After the Dark (5 page)

The group gathered closer to the edge of the rooftop, getting a good look at the glowing, colorful tree. Max studied every light, every colored ball. The tree was magnificent. She had always considered Christmas a corny relic of pre-Pulse decadence. But now she understood what the fuss was about . . . family, friends . . . and she could think of no better present than this. The tree would be visible for miles around, and people far away from Terminal City would still be able to see the Freaks' Christmas tree on top of their new mall.

They had indeed come a long way in a short time.

She was still contemplating this when, moments later, the wind expressed its own, less sentimental opinion, grabbing the tree and shaking it even more violently than it had up till now, like an abusive parent manhandling a naughty child.

Logan reflexively reached for the tree, to haul it back, but the wind shifted again, this time coming across and sweeping the tree back upright and to the left, the branches slapping Logan, sweeping him off balance. His eyes went wide, white all around, as he teetered for a moment—his balance good in the exoskeleton, but not perfect, he wasn't as nimble as he'd been—and, in proof of that reality, he pitched back over the edge without a sound.

Max had seen it coming but had no time to warn him, much less reach him in time. All she could do was throw herself toward the roof's edge, her hand extending out in front of her and over the side. At the last possible instant, she caught Logan's gloved hand in hers, and then he dangled seven stories over the city, a human Christmas ornament.

Max's arm threatened to tear itself from its socket, in this effort to defeat gravity and keep Logan from falling. Alec and Joshua, moving quickly, each grabbed one of her legs and started pulling her away from the edge and thus raising Logan. Original Cindy and Mole had hopped to either side of Max, their hands extended down over the side, too, waiting for the first chance to get their hands on Logan and wrestle him back onto the roof.

Max concentrated on holding onto the man she loved, just keeping him alive and letting the others do the work. As long as it was only their gloves touching, everything would be all right. Logan swung closer now, and Mole and O.C. each grabbed a shoulder and started tugging. Mole got a good hold and jerked, and suddenly Max saw Logan coming back up over the edge . . . his head flying right toward the flesh of her uncovered face!

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.

Chapter Three

DEATH WATCH

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
DECEMBER 20, 2021

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?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

But she was already out of the bedroom and into the large room with its dividers that cordoned-off sections. The kitchen, with all its postmodern stainless steel appliances, and the dining area, with an oak table large enough for six, were off to her right. The apartment was similar to the one Ames White and his NSA minions had trashed last year, with a comforting familiarity about it—like the living room with its monstrous leather sofa, three chairs, coffee table, and lawn-sized area rug, directly in front of her, and Logan's office space to her left in the rear of the spacious quarters. A door at the far end of the room led to the tunnel that connected them to Terminal City, and the door to the right, the one that Dr. Sam Carr was presumably pounding on now, opened to the street.

After a quick check of the small monitor to one side of the entry—a video peephole of sorts—Max flung the door open to reveal Dr. Carr in a heavy blue parka, the hood pulled up to protect the man's balding head from the wind. A gust whipped into the apartment, helping Carr inside. He and Max didn't even bother to speak until the door was firmly bolted against the nasty weather.

“Where is he?” Carr asked, handing Max his Gladstone bag, then slipping off his coat and hanging it over the back of a dinner-table chair.

Perhaps five-ten, with a forehead that stopped at the apex of his skull, Carr had short dark hair that covered the back and sides of his oval-shaped head like a yarmulke with flaps. His dark eyes had the resigned sadness tinged with kindness of a man who'd spent a career listening to people's problems; his nose was long and straight, his mouth sensitive, his chin cleft.

“Bedroom,” Max said.

“How'd it happen? You've been careful.”

She told him.

“Be surprised how many people die stupidly around Christmas.” Shaking his head, Carr took the Gladstone bag from her. “Frankly, I don't know what I can do for him. We can try a transfusion from another transgenic, but—”

“Don't you usually examine a patient first, then make your diagnosis and treatment?”

Carr's eyes tensed. “What's going on here, Max?”

“That's what I'd like to know—go look him over.”

She was trying to keep the hope out of her voice, and Carr seemed to be reading that as despair, keeping his eyes on her even as he crossed to the bedroom, where he slipped inside.

Max flopped onto the couch, trying to force all feeling and emotion from herself. Let the doctor do his work—let him examine his patient, and science would determine whether Logan Cale had a future . . .

She didn't dare embrace these hopeful feelings. It was going on half an hour since her hair blew into Logan's face, and he seemed fine. But how could that be so? Renfro herself—Manticore's final leader—had told Max there was no cure, and no antidote but for that small vial of antigen, which was long gone.

The detestable woman had proceeded to take a bullet for Max, saving the X5 for some unknown reason, then dying in her captive's arms, saving Max from death . . . but leaving the young woman cursed with that designer virus . . .

In a way, hope had been the bane of Max's existence, and—like a prisoner with a life sentence—she had tried to avoid that particular emotion; but, like a nagging summer cold, it just kept coming back. She knew that her probably naive wellspring of hope was how she differed from Zack, her brother and the leader of the twelve who escaped Manticore, or impulsive Seth who'd not made it out that first night, and from Brin, who was reindoctrinated by Renfro, even from self-centered Alec, who had shown signs of coming around some lately, but who was still, at his core, a cynic.

Among the X5s, only Jondy and Tinga seemed to carry hope inside them in the way Max did, and one of them—Jondy—had disappeared, while the other, Tinga, was dead. And yet Joshua, the first of the experiments, despite all he'd suffered, had never lost hope; locked up in the basement of Manticore—an unwanted stepchild following the disappearance of that benign father known only as Sandeman—Joshua had nothing
but
hope.

It was an argument for certain qualities, positive or negative, being born into a person—she'd always said Joshua had a good heart, and where hope in Max was a flicker compared to her inner fire of rage, in Joshua hope radiated, and all the cruelty leveled upon him could never snuff that flame.

Maybe Joshua had been right to hope in the face of despair—still, to Max, hope seemed to bring nothing but disappointment . . . which did not prevent her from hoping with all her heart that Sam Carr could do something to save Logan.

When the doctor had been in with Logan for over an hour, Max was starting to fear the worst. She longed to break down the closed door and find out what was going on, but she forced herself to stay in the living room, pretending to read an art book of Logan's.

Finally, unable to take it anymore, she tossed the book on the sofa and got to her feet. Pacing now, she felt slightly better—any activity was better than none. She marched over to the door, listened intently, her rabbit's ears picking up nothing but what sounded like mumbling, then she stalked to the other end of the room.

Stopping at the door that led to the tunnel, she had the sudden urge to simply bolt. Running away, leaving the pain behind, knowing she would never connect with another person as she had with Logan . . . wouldn't that be better than staying here to suffer this loss?

But it was only a moment—only a fleeting thought. As much as the urge to flee might gnaw at her, the need to stay overrode it. She turned and trudged back toward the bedroom.

Max was only a few steps away when the door opened and Logan came out, Carr trailing him.

And Logan looked fine. In fact, he looked wonderful—he was wearing a wide smile and holding open his arms to her. Her eyes shot to Carr, who shrugged and smiled too, though the doctor's smile was lopsided, digging a groove of uncertainty in one cheek.

“What are you two grinning about?” she asked, almost irritated. She did not step into Logan's offered embrace.

Carr came forward, holding up a small black box that looked like a voltage meter. “Blood test showed no sign of the virus.”

Max's eyes traveled from Carr to Logan and back to Carr; she pushed the hope down—it was leaping within her like an eager puppy, and she would not acknowledge it. “How in hell can
that
be?”

Logan finally realized that Max wasn't going to fall into his arms, and dropped his hands to his sides; but his smile didn't fade.

“That's what took so long,” he said. “We've been doing some impromptu research on the laptop, trying to make sense of it.”

“And did you?”

The doctor said, “I know it's a lot to take in—I won't lie to you and say I've taken it all in, sufficiently, myself.” He motioned to the couch. “Let's sit down and take this a step at a time . . . and I'll do my best to explain the theory we've come up with.”

They moved into the living room area, Max still doubtful, and a little shellshocked, as she took a seat on the leather couch. Logan sat next to her, very close, and she fought the urge to scoot away from him—maintaining distance was a habit now.

Carr took a seat in one of the chairs facing them. “As I said, I did the blood test and there's no sign of the virus.”

She looked from Carr to Logan, whose own grin had turned lopsided, too—he seemed almost embarrassed, for some reason.

“Do we need to take Logan to a facility,” she asked, “and check again?”

The doctor's eyebrows lifted. “You mean, do we need a second opinion? We asked ourselves that, but this is a simple procedure. We didn't need an opinion—we needed an explanation.”

“So you went to the laptop. And?”

Logan jumped in. “Actually, first we discussed it a while—we couldn't just do this randomly. We had to start with a theory, or theories, and work from there. The only thing I could come up with involves Kelpy.”

She frowned. “What could
he
have to do with it? All Kelpy proved is how virulent this thing is! We saw how quickly, how . . . horribly, he—”

Logan silenced her with a raised palm. “Think for a moment, Max—the only significant event relating to the virus, in all these months, has been Kelpy's contact with me, and with you. His death, when he ‘became' me, and died accordingly, is the only change in circumstance.”

She mulled that. “We had been careful, for a long, long time.”

“Yes,” Logan said. “You and I have been extremely careful since my last exposure.”

“Until tonight, anyway.”

“And what happened tonight?”

“We touched—my hair blew in your face, and . . .”

“And what?”