Max Collins - After the Dark

Alec had noticed Lydecker’s disheveled presence, and said, “I can’t believe this bastard’s alive!”

“I can fix that,” Mole said, brandishing the pistol.

She shook her head, made a sharp motion. “ No! I need him, breathing.”

The reptile face wrinkled further and words came through clenched teeth: “But it’s what I want for Christmas.”

Again Max shook her head. “I’ll get you a tie.”

“What about the comet?” Alec asked. “From what we saw on those monitors, people all over feel fine... Other than a hangover tomorrow, maybe. It was a big nothin’!”

Logan said, “Maybe it’ll have effects on people like me, in the days ahead... but I don’t think so. The snake cult may have been physically and mentally superior, thanks to all that ‘good’ breeding... but they were still a cult. It was religion they were spouting — not science.”

“What if it does kick in?” Max asked.

Logan shrugged. “We do what people always do — our best to survive, a day at a time.”

“I coulda told you it was BS,” Alec said.

Max looked at him. “Yeah?”

“Never believe anything in that rag Sketchy writes for.”

There was laughter — a relief after the hard-fought struggle — and Max and Logan pitched in with first aid, patching up some wounds among the transgenics, including her own shoulder. Fortunately, the lack of firearms and other weapons among the Familiars — who’d not been prepared for an invasion tonight, mutant or otherwise — had limited casualties among the ranks of the good guys.

The transgenics Dix had rounded up to play cavalry for Max and her little crew had made the trek in various vehicles — trucks, cars, vans, even schoolbuses, all of them having two things in common: the vehicles were old as dirt, and ran like new, thanks to the Terminal City motor pool of Luke and Dix. Max said her good-byes, giving Dix that big kiss he deserved, and she — and Mole, Alec, Joshua, and Logan — waved as the unlikely caravan of vehicles started home.

Mole returned to the compound, where the fire was starting to die down, and commandeered a truck from behind the one surviving outbuilding — neither Matthias nor Alec had managed to blow that one up — and, soon, they were loading Lydecker in the back with the rest of them and heading out the front gate (the guard post abandoned) to drive around to where Logan’s car waited, undisturbed.

Logan and Max climbed down out of the truck, and Max instructed Mole to take the vehicle back to Terminal City with Lydecker... alive.

“Call Dr. Carr and get him some medical help,” she said to the lizard man. “And keep Lydecker under lock and key, and constant guard. When he gets to feeling better, he’ll be slippery.”

“You’re putting me in charge?” Mole asked, lighting up a cigar.

“I know you’d just as soon rip his head off as look at him,” Max said.

Mole glanced Joshua’s way. “I don’t know, Max — that kinda thing ain’t exactly my department.”

Joshua looked away, embarrassed.

Max thumped Mole’s chest. “Just make sure that evil bastard stays alive. If he can help me find my mother, that’s one good thing he can do, after all the bad.”

“Starting a new crusade already?” Alec asked. “Can’t we take a day or two off?”

“You know us messiahs,” Max said. “We’re savin’ souls seven days a week.”

“I thought you rested on Sunday,” Alec said.

“No,” Max said. “You’re thinkin’ of my Old Man.”

Alec smirked. “Test tubes never sleep.”

Then Terminal City’s next alderman crawled in back of the truck, where Lydecker had been propped up, half out of it. Joshua, riding shotgun, waved like a little kid. Mole, behind the wheel, stogie in the corner of his mouth, winked at her.

And they disappeared into the bright morning.

Christmas morning.

The couple got into Logan’s car, Max behind the wheel.

“So I’m forgiven?” Logan asked.

“I guess.” She started the car and followed the route the truck had taken, but lagging.

“Because of what you said? My uncle and all?”

“Yeah. That, and I love you.”

She said it so casually, he didn’t seem to be sure he’d heard right. Their eyes met for a moment, and she could see the surprise in his gaze, then she turned back to the road.

Logan seemed stunned. “I don’t think you ever said that to me before.”

“It was always too hard. I wanted to. Maybe I didn’t figure I needed to, until now. But... looking for you, finding you... now I know how important it is. To say it.”

He touched her cheek, briefly. “You know that I love you, don’t you?... God, Max, it’s nice to be able to just feel my fingers on your skin... Are we all right?”

She glanced at him. “I won’t lie to you.”

“I won’t lie to you either!”

She smiled a little, then returned her eyes to her driving. “I can’t say that this business with Seth doesn’t still bother me...”

“He was your brother. It’ll always bother you. It should always bother you.” An edge came into his voice. “Just know, I would never do that to you again.”

As good as it had been to hear him say he loved her, hearing this pledge felt even better.

They rode in silence for a while.

Then...

“Sounds like you’re getting ready for a road trip,” he said. “You and Lydecker, going to find your mother?”

She smirked humorlessly. “She could be across town, or on another continent. We have to talk to the colonel... and you know Lydecker.”

“Reliability is not his middle name... And if your mother is halfway across the world?”

“I need to find her.”

“I understand. Room for one more?”

Max smiled at him. “I don’t know. Let’s get you cleaned up, and see if I still can stand being seen with you.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Have you seen yourself lately?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That sprinkler system wasn’t kind to your hair.”

“Is that right? Well, you can take a look at me, after I have a nice long hot bath. I may just sleep until Christmas, then let everything sort itself out.”

“This is Christmas, Max.”

“So it is.”

They rode in silence for a while — a sweet, comfortable silence. Finally, maybe halfway home, with Logan asleep in the passenger seat, she pulled off the road and into the lot of a small roadside motel at the edge of a little town. She checked in, unlocked the room’s door, then came out to the car and opened the door on his side. He was lolled back on the seat. She touched his arm.

“Come on,” she said.

He awoke slowly. “Where... are we?”

“Middle of nowhere. Motel.”

He said nothing, getting out of the car cautiously, as if he didn’t trust his muscles to work — or the exoskeleton, for that matter.

“You can have a shower or bath,” she said, “which I’m gonna do, too... but what we really need is rest.”

They were to the door now, and she had her arm around his waist, helping him walk inside the motel room.

He allowed her to take her bath, and when she had freshened up, and stood in the open bathroom doorway, using the motel’s drier on her hair, she found herself alone. She was just about to get concerned when he stepped back into the room, and explained that he’d just run across the highway to a convenience store, where he’d picked up a few toiletries, including a shaver.

He showered and emerged in twenty minutes, the scruffy beard gone, his shirt off, drying his hair.

“You hungry?” Logan asked. “Or should we just go to bed?”

She was already under the covers.