Max Collins - Before the Dawn

The Satellite News Network, with headline stories in half-hour cycles, was at this hour about the only choice in a TV market that had gone from a pre-Pulse high of over two hundred cable channels to the current half dozen, all of which were under the federal government’s thumb. The SNN and two local channels were all that was left out east, and in the Midwest, they got SNN and scattered local channels; so the West Coast remained, by default, the center of the television world... it was just a much smaller world.

“I’m gonna make a leap here,” Max said, “and have a waffle.”

Fresca grinned. “You buyin’?”

Max favored him with a wide smile. “What have you done lately, to deserve me buying you breakfast?”

“Uh... I just figured... you were on some big score, and wanted to, I don’t know, celebrate. Maybe share the wealth.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

Fresca seemed hurt by her kidding. “I don’t know... I just... kinda hoped... you know...”

She reached over and patted his hand. “Relax, mongrel. You know I won’t let you starve.”

He brightened and, as if keeping up Fresca’s end of the conversation, his stomach growled.

A waitress came up to them with all the urgency of a stroke victim using a walker. She was in her late forties, early fifties, skinny as a straw, with a tight, narrow face. She was not thrilled to see them. “Save me a trip — tell me you don’t need a menu.”

Fresca shook his head. “I don’t need one! I’ll have two waffles and a large chocolate milk. Oh, and some bacon too.”

“We been out of bacon for a week now.”

“You got sausage?”

“Link.”

“Okay! Double order.”

Max looked sideways at him. “How big a score you think I pulled off?”

His face fell. “Uh, Max, I’m sorry, I, uh...”

“Kidding. I’m kidding.”

“Chitchat on your own time, honey,” the waitress said, and she wasn’t kidding. “You need a menu?”

“Waffle, sausage, coffee with milk,” Max said.

The waitress sighed, as if this burden were nearly too much to bear, turned and left. Max and Fresca settled in to watch the news. Max was not particularly interested — Moody had made it clear to her that the news was controlled, and not to be believed — but Fresca enjoyed the clips of fires and shootings and other mayhem.

While Fresca sat riveted to the screen, waiting for the next disaster, Max reconsidered her meeting with Moody. He seemed to be pushing her to take a step she wasn’t ready to take... a step into a personal relationship. Seemed the king of the Clan was in the market for a queen...

Oh, he’d been subtle about it — no direct mention; but she could read the man... she could feel the pressure.

Over and above that, she knew he was right about Kafelnikov, the Brood, and some of the other gangs she’d ripped off over the years: she was building a reputation, attracting attention, and this made her uneasy. Maybe it was time to move on...

Although the Clan had become her family, she would get over it. She’d lost family before; sometimes, it seemed losing families, and moving on, was the only thing she did with any regularity... that the only thing permanent about her life was its impermanence.

She glanced at Fresca. Her leaving would break that redheaded, oversized ragamuffin’s heart; but eventually he would get over it and find someone his own age to fall in love with. And besides, if her being gone took some heat off the Chinese Clan, that probably wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.

The waitress showed up with their food, glancing at them as if disgusted by their need to eat, and Fresca immediately drowned his two waffles in syrup and butter, and dug in, scarfing the stuff like he hadn’t had food for weeks. Maybe the waitress is right, Max thought; Fresca eating is a little disgusting...

Max sipped her coffee and picked at her food; she was never very hungry after a big score. Fresca chugged his chocolate milk and asked the waitress for seconds. On the TV, a series of commercials ended and a news cycle started. The doe-eyed Hispanic woman reading the headlines had straight black hair, high cheekbones, and wore a sharply cut charcoal business suit.

“And in Los Angeles, with the sector turf war between the Crips and the Bloods escalating, Mayor Timberlake assured residents that he would double the number of police officers on the street by the end of the year.”

Max glanced up to see video of the curly-haired mayor speaking to a gathering of citizens in front of City Hall, delivering the same old b.s. Max, like every other resident of southern California, knew he was talking through his ass. The clans and gangs had the police outnumbered nearly three to one and the city’s only hope was to declare martial law and call in the National Guard.

And maybe that would finally happen... which was just one more reason to hit the road, she thought.

The Hispanic woman started a new story. “Police in Seattle are stepping up their efforts in the search for the dissident cyberjournalist known as ‘Eyes Only.’ Well-known for breaking into broadcasts with his pirate ‘news’ bulletins, ‘Eyes Only’ is wanted by police on local, state, and national levels.”

Max watched idly; politics bored her.

“This amateur video shot in Seattle just last night,” the newswoman continued, “shows a suspected Eyes Only accomplice, doing battle with officers. The police are searching for this young rebel as well.”

Courtesy of amateur video, Max watched as a brown-haired young man in jeans and a denim jacket — surrounded by Seattle police officers — suddenly sprang to life.

A straight kick to the groin dropped the cop in front of him and, even before that one fell, the young man did a back flip that took him easily eight feet into the air before nailing a landing behind the officer who a moment before had been facing him. When the officer turned with nightstick raised, the young man hit him with a straight right to the throat that dropped him.

One of the remaining three rushed at the rebel with a Tazer, and the young man leapt out of the way at the last second, so that the cop shot one of his fellow officers. As the officer who had fired the Tazer stood in astonishment, the young man spun and kicked him twice in the face before the officer fell.

The remaining cop drew his service pistol and emptied the clip at the young man, whose response was to cartwheel, spin, and dodge until the officer’s pistol was empty. When the last round missed him, the young man stepped forward and hit the cop with half a dozen alternating lefts and rights, before he mercifully let the public servant drop to the ground unconscious.

Max sat as wide-eyed and amazed as the boy’s victims.

Even though she’d only eaten a tiny amount of her breakfast, the food began to roil in her stomach. She had just witnessed superhuman feats that few on the planet could have accomplished: and the only humans she knew of capable of such things had been bred and trained at Manticore...

The video was grainy, shot from a distance, and she was reasonably sure it wasn’t Zack; but the young man who took out the five cops could definitely have been one of her sibs. He looked vaguely like Seth, but Seth hadn’t made it out that night... had he? The picture was so lousy, even with her enhanced vision, she couldn’t tell much of anything, for sure.

This gifted guy just had to be one of her sibs... didn’t he? Who else could do what they could do? Or were there other places like Manticore, turning out supersoldiers?

“Max. Max!”

She turned to look numbly at Fresca. “What?”

“Why... why are you crying, Max?”