Chapter Seven

The Morning After

The makeshift infirmary was far enough from the fence-lines that only Joshua and perhaps one or two others would be able to hear the sound of the crowds, and even then with difficulty. The deceptive peace within was a rarity, and it was to areas like this, in the centre of Terminal City, that any Transgenic who wanted a little quiet time would come. Quite a few, especially the children, were accustomed to the dead silence of the Manticore barracks, and despite the fact that their former masters had been raising them as warriors adaptable to any atmosphere and situation, had trouble sleeping where the riotous clamour could be heard.

Even though Max had told herself she wouldn't sleep again unless she absolutely had to, the quiet of the infirmary coupled with the mental exhaustion of recent events found her dead to the world when Joshua and Mole came to find her.

Receiving no response to whispering her name a couple of times, Joshua gently shook her. She stirred slowly, the started a slightly upon realising she was lying next to a still-unconscious Alec, who lay covered by nothing more than a thin blanket. She felt her face heating up at this, but Joshua seemed not to notice her embarrassment, and Mole pretended not to.

"Hey, big fella," she muttered sleepily. "What's up?"

"Lydecker," Joshua growled, his anger at the name waking Max up even more than the name itself.

"What about him?" she asked, thinking about the last time she'd heard his name mentioned, when Logan had shown her the photos of his car being pulled from the river. She'd told him then that Lydecker had probably survived the crash, despite what the cops thought, but she had to admit to herself that she was surprised to hear his name again now.

"Logan called last night," Mole lied, leaving out, as per Logan's request, the mention of the actual visit, and the reason for it. "Lydecker got in touch with him yesterday, wants to meet with you."

Joshua growled again, and Max laid a hand on his shoulder. "He putting together a family album?"

"All he said is that he has answers for you. Maybe he can tell us a thing or two about the Familiars."

"Maybe he is one," groaned a voice from behind Max. She turned to see Alec's eyes open as he tried to sit up.

"Alec!" Joshua barked excitedly, delighted to see his friend waking up. He'd only been out for one day, but there wasn't a soul in the room who wouldn't agree it had been a very long day.

Max gently pushed him back down on the bed. "Relax," she breathed. "You're gonna have to take it easy for a while."

"Fair enough," he muttered, looking around groggily. "What happened?"

"Bomber jumped the fence," Mole told him. "You shot him. Boom. Right in your face."

"Oh." Max was glad to see he had the grace to look embarrassed. "That."

"Yeah, that," Max spat, her concern suddenly replaced by fury at his stupidity. "You ran right in front of him! Almost got yourself killed for no reason."

"If I hadn't done that we'd probably both have been killed. I feel fine, by the way. 'Cept for a killer headache," he added, his hand going to the bandages wrapped around his head. "How long was I out of it?"

"Since yesterday morning. Logan sent his doctor friend," said Joshua. "Shaved your head, drilled holes in your skull."

Mole chuckled at the worry on Alec's face. "Not completely," he assured him, "but you'll be wearin' a hat for a while." He turned to Max. "Logan and some of our guys have been trying to dig up what they can about Lydecker and figure out what he's been up to lately. He wants that meet this afternoon. The gallery Joshua's paintings are at."

"They turned up anything?"

"Shots from security cameras all over the city. One from one of the ten thousand news cams at the perimeter from a couple of days ago."

"I'll be there in a minute."

Mole gave Alec a brief nod before he left. When he was gone, Max turned to Alec again. "I'm sorry," she said. "For biting your head off like that. When that bomb went off… I thought you were dead. I thought I'd gott…"

"This has gotta stop, Max," he cut her off. "We've all been through hell, lately, but it's not your fault. Kelpy was completely whacked. If it hadn't been you he'd gone gaga about it would have been someone else, and there's no telling how long he might have gone on. He could have butchered dozens of people before somebody put him down. Hell, if not for you we'd all still be stuck inside Manticore."

"I'd still be in the basement," Joshua added.

"I know the past few months have really sucked, for pretty much all of us," Alec continued. "But we're starting to do okay, now. It'll take a while. Maybe years, maybe longer. But we're out in the world now, and we have a shot at having real lives. Because of you. Right now, I think about the only thing really bringing the mood down around here is you."

"I've just been a little off lately," Max protested.

"More than a little. I know you didn't ask for the job, but everyone considers you the boss around here. And nobody likes looking over their shoulders wondering if the boss has lost it, 'cos if she has, we're pretty much screwed. We can't exactly put Mole at the negotiating table with the Ordinaries; they'd all piss themselves sitting that close to a lizard-man with a shotgun."

Max had to stop herself from laughing at the image of Mole in a room with McKinley and Kellerman, both wearing their crisp suits, faces of stone, every hair in place, and puddles at their feet. "So basically, I'm the pretty face everyone needs to see if they're gonna get used to the idea of Transgenics," she remarked.

"If we had a six-year-old girl with blond curls and a great singing voice, we'd go with her," Alec chuckled. "Shit happens, we're stuck with you. God help us."

Even Joshua, who usually wouldn't bear any kind of jibe at Max's expense, giggled a little at this. It was an odd sound coming from someone his size.

Smiling, Max leaned forward and hugged Alec, who had to stifle a groan of pain, and kissed him on the cheek. "Get some rest." Checking her watch, she told him Sam would be coming soon to check on him, and asked Joshua if he'd stick around.

When she got to the security station, seven time-stamped pictures of Lydecker, taken by various security systems, were displayed next to one from a Channel 3 news camera. "How are you tracking the snapshots down?"

"Logan sent us a copy of the same facial recognition program he's using," Dix responded. "We started with places we thought Lydecker might go, hacked their security networks, and ran all the video from their cameras through the program.

"Being dead has its advantages; the obvious one being nobody comes looking for you. Sure, he can't go for a beer with his old buddies – assuming Lydecker's ever had a friend in his life – and government buildings are off limits, but it looks like he's been moving around pretty freely. Libraries and college campuses seem to be his thing now. Information gathering, I guess, but it's anyone's guess what he's trying to find out."

"He's researching the Familiars. That's what he was doing when they ran him off the road. Anything else?"

"Not yet. This could be pretty slow work, but hopefully the next thing these shots will show is where he's holed up."

Glancing around the constantly expanding security station, Max saw screens being set up for new cameras that had been place around and within Terminal City. So far, the crowds had all been gathered around one area; what had once been the main entrance to the former centre of Seattle's biochemical industrial zone. They stayed there for the simple reason that this was where the news cameras were. Even true-believers, like the suicide bomber who had come after her and Alec, chose coming in this way as opposed to sneaking in somewhere else and having better odds of causing real damage. Just in case, however, cameras were being placed all around Terminal City, on the off-chance that somebody who actually meant business, be it Familiars or government forces, tried to make their way in. Additional patrols were also in place; sentries could be seen on almost every screen.

Max's attention was drawn to a half-dozen guys working feverishly on a row of computers off in a corner. They seemed to be hooked into networks for phone and internet companies, cable networks, and a couple of government institutions. "What are they up to?"

Dix explained that they were setting up a security net for Logan's broadcasts. When Logan next went on the wire, they planned to run interference through a series of ghost signals. "Anyone tries tracing Eyes Only, they'll find about fifty of him, from Switzerland to Signapore," he bragged. "My idea."

"What time did Lydecker give for the meet?" she asked Mole.

"Four."

"Drop the search for now," she ordered Dix. "I want you to start running some of own people through the facial recognition system. I need faces that haven't been caught on camera."

"I doubt there's anyone he wouldn't identify at first sight," Dix pointed out. "He was running Manticore for years, from the time Sandeman got ran off until Renfro came along and swiped the big chair out from under him."

"It doesn't matter who Lydecker recognises. I don't think he'll try anything at a first meeting, especially if he sees us out in force. It's everybody else that could be a problem."

"What about you? Your face is everywhere. We could put you standing next to the Pope and the President, and you'd still be the first one everybody recognises."

"I'll work something out."

Sketchy hadn't slept much, and was already dragging himself into the bathroom when his alarm started to beep. Ignoring it, he shut the door behind him and started running the shower. It turned out he'd already been beaten to all the hot water by his neighbours, and could only stand under the icy flow for about thirty seconds before he stepped out again, shivering.

As he brushed his teeth he engaged in a staring contest with his reflection in the dirty mirror, suddenly remembering why he'd barely slept.

The previous night at Crash, he'd spent hours talking to Melissa. Once they were a few pitchers in the conversation got to the point where Sketchy had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He only knew that if he stopped talking he might not be able to find his voice again in front of her. It was probably the longest anyone had put up with him in a single sitting since Natalie had dumped him after finding out he'd cheated on her, and she actually seemed to care what he was saying – another rarity.

They'd played a few rounds of pool, during which Sketchy got to take maybe five shots the entire time, and some foosball, where the ball flew around the table so fast Sketchy could never get a bead on it, let alone take a shot, before sitting down again and talking 'till closing time.

Sketchy eventually decided to give his mouth a rest, hoping he would actually be able to speak if he needed to. Melissa told him she'd just come to Seattle from New York, needing to leave her ex and her friends, all of whom were his friends, too, behind her for a while.

When she mentioned that she needed to get herself a job, really just to keep herself busy as she wasn't exactly in dire straits cash-wise, Sketchy recommended Jam Pony, telling her it was a great job for anyone who didn't care about money, benefits, or hours, didn't mind unfriendly customers who gave lousy tips, and liked being constantly insulted by an angry, bespectacled Republican who used modelling cement in his hair.

Everything had gone pretty well until he'd walked her home. Living close by, she left her motorcycle behind, saying she'd come back for it in the morning, and they went towards her place. It was there that Sketchy had lost his nerve.

She'd gone quiet in the doorway, and Sketchy had the feeling that as opposed to inviting him in, she was giving him the chance to invite himself. Instead, he'd panicked and opted to leave, his choice receiving the same half-amused, half-pitying smile she'd given him back in the coffee shop, except this time she wasn't shaking her head.

As soon as he'd left he'd regretted it, and had been arguing with himself about it most of the sleepless night. The voice Sketchy thoroughly wished had been louder before they'd gotten to her door had spent the night badgering him over how he'd never get so close to a girl like that again, and there was no other voice to counter it. Suffice it to say, it had been a fairly one-sided argument.

Drying off quickly, Sketchy tried to take his mind off of Melissa by going through the file folder Logan had left for him at Joshua's old house. He flicked to the part about the Kiloma burial site in Seattle. Logan hadn't mentioned where exactly this site had been, but had noted that the condemned building it had been underneath had apparently been the site of an environmental cleanup.

Making a note to find out what company had been in charge of the supposed cleanup, Sketchy dropped the file into his backpack, dressed hurriedly, and grabbed a couple of Pop Tarts on way out the door.

It was only when he got outside that he remembered he'd left his bike at Jam Pony. When he got there, it was Original Cindy he found behind the dispatch counter. It seemed Normal was at a local police station, having come out of his apartment to find his car spray-painted pink, windscreen et al.

"Max is sneakin' outta Terminal City today," she told him in a whisper. When Sketchy had come to Jam Pony the previous day, it had been to find Cindy sitting over by her locker in tears, while the news repeated for what must have been the hundredth time the story of the bombing. He'd thought for a moment he might have to slap her to stop her jumping for joy when he relayed what Dix had told him. "She didn't say why, but she'll swing by tonight if she doesn't run into any trouble and have to turn tail."

"Your place?" Sketchy asked, receiving a nod in response. "I'll try and drop by if I can. If not, tell her I said 'hi'."

"Yeah, me too." Both O.C and Sketchy jumped a little at Normal's sudden appearance, and Sketchy quickly looked around to make sure nobody else had overheard.

"I'll take that," Normal announced grandly, plucking the headset away from Cindy and placing it carefully on his own head. He made no further comment about Max, and instead rounded on Sketchy. "Don't you have anything to do? This isn't a social club! Come on, bip-bip-bip."

"I'm not working today."

"You never show up when you are supposed to be working!" Normal exclaimed loudly. "How come I can never get rid of you when you're not?"

Sketchy decided not to argue, and went to unchain his bike.

"Any more messages you'd like passed on?" Cindy was asking quietly when he got back.

"Yeah, tell her it wouldn't kill her to clean up a bit. She looked a mess on the T.V."

"She'd almost been blown up!" Sketchy hissed disbelievingly.

"Yeah," was the dreamy reply. "That was an improvement." He grinned as he said it, apparently to show he was joking. Sketchy thought it just made him look scary – er than usual. "So if she's still alive," he asked, "does that mean my superstar's okay?"

"Not sure," Sketchy told him. "I spoke to someone there yesterday. He was hurt pretty bad. They were waiting on a doctor who was sneaking in to check him out – I'm not sure how it went."

"Find out for me, will you?"

"Sure." Sketchy found the boss's almost fatherly affection for Alec surprisingly heart-warming; maybe because it was so rare for Normal to display any kind of emotion besides disdain when it came to another human being.

'Melissa' sat on her motorcycle across the street, backed into a shadowed alley to avoid being spotted either by Sketchy or his new shadows. Half a block down on the right sat an old, dirty, compact hybrid, little different from anything else on the street except for the two people in the front seats.

As soon as Sketchy had left her at the door of her apartment, she'd gone out her window and sprinted quickly back towards the bar to pick up her bike, and gotten back to where Sketchy lived in time to spot him going inside. Just a few minutes after she'd situated herself in a parking lot nearby, the compact she could see now had arrived. A blonde man in a black leather jacket and blue jeans had stepped out of the passenger seat, while his passenger, a fiery-haired woman with a face shaped like the front of a train, remained in the drivers seat.

For a moment 'Melissa' had been worried as the man approached the apartment building. She thought maybe Logan had gotten it wrong, that they'd kill Sketchy right off to scare away anyone who thought to mess with them – but he'd simply stood watching the lit windows Sketchy's apartment. When the lights went out, he'd gone back to the car. Neither he nor his companion spoke a word – not that she would have been able to hear them as far away as she was, though she figured she could read their lips with her enhanced vision – but she found it eerie that they could sit together in that car for so long and not exchange a single word.

When Sketchy left again in the morning, she'd called Logan to let him know about the pair in the car, and waited until they set off after him, deciding it would be easier to avoid being spotted if she were to tail them, rather than Sketchy.

Now, as Sketchy left Jam Pony on his bike and headed for Sector Eight, where the New World Weekly offices were, his two unseen tails followed, the second a short distance behind the first. Sketchy, oblivious to the now-constant jeopardy his life was in, rode quickly, his anger at himself forgotten for the moment, excited at the thought of what he hoped the day would bring.