E M P T Y . W O R L D

B y . S o r r o w . R e m i n i s c e

. x . x .

8 June, 2022
8.15am

"Any word from the CDC yet?"

Max swept into Terminal City's headquarters, wearing the false bravado she had silently accused Alec and Logan of hogging for themselves a few days earlier. She was growing tired of waiting for news, only to have to hear it on the television like the rest of America. The CDC had promised to make contact if they reaped any kind of positive result from the transgenic blood they'd been given, and the lack of response frankly scared her. And the fact that she tried to hide this fear from everyone else did nothing to neutralise the apprehension within her own self.

Joshua, Dix and Logan stood at a table, making their way through assorted computer equipment. They too had begun to lose patience with the 'powers that be'. At last the suggestion had been made, by Logan, to take matters into their own hands - thanks to the powers of computer hacking. Unable to sleep, they had spent the night picking over every vaguely salvageable piece of hard drive they could find within Terminal City.

As if gifted with the wonders of telepathy, the CDC had finally contacted them that morning. But the news had done nothing to stall their resolve to find out information by their own means.

As Max approached, Joshua glanced hesitantly between Dix and Logan. "Who should tell her?"

"Tell me what?" Anxiety replaced Max's optimistic façade and her mind raced forward to consider the countless possibilities of what the answer to her question could be.

As Dix shrugged, Logan nodded towards Joshua and the transhuman sprang up from his seat, glad to have something positive to report.

"Dr George called, just ten minutes ago. They uh… they don't want to speak too soon but my blood seems to be pretty powerful stuff." Joshua grinned, excited to think that he truly was father's 'special one'. Even if this hadn't been part of Sandeman's plan.

"It's working?!" Max's voice rose several notches, her face breaking at last into an all-consuming smile.

"Uhh…" Joshua's proud beam faltered as he paused, unsure of how to elaborate further. "I uh…"

Clearing his throat, Logan cut in to fill Max in on the details. "They've done a bit of tweaking here and there, but they seem to be making some progress in stopping the mutation process."

Beaming, Max considered the news. "Hey, think maybe they'll whip up a cure for the virus in me while they're at it?"

Logan nodded. "Maybe."

Her tone good humoured, Max smiled softly towards the man she'd almost grown used to being wary around, for fear she might cause his death. "Least that way you can stop smelling like eau de bleach huh?"

"I'm sure if they can cure the mutated strain of the Manticore virus, they'll be able to fix us up. But Max…" Logan hesitated, his expression torn. "I just don't think it'd be wise to get our hopes up too soon."

Ignoring the voice of wisdom that warned her not to fall victim to premature happiness, Max couldn't help but let the relief flood through her. The CDC knew what they were doing. They had to know what they were doing.

"Of course! But, well it's a start right? They have to cure this virus. It's about more than just us now - last nights news report had the death count across America at over two hundred. Two hundred and thirteen people dead in just five days!" Panic crept into Max's voice once more. "That's one damn fast spreading virus…"

Logan turned to Max, a somewhat hesitant expression on his face. "Max, I wouldn't tell anyone yet - it's still too soon to know for -"

"Of course - we'll keep it between us, just for now. But if they've halted the virus in its tracks, that's fast progress - considering how long we've searched for a cure. I'm sure in a week or so, everything will be fine."

"What's going to be fine?"

The four conspirators snapped their eyes towards the entrance as Alec strolled in. Seeing the others gaping as they searched for a reply, Dix rolled his eyes dramatically. "Ah you know, chicks and their hormones. Shitty as hell one day, laughing at the world the next."

Alec's questioning expression turned to one of amusement. "Dix - since when have you known anything about chicks and their hormones?"

Ducking his head in embarrassment, the transhuman shrugged. "Oh. Well, I uh… I read a lot of books."

"Riiighht-o." Clapping his not-so-human friend on the back in a gesture of camaraderie, Alec turned towards Max, eyebrow raised.

"So what's with the good cheer Max?" Glancing towards the others, who immediately diverted their eyes and feigned preoccupation, Alec shrugged and wandering over to where she stood at the window.

Max turned to stare out at Terminal City's main street, and fought to wipe the smile from her face, remembering Logan's suggestion to keep the news under wraps.

Weighing up the list of plausible answers in her mind, Max asked herself if lying to Alec would be such a good idea… they still hadn't spoken since their dispute. If she kept this from him, wouldn't he feel as if her prior apology was insincere, and that she didn't trust him even now? But, if she chose her carefully words so as to avoid both telling the truth, and lying… what he didn't know wouldn't hurt, right?

"So a girl has to have a good excuse to be happy these days?" Max's tone was playful, and she cringed inwardly. Too playful given circumstances.

"Come one Max, these aren't ordinary every day days." A note of concern crept into Alec's voice as he wondered whether the stress of the previous evening had had some kind of adverse effect upon Max's sanity. "Are you uh, feeling alright - Maxie?"

Max glanced to the hand that suddenly rested on her elbow, and the guilt rose up within her. Reluctantly, she turned to face him, and seeing the worry etched around his eyes, words spilt from her lips. "I really am sorry about the other day, I didn't -"

"Ssshhh." Alec closed his eyes for a moment, composing his thoughts. "It's fine. I would have reacted the same way."

"No you wouldn't have." Max regarded Alec seriously, knowing he was trying to brush over the hurt she'd inflicted upon him, as he'd been doing for months now - each time she blamed him for something that went wrong in her life.

Alec's hand twitched upon Max's arm for a moment, as if he was suddenly unsure what to do with the appendage. Finally he pulled away and stepped back, even as he flashed her a small, brief grin.

Casting her face downwards to hide her disappointment, Max realised the wall between their friendship remained, even now.

"Hey," Alec moved quickly to break the awkward silence, ducking down to peer at Max beneath her frown. "Where have all the happy thoughts gone?"

Shrugging, Max swallowed tightly and glanced out of the window once more. "It's premature anyway."

"What is?" Alec frowned, not understanding her train of thought.

Sighing, Max looked to Logan, who like the others, was now watching the exchange between them intently. Realising she silently asked his opinion, he held up his hands and shrugging his shoulders in uncertainty, not wanting to make Max's decision for her.

"CDC may have found a cure for this mutated virus out there. Maybe." Max spoke hesitantly now, realising just how much of a 'maybe' this finding was. After all, there was a time when there 'may' have been a cure for the virus she carried within her, but of course, twelve hours later she had been back to square one. And hurting for ever having experienced the false hope.

Alec's own feelings on the matter were guarded as he ran a hand through his hair and rocked slightly on his toes, as if holding in whatever feeling was pent up within himself.

"So what do you think?" Impatient for some kind of response, Max pinned Alec with her question.

"I dunno Max. I mean, it's too soon to be breaking out the party balloons."

"I realise that!" Berating herself for snapping even as she tried to mend the broken bridge between them, Max felt anxiety sweep through her once more. "I just lost myself in the moment. I needed something to smile about - just for a moment."

"Understandable." Alec's tone softened, a genuine smile settling itself upon his face. "There's nothing wrong with losing yourself in the moment every now and then. Think of it as an indulgence of the senses."

Winking as Max pushed him lightly, Alec held up his hands in mock defence and crossed the room to Joshua, Dix and Logan, who were back to their grand efforts at pretending they were working on repairs.

"Righto folks. What's on the agenda for the day?"

"Pfft! What are you doing awake at this hour anyway Alec? You're never up before ten." Dix grinned, and threw his thumb towards the salvaged computer equipment, as he simultaneously handed Alec a screw driver.

"Couldn't sleep." Staring down at the monitor Logan was proceeding to slide towards him, Alec rubbed his eyes, wondering if maybe he was feeling a little tired after all.

"Well, I don't think any of us will feel much like work today. But, we've gotta keep busy right?"

"Absolutely." Alec nodded absentminded. "Bags not doing anything that involves wading though sewers."

"Hey Alec, we were thinking perhaps of bringing Original Cindy and Sketchy back here to stay until this thing blows over. Maybe see if we can pick up my equipment from Joshua's house." Logan hesitated, awkward. Things had always been tense between the two of them, but now seemed the appropriate time for repairing things - even friendships that were tenacious to begin with. "Care to come along?"

Alec's expression melded into one of surprise, before he covered it over with his regular easy-going grin. "Sure thing Logan. Could do with some fresh air."

"Wait… when did we discuss this? You can't go out there!" Max strode toward Logan and stopped herself from reaching out to him. "If you haven't noticed, there's a damn virus out there knockin' people down!"

"Max, it's okay. We'll go straight to Jam Pony, and then on to Joshua's." Logan glanced to Alec. "No side trips to Blowfish Tavern."

Snorting, Alec grinned at Max although his words were directed at the older man. "It's okay buddy, the novelty of erotic dance wore off a looong time ago."

Making pains to ignore Alec's jibe, Max found a new angle of argument. "What about the thermal imaging gear White's men have out there? I thought we had an agreement that no transgenics leave Terminal City?"

Logan and Alec both opened their mouths to speak but Max rolled on, not giving them the opportunity to argue. "Alec if you get caught, they'll take Logan too."

"Yeah but come on Max, it's not like we're gonna be hangin' out on a street corner handing out 'I'm a transgenic' and 'I'm Eyes Only' pamphlets."

Logan shot Alec a perplexed sidelong look and turned to Max. "What he means is -"

"I know what he means!" Balking at her own irritation, Max's tone grew sombre as she added quietly, "just… don't forget what happened to Biggs."

The room fell silent, until Joshua hesitantly stepped forward with the words that stopped Max's argument dead in its tracks.

"But Max, if we leave Cindy and Sketch out there… they could die."

Folding her arms tightly across her chest, Max looked down at the ground. She felt torn. On one hand, she desperately wanted her friends here with her, but at the same time, the risk of losing either one of these men standing before her was far too high. But at the end of the day, it wasn't her decision to make.

"Fine." The words were barely a whisper. "But you better come back or you know I'll hunt you down and kick both your asses."

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12.25pm

Max poked listlessly at the food on her plate. Reconstituted mashed potatoes. Yum.

In the days since word of the virus broke out, rations had become smaller. Going into the outside world for supplies meant something so much more dangerous than Ames White, thermal imaging equipment and public lynchings. They didn't know if transgenics were immune to this new virus, and they sure as hell didn't want to find out. And now Logan and Alec were out there facing all of this…

Beside her, Joshua was seemingly oblivious to her concerns, and far less hesitant about the quality of their meal, as he steadily shovelled in the forkfuls of lumpy white mush.

Soon he was finished, and looking sideways at Max's own plate. "You need to eat Max."

"I'm not hungry." The X5 swirled the fork through the muck a moment longer before sliding the plate towards her friend. "Here. You have it."

Max leaned back into her chair and let her head fall back as she stared unseeing at the cracks in the ceiling. She'd had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach since Logan and Alec left an hour earlier. For forty-five minutes she'd been telling herself it was pure anxiety, but as the dread increased, she began to wonder if it was intuition - if something was in fact wrong.

"Starving yourself isn't gonna make the food last any longer Max." Joshua pushed the plate back towards her. "Eat."

Sitting slowly back up, Max frowned at the sloppy pile of goop before her, and slid the plate back towards her friend. "I really can't eat it Joshua. I feel sick."

Shoving his chair back, Joshua stood up and began to lift the X5 from her seat. "Max sick? You might have the virus!"

Protesting, Max tried to fight off the transhuman, but his strength was greater than her own as he lifted her in his arms and began to carry her from the large warehouse next to headquarters that had been turned into a mess hall.

"Joshua no!" Her sharp tone snapped Joshua to attention and he stared at her, wide eyed as he slowly allowed her to regain her feet.

"It's not that. I'm just worried." Pushing her hair out of her face, Max glanced to Joshua and smiled. "Thanks for the concern Big Fella. But I'm fine. Really."

Awkward, Joshua nodded, his eyes on the floor. "Sorry Max."

"It's okay." Reaching out to rest her fingertips on his cheek, Max slid them down to his jaw line and forced him to lift his chin. "Look at me Joshua - I'm sorry I yelled. Thank you for the concern."

Grinning widely, the moment of hurt suddenly passing, Joshua beckoned towards the seats once more. "Well then… do you want to talk to me while I eat your food?"

"Sure thing Josh." Max nodded, relieved. "Talking sounds like a good thing to do right now."

Taking her seat once more, Max began to indulge in light hearted conversation with Joshua. She wondered in the back of her mind, if Joshua was more aware of her worries than she gave him credit for - and if he also realised she needed to talk about something else right now.

In fact Joshua probably needed the distraction just as much. If for nothing else, than to ignore the mental countdown they were both silently making, of the minutes since Alec and Logan had left Terminal City.

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1.10pm

"Tell me again how you two managed to get your asses out of Terminal City? Sketch and I have been contemplating sneakin' in to check up on ya for days now. But some fool…" Original Cindy paused to point a thumb towards Sketchy, "is too scared to creep around the National Guard."

"Hey you don't know what they do to guys like me in their holding cells!" Seeing the way his friends turned to smirk at him, Sketchy reconsidered his words. "I mean, so I've heard… Anyway, I don't think that dude Mole likes me too much…"

Slamming her locker shut, Cindy gathered up the bundle of possessions important to a girl's survival that had been stored within, and flicked him on the head as she walked past. "He may look it, but Mole aint the creature from the Black Lagoon - he's not gonna gobble you up!"

Shaking his head in amusement, Alec slung his arms around Sketchy's shoulders. "Course he wouldn't. Unless uh… unless you looked at him the wrong way."

Releasing his friend, Alec exchanged grins with Logan and followed Cindy towards the Jam Pony entrance, ignoring Sketch as he hurried after him, with questions of "and how does that look go exactly?" flying from his mouth like a semi-automatic, until at last Alec turned to give an over-exaggerated demonstration.

At the dispatch counter, Original Cindy was making a final effort to convince Normal to come with them - or so it seemed. Her voice was raised, her words pleading - who would've guessed she cared so much? And Normal was shaking his head as adamantly as ever. Dedicated to the job, and not much else.

Though of course, once the approaching trio took in Cindy's words, they found themselves witnessing the more likely scenario.

"No payout! No no no! You cannot claim sick leave compensation if you are alive and kicking. In fact, you could go out there right now and catch yourself a killer virus, and I still would not give you compensation. Now shoo!"

Normal's tone of voice indicated to Alec that not much had changed since he'd left Jam Pony, and for a moment the transgenic felt a pang of homesickness as he looked around the building for what could quite possibly be the final time. It was amazing how this pit had come to feel like home over the months he had worked here.

Taking Cindy's place before the counter as she stomped away, Alec made a last ditch effort to convince the man he had come to regard as a friend of sorts, to leave. "Hey Normal, are you sure you won't come with us?"

"Look Golden Boy, there may be a plague upon all of our families going on out there, but I am not going to board up Jam Pony's doors and windows on account of a flesh eating disease!"

"Uh, Normal? It's not a flesh-eating dise-"

"Well, whatever. It's our policy to deliver the packages regardless of what storm may rage beyond these walls! In times like this, every parcel delivery company across Seattle are tucking their tails between their legs and running. There's a killing to be made right now Mr Hot Shot - a killing!"

"Yeah, right." Alec shook his head, realising the futility in even trying to talk some sense into his ex-boss.

Logan stepped up beside Alec and rested his elbows on the desk, leaning in to regard Normal intensely as he lowered his voice. "There sure is a real killing to be made - literally. Do you realise that with messengers accessing every neighbourhood and travelling to any Joe Blogs' door step, the chances of them contracting this virus is that much higher than anyone else?"

"I realise this Mr Cale. Therefore I've taken efforts to invest in these." From beneath his desk, Normal whipped out a cardboard box - of latex gloves. "Every Jam Pony messenger will be issued a pair of these babies a day." Beaming proudly at his ingenuity, Normal added, "you never know - it could even become a trend."

Blanching slightly, Logan floundered, realising the guy had a sound point - being that the virus was passed through skin contact. "A small army of latex clad bike messengers… great."

"Okay then folks. Now that we've sorted that out, I guess you'll be off then?" It's was more of a demand than a question, but as Normal looked to Alec, he passed him a look - almost of regret. "Can't stand about nattering all day can we?"

"Alrighty then." Alec looked to Logan and shrugged, realising it would take a demonic force to pry Normal's fingers from his desk. "Well, good luck Normal. I hope to see you around."

Normal nodded, his expression serious as he understood the undertone of Alec's words. "Well, just so you know. Your job here will always be waiting for you, if you ever return."

Stepping away, Alec smiled sadly. "Never thought I'd say it, but I kinda miss this place Normal - might just take you up on that offer."

Turning away at last, Alec followed Logan out the door, deciding he was going to memorise the wide beam on Normal's face forever.

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4.28 pm

The hours were ticking by so painfully slow. Max glanced down at her watch for the fifth time in thirty minutes. What a surprise - only five minutes had passed since the last time she'd checked. As much as she knew Alec and Logan were capable of taking care of themselves, she couldn't help but feel incredibly apprehensive.

It was still difficult to come to terms with knowing she was the inadvertent cause of this damn virus which was rampantly killing people across America. Sure, the messed up CDC lab tech who had tampered with her DNA was also to be held accountable, but he'd never have had an engineered virus to toy with in the first place had it not been for her. Hundreds of people were dying. And it was all her fault. Was this part of Sandeman's little prophesy?

"Max!"

A hand waved before Max's face and she jumped slightly, startled at being caught off-guard for not the first time in the past few days. Looking up into Mole's alien-like eyes, she shook away the feeling of being trapped eternally on the set of Star Trek Voyager and sat up further in her seat.

"What's the prob Mole?"

"Aside from the fact I've been standing here callin' you for a minute or so and you've stared through me like a zombie, there's a few new comers here." Mole paused for a moment before continuing. "One of em's sick."

Her eyes widening from shock, Max sprang from her chair. "What?!"

"Yup. There's a group of four X-series come through the sewers about an hour ago. One of them, an X6, had to be carried. They say he started running a fever a day or so ago."

"Where did they come from?"

"They were holed up in South Market for a while. Before that were hiding in an abandoned building by the docks."

Max said nothing and simply continued to stare blankly at the space between herself and Mole. Transgenics rarely became ill with anything. They had been designed with incredibly high immune systems and although these systems weren't infallible, sickness amid the transgenics was rare. She could probably say unheard of.

Perhaps if it had been a sick nomolie, her heart wouldn't be thumping quite so hard in her chest. After all, they were Sandeman's earlier experiments, results of his initial efforts to create an animal/human hybrid. At that point he was probably less concerned about their immunity, and more concerned about creating something capable of surviving more than a few days with such radically mixed genes.

"So while you're drifting off into la-la-land, I'll tell 'em to send the sick kid back into the sewers huh? Don't want his disease running through Terminal City…"

Mole's gruff voice broke Max from her thoughts and then the meaning of what he was saying sank in. "Isolation! He can go into isolation until we figure out what's going on."

"What?" The transhuman turned back towards her. "Look Max, I know you wanna save every lost freakin' soul that comes through here, but this one could kill us all."

"Well we're just gonna have to take that chance Mole!"

Despite the fact that Mole's facial expressions were even more limited than Max's own, he still managed to look incredulous. "We? Max you're the only one here willing to put all of our lives in danger. D'you wanna carry the guilt of our deaths as well as every ordinary out there dead and dying?"

There is was. The feeling of dread Max had been carrying was now coming to fruition. Here she had been fearing for the two men she had said goodbye to this morning, when the real risk lay in wait for so many others.

Once again she could only see the small radius around her, and not the wider perimeter that engulfed the rest of the world. And now the rest of the world was right here, entering the small radius, intruding upon her comfort zone, threatening everyone she knew and loved. And it had all started from within herself.