Bobby shut the door and dragged the wriggling figures off and out of sight.
And, minutes later, the door opened again.
Logan led the way inside this time, a bearded, wasted-looking man in a black suit trailing behind him. They both froze when they saw her...
... and again Bobby struck!
He touched the man in the black suit with the stun rod and he went down whimpering, doing the electric dance.
Logan dodged the first thrust of the stun rod and backed into the room, trying to put distance between himself and his attacker. Almost immediately, though, he started talking to Bobby in a cool, calm voice, and Original Cindy was reminded that one of her favorite things about Logan was his courage.
“Whoa — what’s the problem here?” Logan held his hands up, palms out in a stop gesture as he backed away.
“I have to remove you.”
“Remove me?”
Bobby moved closer but Logan kept backing away, keeping the distance about the same.
“I have to replace you.”
“Remove or replace me?... Who are you? What did I do to you?”
They wove around furniture in a slow, deadly cat-and-mouse game.
“I’m Bobby Kawasaki, Logan — you used to see me at Jam Pony... or maybe you didn’t notice me.”
“Can’t say I ever did. My bad.”
“The name they used to call me at Manticore was Kelpy.”
“You... you’re a transgenic?” Logan asked.
Seizing the doubt in the moment, Bobby lunged at him with the stun rod, just missing as Logan pitched to the right, the rod sparking angrily when it banged off a table.
“Bobby — I’m trying to help the transgenics...”
“You’re not helping me.”
“I’m not?”
“No! You stand between me and Max.”
Tipping over her chair, Original Cindy fought to get loose. She saw the look of confusion on Logan’s face.
“Between you... and Max?”
“I need your face!”
“My...?”
Bobby lunged again, and this time Logan tripped on a rug and fell; but it still served the purpose, the stun rod missing him.
“Logan!” someone yelled.
On her side, on the floor, still bound to the chair, Original Cindy turned to see Joshua piling through the door, Alec and Sketchy right behind him. Hope swelled in her chest and she thought that maybe they might get through this all right, after all...
Spinning, Bobby hurled the stun rod at them. Joshua went right, Alec left, and Sketchy stood stock-still as the rod handle hit him in the chest and dropped him to the floor in a quivering mass.
Whirling back, Alec picked up the stun rod and turned toward Bobby. Original Cindy looked back too and felt her newfound hope drain away. Before them stood Logan, and Bobby, who had a knife to Logan’s throat, Bobby partially crouched behind him, using the taller man as a shield.
“Move and he dies,” Bobby said, his voice raspy with emotion.
“All right,” Alec said. “Just stay calm.”
Bobby said, “Fuck calm — we’re leaving. Try to stop us, he dies.”
Motionless on the floor, Original Cindy watched as the transgenic pushed Logan slowly toward the door; something was strange, really weird — Bobby was changing, sort of morphing, but gradually, so subtle you almost didn’t notice...
Bobby’s back was to her now, as he kept Logan between himself and the others. A trembling Sketchy was sitting up, hands to his chest where the rod had struck. Between the intertwined legs of Logan and Bobby, Original Cindy had the perfect vantage point to see that Sketchy was moving his camera up ever so slowly.
“Can’t we talk about this, Bobby?” Alec asked. “We should all be friends — you’re our brother...”
His back to the door now, Bobby held Logan tighter, a tiny ribbon of red oozing out from where the point of the large knife touched his throat.
Original Cindy could see Bobby’s face clearly now, and to her astonishment, the guy she’d thought had Afro blood in him now looked whiter than Hitler, and his hair seemed sort of spiky and blond.
Shit, if he didn’t look something like Logan now!
Joshua had finally roused. “Kelpy — don’t do this! Max wouldn’t want you to—”
“Max will love me,” Bobby said, at the doorway now. “You’ll see.”
“Kelpy—” Joshua said, moving forward.
“Don’t follow me — I see one of you down in that tunnel, I slit Logan’s throat, then and there.”
Damn, Cindy thought. Once he’s outta here, who’s gonna save Logan?
A few minutes prior to the confrontation in Logan’s apartment, a small council of war was under way.
For what seemed like hours, Max and Mole had been going over contingencies that they hoped would turn their defensive position into an offensive one.
The idea was to turn the disadvantage of being surrounded into an advantage. Their strategy was strikingly simple in nature. When the Army piled through the gates and started going building to building, Max, Mole, and a few others would remain behind to distract them as the rest of the inhabitants took to the tunnels and sewers. As the Army and National Guard came in, they would go out, then come up behind the invaders. Once the tables were turned and it was the Army that was surrounded, maybe they could talk.
When they had gone over the plan for the umpteenth time, Max stretched and said, “All right, break time.”
Mole sat back and rolled his head on the column of his neck. “You know, this shit just might work,” he said.
She nodded. “Oughta give ’em a hell of goose, anyway... Look, I’m supposed to go meet Logan — he should be back by now.”
“Cool,” Mole said, and blew a cigar smoke ring. “Young love inspires us all.”
“Bite me.”
“Have you had your shots?”
“I hang with Joshua, don’t I?”
They both laughed — and the levity was a good sign after all the doom and gloom of recent days.
“Go on,” Mole said. “We’ll hold down the fort.”
Then, as she started to walk out, he added, “And see if he got my damn cigars! He forgot last time.”
She grinned. “Will do.”
Despite Mole’s good humor, the atmosphere around the compound remained tense. Max hadn’t expected any less. They were all getting ready for combat now. Her desire to check on Logan — and his efforts to find Sage Thompson — made her want to run; but she forced herself to walk. Behind the broken windows and cracked doors, citizens of Terminal City were watching her.
If she looked cool, maybe they would stay cool, too.
When the National Guard had cut the power to Terminal City, they’d gotten this end of the tunnel too. Dix didn’t have it hooked into the grid yet, but it was on the to-do list. In the meantime, she didn’t care. Feline DNA made the lights optional anyway.
Max actually enjoyed the darkness — it felt peaceful to her. But the silence that usually accompanied the blanket of blackness was disturbed — somewhere from farther up the tunnel, she could hear something.
Voices?
Trotting ahead, staying silent, she heard Alec’s voice from Logan’s apartment. “Can’t we talk about this, Bobby?”
Then other voices, including Joshua’s; but she couldn’t make out the words.
Something was wrong. Very wrong...
In seconds she was at the end of the tunnel and silently started up the stairs as she heard another voice.
“Don’t follow me...”
This one too was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“I see one of you down in that tunnel,” the voice was saying, “I slit Logan’s throat, then and there.”
At the top of the stairs, she saw someone who looked vaguely like Logan, with an arm around Logan’s chest and his other hand out of sight. Without seeing it, she knew the other hand held a knife to Logan’s throat.