The shock of the revelation leaves Max spinning. They'd been looking so intensely for Sandeman, combed through every document in existence it felt like. Then, out of nowhere, here he is?
"Hello?" Logan urgently whispers back into the phone. The fear for Max's safety evident.
Max comes back to Earth, a bit out of her shock, and picks up the swinging pay phone. She swallows hard. What to say? Max isn't one to often be lost for words… but then again it's not every day you find the one who created you and started Manticore. What if he didn't have all the answers she hoped for?
Max grasps the phone tightly. "Hey, um, yeah I'm still here." Act like normal. "I didn't know you had company." Max sarcastically quipped.
Now, it was Logan's turn to trip over words. "Uh, yeah… about that. I hadn't really planned on… having company."
Max sighs. First, she needs to rescue her friends. Now. Later, she can deal with… father? God? Dr. Evil? Who or whatever Sandeman is. It might already be too late for friends but maybe not.
Max's makes a very Max-like decision. "Logan, I'm going to try to find them before TC backup gets here. They may not have time to wait."
Of course, this announcement stirs up fearful concern in both Logan and Sandeman. Of course with Max, her choice is not up for debate.
"Now, Max, wait.." Logan begins, his voice like a rope of caution tape.
Sandeman grabs the phone from Logan's hand and punches the speaker button.
"Hey!" Logan calls out.
Sandeman is sitting next to Logan in a chair and puts the phone on a table in front of them. "Max, you mustn't do that. There's too much at stake and it's far too risky." His tone sounded as if the world hung in the balance and there was something more at stake here.
Logan folded his arms and mentally scoffed incredulously, almost a laugh. All the times Logan's tried to stop her from running into danger to save someone and Sandeman naively believes he can.
Max's eyes narrowed at that. No one tells me what to do, certainly not some random person who just walked into my life.
She leans and puts a hand on her hip. "Gee, thanks for the advice, stranger. But right now there's nothing I'll let stop me from saving my friends." With that, the phone is left just hanging there in silence, as Max darts off. To where? She's not sure. Good thing, she's great at winging it though.
Sandeman leans forward, eyes wide, and hurriedly calls out, "Max?!" Logan does the same. They're both much too far away to even conceptualize stopping her from doing something so irrational.
"This is extremely dangerous." Sandeman turns and tells Logan. Sandeman can feel the oxygen in the room running out - the effects of panic but does his best to keep it together and be his calm, composed self.
Logan tries to act confident. "She's held her own in spur-of-the-moment, risky rescues before."
"Not like this." The words are firm, far more confident than Logan's, and the most ominous one's he's ever hear, even moreso than Lydecker's.
Logan looks hard at the Sandeman, the ex-cult member next to him. "What are you not telling us?"
Sandeman leans over to put his face into hands and shakes his head, before slowly drawing up and resting his chin on his clasped hands. His icy blue eyes fix Logan with an intensely hard stare, which alone threatens to send a shiver up Logan's spine.
"The end is nigh and everything rests on her. Everything."
Author's note: I know this a short chapter, but after so long I wanted to get something up. Been a while since I've taken a crack at writing fanfiction again.