Feedback welcome -- I  read the nice stuff and the icky ones go straight to

          the trash can.)

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It was becoming increasingly difficult at night, Max mused as she entered the darkened apartment.  Three AM and she wasn't anywhere near tired.  This, of course was normal  -- or as normal as Max ever got.  Genetically amplified supersoldiers couldn't waste time asleep and vulnerable.  But another sleepless night meant plenty of time to think.

Max rolled her bike silently across the room to its designated spot, carefully avoiding the scattered clothing on the floor.  A few weeks ago Max had made the mistake of mopping some of Seattle's grimier side from her bike after a late night, only to be informed by yet another member of Kendra's Rolodex club the next morning that the shredded black rag she'd used was his favorite vintage Pre-Pulse shirt.

//Looks like we got a winner this week, Alex,// Max noted as she bent down to gather the hastily strewn clothes together.  //Not even missing a button.//  She started to fold the discarded items, then, looking disgustedly at her hands, dropped them at her feet.  //Damn militaristic obsessive-compulsive training.//  In the ten years since her escape, Max had been able to throw off some of the idiosyncrasies that set her apart from others her age, but occasionally she'd find herself straightening the shoes in her closet with a yardstick or remaking Kendra's bed after she left to give it the proper smooth appearance.  Fancy Lydecker equipping her with a gene for housekeeping.  Pity he didn't give her one for cooking as well.  Max shook her head and crept past  Kendra's door to get to her own room, smiling ruefully as she listen to the decidedly male snores emitting from the other side of the pressboard door.  Ten to one he'd be gone before Kendra woke up.

//At least she's spending her nights doing something relatively normal.//   Max sighed quietly as she wandered through her room.  Before she had landed in Seattle, the whole three, maybe four hours of sleep per week thing had been  a godsent -- rather, a gov'tsent -- ability, what with all the midnight running and evasion tactics she'd had to employ.  And even up until a few months ago, Max would have cited her independence from sleep as one of the best things about being some geneticist's Erector set.  Youthful exuberance was one thing, but being able to party well into the wee sma's, go scan a few of the more boostable neighborhoods, and then throw in a full day's work without heavy doses of amphetamines was quite another.  But now...

Max sighed again.  //I seem to be doing that a lot these days,// she thought as she flopped down on the bed.  //When did this get to be so hard?// she wondered.   She stared forcibly at the stippled ceiling as though the dingy white surface could entertain her for the next four hours.  This was the worst part: nothing to do and nowhere to go, with only her whirring thoughts to pass the time.  And her thoughts had become increasingly disturbing.  She could, she supposed, just go out and cruise around 'till daylight, but the police were doubly hard to sweet-talk at night and another glamour shot wasn't anything she needed to add to her portfolio just now.  Not that she was afraid of prison; her failed escape attempt a few weeks back had been directly related to her seizures, not her abilities.  //I hope.//  Max blinked.  Where had that come from?  Self-doubt wasn't her area of expertise.

Neither was the nervous, twitchy feeling she got in her stomach whenever her pager went off, oddly enough.

It wasn't Lydecker and his recently added pressure that had caused the changes she felt now, she knew -- she'd been running for so long that her perpetually tensed muscles and darting glances seemed normal.  Max hadn't felt relaxed or at ease -- ever.  //So what is this?// Max berated herself, //when did the game change?//  She got up and walked to the window, staring moodily out its blank panes.

The city was dark; electricity was too expensive to light the neon signs all night -- most businesses shut theirs off around two in the morning -- leaving Seattle bathed in the occasional yellow flicker of a streetlamp.  It was edging in on four o'clock and only the most battered and broken citizens were still out in the light drizzle: the untouchables with tracks trailing their arms, the streetwalkers in waxy red dresses that matched their lipstick, and the ones that were simply left behind after the Pulse.  They were the ones who had tried to hang on, fix the systems, fix their lives, enforce the old rules in a world that demanded that one either adapt or die out.  Now they found that while they had tried to restore their old lives, they'd missed the opportunity to carve out new ones. So they wandered the streets, alien and forgotten to those who had moved on and blocked the memories of the way things used to be.

Forgotten by most, anyway.  Logan hadn't forgotten them, Max thought, because he *was* one of them.  Logan's ridiculous belief that he could single-handedly fix a broken world was what nearly got him killed.  //That and my refusal to help.//  Max groaned in frustration.  Not that voice in her head again.  First self-doubt, now guilt.  If she wasn't certain she was incapable of it, she would have said she was developing a conscience.

//Not that Logan Cale isn't worth the guilt.//  The thought came unbidden to her mind, but here she had to agree with the voice, however self-righteous it sounded.  Logan was worth the trouble she had gotten into on his account a thousand times over, if only for the information he had gotten her on Zach and the others.  The dinners too.  Saved her a lot of money to be able to rely on his feeding her at least twice a week.

//Pasta tricolore,// Max thought, smilingly.  //What self-respecting, straight man knows which wine is served with pasta tricolore? What straight woman, for that matter?//  She sure as hell hadn't, but Logan did, apparently, and since the evidence pointed in that direction, Max had to assume that Logan was, in fact, straight.  The appearance of his ex had helped her out, though: for a while Max had been playing pin the sexuality on the Boy Scout with interesting results.  She knew he was attracted to her --physically, at least -- that much she could tell from the vibes she got when they met.  And Max could admit, in the darkness of her room, that the attraction was mutual.  Logan was unquestionably good-looking.  //Hell, he's a Greek god,// her subconscious helpfully supplied.  //Just add a toga.//  But attraction was just that -- attraction.  Nothing more.  She was attracted to most anything with a Y chromosome at one time or other during those lovely lusting periods, and knew that the physical didn't account for a whole hell of a lot.

But the thought of Logan being gay had unsettled her, for some reason.  Maybe it was because she was used to having to fight men off that Logan's indifference had bothered her, or maybe it was because she'd never worried about whether or not any man she was attracted to wanted her back.  It was usually a given.  But Logan...he'd stood behind her, feeding her lavish complements, close enough to cloud her head with the smell of aftershave and soap and himself, and then -- just walked away.  He knew -- he had to have known -- that she had wanted him.  And when she didn't get what she wanted -- men, sex, information, dinner -- she got cranky.True, Logan wasn't a bad guy, all in all.  A little obsessive, a little stubborn, a little arrogant, a little possessive, but it was getting harder not to trust him him; it would have been hard to distrust anyone who knew her whole story and not only hadn't turned her over to Lydecker, but had bailed her out and promised to get her information on the others.  It was an odd arrangement: he was her bird on the wire, and she did his legwork -- literally.  But aside from the work aspect, Max had found herself enjoying his company more after each visit.  //Which is weird,// the voice in her head mused.  Usually her involvement with men had been threefold: 1) nice body, wanna dance? Which led to 2) your place or mine? And finally 3) you're annoying the hell out of me, so get lost.  She was treading into unknown territory with the whole dinner and conversation thing.  It made her lower her defenses, and that panicked kiss at the car and her reckless trip back to Seattle were reason enough for her to retract her actions later on.  She had always called the shots, but it didn't work that way with Logan and that confused her.  She missed the power.  Theirs was a business relationship by his standards; he'd made that pretty damn clear a few nights ago.  //But that doesn't bother me,// Max told her inner voice.  Her inner voice rolled its eyes.  //He apologized,// Max defended.  //The poor guy just doesn't know how to deal with emotion.//

//Like you do,// her inner voice countered.

"Damn it all to hell," Max muttered.  She strode to the living room, and backed the bike out the door.  Police or no police, she needed to get out.  At least with the engine roaring she couldn't hear that voice, the one that sounded like the child psychologist one of her foster families had tried to make her see.

"Now, Maxine, sweetie," she could hear in her head as she walked the bike to the curb of the deserted street, "We need to learn to deal with these feelings, because if we don't, the feelings get in the way of our lives and we become unhappy."  //No shit, lady.  Story of my life.//  The whole situation had felt like an interview, an information drain, and young Max hadn't liked it one bit.  Too invasive.  So she'd done the only thing she knew how to do: knocked the woman unconscious and fled, leaving the shrink and her royal we to discuss how they felt.

The engine purred seductively under her as Max headed out on the streets.  //Sunrise is in an hour or so,// she thought. //I can always say I work the early shift or something if I run into a problem.//   And she took off down the night-lit streets.  The speed, the danger, the cool spray of rain on her face cleared her mind of all the confusion, leaving her free to just ride -- for another night.

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