A is for Anything

[parallax23]

ANYTHING 

“Call me if you need anything…”

Those were his parting words to her. After everything they had been through together, they were finally going their separate ways…

He hadn’t said ‘goodbye,’ not the actual word itself or even the shortened version of ‘bye.’ She wasn’t sure why and refused to contemplate too much on it. She wasn’t exactly a fan of long goodbyes either. Why drag it out? The pain, the emptiness, the void that the person had left.

Besides, they would probably see each other again someday.

She knew he wouldn’t approve of her thinking that, taking tomorrow or any day after for granted like that. But then again, she never cared about anyone’s approval about what she could or could not do, especially not his.

So there she sat, playing with her cell phone in her hands.

To call or not to call?

She didn’t really need to hear from him. He obviously didn’t want anything to do with her since he hadn’t called her once in the six months that he’d been gone. Then why did she feel the urge to call him?

Before she could answer that thought, her phone started vibrating in her hands.

It was Logan.

“Go for Max,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey you,” he said and she could tell he was smiling on the other side of the city.

Of course he would be smiling. They had gotten the cure seven months ago. They could pick up right where they had left off with no Manticore, no White nor deranged breeding cult to interfere. There was nothing standing in their way. It was almost as if the last two years hadn’t happened…

The virus. The Jam Pony incident. The siege on Terminal City. The final battle with the Conclave the world would probably never know about.

There wasn’t anything standing in their way now.

“So is this business or pleasure?” asked Max.

Logan let out a sigh. “Business, unfortunately. No rest for the wicked or the good guys who try to stop them.”

Of course. But this was her job now – on and off hours.

The government had offered the transgenics citizenship on the basis that they either worked for the local law enforcement or the military. They had been surprised by the offer, which had come to light when Lydecker came back from the dead to testify on their behalf. It hadn’t been a particularly humane testimony.

According to their former CO, they were multimillion dollar toy soldiers who had been brainwashed into loyalty to the American government and its interests. Private files had been handed off to Congress, depicting exactly what Manticore had been up to. Not everything they had been up to, just anything that proved how useful and obedient the transgenics actually were to them. Plus the scientific community had been over the moon when they learned about just how far the project had gotten. The scores of diseases and ailments they could treat with such advanced technology. But the government was more interested in utilizing what they had already paid for.

Alec had chosen a covert military career that required him not to disclose his location, while Max decided to remain with the Seattle police department as a detective.

Logan went back to his Eyes Only gig, taking on corruption from the inside with the help of Max and other transgenics. Both Max and Logan were back to fighting the good fight beside each other, dancing around each other because work always came first just like before. They had picked up exactly where they had left off, and hadn’t gone any further.

“Who is it this time?” asked Max. “The mayor? The DA? Or is someone smuggling funds for a secret program to build cyborgs bent on destroying humanity and taking over the world?”

“Actually, my guy said that the South Africans are back in town,” Logan informed her.

Max sighed. “Just when I was hoping it was space aliens that kidnapped the mayor and replaced him with one of their own.”

“I take it you’re still looking for a reason to break his hand for touching your ass last month?”

“Maybe… Either way, I need to re-teach someone a lesson.”

They were waiting for her at the docks. Of course they had. Nothing ever went down well at the docks. They remembered Max’s habit for heroics. It was supposed to be a simple recon mission. Wasn’t it always supposed to be that before the bad guys started chasing her?

There were two of them behind her and three more guarding the transgenics they had managed to snatch. They were just as big and stupid as ever.

She ducked into a warehouse and tried to hide. She wasn’t sure how they had found her, but she was going to put up one hell of a fight. Smashing open a crate, she was hoping to find something – anything – to use against them. What tumbled out of the crate were fine china plates, crashing to pieces as they hit the floor. That had to be useful for something, right?

Wrong.

As she hurled the shards, they just kept coming. One was holding her from behind and the other was trying to bind her hands and feet. It all happened so fast. There was a loud sound. One minute she was flailing midair, the next she hit the floor. Fortunately, the Red soldier cushioned her fall. Another gunshot echoed through the warehouse and the other Red almost fell on top of her, but she rolled out of the way. She looked up to see a smirking smart aleck had been standing behind him.

He extended a hand to help her up, but she brushed it aside.

“What is with you and giant stupid lugs who can’t feel pain?” Alec asked. “I mean can’t you get ones like Mini-me or I dunno, the Legion of Doom?”

“What’re you doing here, Alec?” she snapped as she got up.

“The military heard that the South Africans might be up to something in Seattle and I figured you would probably be involved. So I decided to come for a late night stroll,” he told her nonchalantly.

She glared at him. “Come on. They’ve got Rex, Heath, Sunny, and Bree. If you want to be the hero, you can’t half ass it.”

“Hmm… now where have I heard that before?”

After showing the South Africans that transgenics were a force not to be reckoned with, Max and Alec found themselves roaming the streets of Seattle in the early hours of the morning with no particular destination in mind.

Logan had gone to bed after she let hi know what had gone down that night, but her body was still full of adrenaline and she hardly slept anyway. Alec had wanted to raid the fridge at Logan’s new place, but Max had turned down the idea since she didn’t want to disturb him. They could have gone to Max and Cindy’s new apartment, but Max had promised that she’d be away all evening.

So there they were at three o’clock in the morning, wandering and talking about what they had been up to since they last saw each other.

Max still went on Eyes Only missions and fed him info on police corruption, though they couldn’t let anyone else know about that. She and Cindy had left the building they were squatting in once Max got her new job and better salary. Logan and Max still were more work than play, but that was how they were.

Alec had been in several different locations on assignment. Mostly he was a trainer, working at bases in Florida, New York and Texas. Once he had been sent to London to guard the ambassador and got shot. Max teased him about how many new conquests from all walks of life he must have had. He had made some new friends, but nothing had lasted since he was busy. No one came close to comparing to what he’d had in Seattle, but he wasn’t about to give up his new job. He liked the travel and the respect he’d come to earn from those who worked with him. It was also the kind of work he’d spent his life preparing for.

Finally, he worked up the courage to ask, “Why didn’t you call me back at the docks?”

She looked at him strangely. “I didn’t know you were in town, moron. Maybe if you’d bothered to call me—”

“I told you anything,” Alec said pointedly.

Max stopped walking and turned to face him. “I didn’t need anything. I needed you.”

Did she just say that? Both of them blinked in confusion.

“Oh, well if that was the case…” he began, a huge arrogant grin on his face that almost made her want to punch him. “Then that was my bad.”