DISCLAIMER: Please see all previous; no ownership, no profits made.
A/N: I know; unheard of, another update to this long dormant story. Consider this the rest of the chapter I should have had ready for the Pulse Day Posting Challenge.
Another big thank you to Mari83 for reading and commenting and being nice enough to keep encouraging more fic! Thanks as well to all of you who have kept reading and kept Max & Logan fic alive. I would love to hear any and all comments you may have – reviews are the only way we know you're still hanging in there...
FOGEL TOWERS 12:03 a.m.
Logan answered the phone on the first ring. "Yeah," he said tersely.
"She left maybe ten minutes ago – probably on her way."
"Got it." He disconnected Zack's call and drew a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he focused on the skyline through the window in front of him, acutely aware of what he had set in motion. His mouth was dry; his shoulders and neck ached in his exhaustion. He hadn't slept much in the days since his uncle's murder and it didn't appear he'd have the luxury of much sleep soon. Too many things to accomplish ...
He knew he was taking the coward's route; he also knew that this was likely to be the most effective way of severing ties with Max, given Zack's help in the plan. If he didn't see her, he wouldn't crumble and she wouldn't see through his carefully developed facade, and maybe the combination of Zack's insistence along with his absence would be enough to carry his deception, even to Max...
He glanced away from the window briefly to look around the still mostly empty condo he'd taken not long after he bought the penthouse, first as a financial hedge, the combination of realty investment and the rents it brought making a good return, according to his accountant, and very recently, when the last tenants moved out, used now as a last-resort safe house. Logan had begun to think it might be needed sooner rather than later, as his other safe houses became compromised – or unusable to him in the chair. Not even Bling or Max knew about it and, at the moment, it would serve his purpose perfectly. There was nothing that should give his presence, here a just a few floors below, to anyone in the penthouse.
Showtime.
He moved from the front window to the hall door, and, passing by the kitchen counter to pick up the slim, dark laptop, still waiting there, went on into the entry to wait. There was no guarantee that Max would be the only one taking the elevator up toward the penthouse this late, but it was a good bet, and listening for its passing was the only way he could have an idea what was going on with Max now. It was the only way he could monitor the situation, after all – and he had to sit tight there for the time being, anyway...
Logan sighed and opened the still-new computer, trying to bring his thoughts back to the project he wanted to pitch to Renfro, but unable to keep his thoughts from what would be happening in his penthouse any time now. Everything was in place; he'd had everything ready for Bling, at least the basics, so he could maintain Eyes Only while Logan was working to restore CI. He'd even handed over the keys to the place Sebastian had helped him arrange for the maintenance of the equipment he needed to keep Eyes Only going – at least for the time being, he told himself again...
And how long would that be, Cale? Do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into here?
He shook it off. It was far too late, and he was far too far down this road, to get cold feet now. He drew a steadying breath and turned to the laptop balanced on this thighs as he kept vigil at the door, waiting for the sound of the elevator, wondering if she'd even bother with such a pedestrian mode of access...
At least one of the perqs of working back at CI was the ready access to the best technology currently available on the market, and the new laptop computer he requisitioned from the company's IT group was a much better than the one he'd left upstairs, that first one he'd managed to locate after the Pulse, 'rescued' from a computer supply company not all that long after everything went dark.
Thoughts of the early days after the Pulse and his never-ending reliance on his computers led this thoughts back to the sleek metal flashdrive unit in his pocket, seeming to weigh warm and heavy against his chest, as if anxious to download its stores. Not yet, he counseled himself. Another few days won't hurt, and who knows if waiting might be the better choice for now – just in case. He let his fingers trace the shape as he wondered again where he should hide the small drive, which held in its two inches length so much of what his life – and Eyes Only– had been about these last few years, all the contacts and intel he'd gathered, all the secret deals and swindles done by organized crime and organized government alike, all the corruption and vice in those with power ...
... all the intel he'd managed to find about Project Manticore and everyone associated with it...
Such a small, easily overlooked item which bore information of such a critical nature that he couldn't imagine letting it out of his hands long enough to hide it, but knew if he were compromised he ran the risk of exposing countless innocents in the Informant Net, his closest friends ... Max and her family. Suddenly it dawned on him – practically on me, he mused. Close but probably not likely to be found, even in the most scrupulous pat down, if it came to that...
He felt along the underside of his chair seat to its right side seam, finding one of the small gaps he'd pulled open and re-secured with velco, early on – he hadn't used this in some time but it was a trick Bling had mentioned, one that was used sometimes by a few of the guys on his basketball team to stash an emergency key or credit card or a few dollars, a place not usually checked by petty thieves who found wheelchair users an easy target.
The gap opened smoothly, and Logan found that the velco was still tightly mounted. With only a slight hesitation for moving it even that far from direct body contact, Logan pulled the metallic cylander from his pocket, slid it into the gap in his cushion, and carefully sealed back any opening that might allow its discovery – or its loss. Just a few days at most, he promised himself, steeling himself as he thought he heard the sound of the elevator passing his floor. For this ... and for Max to get away, with Zack. And after that ... he could press for the restoration of Cale Industries – and the elimination, at least from Cale Industries' hallways, of Manticore and their scheming Director...
FOGEL TOWERS 12:06 a.m.
Max rode the elevator up to the penthouse, not sure what she could say to Logan in the state he'd been in lately, but needing to know what he'd say to her leaving – and about her returning. The showdown had been long in coming, this just gave it a focus.
Are you ready for whatever answer you get, Max? she asked herself. Her head – and, she knew, even her heart – told her that she might well hear that he wanted her to go, that he was done with her, didn't need or want her help, maybe didn't even want her around in his new life. But she couldn't hear it yet, not really – she knew Logan, she knew she did, and what she'd seen and heard from him lately wasn't him...
The elevator doors opened and she went to the door, finding it locked, as she expected. But before she could shift into the well practiced movements needed to open the lock she heard a new sound – one familiar to her but so unexpected here that she startled and shifted back from the door, as if struck–
A new, upgraded, self adjusting security system – one designed to increase protection against entry through the secured door by throwing additional barriers and locks into the reinforced framing upon the sensors picking up an attempt ...
He'd added more locks without telling her? To keep her out?
After only a moment's hesitation, she turned and hurried to the fire stairs and, running up to the maintenance access to the roof, crossed over to the skylight ...
And gasped audibly in pain when she found it had been sealed...
With tears stinging her eyes, Max moved back across the roof and down the stairs, silently, back to Logan's floor. With new determination fueled by her quickly weakening denial, she found her way to the service panel for the heating and air conditioning and, making short work of the 'unbreachable' security bars beyond the service bay, Max crawled into the ducts and found her way to the utility closet inside Logan's penthouse.
There had been no question she'd get inside, only how – and Logan had to know that, she was sure. She was willing to believe that it was merely added security for Eyes Only until she found the skylight newly sealed, knowing he'd probably not have thought of it at all until she made him aware of its vulnerability some months ago.
She still refused to consider what it meant until she saw him ... with Logan, there is always a logical explanation, her certainty slipping in the face of reality, no matter how stubbornly she tried to believe this had nothing to do with her. There has to be something...
Max slipped out of the closet silently and into the far end of the front hall, listening carefully. Clearly no one was here, and the place had been empty for a while – no lingering scents of meals prepared, of showers, even of coffee. It was dark and even the usual glow from the computer room was absent. She set off down the hall to glance in the bedroom and check the bathrooms and his front rooms, but she knew she'd find them empty. As she moved through, she started to wonder if she'd find any evidence at all of where he was – and why he'd done what he did.
After moving through the front of the penthouse, she came back to the computer room, always the base of his operations, and felt a sudden chill take her as she saw immediately that it was different: the cameras he used to make his broadcasts, usually present but tucked aside to be a bit less obvious, were missing now. Two of the CPUs and several of the ancillary units he needed to support the Informant Net were gone, too.
There was no sign of a struggle, not even of dust disturbed, as if the removal of the items were followed by a methodical wiping down of the area – no haste or hurry, just the opposite.
Forcing back her rising anxiety, she grabbed the side chair and sat in front of his array, turning on the system. But instead of the familiar, warming hum and cascade of blinking lights along his equipment that usually signaled the system coming to life, the monitor scrolled up a line of text and waited, cursor blinking accusingly:
No hard drive detected.
Her mouth was ashen.
She popped up from the chair, unable to sit still, to just take the slap in the face at face value, unwilling to believe the inevitable, and looked frantically around the room. What has he done with Eyes Only? she tried to assess, the evidence so unexpected she couldn't process it. Not only was Eyes Only's equipment missing, there was simply no sign that Logan had been here much at all lately. She knew he had to be around, in town, or at least on some planned trip, because if something had happened to threaten his safety, she'd have heard by now, from Bling or Matt – wouldn't she?
What the hell was going on, Logan, that you push your life's work out of your life now, too? She was slowly beginning to believe she knew...
Shaking off the reaction, she suddenly remembered his laptop, the one he rarely left behind, and though it was unlikely to be here it had to be the answer...
...but she found the laptop on the coffee table next to a neat stack of papers. She threw open the lid and pressed the power button, flipping through the pile of documents as she waited for it to power up. All she found was minutes from Cale Industires' shareholders' meetings over the past six months, all public and all pasteurized, and a couple innocuous e-mails from Bennett....
The laptop opened for her, blinking essentially the same message ...
Drive inaccessible or corrupted. Reinstall operating system and reboot.
Emotions rising, Max strode back to his computer room and looked hurriedly in one drawer, and another and another, all full, previously, of reports or data; they were now empty. His bug-out supplies, an extra gun and IDs, credit cards, all that, were gone, and in their place were more Cale Industries documents. Unable to deny the obvious much longer, Max pulled out the drawer where Logan had kept the few printed items they dared to keep around connected with Manticore, found it, too, empty, with the exception of one large manilla envelope, addressed and stamped for post office delivery – stamped, for the slow, undependable mail!! – addressed to her, care of Jam Pony...
She ripped it open and felt her heart rip as she peered in – no note, no explanation, no nothing inside – only her initial 'payment' for their months of quid pro quo...
...the final straw...
She threw the envelope to the floor and, vision blurring, her eyes stinging with the salty tears refusing to be held back now, she retraced her steps to the utility closet, the air ducts and out into the corridor. She forced her breathing to steady and slapped her emotions aside.
I will never mislead you, soldier, Lydecker's voice seemed to taunt her with his own brand of 'I told you so.' No matter how pleasant emotions may be for a while, they will be your downfall. Don't let them be your Achilles' heel. You can't ever afford to relax your guard and let your emotions let you think you're safe when you're not.... or let you think you're accepted where you're not. You have a function; you have a purpose... and relationships with civilians, no matter what they may say, are not safe – and aren't ever what they may seem.
Max bit her lip, hard, mentally exorcising Lydecker's ghost from her thoughts. No matter anything else, no matter what she'd just seen, no matter about Logan past or present, she wouldn't be deluded into thinking that Lydecker was actually one of the good guys – she knew better than that. What she did know, however, was that Zack was her CO again and had her interests at heart, had the good of the unit always foremost in his mind. She refused to think about the past twenty minutes, because if anything would break her heart again, almost as much as it had been broken by her encounter with Ben so recently, it was the past twenty minutes and what that meant for the past year...
A whole year! her broken heart tried to remind her...
Again biting her lip, hard enough to draw blood this time, she focused on planning for the mission ahead with Zack, considering what she needed to bring and what provisions she might have to allow them to move past the checkpoints and out of the country. They would be taking the old familiar routes into Canada at first, as it was the fastest way to get out of Manticore's jurisdiction, but they would immediately head east, into new territory for her, making their way south eventually via a transatlantic hop, probably by air but determined when they got closer to Toronto...
She slipped outside and down the block to where she had stashed her bike, far enough that its engines wouldn't be heard in the penthouse – even though, as it had happened, her caution was unnecessary. Mounting the bike and turning the key, she revved the engine and took off down the block, never once looking behind her.
And behind her, in the dark of the penthouse, the spilled contents of an envelope – a black and white photo of a freckle-faced boy and a two page juvenile rap sheet, the only hard copy documents Logan still had of her childhood, lay across the hall, accusingly ...
...TBC...