Just Another 48 Hours -- Chapter 1

[parallax23]

Chapter 1:  It’s the End of the World As We Know It

May 3, 2021

There it was.

The end of the world as they knew it.

It was the end of a life of blissful ignorance about just how far science had driven humanity away from itself, splicing and dicing in part cat, part shark and god only knew what else. 

The Island of Doctor Moreau meets Lord of the Flies in post-Pulse Seattle.  It sounded more like a movie tagline than a front page news headline.

Monsters under the bed weren’t just under the bed or hiding in the closet, they were everywhere and could be anyone.

It was a life ten years in the making, all unraveled in the short span of twenty-four hours.  But that seemed to be the theme of Max’s strange little life these days.  Everything was just waiting to be turned upside down.  There was no more hiding her true X5 nature anymore from those around her.  Nothing was the way it seemed.  She had spent her whole life believing that she was a botched job, only to find out that she had been created by some mad scientist named Sandeman to be the savior of all humankind.

The man must have had a twisted sense of humor, hiding her in that newly constructed circle of hell on earth known as Manticore.  Well, it wasn’t as if he could have dropped her off at a convent to be raised in the ways of self-sacrifice and self-righteousness.  But ironically, it was at Manticore where she had learned these things from her brothers and sisters.  The way they looked out for one another, the way they fought for the right to live lives of their own.  She had learned these things from Logan too.

It was her siblings, her eagerness to live, that made her decide to take Manticore head on and stop running.  She may not have succeeded the first time around, but she had more than made up for it the second time.  She hadn’t intended on burning the place to the ground.  That just happened as a stroke of luck.  Having obliterated a past that hurt too much to remember, she was supposed to be able to build the life she wanted to lead.  Whatever that was.  She hadn’t really stayed in one place long enough to really imagine a future for herself.  It had always been about finding her siblings, reuniting them and living happily ever after.  That was as far as she got.

Now she was leading a life she never expected.  She wasn’t sure what kind of life she had been expecting to lead once she had stopped running from Manticore and Lydecker, but this certainly wasn’t it.  Her life had gone from surviving one day at a time to becoming the caretaker of every transgenic she had released into the unsuspecting world.  The change was unsettling.  Never in her wildest dreams had she seen herself taking things this far.  Letting everyone out, then having them gather in her hometown of Seattle to stage a coup declaring their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Maybe there was some George Washington in her cocktail that no one bothered to mention, which would actually seem normal at this point.

So what exactly were they going to do?

It wasn’t like there was a course at Manticore about launching a coup with a couple hundred rogue transgenics in a densely populated city.  She had double-checked with Alec on that one.  However there had been a class on how to stage one in a South American country for some reason.  Just her luck.

Watching the crowd dissipate from the parking garage, Max couldn’t help wondering what she had gotten herself into.  What she had gotten them into.  She didn’t really expect the public to welcome them into society or ignore their presence altogether.  But they were here to stay.  For once, the plan was not to run.  They would build a home they deserved here.

Nothing else mattered more than establishing their survival together.  Safety in numbers.  If only Zack had believed in that, how would things have gone?  Certainly not like this.  But she wasn’t Zack and she had learned from his mistakes and her own.

“Max?” came a voice to shake her out of her thoughts.

It was Logan.

He was standing by Alec, whose gaze was bouncing between her and the floor.  Max had almost forgotten about her awkward love life.  Alec probably didn’t want to stick around long and have to pretend to be an upstanding boyfriend.  Max toyed with the idea of making him sweat it out until she remembered that he was doing it as a favor to her.  He’d also been shot and nearly beaten to death by some Familiar chick.  As if that wasn’t enough, he had been saved by Logan, who chided him about it the entire ride to Terminal City.  Even Max had to admit that Logan thinking he’d one-upped a wounded X5 to make himself feel better did come off as petty.  For Alec’s ego that was enough suffering for one day.

It was so much easier when Alec was one of the bad guys and not working for her.  She couldn’t let him be the scapegoat for something he had no role in.  Neither had anticipated that Logan would take out his frustration on him.  Fortunately, Alec hadn’t retaliated because he knew Logan was jealous and that he could beat him without even trying, but there was no telling when he would just snap and decide to put Logan in his place.  Max hadn’t wanted to deal with it, but it was growing more and more apparent that the tangled web was choking the life out of all of them.

“Well, this will be one birthday I’ll never forget,” Alec quipped, breaking the silence.  “This was my very first one, but are they all like this?  Because if they are, I can see why Manticore ditched them.”

“Nope, you just happen to be that special,” Max replied.  “Why don’t you go have that arm checked out at the Med Bay?”

Alec nodded and took it as his cue to exit.  Original Cindy took it as her cue to leave as well, and grabbed Sketchy by the arm.  “Come on fool, let’s go with him.”

Sketchy didn’t argue as Cindy pulled him off in the direction Alec had gone.  It left Max and Logan standing alone with an awkward tension between them.

“So what are you going to do now?” he asked, aware of the situation but trying to play it off.

“We’re checking on the food we’ve got stored, stepping up surveillance, and looking into our weapons stash as we speak,” Max told him.

“You make it sound like you’re going to war,” Logan said. 

The last time he had seen her like this was when they were about to take down Manticore.  It was a side of her that he didn’t like to see, which was why he had spent so much time not watching her plan military maneuvers nor listening to the ease in her voice when it came to discussing using live ammunition or bombs.  Lydecker had reveled in it, but Logan had shied away.

“We’re making a stand here.  We know it isn’t exactly going to involve the mayor sending us a fruit basket and the keys to Terminal City,” she said plainly.  “We were trained by the military, not Buddhist monks.”

Logan wasn’t sure how to respond to that.  He wanted Max to be safe, but at what cost?  This was a dangerous game, but he couldn’t believe what he was hearing come out of her mouth.  If push came to shove, they were going to go down fighting.  Bleeding messes were not Logan’s way of dealing with things.

The irony also wasn’t lost on him. Most of the weapons in their possession came from the same criminals Eyes Only had tried to put out of business just a year ago. It was their blinding greed which hurt so many that would now be the great equalizer when the transgenics sought supplies.  No one would legally sell them anything.  The system wouldn’t allow it.  So they would turn to alternative means, which Logan wasn’t sure he liked the idea of but had no say in the matter.

“Fine.  Just know that whatever you choose, I’ll stand by you for as long as I can.  I still care about you and I still want to help,” Logan finally said.

Max nodded.  She realized that she needed to end this thing with him.  She hadn’t managed to push him away after all, like Alec said.  There was no use continuing the charade if it wasn’t doing its job.  Well, it was either that or stepping it up a notch and having sex with Alec in front of Logan, which was not an option.  Besides, Max needed to keep her head on straight to organize Terminal City.  She would be too busy to even contemplate getting back together with Logan, she didn’t need Alec as an excuse anymore when she had a real one.

“Look, about me and Alec,” she began and immediately saw his face fall.

“I don’t need to be reminded,” he snapped.

“That’s just it!  There’s no ‘me and Alec’!  I made it up,” she blurted out before he could stop her or she could change her mind.

At that moment, Logan’s face was unreadable.  Was it relief?  Anger? Hurt?  If someone asked him, even he wouldn’t have had an answer for them.  He wasn’t sure what to feel.  “What?”

“That night Alec got picked up by the cops for Ben’s murders.  So, I had to go in and save his ass as usual.  He couldn’t exactly go back to his place after I broke him out, so he crashed at mine.  That was it,” she explained as though it was obvious to anyone.

Logan studied her as she spoke, taking it all in.  It made perfect sense, didn’t it?  “Then why’d you lie about it?”

Max let out a sigh.  “Because I was tired of living in fear that tomorrow would be the day I got too close and we were out of miracles, okay?  Or didn’t you hear me the first time around?”

“So you were just protecting me?” Logan asked, his sharp voice indicating that he’d chosen an emotion to run with.  Anger.  “Guess what Max?  You hurt me as much as the virus ever could.  The lying, the hiding – I can get how Alec can do it.  But after all we’ve been through together, you couldn’t be honest with me?”

Now it was Max’s turn to be angry.  “I was honest with you!  You just wouldn’t listen!  If you weren’t going to stay away, I’d just stick a road block in front of you.  But even the saintly Logan Cale couldn’t keep himself from someone else’s girlfriend.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because evidently it didn’t work!  And now, my whole life is about keeping us – everybody, not just the people with freaky DNA but the whole world – alive.  I don’t need to push you away anymore.  You don’t fit in the picture and I don’t have time for petty games that give you hope for us.”

He stood there and absorbed it all.  He had given her an easy out by assuming she was with Alec, and she had taken it.  Now she was saying that she didn’t need him in her life at all?  “You know what?  It’s been a long day.  I… I just can’t deal with this right now.”

With no more than that, he turned and walked away from her.  All Max could do was watch.

There was a part of her that felt every ounce of pain that he felt.  It had hurt her to do that to him, but it had to be done.  He would never know how much it tore her apart to lie to him.  He wouldn’t understand that she was willing to give up all she wanted for him to be safe and alive.

Another part of her was relieved to have put an end to the unnecessary complications it had brought into everyone’s lives.  Alec was an ass, but he didn’t deserve to play whipping boy to Max and Logan’s relationship, even if he did owe her for saving him so much.  He was sort of her friend by now too.  Sort of.  There was another complicated relationship she’d have to sort out at another time.  Logan was enough to deal with for now.

A little voice in the back of her head was screaming for her to go after Logan, to tell him how much she loved him and that she couldn’t bear him giving up his life for her.  She really did love him and wanted to be with him, but she wasn’t one for lost causes the way he was and only wanted him to forgive her.  That little voice got the crap beaten out of it by the other two notions in her head.

Hadn’t Cece just died trying to protect her?  Her body had been left at Jam Pony during the escape, though Normal had helped Dr. Shankar sneak it out into the morgue until they could go back and give her a proper goodbye.

There was no need to add Logan or anyone else to that list of collateral damage that came with keeping her safe.

There was a reason why things had to be this way.