Many thanks to Griever11, who beta's this last update. How did I ever get along before. Curious to know what you all think of Matt in this update.
Near McCurdy Park, Seattle, Washington
Logan paddled slowly through the dark water, staying ten or fifteen meters from the rocks that lined the shore. The sun had set below the horizon, though its pale glow still lit the cloudy sky. As soon as he had rounded the bend, he passed under one concrete bridge, and then another. The pillars were massive, measuring twenty feet across, and rose out the water like enormous redwoods, supporting the bridge another twenty feet up. The pillars had supported the various on-ramps and off-ramps of what once had been one of Seattle busiest highways. Shortly after the Pulse, a minor trembler from nearby Mount St. Helens had caused some cracks to appear in one of the ramps. Since the city didn't have the money to fix it, they closed the bridge and it had gradually fallen into disrepair. The air seemed grey and still as Logan threaded his way around the columns. The boathouse was just to the north of the point where Highway 520 crossed Union Bay, the narrow outlet of Lake Washington.
As he passed a small group of columns, Logan almost laughed out loud.
"You have to hand it to the citizens of Seattle," he thought. Three columns stood together, their sides decorated with brightly colored rock climbing holds. Hungry for fun in this barren post-Pulse wasteland, some kids had turned the abandoned bridge into a climbing wall. It didn't surprise Logan. Jam Pony had been full of messengers doing the same kinds of things during their off hours. Max and her friends had all been trying to survive, but they still found the time for a "duel" of mad biking skills.
The river swept Logan out from under the shadows of the bridge and curved around McCurdy Park. Just before the Pulse, the tiny strip of marsh had been converted into a park and botanical gardens. A maze of wooden walkways jutted out into the bay, interspersed with strips of meadow grass and plants. At one time, the plantings had been a carefully planned profusion of flowers, but now the bushes and trees had taken on a wild overgrown look.
Logan sat on the floor of the canoe, leaning against the aft seat to give himself a little more stability. Sitting on the seat would have been an invitation for a dunk in the lake, since he had no way to brace himself, but reaching over the gunnels of the canoe to paddle wasn't easy either. Now that the canoe was bobbing along in the current, he didn´t dare try to hoist himself up onto the seat. Ideally, it would have been best to cross the narrow channel at the boathouse, but he had ducked around the corner to escape Vann's men and now there was no turning back.
The opaque sky hid the moon, but Logan could still see the dark mass of Mt Rainer rising up on the left. Although the "U-Dub" boathouse was on the opposite shore of the channel, the view had been the same since his rowing days. On most days, the clouds hid the upper half of Mt Rainer, but sometimes the snowy mountain top showed itself. Once, on a trip home from college, while driving home from the airport, he had looked up at the mountain, straining to see its tip among the clouds.
"You´ve been away from Seattle too long, cousin. You´re looking too low," Bennett had laughed.
Sure enough, Logan had lifted his eyes higher up and spotted the gleaming summit, high above the grey clouds. Logan remembered a long ago conversation with Max before their trip to Cape Haven. Max had appeared triumphantly at the penthouse, gas can in hand, ready to scale the dizzying heights of Rainier. In the dark days after he had landed back in the chair, it seemed that the mountain had glared cruelly at him, reminding him of all the things he would never enjoy with Max. But after that, he'd never really had much of a chance to feel sorry for himself. Max hadn't let him. Hell, their whirlwind life hadn't let him. Four months ago, he and Max had been in the kitchen, retelling the story of one of their crazy missions.
"Hey, Max. For the life of me, I can't picture how we ever got out of that jam. Did I somehow catapult my chair over the railing from the second floor into that dumpster?"
"Are you kidding me? Don't you remember, you had the exo back then," Max had said, flinging a slice of bell pepper expertly at his head.
Way back at the beginning of their fledgling romance, the exoskeleton had seemed to be some kind of miracle, thanks to their great friend, Phil. But he had almost forgotten those few brief years with the exoskeleton. By the time the exoskeleton had disintegrated in the fiery crash of Aztek the First, Max and Logan had lived through the standoff at Jam Pony and a months-long seige at Terminal City. He had all but abandoned the exo, except as a disguise at times. Max had made it clear that she preferred him without it; "au naturale" as she put it.
Looking up at Mt. Rainier now, Logan could only think of all the battles Eyes Only had waged to keep Seattle safe. So many times, over the past five or six years, Bling had pushed them to leave Seattle, to start over in anonymity. But Logan and Max had always remained loyal to the city where they had met. Eyes Only still had lives to save in Seattle.
However, Eyes Only might have finally worn out his welcome. Even if he somehow made it out of this fiasco alive, Eyes Only would likely have to leave Seattle. The only other alternative was for him to lie low for a year or two, and he knew he was no good at that.
The canoe struck a rock, bringing him out of his reverie. "Careful, Cale," he muttered, "no more daydreaming, unless you want to go for a swim."
The shore on his right was lined with stacked concrete blocks, meant to shore up the banks. Even if he could pull himself up onto the bank, he wouldn't be able to make it too far over the tumble of concrete. If he was going to abandon his canoe, which, so far, had served him pretty well, he'd have to have some way to keep moving. At this point, all he wanted was to get as far away from the docks as he could and somehow contact Sebastian or Alec.
As he rounded a bend, he saw a flat spot in the shoreline. A small building sat close to the point, with wooden tables scattered around it, leading down to the water's edge. Logan hadn´t traveled this strip coastline often, but he did know that if he kept going, he would be swept into the middle of Lake Washington, into the path of container ships and barges headed for the commercial docks. A sign on the building had once read, "Hot Food, Coffee," but now proclaimed, "Foo," in brilliant neon. Long rows of 18-wheelers and pickup trucks sat lined up alongside the diner, where Pike Street skirted the edge of the lake. After Highway 520 fell out of use, the north-south traffic had taken over small streets such as Pike St., clogging them with trucks and buses. Most restaurants along the water sported lake view terraces, but the patrons of the "Foo" diner, as it was now known, had no interest in the view. They were all truckers looking for a hot meal between North and South Seattle.
As he rested the paddle in the canoe, Logan reached absently for the backpack. Surprised, he drew back his hand, dripping wet. The canoe had begun to ship water. His legs were already wet and the water was creeping up his jacket. That decided it for him. He couldn´t spend the whole night in the frigid water, having already spent a day and a night in that freezing meat locker in the alley. He had to get out and get dry, even if it meant dragging himself up onto the grassy bank.
Plunging his paddle deep into the water and back paddling, he slowly turned the bow of the canoe toward the shore. The canoe began to sideslip and turn too far. Logan paddled desperately to keep the boat heading downstream. He had almost slipped past the diner, when he heard the canoe scrape against the gravelly shore. Back paddling on the port side, Logan let the canoe drift sideways onto the rough bank. Almost immediately, the water began to push up against the upstream side of the canoe where it formed a dam against the ongoing current. The canoe began to tilt. Logan grabbed the backpack and heaved it onto the back. He turned around and, grabbing the seat and the right side of the canoe, he heaved his body up. His body weight pushed the right side down and the canoe began to fill with water. Logan pushed himself forward off the canoe and landed in the water between the canoe and the bank. Coughing and spluttering, he clutched at the rocky bank, pulling himself forward toward solid ground. The canoe, released of its weight, bobbed up, spun around once and floated swiftly away into the current.
The icy water made him gasp, but Logan forced his arms to keep pushing forward until he felt the ground solid under his cheek. He pushed himself the last few feet up onto the bank until he thought his legs had cleared the water. He hugged the damp grass and waited for his chest to stop heaving.