Part 3

Dock #45C, 3:44 PM

"Don't you know that you can't win?" Max asked, kicking the Hydra soldier in the side. He

bellowed and swung at Max, catching her on the temple. He then drew a large knife and swung it at

Max's midsection. Why he didn't introduce the blade earlier in the conflict, Max did not know.

However, it did give the augmented warrior an advantage in terms of killing power.

"I'm going to cut you, useless woman!" the enemy growled in fury. "You may have had your

damned broken boyfriend cast Jim into the Sound, but you won't get away from me."

Max narrowed her eyes in rage. "Logan's not broken, ass. Just a little banged up." The warrior

stabbed at Max and the X-5 escapee took it upon herself to act. She seized his wrist and hurled him

into a dock-support pillar, cracking the wood. Then, she kicked him in the side of the head and

relieved him of his weapon. Before the man could get his act together, she tossed the knife into the

Sound. It landed on the other Hydra warrior, who was swimming towards a ladder. The blade sliced

open his shoulder and spilled some blood into the Sound. The wound wasn't immediately fatal, but it

brought on a new problem.

Sharks. Puget Sound's shark population was fairly large that year, so there were a lot of mouths

to feed and less than usual to feed them with. Thus, every eating opportunity was taken advantage of.

Several large sharks began swimming towards the cloud of blood slowly dispersing in the cold water.

The Hydra soldier with the cut shoulder now had to fight for his life against several huge seagoing

killers.

The other soldier noticed his comrade's problem and sneered at Max. "Your boyfriend's going

into the drink now." The soldier reached out, seized Logan by his shirt collar, and flung him over the

edge. The wheelchair, propelled by the momentum generated by Logan's capture, went tumbling into

the Sound as well.

"NO!" Max screamed and reached out. At the last possible second, she seized Logan by his

ankle and swung him back to safety. In the process, she slammed her philanthropic friend into the

enemy and sent him into the drink. The two enemies were now up to their eyeballs in flesh-eating fish.

Max and Logan turned away from the sight of the two soldiers being mauled by the sharks.

"Really bad timing there," Logan said.

"For them," Max agreed.

Skies Over Puget Sound, 3:45 PM

"Damn it!" Lydecker growled as he saw the second Hydra soldier go toppling into the Sound.

The fact that he landed in the middle of a feeding frenzy of sharks was even worse. The internal

armoring of the Hydra warriors gave them a survival advantage in the situation, but he reckoned that

their chances of getting out of the Sound were minimal. He turned his attention to the Shikoku Queen

and the speedboat heading towards it. He saw that Alan and Johnny were still fighting in the driver's

seat, but it was the renegade who was holding the suicidal course. They were heading straight for the

stern and a crash there would cause them to be sucked into the huge propellers and shredded.

He shook his head. Such waste of good people. On the plus side, another one of the rogue X-5s

would be accounted for and his war with the bureaucrats for Manticore funding would have another

small victory, but it was a Pyrhhic victory at best. Two of "his kids" were likely to die in the next

minute. He sighed in a combination of exasperation and, quite possibly, a tiny amount of grief.

Puget Sound, 3:45 PM

"Ha, ha, Lydecker!" Johnny howled. "Got you now!"

"Johnny you idiot! We're going to die!" Alan screamed. A minute later, they crashed into the

side of the Japanese cruise liner. The boat disintegrated within a second of the impact and sent its

occupants tumbling into the huge propellers. A moment after that, blood began bubbling to the surface

amidst the flotsam. Somebody died.

Jam Pony X-Press, 7:00 PM

"In other news, several bodies have been recovered from Puget Sound today. Two of them

apparently are victims of shark attacks, while another looks to be shredded. A third is unidentified.

Witnesses aboard the Shikoku Queen report that a boat driven by two fighting men crashed into their

stern today and it is likely that at least one of the bodies belongs to those two unfortunates," the female

anchor said. "The officers of the ship are being interviewed by harbor authorities right now."

"Bip, bip, bip, back to work people," Normal said to those who were watching the news.

"We've got another run to make before we close up."

"Go away, Normal," Max said, eyes wide. "It'll go off in a moment."

"Honestly," Normal said in mock exasperation. "I wonder why I pay you people sometimes."

"Dude," Sketchy said. "Your brother's the Night Stalker?"

"I thought you didn't have any family," Original Cindy said. "Where'd he come from?"

"As I said, it's a long story," Max said. "I'd prefer not to discuss it." She sniffed. "Come on.

We've got work to do."

Space Needle, 11:00 PM

"Johnny's dead, most likely," Max said to herself as she looked out over the city. "Shredded by

a boat propeller. Four of us recaptured, one of us dead; almost half of X-5 is gone now. Life is so

unfair, sometimes." She looked out over Puget Sound, which partly seen from her position, and thought

that she saw a piece of wood floating out in the middle. She shook her head again.

"Poor Johnny. He gets tortured into insanity by that monster Lydecker, then dies when we think

we can cure him. Life's unfair." She looked up at the full moon that cast its eerie glow over the city.

"Well, I can always hope that the unidentified body is that of a drunk who fell off a pier or one of the

other Hydra soldiers, and that Johnny got away somehow. If he's lucky, he's hit his head and lost his

memory. That way, his nightmares can't torment him anymore.

Her pager buzzed. Apparently Logan wanted to see her immediately. She hoped, just briefly,

that Johnny had survived and gone to see Logan, but it wasn't likely. The most likely event was that

Logan had a job for her to do.

The End

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