I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.

Chapter Six
Max's Request and Gratitude

When Inez awoke that evening, she found she wasn't in the grove leaning against Max anymore. She was laying on the bed Matt had been occupying earlier. Her shoes and glasses were gone and the quilt was tucked all the way up to her chin. Inez sat up, located her glasses, and looked around.

Matt, Jackie, and Dr. Marbles were nowhere to be found. Max was curled up, asleep, on the floor with something tucked between her paws. It took Inez a moment to realize that Max had actually curved her sinuous body around Digit; her claws gently holding the sleeping cyboid in the catch of her throat.

Inez slowly slipped her feet into her shoes and tip-toed to the sleeping gargoyle, underestimating the strength of gargoyle hearing. However, Max stayed silent and still. Her massive chest the only thing that really moved. Inez carefully knelt by Max to examine her huge wings. She didn't know why but Max fascinated her to no end.

She tentatively reached out and touched the wing-ridge. Expecting to feel leather and scales, Inez was startled to find that Max's wings had been strapped in an immobile state with white tape – which blended in neatly with Max's own white skin to the point where it didn't appear there was tape at all. She rubbed her hand down the ridge and found there were only three strips and they wrapped all the way around Max's huge frame, holding both wings to her sides and freezing the joints in place. Then, Inez found the membrane and touched it, startled when she found the holes where Hacker had threaded the chains through to prevent her from flying off.

"You should be careful what you touch." Max said, lifting her head to regard the curious pre-teen. "Those holes in my wings are sore and I've still got a couple of hair-line fractures in that ridge you were just fingering."

Inez withdrew sharply and stepped back a few paces; acting like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I'm sorry. I just wondered what they felt like is all. I didn't know you were still awake either."

"I wasn't. I'm just a light sleeper. Something I developed while in training – so my enemy can't sneak up on me."

Inez dropped her head sheepishly. "I'm sorry."

The gargoyle nodded, knowingly. "You're forgiven. I just suggest not touching them again. Least ways not while they're trying to heal."

"I won't." Inez promised.

Digit moved in her arms. Max's attention went back to him; claws relaxed to allow room for him to move then tightened again to cradle him closer to her.

"Come, sit next to me. There's a few things I would like to discuss with you." Max told the human girl.

Inez hesitated then leaned against Max's warm belly again. "Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

"Well, for one, thanks for being Digit's friend. It means a lot to me knowing he has a few someones he can turn to if he needs you." Max said.

Inez glanced at the cyboid in Max's paws. Digit mumbled something in his sleep and stretched out his legs until they almost touched Max's leg. Her grip tightened gently around him and she rubbed a claw against one of his wings. Digit looked rather cute. His small size easily disappeared in the mass of metal and scales.

"No problem." Inez said. "He's easy to love."

Max smiled, leathery lips parting over sharp fangs as a chuckle rumbled through her throat. "That he is." She agreed. "That he is."

"Why did you feel the need to thank me for being his friend? Aren't you still his friend?" The human girl asked.

Max nodded. "Well, yeah. He also has Motherboard and Dad. But it's not nearly the same as the kind of relationship you three have with him. Dad usually keeps him around as an assistant since you-know-who failed to live up to that expectation. Motherboard just relies on him to take Dad's place when he can't be there to do repairs. Other than those two, I was really the only person he had in his life he could actually consider a friend. And I was his friend when the two of us were on you-know-who's ship. That was a time when both of us needed a friend.

"I'm just thanking you because – well – he needed people like you. He thought I was gone, not that I could blame him since we never gave him a reason to suspect otherwise. Dad told me that since Digit suspected I was gone, he was sad and mopey. He didn't really want to do anything. Now that he has you three, Motherboard told me Digit had never been happier."

"Were you always friends with him?" Inez asked.

Max was silent for a time and Inez knew the answer before Max even said it.

"No. I was not always his friend."

"Why not? You agreed with me that he is easy to love! So why didn't you like him?"

"Because he carried the mark of my big brother, who I hated. I hated you-know-who long before he betrayed us. Not to mention I caught Digit in my room without permission the first day I met him and I accused him of spying on me for you-know-who. It wasn't until I got to be talking with him that I realized you-know-who might have made him but you-know-who's will did not rule over Digit. Therefore, Digit was nothing like you-know-who and my hatred of Digit was not worth anything." Max said.

"So, you guys weren't always friends? That's almost hard to believe. Everywhere Digit goes he makes friends." Inez pointed out.

"I know. That's one of his best qualities. He's a klutz but everyone likes him anyway. He can be fairly stupid in the worst of times but it's not really considered an annoyance."

"Max, if you-know-who made Digit, then why is he so 'stupid'?" Asked Inez.

"Just you-know-who's way of making him superior to somebody. See, it annoyed him that he had to fall into Dad's shadow. It annoyed him that Dad always had a solution for something, no matter what size the problem was. So you-know-who built someone with an IQ less than his own to make him feel smarter. Same thing with Buzz and Delete, except that Digit could beat those two in any test of brains you give them."

"I'm sure he would." Inez laughed.

Then, she stopped laughing as Digit mumbled something and stirred fitfully in his sleep. Max bent her head and whispered something to Digit and he calmed down.

"Have you ever thought about, maybe, reprogramming Digit? You know, boosting his IQ?" Inez asked.

"Dad and I discussed doing it a couple of times but neither of us actually has the heart to do it. The biggest reason is it's illegal to revamp something somebody else made. If Digit was my creation, or even my Dad's, it would be okay. But he's not our creation so it's not okay. The other reason is because not only would it change Digit's brainpower, but his personality as well. We like him just the way he is so we see no reason to change him." Max explained.

Inez stroked Max's metal arm and felt the scale-like engravings etched into its surface. "I'm glad you see it that way. We like him just the way he is, too."

"Good." Max said.

The two sat in silence. Then, "Thanks for saving my father a few times too. It means a lot to me that there's someone other than Motherboard looking out for him, too."

"It's been our pleasure. Of course there have been a few close calls when we almost didn't get to him in time." Inez said.

"I know. Dad's told me a lot about you guys. He said 'Those three friends from earth are the best thing that has happened to Cyberspace since the first integrated circuit'. Between you and me, that's a compliment Dad does not express lightly."

"I'm sure he doesn't." Inez said. "Anything else."

"Yeah. I don't want you guys in Cyberspace when I confront you-know-who. It's not something I'm going to be proud of doing. Not to mention it'll be ugly. I don't want you three to witness something like that."

"No problem." Inez said after a moment's silence.

She was thinking about every weapon Max had in her arsenal: Tail barb, claws, teeth, horns. Then, Inez realized Max didn't just have weapons, she was a weapon. Her entire being was built around a need to destroy something. Inez had witnessed the destruction of rocks and the tearing of metal under Max's paws. She had seen how the cyborg-gargoyle's mouth had opened like a snake to nearly swallow Hacker whole. And, she had seen the marks in the sand where Max's tail had left grooves. She had no doubt the battle between cyborg-gargoyle and cyborg was going to be ugly. This was going to be a sibling rivalry gone completely sour.

"I mean it." Max said, cutting into Inez's thoughts. Her voice was hard and stern, leaving no room for argument. "I don't want you three here when I call him out on his deeds."

"Okay." Inez said, timidly.

"Good. Now you guys should probably go home. You've been in Cyberspace long enough to last you a while." Max said.

"How long have we been here?" Inez asked.

"About sixteen hours." Max said, matter-of-factly.

"Sixteen hours? How could Motherboard let us stay here for so long?" Inez blurted out.

"You guys were tired. She thought you should rest. It's not like your parents actually missed you anyway. I hear the time is different between our worlds."

"Yeah. In our first adventure here, we were gone from our world for hours, but when we went back it was like we were gone for only a few minutes."

"Fascinating." Max said.

"Isn't it though?" Inez said, rhetorically.

"Your friends are waiting for you by the pond. Dad already left. He's on his way to find a cure for Motherboard. I told Motherboard to be ready to get you." Max said.

"What are you going to do?" Inez asked.

"Me? I have to get ready for this final battle. There's some stuff I have to do to prepare for it. Among these is the preparation of myself." Max answered.

"Okay." Inez stood up, hugged Max and kissed Digit on the cheek before leaving.

Max heard her three human friends greet each other, call Motherboard for a portal to the real world, and leave. The cyborg-gargoyle sighed. She was not looking forward to doing what she had to do. But it had to be done.

Tonight, she was going to the reflection pond to start a "dream fast"1. But first, she had to rest a while. Dream fasts took a lot of time and energy. Time being the element she was rapidly running out of.

1"Dream Fast" - term from George Lucas' The Dark Crystal