Max Collins: Skin Game

“End of the line,” Logan declared as he braked the van to a stop.

Sketchy stopped the ambulance next to the van, and the police cars quickly formed a semicircle behind them to keep Max and crew from turning around and making a break for it. The light bars atop the police cars painted the scene red, blue, and shades of purple where the two colors met. Pouring out of their cars, twenty or so officers drew their guns, and Clemente’s voice once again came over a loudspeaker: “ Throw down your weapons and let me see your hands. Now!”

Mole spun angrily toward Max. “What’s your plan now ?”

“ Show me your hands,” Clemente said over the speaker.

Looking a little panicked, and sounding like a small boy and not a massive dog of a man, Joshua asked plaintively, “Max...?”

“ Throw your weapons out now!”

Max looked from face to face, seeing defeat, even despair, but she was unwilling to accept either.

She made her decision. “You heard the man.”

“Well,” Mole said, “this sucks.”

Logan dropped his pistol through the open driver’s side window and it hit the concrete floor with a dull smack.

“I fought the law and the law won,” Alec said, wry resignation in his voice.

Moving to the back door and opening it a crack, Max dropped out Alec’s weapon and it clattered to the concrete.

“ Step out of the van with your hands up.”

Grumbling the whole time, Mole followed suit, handing his gun to Max, who tossed it outside.

Clemente’s voice came over the speaker again. “ Do it — step away from the van, and keep your hands up!”

Original Cindy, in her SWAT team drag, dropped her gun and Sketchy’s gun out the back of the ambulance as well.

Max came out first, followed by Mole; then came Cindy, without her helmet and goggles; Gem and her new baby; Sketchy — also without his SWAT headgear — and finally young Dalton exited the ambulance.

As Clemente and his men kept their guns trained on the transgenics, Max kicked a couple of the rifles even farther away so the cops wouldn’t think they were up to something. Joshua helped Alec down, Alec’s shoulder still giving him trouble from a bullet he’d taken early in the siege. Logan came out the driver’s side and marched to the back of the van to join the others.

“ Step away from the vehicles!” Clemente commanded. “ On your knees — hands on top of your heads!”

Sketchy dropped first, as if suddenly taken by the urge to pray, his hands shooting to the top of his head. Slowly, the others fell in line as well — Mole, then Alec, Logan, Original Cindy, Dalton, and Gem — all on their knees in defeat, all of them putting their hands on their heads, except Gem, who held her baby.

All but Max.

Max remained standing, her hands dangling at her sides. She kept her face calm, passive, showing neither anger nor deception. And yet her very failure to follow orders made her a pillar of defiance.

“On your knees,” Clemente yelled, no longer on the loudspeaker.

Instead, Max took two tentative steps forward.

“Do it, now!”

Ignoring the instruction, Max walked forward a few more steps, then stopped just a few feet from the police, their headlights bathing her and her friends in bright white light.

“452?” Clemente asked, frowning. That was what she had told the cop to call her when they’d been negotiating the hostage crisis.

But why hide any longer?

She said, “You can call me Max.”

He drew a breath. Then he said, “I think you should get on the ground.”

Max’s face remained placid. “I think you should probably go.”

Now Clemente’s expression hardened. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

She gave him the tiniest of shrugs. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

Luke and Dix — two of the transgenics that had started the settlement within the fences of the dead industrial park that was now Terminal City — stepped out of the shadows, pumping shotguns.

In front of Max, the officers cocked their own guns and drew beads on the transgenics.

Then, from the darkness, other armed transgenics emerged on nearby rooftops and on either flank of the policemen. The eerie, half-lit forms of these feared freaks could only give the police pause... and there were more and more of the figures...

The only escape route for the cops was to their rear. And by the time all the transgenics made their appearance known, over one hundred of them had the officers in their crosshairs.

Max could see on Clemente’s face the realization that his forces were hopelessly outgunned.

“You can try to arrest us all,” she suggested affably, her arms widening to include the whole group, “but you guys might want to call it a night... and go have a beer.”

Clemente needed only a second to make up his mind. “Back it up! Outside the fence, people. Let’s go, move it back!”

The officers looked from the transgenics to their leader, then started looking at one another.

“Now!” Clemente yelled.

Cops began holstering their weapons, jumping into cars, and soon police cruisers were moving in every direction as they tried to find the fastest way out of Terminal City. As the long line of cars broke and headed for the gate, Clemente watched them for a moment, then gingerly holstered his pistol and turned toward Max. Walking slowly, he crossed the short distance to her.

Barely a foot from her, he said, “You kept today from turning into a bloodbath... and I respect that...”

She gave him a slight nod. “You held up your end too.”

The detective’s face remained a solemn mask. “... but you haven’t won anything. This is going to get ugly... and it’s way over my head now. These people’s lives depend on the decisions you make next.”

Their eyes locked.

He went on: “And I pray you make the right ones...”

She stared at him, waiting.

“... Max.”

She was unprepared for the swell of pride she got when he said her name. Why couldn’t more of the “ordinaries” be like this one? Yes, they were adversaries — those lines had been drawn long ago. But in the tone of that one syllable, “Max,” she could tell they were not enemies.

Turning on his heel, Clemente got into his car, dropped it into reverse, and backed out of the building toward the gate of Terminal City.

The lights of the car weren’t even out of sight before Mole — ever the hotheaded activist — went to work. “Escape and evade. We divide into teams, pick a compass point, and go to ground.”

Max surprised even herself when the words jumped out of her mouth: “ No! ... We stay here.”

Mole spun to face her, his harsh-sounding voice even harsher than usual. “In a couple of hours that perimeter’ll be totally locked down... tanks, National Guard, and every cop within a hundred miles.”

Stepping forward, Dix — a transgenic with a face like a pile of lumpy mashed potatoes and a half-assed goggle-cummonocle strapped to his one good eye — said, “We’ll be digging our own grave.”

“Mole’s right,” said Luke, a transgenic with a cue ball for a head, red bags under his black eyes, and huge flaps over his tiny ears. “We move now, they won’t be able to catch us all.”

“Where are you going to go?” Max asked, then turning her attention to the misfit throng, she added, “Look — I can’t stop anyone from leaving. But I’m through running and hiding and being afraid.” Making her point with a forceful pirouette, she said, “I’m not gonna live like that anymore. Aren’t you tired of living in darkness?”

She saw a few nods and heard a few scattered mumbles of agreement.