Max Collins - Before the Dawn

A shade over six feet tall, dark blond and blue-eyed behind wire-frame glasses, Logan Cale had rowed crew at Yale, and continued to work out, maintaining a slender yet muscular physique worthy of a college athlete; his apparel — jeans, a pullover gray sweater, and sneakers — added to an eternal-college-boy air of which he was wholly unaware.

His surroundings — the sprawling, modern condo, decorated with quality and taste (or at least he liked to think so) — were the one indulgence of wealth Logan allowed himself. With hardwood floors in each room, and the occasional area rug, the place had a stark, masculine feel; translucent panels separated the rooms, track lighting bathing his world in pale orange, peach, and yellow.

In the living room, each wall bore a different color, earth tones or a combination thereof. Two walls came together to form the corner of the predominantly glass high-rise, allowing a great deal of light into the room by day. Though the furniture was expensive — hard woods, sleek lines, designer stuff — the overall statement was minimalism. A plush brown sofa dominated the center of the room with simple white and silver end tables and a matching coffee table in front. Chairs sat perpendicular to the couch, completing the feng shui of the room.

Shotgun in his hands, Logan approached the double doors that were the front entry to the apartment; a small video screen to the right served as an electronic peephole.

About Logan’s height, his visitor was a sullenly handsome young man of maybe twenty or twenty-one — short brown hair, green eyes, and a long, angular face — in a black leather jacket, dark blue T-shirt, and black jeans.

Logan opened the door.

“Take your goddamn time, why don’t you?” the young man said, his voice deeper and older than his years, his barely contained rage evident.

“Why hello, Seth,” Logan said. “Forgive me — from now on, I’ll just sit by the door, waiting for you to stop by, unannounced.”

Seth grunting a humorless laugh was his only reply.

Logan tried not to take Seth’s dark attitude personally; the boy had this kind of quiet contempt for just about everybody and everything.

Logan gestured for Seth to come in, which he did. While Logan shut the door, pausing for a moment to look at the video security monitor, just in case someone had followed Seth up, the young man crossed to the couch and fell onto it with the kind of casual familiarity of a family member.

“Make yourself at home,” Logan said, dryly, ambling in after his guest.

“I’d feel more at home with a drink,” Seth said, a condescending smile tickling the thin lips.

Logan took a deep breath and let it out slow, fighting irritation; this screwed-up kid had a way of looking both happy and miserable at the same time, like that old-time movie actor... what was his name? Then Logan remembered: James Dean.

Deciding not to slap the smirk off the young man’s face, Logan asked, “Scotch, I suppose?”

“I been off Bosco for a while.”

What a charmer, Logan thought, went to the kitchen and came back with a glass filled with ice and clear liquid. He handed Seth the glass.

“This is water,” the young man said, just looking at it.

“Can’t get anything by you.”

“What are you... my daddy now? I’d like a goddamn Scotch.”

“Maybe ‘daddy’ doesn’t feel you need your judgment impaired any worse than it already is.”

Seth obviously knew immediately what Logan meant, and sipped the water, putting the glass — thoughtfully — on a coaster on the nearby coffee table.

The relationship between the two had been strained from the beginning — neither liked the other’s style, or manner. But they needed each other ( codependents, Logan thought), each offering abilities and knowledge the other didn’t have. It had made for a rocky ride thus far, Seth with his gift for alienating almost anybody who came into his life — particularly anyone who got at all close — and Logan, always focused on the struggle, with little patience for those who did not share his passion.

The pair had been introduced less than a month ago by Ben Daly, a mousy middle-aged med tech who was a mutual acquaintance. Among Logan’s Eyes Only efforts was a sort of Underground Railroad, and the cyber — freedom fighter had been working on securing safe passage to Canada for Daly, where the tech hoped with Cale’s help to disappear into a new identity.

Daly was on the run from his former employer, a private corporation that had been taken over by U.S. government black ops. The med tech and his fellow employees had been experimenting in bio-enhancement technology, but the new covert project — Project Manticore — moved the experiment into using recombinant DNA to produce a superior combat soldier. When Manticore started using children as guinea pigs, Daly decided he’d had enough.

Another research scientist at the facility gave notice, and this encouraged Daly to make an appointment to see his boss, to tender his own resignation... and the next night, said research scientist was a hit-and-run fatality. The head of Manticore, the spookily soft-spoken Colonel Donald Lydecker, had said to Daly, “A dangerous world out there — what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Daly?”

So Ben Daly settled in, did his job, and waited for his chance. It wasn’t until well after the Pulse that he’d gotten away — Manticore was the kind of job you couldn’t quit... you had to escape from it, like the prison it was — and he’d stayed hidden for years, the last three in Seattle, working as a lowly (but alive) lab tech.

And then Daly had been tracked down by Seth. At first Daly thought the X5 had been sent by Manticore, but it quickly became apparent he was simply looking for a solution to the seizures that had afflicted him, and his siblings, since their youth. A runaway. Still, Seth’s turning up gave Daly a sudden, desperate desire to leave Seattle, and find some new rock to crawl under. If Seth, a kid on the run, working by himself, could find Daly, it was only a matter of time until organization-man Lydecker came calling.

Though he hadn’t been able to solve Seth’s health problem, Daly had informed the renegade X5 that tryptophan — a homeopathic neurotransmitter — could help control the symptoms. In an effort to keep from getting his ass kicked by Seth for failing to end the seizures, Daly had introduced the volatile young man to Logan.

Daly, of course, was unaware that Logan was Eyes Only; but he did know that Logan was an anti-establishment journalist from a very wealthy family.

“Maybe you can track down some doctor or research scientist,” Daly had said, “who can address Seth’s condition... maybe you can network with this Eyes Only character. Who knows?”

“Who knows,” Logan had said.

Logan suspected Daly didn’t care if the X5 got help or not. Likely the med tech only hoped that Seth would latch onto Logan as a new target of his dark moods. If so, Daly’s strategy had proved successful: the tech was in some little town on the edge of the Arctic Circle, and Seth was still in Seattle, playing a dangerous game with Logan Cale.

Sprawled on the couch, running shoes up on it, Seth might have been a patient in a psychiatrist’s office. Referring to Ryan Devane — the corrupt sector chief who had been selling everything from under-the-table sector passes to minority teenagers into slavery overseas — Seth said, “Problem solved.”

Few in Seattle, no matter their political persuasion, had any doubt that Devane was a bad man... many would have called him evil; but his position had been so well insulated, he couldn’t be touched... except by Eyes Only.

“Solved,” Logan echoed emptily.