Max Collins - After the Dark

Lurching backward, Max jerked her head out of the way as Logan crashed down on top of her.

They were touching everywhere, but Max wasn’t terribly concerned about that — they were bundled up, and other than their faces, their skin was not exposed. They both moved carefully as they untangled.

Max could see Original Cindy and the others shouting, but she was concentrating so hard on not touching Logan that she didn’t hear a word anyone was saying now. Just as they slid apart, a gust of wind came up from behind her. She braced her body, but there was nothing to be done as the gale swept her hair up and into Logan’s face, her stocking hat flying off and over the side.

She could feel the electrical charge exchanged between her hair and his face, as her corrupted DNA met his vulnerable DNA. He gasped, and in that second of contact, Max died inside, knowing that those wisps of her hair had just sentenced the man she loved to death.

Everybody froze.

Her eyes locked with Logan’s, and his look said that he knew the truth as well as she did.

In less than twenty-four hours, he would be dead. They both knew the drill by now: they had been through it before. On two previous occasions, the symptoms had erupted and nearly done him in. Both times a miracle had saved him, but this time they knew no miracle would be in the offing. No one had discovered the cure, and the only vial of antigen that existed had long since been used up.

Logan found his voice first. “I’m... I’m sorry.”

That almost made her break down.

She’d just killed him, and he was apologizing?

Max knew, hearing those two pitiful words, that she couldn’t get through this. There was no way she could watch Logan go down this horrible road again. First there would be the fever, then the chills, the sweats, the seizures, and from there on a rapid downhill slide to the bottom of the abyss...

But after only a moment’s consideration, she also knew there was nowhere else for her to go. If Logan was going to die, she would be at his side until the end...

... even if it killed her, too.

That Logan’s apartment seemed warm and cozy, made a bitter parody of the evening Max had envisioned for them earlier.

After making their way through the underground passageway leading from Terminal City to the clandestine apartment, Logan — surprisingly, not showing any signs of the virus kicking in, as yet — had called his old friend Dr. Sam Carr, neurosurgeon at Metro Medical Hospital and Logan’s personal physician. Carr was part of that small handful of confidants who knew that Logan and Eyes Only were one and the same.

Then the couple had settled in to wait. They were together atop Logan’s bed, lying there in each other’s arms. At first she kept the usual respectful distance, on the longshot chance that by some fluke the brushing of her hair against his flesh had not been enough to jumpstart the virus...

But Logan said, “No point in us not touching anymore, is there?”

And he enfolded her in an embrace, so that now she lay in his arms, in their warmth, a warmth matching the apartment, the bedroom itself. She was reminded, strangely, of the night she and the others, her siblings, had escaped from Manticore.

How odd — that icy night in Gillette, Wyoming, seemed so far from this time, this place. Only the kindness of a stranger — the Manticore nurse Hannah, who’d taken the frightened X5 into the inviting hospitality of her heated cabin — had prevented the young girl from freezing to death before she’d got a taste of real freedom. That tiny one-room cabin in the middle of nowhere had provided the nine-year-old with her first glimpse of a life, a home, that could be more than just an antiseptic dormitory.

In many ways, Max had been on a search to recapture that feeling of warmth every day since — she’d experienced that warmth in Logan’s presence, periodically. Now, with him really next to her, holding her, she finally had that feeling again, in so complete — and yet terrible — a way. A tear trickled down her cheek, and he wiped it away, almost absently.

By comparison to that cabin, this apartment — contrived out of a vacant, Cale-family-owned building just outside the borders of Terminal City — was a palace. The bed alone seemed nearly as big as the one-room cabin back in Wyoming. The rest of the room’s furnishings reflected a spare masculinity typical of Logan — dresser, armoire, and two nightstands. There was a four-door closet that took up much of the far wall. Logan’s laptop atop the dresser was turned on, its screensaver of Earth, as seen from the surface of the moon, providing the only major light source.

Next to the dresser, a small stereo unit quietly played classical music. Max didn’t know the piece and wasn’t consciously listening, really; but the strings seemed to soothe something within her. If she could just get that feeling to last for more than thirty seconds at a time...

She drew away slightly, leaned on an elbow and studied him — he looked fine. Normal, even. She hated to ask, but she had to: “How do you feel?”

He shrugged. “I have to say... okay, really. Shaken, but mostly by the... thought of what’s coming.”

“But it came on faster than this before,” she said.

They had only been in the bedroom a few minutes, but it had taken at least five to reach the apartment and a minute or two on the phone, reaching Carr; the couple was alone in the apartment, the rest of the group allowing them their privacy as the death watch got under way. Maybe as much as ten minutes had passed since her DNA and his had commingled...

The other times the designer virus had reared its ugly head, the onset of symptoms had been almost instantaneous. This lull before the shit storm confused them both.

Logan was propped on an elbow, too, looking right at her. “Maybe... I’ve worked up some immunity? From having it before. Might take longer to present.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Didn’t happen that way the last time.”

Logan’s eyes widened and he shrugged again. “It’s weird as hell, Max... but I feel all right. I feel good.”

“How long has it been?”

“Since we first touched?”

She nodded.

He checked his wristwatch. “Almost fifteen minutes.”

A tempest roiled in Max’s belly, and not even the strings in the classical music could soothe her now. The fear and despair were mixing it up with hope — who was it that said, “It’s not the despair, I can handle the despair... it’s the hope!”

Nonetheless, something was different this time. Logan should have been sweating profusely by now, in the merciless grip of chills, with seizures not far ’round the corner. Yet he felt warm against her — not feverish. He smelled good, that fresh cocktail of aftershave and powder she knew so well — as if he’d spruced up for her, anticipating that this evening might be the night of love they’d both longed for, a honeymoon about to happen, not a damn death watch. She loved the aroma and took it deep into her lungs, feeling greedy for it, knowing this sensation was one that would likely have to last her the rest of her life.

She heard a faint knock. Logan didn’t react, but she sat up, just as the knock repeated, this time more forcefully, and Logan jumped a little next to her.

“Gotta love a doctor who makes house calls,” he said as he started to sit up.

Max pushed him back down into the pillow and climbed off the bed herself. “You stay right here, mister — you’re the patient, I’m the nurse, and I’ll fetch the doctor. Chain of command, clear?”