to know?"

"I'm just curious."

"That's not a good answer, Steel. Is the reason behind myself drinking coffee when I usually don't important to your next assignment?"

"It isn't, but –"

"Then stop asking me." Rachel slammed her cup down onto the table again, this time spilling some coffee over the sides and onto the hand holding the cup.

"Jeez, what is with you today, Steel? It's like you want to be captured, sliced up and examined by nutso scientists."

"It doesn't hurt," Rachel lied as Max went to grab some paper napkins. "I've had worse," she added when Max looked at her quizzically. She took the napkins and began mopping up the spill on the table before pushing her cup away and tossing some money onto the table, enough to cover the cost of the drinks plus a tip.

"It's Rachel, she…she's on a long-term mission to Russia, and I had to hear it second-hand."

"Don't you need to get back to N-Tek?" Rachel said as she stood up, and Max nodded slowly. "Well, why don't you get going?" she added, quickly walking out of the café, Max following a few startled moments later.

"Aren't you heading home? How are you going to get there?"

"I'm going back to N-Tek too," she said, smiling for the first time since meeting Max. "And, as we're asking twenty questions, why are you in 'Max' mode?"

"I…can't answer that, Rache. Well, I could, but it'd be confusing, disjointed and probably make no sense. It'd be better to wait until we get back to N-Tek for the full answer, Berto'd probably be able to answer it better than me."

"I don't understand it, but…the probes seem to have somehow reset themselves."

Max made his way to the long-term car park, easily identifying his bright blue convertable car out of all of the other cars, partly because it was so easily recognizable.

"I'm surprised, Steel," Rachel said as she got into the car and put the seatbelt on. "I would have thought you would have had a different car after four years."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Max asked as he started the ignition and began to reverse out of his parking space.

"Rumors fly, even in Russia. The current rumor is that you change girlfriends as often as you do clothes, and you don't keep anything which would remind you of them. This car, for example, would remind you of both myself and Laura."

"What does that mean?"

There was no such rumor; Rachel was just trying to goad Max into saying something, but she didn't know why, or even what she wanted him to say. Instead, he said nothing during their drive to N-Tek, only announcing the building when they arrived.

"Hermano, it means you're stuck in Max mode. Permanently."