After the Dark by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

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