... a man she had known all her life.
Stunned, all she could say was, “I thought you were dead.”
Colonel Donald Lydecker — the dreaded surrogate father of all the Manticore siblings — looked up at her, his hands shakily reaching toward her. “Not if you help me...”
She recoiled. “Go to hell. Get out on your own, if you can, you bastard.”
And she turned to go, the time pressing her harder than this stunning discovery.
But behind her a weak version of that strong voice called out over the sprinkler din: “I understand how you feel... but if you help me... I’ll help you.”
Her back to him as she stood poised in the door, she said, “Help me? Like you’ve helped me in the past, killing my sibs?”
She was halfway out when his words stopped her: “I know where your mother is.”
Her birth mother... her father a test tube, but her mother a real woman, who Max had longed to find, to meet, to know...
As the clock ticked, her mind flew: he was lying; Lydecker always lied. He knew her hot buttons and had pushed the hottest one he could think of... that simple.
She left him there and went running down the hall.
And then she turned and sprinted back to duck into the cell and scoop up her sickly surrogate father.
The transgenics were scattered across the grounds, robed figures sprawled around them on the snow-dusted landscape. Among the dead, the white-sheeted body of the boy stood out, as did the headless corpse of his father. Here and there a few of the patrol guards, in TAC gear, lay dead, shot by Mole. Any way you figured it, the battle was over, the opponents either dead or badly injured... those who hadn’t fled.
“Building’s gonna blow,” she cried, “any second! Run!”
And they ran.
It galled her that she was the one hauling Colonel Donald Lydecker to safety.
They were at the edge of the woods when the building exploded — actually, three small explosions placed around and within the building that together rolled up into one big one, and one fireball, flinging chunks of stone and showering debris like an ugly, landbound comet.
Within a very short time the fallen, half walls of the complex — though one outbuilding stood, relatively unscathed — were home to orange, licking flames and foul, rolling gray-black smoke, the crackling of the fire like sporadic gunfire.
And then the bearded Logan was at her side. He glanced down at the withered form of Lydecker, shivering, coughing, and said, “Look what the cat drug in.”
“I wish I hadn’t,” she said, and told Logan what Lydecker had said.
“You can’t trust him,” he said.
“I know. I know.”
“But Max... you can trust me. Really.”
“I know, Logan.”
“You do?”
“Going to your uncle for the ransom... he almost died, because of me, Logan. He may still die... he’s comatose. And I knew... if I caused his death... telling you would be the hardest...”
He took her hand in his — flesh-to-flesh, no virus to worry about — and squeezed it. “You did this for me, Max. I know you did. You rid mankind of this demented snake cult... or anyway, diminished their ranks considerably, including Ames White himself... but you didn’t do it for mankind, did you?”
“No. It was for you, Logan... We hadn’t finished our argument.”
He laughed, gently.
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.