of The Realization that You're In Love II
Chapter 6: Going after Max
OC arrived home from Crash to find her girl in her room, packing her belongings.
She stood in Max’s doorway, looking at her friend. ‘Whatcha you doing?’ asked Cindy.
Max, who knew OC had arrived home and was behind her before she even spoke, turned around to see her girlfriend.
‘I’m leaving town,’ she said and turned back to her bag.
‘What you mean leaving town?’ asked OC really shocked.
‘White’s on my ass 24/7, I can’t go back to work, I can’t see Logan and Joshua said he doesn’t need me anymore, why am I staying then?’
‘I’m here for one.’
‘Yeah and one day White and his men are going to burst through that door and you’re liable to get caught in the crossfire.’
‘I’ll kick their asses.’
‘I’m serious,’ said Max looking at her friend, ‘I’ve stayed too long. I’ve got to go somewhere new, somewhere nobody knows who I am. Maybe, I’ll even be happy.’
‘What about Logan? You know even if ya two ain´t together, he’s counting on ya.’
‘He’ll be fine, he’s got his all Eyes Only thing, he’ll just... he’ll be fine.’
‘Aha, ok. What about Alec? Aren’t ya supposed to be in love with him?’
Uh! That was not fair!
‘I’m not inlove with Alec... he’s... he’s gonna be fine. He’s better off without me in the picture.’
‘And who’s gonna save him next time he gets his cute little transgenic ass into trouble?’
‘He can handle it by himself. He doesn’t need me anymore, just like Joshua. They’re big boys now, they can take care of themselves, apparently,’ she said. OC noted the sarcasm in her voice.
'If you say so.'
Outside Max’s and OC's building, the two friends said goodbye.
‘Before you go, there’s something I want to say,’ said OC. ‘You, Max Guevara, are my sister, you are my family. And I don’t care whatcha say… you’ll never be happy away from your family, boo.’
Max hugged her girl, ‘I love you, and I’m gonna miss you like hell,’ she said between sobs.
‘I love you too.’
‘Take care of yourself, ok?’
‘You too, boo.’
Max took off after that, not noticing that she was being followed.
Alec arrived at Joshua’s house. He was hoping to find Max there so he could apologize for what he had said. He did not regret everything he had said, after all who is he to tell anyone how to take care of someone, how to love? And he knew he had crossed that fine line Max had drawn between them, the ‘it’s none of your business’ line. At the same time, he felt proud of himself for he thought he must have been the first person to tell Max she was a control freak. A person can care, can worry, but what Max was doing with Josh is the kind of thing he had watched on a movie once… the poor kid had to live inside a plastic bubble because his mother wanted him to be safe from the world. All in all, Alec could tell that Max had been hurt by the look in her eyes. He had only seen those sad eyes once or twice, and he did not want to be the reason of her suffering.
‘Max? Josh? Where are you guys?’ he said, then he found the maps he had given to Joshua the day before.
Next stop: Terminal City.
The place was dark, wet, dirty, and smelled funny. Things Alec completely hated. Suddenly at least ten guns were pointing at him,
‘Don’t move!’ said a bat-looking guy.
‘Hey, fellas,’ said a very cool Alec, as if he knew something the rest did not.
‘What are you doing here?’ said again the bat-guy.
‘I’m X-5,’ said Alec.
‘Then head over to Oak Street with your own kind,’ said another one.
‘Well, I’m looking for a friend of mine, one of... your kind,’ said Alec thinking that was the most stupid thing he had ever heard. They were the same kind: Manticore kind. Fair enough, these guys could definitely not blend among ordinary people, but they were all “Made in FreakHouse”.
‘You found him,’ said Joshua smiling, coming through the armed transhumans.
Once they were in the headquarters of the transhumans, Alec could finally ask Joshua. ‘Is Max here?’
‘No, she’s not.’
‘I thought she was with you, you know? Trying to convince you to stay at Father’s house.’
‘No. Is she alright?’
Now, Alec was starting to get worried about Max. Why? He did not know. He just felt a tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach, the same tingling senasation he had felt a few times before, back at Manticore, right before something bad happened.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered to Joshua’s question.
‘You don’t know?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alec thinking.
He took his cell phone and dialled Logan’s number. She was probably there, with him, catching up with sex.
The phone rang but nobody picked it up. Come on! They could at least stop a minute and pick up the God damn phone so he would not be so fucking worried! The transgenic gave up and hung up. But the feeling in his stomach would not leave. So he tried again, but dialled a different number. Max’s number. It was worth a try, right?
‘Go for Original.’
‘Hey OC. It’s Alec. Put Max on the phone.’ There was a deep silence on the other line, which was interrupted by Alec’s worried voice. ‘Cindy?’
‘She ain’t here.’
‘And where is she?’
Again, Cindy opted for the long, thick silence. The silence and the not straight answer were getting the best of Alec.
‘Alec,’ OC finally said. ‘She’s gone. She left town.’
Suddenly his world fell apart. This girl he had met not so long ago, this girl who had saved his butt so many times, this girl with who he had fallen in love with, left. He did not even have a chance to tell her how he felt about her. Not that she would have even cared.It was probably for the best. She had most surely left with Logan. That would explain why he had not picked up the phone. She just left all this shit behind. White, the transgenic hunt, Normal, the always such a pain in the ass... well, him. He did not have the chance either to tell her how sorry he was about the way he had talked to her that morning.
‘She left with Logan, didn’t she?’ He tried to hide the bitter sweetness off his voice, but no matter what a great actor Alec was, Cindy was an expert on this kind of things, and she picked up the boy’s feelings by just hearing him.
OC’s heart was aching as much as Alec’s was right now. She didn't know what to say to the poor boy. Well, actually, Max hadn't told her anything about not saying she had left just half an hour ago give or take, so...
‘What! No! Hey, boo, I got flash news for ya: Max and Logan aren’t together anymore, ok?’
Alec’s heart started to beat again; his world was not falling apart after all.
‘Look boo, I don’t think this is the time for a chit chat, ok? She left because she was sad and tired of being sad.’
‘Sad?’
‘Yeah, she said that Joshua didn’t need her anymore, White’s always after her and couldn’t see Logan anymore, why stay?’
Yeah, she had not even thought about him. This fact only proved that he had been right to think that confessing his feeling to Max would be an utter waist of time.
‘And she was also sad ´bout something that happened with you. She said you would be better if she just left. But ya know? As we’re talking, she’s getting closer and closer to Canada or something, so OC thinks you should move your skinny transgenic ass and find my girl.’
Alec never said good bye to OC, he just hung up his cell, told Josh he would be back in a little while and hopped on his bike. He knew exactly where Max would head towards before leaving Seattle.
Then minutes later he had arrived at The Space Needle.
Chapter 7 : She ain't heavy, She's my sister
Max made a little stop before leaving Seattle. The Space Needle. This place had given her the peace she could not get in the city below; she had always found the right answers there. Just like Ben and his high place. Suddenly, Max remembered Ben... and his death. Maybe Seattle had not given her so many good moments after all. This was the place where she had been shot, had been beaten, where she had shed more tears, where she had almost killed her boyfriend with an engineered virus, and where she had lost four of her siblings: Tinga, Brin, Zack and Ben.
But this was also the place where she had grown up. She had learned to care about others, to love. She had found a cause. She had met her girl and best friend, Original Cindy; Joshua the dog boy; Logan the cyber journalist; and she had fallen in love with an ass who hated her: Alec. OK! STOP IT! Otherwise, you won’t be able to leave!
Max stood up and saw for the last time the city of Seattle from the top of the Space Needle. She was going to miss it.
She hopped on her bike again and speeded off into the night.
Max was getting farther and farther away from the city, when she noticed a rider by her side, but when she looked in order to check on this person, she saw that the rider looked exactly like her. Oh, My god! Suddenly, her reflection pulled out a gun and shot at Max’s rear tire. She flew away from the road, and passed out when she hit the ground.
Max woke up to find herself tided to a post in an abandoned building. She heard the conversation the other girl was having over the phone. She had to be a clone. I mean, this girl looked, talked, even walked like her. She and this girl were ‘twin sisters’ like Ben and Alec. The men looked exactly the same. She had mistaken Alec for Ben, when she first met him, after all.
‘You look familiar. Have we met before?’ asked Max full of sarcasm.
‘Yeah, in a test tube.’
‘So, who came first? You or me?’
‘I’m 453.’
‘Well, do what your big sister says and untie me.’
‘Sister? Yeah, right.’ 453 saw Max’s bag. ‘You’re skipping town?’
‘Something like that.’
Alec had followed Max from the Space Needle and saw what happened. From where he was hiding he was able to hear everything the girls were talking about. 453, he knew that chick. He knew her pretty well.
‘Same old 452.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? Runaway? Like when it got too rough back at Manticore. I bet you never thought about what they’d do to the rest of us. We were hauled into psy-ops for evaluation for six months, the twins of the escapees. We got the worst of it,’ 453 answered bitterly.
So it was not just Alec who hated her for what happened over 10 years ago.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Max in a whisper.
‘I don’t want your pity. It’s been 10 years since you ruined my life, I’ll be damned if I let that happen again. Guess I don't feel so bad about turning you over to White, then. See, he caught me because of you’
‘So what’s White going to do to you unless you turn me in to him? Is he gonna torture you? Dissect you alive, maybe? What?’
‘He’s gonna kill my husband and son.’
‘You’re married?’ said Max a little surprised.
‘Yeah. I had a perfect little normal life, until White came looking for you.’
‘You know, White’s not a man who keeps his word.’
‘Well, don’t have a lot of options, do I?’
Suddenly, 453 heard a noise in the distance and walked away to check if there was somebody else in the building.
Alec approached Max.
‘Alec!’ Max whispered, surprised and happy to see him.
‘Hey, Maxie, how you doing?’ he said as he untied her.
‘Don’t untie her!” said 453, appearing again, trying to confuse Alec, but she did not know that Alec already knew who she was. ‘494?’ Max’s clone said.
‘453, long time.’
‘What are you doing?!’ said 453, not believing what she was seeing.
‘What does it looks like I’m doing?’
‘She’s an 09'er! Because of her and the rest of her unit, we suffered months and years of torture and now you’re helping her?!’
When they were little, the clones of the escapees had never hidden how much they hated the group that had escaped. And it was not a mystery what each and every one of them would do to their twins if they ever crossed paths. Alec had let that feeling go a long time ago; maybe because he understood them a little or maybe because he did not care anymore. But from the moment he met Max, he left that feeling behind; he buried it in the deepness of his mind, heart and soul, and never unburied it again.
But apparently, 453 had not forgotten.
Max was up by now, on Alec’s side. ‘You know her?’ Max asked.
‘Yeah Max. Haven’t you heard anything she just said?’
‘You know her from psy-ops,’ she said, scowling at him for the way he answered her question.
‘Yeah, I know 494 from a long time ago,’ said 453.
‘And 494 died a long time ago. It’s Alec now,’ said Alec.
‘Alec? I’m Sam now, but I haven’t forgotten who I am and where I’m from.’
‘Me neither, I’m still trying,’ said Alec in a challenging voice.
‘Look, Sam,’ said Max, ‘it’s two against one. You don’t have any chance of leaving untouched.’
‘Yeah,’ he said again, this time with a cocky tone in his voice, always so sure of himself. ‘Twenty three years of Manticore training,’ Alec said pointing at himself, ‘and a dirty fighter,’ he said pointing at Max now, remembering that kick she gave him in the cage fight. ‘What are your chances?’
‘A couple,’ answered Sam as she threw herself over Max, throwing punches, a couple of kicks; some of them hit Max, some did not. She was fighting back but Sam got hold of her. ‘Now what are your chances?’ said 453.
‘A couple,’ answered Max, who whirled around and punched her clone in the face, leaving her unconscious on the floor.
‘See, dirty fighter,’ said Alec.
Breathing heavily, Max looked at Alec. ‘I could’ve used some help, ya know?’
‘I knew you could handle it. So what do we do with her?’
‘Well, she’s a total bitch,” and she was interrupted by Alec with a “Figures!”; if looks could kill. ‘But she’s still my sister, I think, and I’m not gonna let White kill her family.’
‘Ok, so what do you want to do?’
‘Get Sam out of her clothes.’
‘What?’
‘I put on her clothes and pretend to be her when White arrives, then you... hit him with something leaving him unconscious, and then we trade him for her husband and son.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Well, if you have any idea I would like to hear it,’ she said annoyed.
‘No, no. Your plan is just fine.’
They were about to start getting her clone naked when Max realized that Sam was exactly like her, and something about Alec looking at Sam’s naked body really disturbed her. He was going to be looking at her naked body as well, after all.
‘You know what? Go out side and check if White comes.’
‘What? Aren’t you gonna need help? I mean, I’m kinda an expert on this,’ answered Alec with a cheeky grin.
‘Pig,’ said Max, ‘Get the hell out of here. I’ll call you when I’m done.’
When she finished the clothe-changing, Max called Alec and the both of them dragged Sam to the post Max had been tied to.
‘How did you find me, anyway?’ Max asked while Alec was tying her clone to the post.
‘Well, you and Josh weren’t at his place, so I went to TC. There, Josh didn’t have a clue where you were so I called... OC and she told me you'd left. So I thought you would go to the Space Needle before leaving Seattle. And... that’s it.’
‘Oh... And why did you call OC? I thought you were... you know... mad at me.’
‘I was worried about you.’ He completed his task and was now up, looking at Max straight into the eyes. Alec hid his hands in the depth of the pockets of his jeans, in an attempt to control his emotions. ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere and that tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach wouldn’t leave.’ Max did not understand that part but she did not ask. ‘I first thought you had left with Logan but then Cindy told me...’ At that moment, Max tensed. He did not dare to look at her. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ But before she could answer, Alec beat her. ‘“Me and Logan are none of your business”,’ he imitated her. ‘I know. I just wish you would’ve said something.’
‘Like you said, it’s none of your business, even if there’s nothing between Logan and me anymore,’ Max snapped all of the sudden.
‘Fine. Whatever.’ He sighed, irritated by now.
‘And why the sudden interest in my love life, anyway?’ Max asked.
‘You know me, Max. Just making conversation,’ he said, avoiding the subject.
They heard a car outside. Alec hid. Max put on Sam’s sunglasses and got ready to play the part.
Chapter 8: A Lot of Understanding
‘Where the hell have you been?’ said Max, pretending to be 453 in front of White.
‘I had a thing,’ said White.
‘Where’s my family?’
‘All in good time, 453.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Alec appeared from behind White with a heavy metal tube, and hit the man hard in the head.
In TC
Joshua was at HQ, worried about Max leaving town and worried about Alec too. He had left two hours ago.
‘You guys! What are they doing here?’ said Luke, distracting Joshua from his thoughts. They all looked at the TV monitor and Joshua saw Alec and Max with a handcuffed White. ‘Hey, Josh, isn’t that the X-5 that came to visit you earlier today?’
‘Yes, Alec and Max,’ said Joshua pointing at Max on the screen. ‘She’s a friend and X-5 too.’
‘Well, not our problem,’ said the lizard guy, also known as Mole.
Now pointingat White Joshua said, ‘You see this man? He is the one who hunts us down, so it’s your problem too.’
Otto and a second man got out of a car, facing the transgenics with their boss as hostage.
‘Let’s see what you’re packing,’ said Max.
‘We’re unarmed,’ lied Otto, but Max was no fool.
‘Oh, come on boys, I’m not a patient lady.’ They finally set their guns on the ground. ‘All right, let’s do this.’
Sam’s son and husband got out of the car, not understanding what was going on.
‘Is my son still alive?’ asked White, before walking towards his men.
‘You won’t be if you don’t start moving,’ said Max, exasperated.
Sam’s family walked to Max and White walked to his men. Just when he reached the guns laying on the floor, he jump over his handcuffed hands and picked one up.
‘Not another step,’ White yelled at the man and the boy walking towards the transgenics. ‘Nice work Otto,’ he said, thinking he had finally won, but he was the bad guy, and bad guys never win, well this time at least. Suddenly, many guns cocked around them all.
‘You guys wanna take a shot, be my guest,’ said Alec, ‘but a lot of people is gonna get hurt.’
White sized up the situation. Many transgenics were aiming at them. They had been overpowered. ‘This is not over, 452. And I’ll see you soon 494.’ Saying this, White and his men left TC.
While Sam was comforting her son and trying to explain what had happened to her husband, Max was talking to Joshua.‘So I guess you can take care of yourself... and me too,’ she told the big guy.
Joshua gave Max a big smile and a big hug and a big kiss on her little forehead.
‘Hey Max,’ said Alec coming over where Max was after Joshua left. ‘I got you something.’
‘Whattcha scored?’
‘Jacked a SUV from some gangster guys outside a strip club.’ He handed Max the car keys.
‘Thanks.’
They both saw Sam talking to her husband.
‘It’s gonna be a long ride to Canada. She has some explaining to do,’ said Alec.
‘I appreciate this. I really do,’ said Max, tearing her eyes off Sam.
‘Sure, anything for a friend, or the clone of a friend.’
Max could not help but smile. Ok, so she was a friend, which was not much, or at least not what she wanted to be to Alec, but she could live with that. Besides, he doesn’t look so mad at me anymore.
Sam saw Alec talking to Max and after giving her clone some keys, he left the HQ. She followed him outside after asking her husband to wait a moment. She found 494 sitting on a motorcycle.
‘Alec,’ she said.
‘Max. Do you need anything else?’
453 pointed at herself and said: ‘Sam.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘That’s ok,’ she said, standing near him, looking at him closely; analyzing him.
‘You need anything?’ Alec asked again. He could feel Sam’s stare piercing him, and that made him feel uncomfortable, though he did not show it.
‘Yeah, I wanted to ask you something,’ Sam answered.
‘Shoot.’
‘You’re sure about this? She’s an '09er, 4... Alec. They’re not trust worthy.’
‘You don’t know them, you don’t know her,’ said Alec pointing into the building in front of them, where Max was in, feeling insulted on Max’s behalf. ‘And you’ll never will. Max, she saved my ass too many times, no matter what stupid thing I did. I fucked up her life a couple of times too, and still she keeps saving me. Why shouldn’t I trust her?’
‘You shouldn’t because they left. They never looked back or came for us.’
‘Sam, they didn’t even know they had clones. Hell, we didn’t even know it either until they took us to psy-ops and told us.’ He paused and sighed. He had learnt to fathom the 09ers a while ago, and he could not conceive how someone like Sam, who had more than she could possibly ask for or deserve, did not even try to understand them. ‘They just ran. They did what we all wanted to do but never dared,’ he finally said and went beck inside, leaving Sam with her thoughts.
Max finally found Sam and hand her the keys.
‘You’re all set.’
‘If you’re expecting a thank you, forget about it. None of this would’ve happen if it weren’t for you,’ said Sam.
‘You’re right.’ Max was not about to fight her for she knew Sam was right. It might sound egotistical but it always came down to her. For some reason, everyone who was connected to her in some way always got in the crossfire.
Alec, who was near the twins and heard their little conversation, said to Sam: ‘Ya know, if Manticore hadn’t gone down, you wouldn’t even be with them. You know who took it down.’ He pointed at Max with his eyes and walked away.
Sam stared at Max for a moment taking in that little piece of information Alec had just provided her with. She knew she might regret this in the future, but for a moment she decided to let go all her grudges against 452 for she was proud of her.
‘Not bad. Not bad at all,’ said Sam after a moment, and then she added, after a pause, ‘sis.’
Max smile. Sis was not so bad, she could live with that.
‘Take care. And take care of that little boy of yours and your husband,’ said Max.
‘You too. And take care of Alec. He’s really stuck on you.’
After that, Sam left Max’s life to try and start a new one, again, with the people she loved.
Max saw Alec outside, on his bike. He was not about to leave, he was just there sitting, thinking.
‘Hey.’
‘Max, right?’ asked Alec, just in case she was Sam again. Max laughed at how strange this whole evening had been. It was so weird that a person who saw her almost every day asked her if she really was Max. It was something taken out of the Twilight Zone.
‘Yeah. What are you doing here?’
‘Uhm, nothing, just thinking.’
‘´Bout?’
‘´Bout something Sam said.’
‘Well, she said a lot of things before leaving.’
‘She left already?’
‘Yeah, about ten minutes ago... so you were thinking ´bout what she said,’ Max reminded Alec.
Max moved closer to where Alec was. She was standing in front of him, waiting for him to tell her his every thought. She looked so beautiful under the moon light. It was cold; then again, X5s did not feel much cold, but still Max and Alec were wearing their leather jackets. Max’s Ninja, which had one tire in a very bad shape, destroyed, actually, was parked next to Alec’s, so she went over her baby and sat on it, one leg in each side.
Alec was not the type of person who just spoke his mind. For many people, it might seem like he did, but he never spoke his mind when it came to feelings, emotions, things he could not control.
‘If I hadn’t stuck around you all this time, I would still hate you,’ said Alec after a while. ‘It’s nothing personal, you know? It was the only way we had to deal with what they had done to us. You guys left, and even we didn’t admit it back then, we were jealous. I mean, you were out there, living the dream, and we were stuck in Manticore, paying for something that we didn’t do.’
‘You know, we weren’t exactly living the dream,’ Max started explaining. ‘We had nowhere to go, we didn’t understand anything, and we were completely alone. Me, at least. And the pulse didn’t help much either. I felt like I was in enemy territory without any backup. I remember hiding in a warehouse for 5 days until I decided I had to get out of there and find some food. So when I went out, I pretended to be a normal kid, you know? And then I saw the sunrise, as cheesy as it may sound,’ Alec smiled, ‘for the first time since I got out of Manticore and I knew I was gonna be ok.’ Max paused. ‘So I kept pretending.’ A flashback of many moments with Logan went through her head. ‘And I just keep pretending,’ she finished in a whisper, which Alec obviously heard.
He understood Max perfectly. He had pretended to be the perfect, loyal soldier to Manticore once. He had pretended to be a piano instructor, and fell in love with this wonderful girl who had everything he had always dreamt of, but never dared to admit. And he kept pretending. Pretending to be all right in front of his friends, when all he wanted to do was to cut his wrists and die, because the memories of all the things he had done and of his dead love, Rachel, knowing that it was his fault she was dead, always made him feel weak in some way. And once again, he pretended to be Max’s friend, when he knew he couldn't be like that with her. It would make him suffer. But he pretended.
‘I was wondering...’ said Max, cutting Alec’s train of thoughts.
‘What were you thinking about?’ he said looking at her, sitting on her Ninja.
‘I was wondering if Manticore cooked up more of us... ´cause one is plenty. You know?’
‘Yeah,’ said the X5 with a sad tone on his voice.
He had never met his clone, his twin brother as he liked to call him. The existance of clones always made him feel weird. After all, clones are exactly the same person, they have the exact genetic information, and that freaked him out; to think that he was actually a clone. If this was true, then he was some kind of backup. A copy. He was Ben incase 493 died. He was the youngest after all. 493 came first, so he was the real one, and 494 was a 'just in case'. And if this was true, then he was Max’s brother and then... You have to stop this, you’re gonna end up psychotic! This kind of thoughts always gave him headaches.
Just like the thoughts about who he really was. He had told Sam 494 was dead, but was this true? No. Not really. He had just intended to sound rebellious against all their teachings and believes back at Manticore. He had just wanted 453 to think he was over that hell and that he had moved on to the kind of self-satisfaction he had been craving for all his life. But truth was he was still 494. He was still a soldier and an assassin if the situation called for it. But, whether 494 liked it or not, he was also Alec. He had been Alec, he realized a little after the destruction of Manticore, long before he even realized it. He knew Alec had come to life when Rachel died, while he was at Psy-ops. He created Alec then so he would never forget about her or the things he had done. It was too easy to live if he just forgot about those things. He knew he deserved to remember all the faces he had killed, all they cries he had heard. Just everything. He had learnt to lie to the people who had taught him to lie, and they bought all his bullshit about Loyalty, Duty and all that crap they brain washed their “kids” with. Alec decided who to be loyal to, now. He was the one who called the shots, and that is all he cared. No more following orders. No more blank stares. No more “yes, sir!”. No more.
‘What time is it?’ Max asked, again cutting his train of thoughts. She was a damn expert on that lately. Alec looked at his watch. It read “5.07 am”
‘5.10 in the morning. Pretty late. I gotta go to work in three hours.’
‘Well, why go to sleep if you’re gonna be up in two hours? Wanna have breakfast?’ she asked.
Alec stared at her in surprise. ‘Aren’t ya leaving town?’
‘Nah, I’ve got some things to take care of.’
Alec was not even going to ask what those things were; right now, he did not care.
‘I know this place that’s open 24/7. It’s like those 1950s diners. I’m not promising any decent coffee and waffles but at least the food’s edible,’ said Max.
Alec smile at her. He was happy. She was staying, she wanted to have breakfast with him, but most importantly, she wanted to be with him right now.
‘Ok,’ he said. ‘Jump on.’ Just then, before she sat behind him, he remembered the real reason he had gone after her that day. ‘Max... I’m really sorry ´bout what I said to you the other day. I really didn’t mean it,’ said Alec almost in a whisper. Max stared at him without saying anything. Alec could not even look at her. He seemed to be ashamed of what he had said when he had been absolutely right. He could have chosen a different way of expressing his thoughts, Max thought, but he had been right nevertheless. She was actually enjoying this. She never thought of Alec as the kind of guy who ever regretted his actions, but apparently he could feel guilt or ashamed. And for some reason, that made him more human in her eyes. Then, Max smile.
She hopped behind him and put her arms around him so she would not fall off the bike, and said: ‘Apology accepted.’
After breakfast, Max and Alec went to Jam Pony. When they arrived, they saw that the entire staff of JP was watching TV, White was on and he was proclaiming that the transgenics were dangerous. Max went over the TV and turned it off.
‘Hey!’ said Normal.
‘Bip bip bip, people. C'mon, these packages aren't gonna deliver themselves.’
Normal and Sketchy looked at her for a minute, and then Normal, coming back to reality, said: ‘You heard her. Get back to work.’
The rest of the staff went to mind their own business or to deliver packages. Normal and Sketchy were staring at her again.
‘What? You got something to say?’
‘Not me. Nope,’ answered Normal.
’No. It's all good,’ said Sketch. And then, they walked away.
Original Cindy saw her girl, and hugged her.
‘Miss me?’ asked Max
’Of course, boo. But I knew our Golden Boy would get ya back,’ said OC looking at Alec and grinning at him. Even though nobody said anything, Alec and OC knew their little fights were over and a friend-ship had born.
mery-