After the Dark

Chapter three Death watch

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?”

“And... nothing, so far.”

“Yes. And I began to ask myself — had Kelpy somehow died in my place? When he took on my physicality, he obviously became subject to the virus... otherwise, he wouldn’t have died.”

Nodding, she said, “You passed that capacity to Kelpy, Logan — but I passed the virus to him!”

“Yes. Now stay with me... I hacked into Manticore records and learned more about Kelpy. Seems when he ‘blended,’ some of the changes took place on a genetic level, as well.”

Again Max frowned in thought. “A kind of biochemical morphing?”

Carr picked up the thread. “In a manner of speaking,” the doctor said. “It wasn’t true morphing — he stopped short of that, most of the changes physiological but not genetic. He essentially assumed the shell of whoever he was trying to blend in with.”

“All of which means what?” Max asked.

Logan said, “That enough of his changes were genetic to fool the virus.”

Slowly, as if repeating a child’s ridiculous assertion, Max said, “Fool... the... virus?”

“Yeah. The virus thought Kelpy was me.”

“The virus... thought...?”

Carr said, “That’s just a convenient way of expressing the concept that this virus was ‘programmed’ to kill Logan. It recognized Kelpy as Logan and that’s why the virus attacked him. When its target was dead, it became inert.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Very much so,” Carr said with an assertive nod. “The scientists at Manticore were operating on the highest levels of genetic engineering... but I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

“No,” Max said dryly.

“The irony is, two of their creations — one of which was designed to take you down, Max — collided, and inadvertently destroyed each other... and saved you and Logan from what we now know would have been an inevitable tragedy.”

“Even with all our precautions,” Logan said, “we were kidding each other that we’d never touch... but we couldn’t stay apart, could we?”

She just looked at him.

Logan reached out to put his arm around her. She jumped up, away from him.

“This is whack,” she said. “Doctor, tell him not to touch me — we can’t be sure, we can’t know...”

Carr said, “Logan, she’s right. We need—”

But Logan was on his feet, clearly irritated. “Damnit, Max — sometimes the news is good... It’s over. That goddamned virus is out of our lives.”

Max looked past Logan at Carr. She felt irritated, too — though she knew she should be happy. Wasn’t this the news they had been waiting over a year to hear?

“Dr. Carr,” she said evenly, “I want to believe it, but I can’t. I’m afraid that this thing will come back, that this... this remission is just a fluke. You said I was right to be careful. What do we need to do to make sure?”

Logan, frustrated, turned to Carr and said, “You agree, Sam, that—”

Carr patted the air. “Logan, Max is skeptical and she’s cautious — traits that have served her well.” Now the doctor spoke to Max: “We’ll do a blood test on you, and then we’ll have an answer.”

“A definitive answer?” she asked.

Logan was shaking his head. “My God, Max — you can see the dark cloud in every silver lining.”

“Very little is definitive in this world, Max,” the doctor said. “Particularly in this post-Pulse world... Now, if the virus is still inside you, it might be inert or it might merely be dormant.”

Hands on hips, she asked, “And your little black blood-test box can tell us?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged. “Then let’s do it.”

“Bedroom,” Carr said, gesturing.

Moments later, Logan and Max sat on the bed, somewhat apart, as Carr went to work. First, he swabbed her arm with alcohol, then with a needle removed a few CCs of blood. He gave her another swab to press against the wound.

“Take just a minute,” he said reassuringly.

He inserted the needle into a rubberized receptacle in his black box and pumped in the blood. Carr’s fingers expertly touched various buttons on the front of the box, and then paused, as if he’d dialed a cell phone and was waiting for a response. Carr studied the box’s small LCD screen, then he pushed another button.

“I’m printing a readout,” the doctor said. “I know you like things in black and white, Max...”

A moment later a slip of paper, like a gas station receipt, came rolling out the bottom of the box. Carr tore it off and handed it to Max. Down the left side were abbreviations, down the right side numbers. She read the list but it meant nothing to her. She held it up, her eyebrows rising in question.

“See any zeroes?” Carr asked.

She looked at the list again. “Yeah. Fourth one down.”

“What’s it say in the left column?”

“V.I.”

“Viruses,” Carr said. “V.I. stands for viruses... and you’re reading zero. You don’t even have a mild flu bug, Max.”

“I’m... clean.”

“The virus is out of your system.”

Max just sat there — she felt numb. It was as if Carr were suddenly three rooms away. “No virus?”

“Apparently Kelpy absorbed it out of your system. It’s possible his capacity to blend, to morph, went slightly haywire when, in his Logan phase, you and he touched and instinctively he began to take on some of your characteristics — suddenly the human chameleon was the carrier and the recipient.”

Logan said, “So, then... the virus killed Kelpy... and itself.”

Carr sighed, shrugged. “Without both of you entering into a lengthy research program at some top facility,” the doctor said, “we will likely never know for sure.”

Logan smiled. “Maybe it was magic.”

She turned to Logan, and he was grinning like an idiot; then she looked at Carr, and he wore a big smile, too.

“Really... gone?” she asked.

Carr nodded slowly. “If I might prescribe something? Allow yourself to feel relieved... and happy.”

Max turned to Logan, wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hard and deep and for a very long time. At first surprised, Logan got into the swing of things quickly.

Finally, Carr said, “Hey, you two — get a room!”

They broke their kiss off, and Logan said, “This is my room. You’re the sicko voyeur, Sam.”

Carr seemed about to make a potentially amusing remark, when Max bounded off the bed and grabbed the doctor by the elbow and started leading him out of the bedroom.

“Whoa, whoa,” he protested. “My bag!”

Behind them, Logan picked up the bag, put the black box inside, and followed them into the main room.

Logan said, “Sam, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I do,” Max said.

And kissed him on the cheek.

Carr looked at her, apparently amazed that this tough little woman could be so tender.

“Thanks, Doc,” she said. “You’re a lifesaver — literally. It really is a shame you have to leave so soon.”

Carr was chuckling as Max — maintaining a fast pace — helped him into his parka and Logan handed him the Gladstone bag. At the door, Max gave him another quick kiss on the cheek and said, “Thank you, Sam.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

He was only halfway through “welcome” when she shoved him outside into the night and the howling wind, and Carr managed to say, “Name it after me,” before she shut the door in his face.

Twisting the dead bolt into place, Max turned to face Logan. “I thought he’d never go.”

But now that she was happy, his smile had disappeared; suddenly Logan looked serious.

That was okay — what was about to happen between them was serious... the consummation of a love that had been forced into a state of limbo by that dead virus. She crossed her arms at her waist and grabbed the hem of her shirt, about to pull it over her head.

Stepping forward, he put his hands on top of hers to stop her. “We have to talk.”

“That’s usually the woman’s line.”

“I know.”

“Your timing is kinda lousy, don’t ya think?”

His eyes were filled with love, but also something else — sadness? “Max... nothing means more to me than you... and loving you. But there’s something...”

She sighed. “Did I ever tell you about the tiny bit of cat DNA they slipped into me? That sends me into heat three times a year?”

He nodded.

“Well, it’s about that time...” She raised her eyebrows. “What’s wrong, Logan? We’ve been waiting—”

“I know, I know. But we have to be honest with each other. This isn’t just animal magnetism, Max — if we’re going to be together — and I don’t mean just that way... well...”

He took her by the hand, led her to the sofa and gestured for her to sit.

The mood had shifted, and Max was bewildered. Sitting, she asked, “What’s the matter?”

He removed his glasses and rubbed a hand over his face. Then he said, “This isn’t easy, Max... but I need to tell you something.”

“You slept with Asha,” she said matter-of-factly.

She meant Asha Barlow, the slim blonde S1W revolutionary Logan had teamed up with when Max had been presumed dead.

“Don’t care,” she said. “Old news.”

This sucker-punched him. “What are you talking about?”

“You mean, you didn’t sleep with Asha?”

“No! Hell, no.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

“Max, please. I was... mourning you... Why would you even think that?”

She shrugged. “Sounded like you were going into confession mode... Just thought I’d hurry things up, so we move this along, and could get back to more important matters...”

But Logan, brow furrowed, was a step behind. “You thought I slept with Asha?”

“You believed I was dead, you were lonely...”

“I didn’t.”

She smiled. “Cool. Even better, now...”

“But I do have something... something to confess.”

She sat back, crossed her arms; there was no turning him back now. He was going to get this out in the open, whatever the hell he was yammering about.

“Okay,” she said, “spill your terrible secret. Bisexual? Don’t care. All your family money’s gone? So what.”

His eyes met hers. “Max... it’s about Seth.”

She tensed. “Seth... my brother, Seth?”

“I knew him, Max.”

One of the X5s who had tried to escape that night back in Wyoming, Seth had been caught by the Manticore guards. He escaped at a later date, and Max — living in Los Angeles at the time — had tracked him to Seattle. They were reunited at the top of the Space Needle in 2019, ten years after Max split from Manticore. The reunion had been short-lived: Seth died that night, plummeting from the top of the Needle.

“When we first met, Max, you’ll recall I knew a lot about the X5s and Manticore... Not information the average guy on the street is privy to.”

“What do you mean... you ‘knew’ Seth?”

“On the needle that night — those people you interrupted...”

“The bad guys.”

“Bad guys, right — they were involved in criminal activities that Eyes Only wanted to stop.”

“You’re Eyes Only, Logan.”

“... Yes.”

“You mean... Seth was working for you that night.”

All Logan could do was nod.

“I wasn’t the first X5 you recruited, then.”

“No. Seth.”

She felt tears welling. “That night at the Needle, taking on Jared Sterling and all those Koreans — Seth was on a mission for Eyes Only.”

Logan’s voice seemed small. “Yes.”

“And he died. He got killed. You got him killed.”

“... I know. I’ve had to live with that a long time.”

Something burned in her stomach and rose to the back of her throat. Swallowing hard, she got it down, but just barely. This couldn’t be happening — not now, not when the virus was vanquished and nothing stood between their love...

Except betrayal.

And lies.

She rose and her eyes locked with his — his had a terrible softness, while hers blazed. “There were nearly a dozen men there that night — the Koreans, Sterling and his own thugs — and you sent Seth in there alone.”

“I did.”

She glared at him, her lips curled in anger. “And you never told me? Not until now?”

He shook his head and gave her a pathetic little shrug. “We all have our secrets, Max. You didn’t tell me everything, not at first.”

“You’ve known all there is to know about me for a long, long time. I’ve leveled with you; I’ve opened myself to you in a way I haven’t to anybody, ever.” Her voice was rising in pitch and intensity, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. “You don’t not tell someone something like this by... by accident. This was no oversight. It’s willful, Logan — you lied to me.”

He swallowed thickly. “In a way.”

“For what?” She was almost shrieking now. “Why? Why would you lie to me? Me?”

“At first, you were... how can I say this?”

“Find a way.”

“You were just the second recruit... and if I told you what had become of the first X5 I’d taken on, you might...”

“Hesitate to get my ass killed for you?”

Logan winced. “Something like that. And then... as we grew close... I just couldn’t find a way. You made it clear how deep your love and commitment for your siblings ran... and for me to admit causing the death of one of them, I was afraid...”

“Afraid of what I’d do to you?”

“Afraid you’d hate me.”

“Good call.”

He stood staring at her as if she’d punched him.

Her tears ran now — hot tears of sorrow-tinged anger as she thought about Seth, and the man she loved who’d got him killed, this man in front of her, the man who was supposed to love her. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Max... I just did.”

“Oh, so better late than never?”

Logan said nothing.

“You kept me dangling,” she said, “so I’d continue to do your bidding — serve your various self-righteous agendas... same as you did with Seth. You couldn’t tell me because you might lose a valuable resource in Eyes Only’s crusade.”

“It wasn’t that at all.”

“What the hell was it then?”

“Max... you know what it was.”

“Do I?”

“... I fell in love with you.”

Now she felt as though he had punched her; but she lashed back, “And you figured that telling me you got my brother killed might put a damper on my feelings?”

“Max, I—”

“Don’t ‘Max’ me — I’m maxed out. I’ve heard enough.”

She crossed the room, snatching her jacket off the back of a dining room chair as she went.

Going the opposite way around the couch, he headed her off at the door and put a hand on her arm.

“Want that broken?” she asked, glancing down at the offending hand.

He didn’t move.

“Fair warning.” She grabbed his hand in hers, removed it from her arm and was about to crush it.

Logan made no effort to stop her — he just stood there staring into her eyes, the pain in his having nothing to do with the pressure she was applying.

Applying more, she saw the first flash of physical pain in his face and released her grip.

“Hell with it,” she snarled. “I’m outta here.”

She threw the door open and strode out into a night almost as angry as she was, leaving Logan behind with his lies and his guilt, standing in the doorway, the wind chastising him.

He called her name once, but she ignored him and stalked off into the darkness. Tonight, she wouldn’t go back to Terminal City, wouldn’t worry about the inhabitants. She couldn’t be near any of them tonight, not even Joshua and Original Cindy. The only place to be tonight was where she had last seen her brother — where Seth had died.

The Space Needle was pretty much as she remembered it, even though she hadn’t been there since the Terminal City siege began. There were a few new graffiti tags, but other than that, the Needle was same-o same-o. Turning on the power, which few but Max knew still allowed the elevators to run, she rode up to the observation deck, then climbed some more until she got out to her usual perch at the very top.

The wind whipped even worse this high, but she was careful, and her jacket was warm, and besides, from up here she could feel close to Seth and maybe gain some perspective.

Over five hundred feet below her the city went about its usual nighttime activities, signaled by fireplay flickerings across the landscape, seeming very small. Up here, so far removed from everything, she felt small, too, and tonight, somewhat insignificant.

So many years, so many failures.

And not just her failures — sometimes, like this time, the failure lay with someone else. Logan could have told me, she thought, should have told me. Hell, he’d had over two years to find a way to break this to her, and yet he had never brought it up until tonight.

The tears were streaming again. You’re not so tough, she told herself. That flame of hope she’d kept within herself, that she had never allowed to flicker out — sometimes it seemed those rays of hope were all she really had that belonged to her.

Now, just as he’d gotten Seth killed, Logan had doused that tiny flame. Only despair remained, and an icy, enveloping cold.