After the Dark Read online

  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 f
urrowed, 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 . . .