Max Collins: Skin Game

Max and company did not make it to the van. If Logan Cale hadn’t jumped in on their side, blasting away with his own weapon, driving the snipers back, Max and her group might never have made it into the building again. But they did, hustling back into Jam Pony, after taking a casualty in the cross fire — CeCe — who within moments had become a fatality.

Even with such a terrible loss, they had survived much in this single day... but they still had a long way to go before they would be anything like safe. If just one cop out there noticed that the escorts in SWAT gear were not who they were supposed to be, the bloodbath would begin again.

If so, if she and Logan Cale died, at least they’d die together.

She loved this man, who once again was laying his life on the line for her and her cause — to protect him, she had told him she no longer loved him, and even tried to convince herself she could live without Logan Cale. But in the glare of the bright lights — courtesy of the cops and the media — she knew that wasn’t true.

Logan Cale — tall, blue-eyed, with that spiky blond-brown hair and shy smile... how she had longed to kiss him and tell him how she truly felt. But that was impossible now — that bitch Renfro, at Manticore, had made certain of that.

Even with Manticore burned to the ground, the mad scientists who had created her and Alec and Joshua and so many other troubled souls were still fucking with her life — that oh so specific virus that the late unlamented Renfro had infected Max with still had no known cure, and if she touched Logan, if their flesh met in any way, well, she knew she would be the death of him.

Yet despite all the trouble she had caused him, the heartache she’d brought him, Logan had come to her aid again, hadn’t he? Firing up at the snipers, helping Mole to keep the killers at bay while the others hightailed it back into the building. He even stayed by her side, providing cover fire as she dragged CeCe back inside as well.

The standoff had gone on from there, lasting until well into the evening, when White had finally brought in his SWAT-geared hit team. Max smiled at the thought. The hit team had been tough, really tough; but she and her brothers and sisters — and even some of the hostages, who were on the transgenics side by now — had taken the suckers down.

Max had worked hard not to take any lives. Joshua, face-to-face with Ames White — a man who had murdered someone dear to the normally gentle giant — had nearly broken the bastard in two. But Max knew how important it was not to kill — not to feed the media frenzy, fueled by White and others, that had convinced so much of the public that the transgenics were monsters, inhuman beasts worthy only of slaughter.

Now they had the opportunity to escape into the night and maybe, for a while anyway, be safe. Just this one last gauntlet to pass through...

Hiding within the bulky uniform of one of White’s SWAT team members, his head covered by a Kevlar helmet, his face behind tinted goggles, Logan shoved the front door open and shouted, “Weapons down! Hold your fire. Team coming out.”

Then Logan led the way out into the cool night air. The crowd behind the barricades pushed forward for a better look, their hatred a hot, oppressive slap riding the wind of their angry shouts: “ Death to the freaks!” “Kill ’em all!”

Max wondered if they would ever be able to make people, those people, understand that all the transgenics desired was a peaceful, quiet life. The “freaks” just wanted to fit in like everybody else, and not be feared for — or judged by — their appearance.

Wasn’t that what America was supposed to be about? She and her transgenic clan had been born in the USA, even if it was in a test tube, where they’d been genetically designed to defend this country — the very one that now seemed to want only their extinction — from the rabble on the street to the suits in high places.

With Logan and the others moving into the street, the cops suddenly seemed more interested in containing the crowd than dealing with the federal SWAT team. They backed out of the way as Logan led the parade toward the rear of a waiting police van.

Also dressed for SWAT team duty, complete with the helmet and goggles, Alec held a handcuffed Max by the arm while that lanky goofball, Sketchy — a really unlikely SWAT team member — escorted the cuffed Mole and Joshua. The lizardish Mole still puffed defiantly on his ever-present cigar, while Joshua, with his long brown hair and soulful canine-tinged features, looked more like a beaten puppy as Sketchy led him to the van.

“Federal agents,” Logan announced, his voice cool and authoritative. “I need you to move back. Step away. We may have a biohazard here, people... Make a hole!”

All of the cops — except Clemente, the intelligent, no-nonsense detective who’d served as negotiator during most of the siege, only to be usurped by Ames White — stepped back.

Clemente, a slender, well-chiseled African-American in his forties, looked like he probably felt much older now; but his brown eyes were still alert, and he obviously wanted to know what was happening. He wore a rumpled gray sport coat over a Kevlar vest, blue tie, and white shirt, his gold shield dangling from a necklace. As they passed, he said nothing, his pistol still in his hands, the barrel pointed toward the ground.

Logan turned to him. “Agent White wants your people in there to secure the crime scene, ASAP.”

Clemente made no move, standing with wide eyes and perhaps just a hint of skepticism as Logan yanked open the van’s rear doors. Alec loaded Max in, then Sketchy shoved Mole and Joshua up and in. Alec climbed into the van with the prisoners while Logan, businesslike, said, “We’re going to have to commandeer this ambulance.”

Sketchy peeled off to help ease Gem — the X5 who’d given birth during the siege — and her new baby into the ambulance parked next to the van. Dalton, the short blond male X5 who’d been traveling with Gem, climbed aboard as well. Original Cindy — the beautiful African-American bike messenger who was Max’s best friend in Seattle — followed suit.

Logan turned back to Clemente and said, with the faintest hint of sarcasm in his voice, “Agent White is not a man who likes to be kept waiting.”

The driver of the ambulance slowly climbed down from his seat, and Sketchy stepped into the man’s space. “We’ll take over from here,” Sketch said, playing his macho SWAT role to the hilt. “Unless you wanna buy yourself a six-hour decontamination hose-down.”

The driver wanted none of that, and backed off, while Sketchy climbed behind the wheel of the ambulance. Not waiting for Clemente to move, Logan slammed the door of the police van and jumped into the driver’s seat.

Inside, Max and the others slipped the unfastened cuffs off as Logan started the vehicle.

“Move the barricades,” he shouted through the windshield, waving for the officers in front of the van to clear the long sawhorses that kept the crowd back. The headlights of the van and the ambulance painted the mob a ghostly white.

With the crowd still screaming, “ Kill the freaks,” Logan shifted into gear and let the vehicle roll gently forward.

Behind him, Max encouraged this approach, saying, “Nice and easy.”

The van moved through the crowd to screams of “ Monsters!” and “ Kill ’em now!”

Looking out the back window, Max watched Clemente melt into the crowd, then the crowd melt into the night, as the two vehicles rolled off into the darkness. Tension seemed to palpably dissipate — the crisis was over.

Finally, when Max saw no one following them except the ambulance with the others, she let out a long sigh of relief. “We’re clear.”