Dark Angel Before the Dawn da-1

by Max Allan Collins

  Max's bed— rescued from the rubble of the old Roosevelt Hotel across the street— was a luxurious queen-sized box spring on the floor, mattress on top. A Coleman camp lantern, a prize from her days of living in Griffith Park, sat at the head of the bed near a short pile of books, mostly nonfiction (subjects Moody wanted her to study), and a dog-eared paperback copy of

  Gulliver's Travels,

  the one novel she owned, also provided by Moody. Her new motorcycle, a Kawasaki Ninja 250, leaned against one wall, and a padded armchair, also lifted from the Roosevelt ruins, squatted near the projection window. Her only other possession, a small black-and-white TV, sat on a tiny table to the left of the chair.

  Moody gazed down at the books. “Traveling to Lilliput again, Maxine?”

  Moody knew full well that Maxine wasn't her name: it was just an affectionate nickname.

  She smiled. “Can't help it— I like the guy.”

  Her mentor chuckled. “You and Gulliver— your lives are not that dissimilar, you know.”

  “Yeah, I'd noticed that.”

  Moody eased his lanky frame into the chair; Max remained standing.

  “So, Maxine… the score— was it difficult?”

  Max recounted the evening, draining it of any excess melodrama; still, Moody seemed impressed.

  Shaking his head, he said, “Mr. Kafelnikov will be… displeased with you.”

  “I hope he doesn't know who borrowed his security plan. That poor traitor would die slow, I bet.”

  “Very slow… but our Russian adversary may well have made you, you know.”

  “How could he I.D. me? I never met the guy before.”

  “You underestimate your renown within certain circles.”

  Max frowned. “What circles? I don't know any ‘circles.' ”

  Arms draped on either side of the chair, as if it were a throne and he a king (the latter was true, in a way), Moody arched an eyebrow. “You think the other clans don't talk to each other? You think these… superhuman feats of yours have gone unnoticed?”

  “I don't care,” she said with a shrug.

  “Perhaps you should. You've given them all one sort of trouble or another over the years, haven't you?”

  A slow smile crossed Max's full lips. “Girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.”

  Moody's eyes seemed to look inward. “That security plan meant a great deal to the Brood. They meant to obtain the bauble in your pocket— and they won't take this defeat lightly. Kafelnikov will search long and hard to find out who wronged him.”

  Finally, casually, she withdrew the necklace from her pocket. “This old thing?”

  Moody's eyes went as wide as the stone. “My God, Maxine… It's even more breathtaking up close.”

  Max held the stone to the dim light and studied it for a long moment. “It's pretty cool, I guess.” With another shrug, she handed it over.

  “Pretty cool,” Moody said, taking the stone. “If they connect you to us… and they will… we'll have a real enemy.”

  “They try to storm this place, we'll hand their asses back, with change.”

  Turning the stone over and over in his hands, Moody seemed not to have heard her. “The necklace alone would feed the Clan for a year.”

  “That was a good plan you had—'cept for those dogs. For rumors, they had

  some

  teeth on 'em.”

  He shook his head, ponytail swinging. “My apologies… Anyway, a plan is worthless without proper execution. That was key… and the only one in this city who could have executed it was you… Which, my dear, you did.”

  “No biggie,” she said, with yet another shrug.

  Rising, he tucked the stone into a pocket as he moved to her. Putting an arm around Max, Moody kissed the girl's cheek, as he had many times before… only now, his lips perhaps lingered a moment too long. “You did well, my dear… you did very well.”

  “Thanks,” Max said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Oddly, the image of Mr. Barrett entering the bedroom after midnight, to fetch Lucy, flashed through her mind. “I… I better get Fresca— he's probably wet his pants by now. I promised to get something to eat with him, y'know.”

  Moody didn't move, his arm still around Max's shoulders. “If they come… if the Brood dares breach our stronghold… God help them when you reveal your powers of battle.”

  “Thanks.” Sliding away, not wanting to anger him, but still feeling that something wasn't quite right, she made another mumbled excuse and slipped out of the room and down the stairs. She could hear Moody on the steps behind her, but didn't turn to see where he was.

  Fresca was sitting like a gargoyle on the edge of the concession counter, already wearing his rumpled Dodgers jacket. His prize possession, the jacket was Fresca's only tie with his old life… whatever that had been. The clothes he'd been wearing when he joined the Clan had been burned, his old name forgotten, his new name adopted from the menu behind the concession stand. Only that faded blue Dodgers jacket remained.

  The Clan rule— instituted by Moody and embraced by them all— was that the past didn't matter, didn't exist; time began the day you joined the Clan.

  “Let's bounce,” Max said as she walked past him.

  Fresca jumped down and, following her suggestion, bounced along next to her, a puppy excited to be in his master's… mistress's?… presence.

  They swept out of the theater across the remnants of old-time movie star handprints and cement signatures and onto Hollywood Boulevard, to be greeted by the rising sun. Max had never been near Hollywood Boulevard before the Quake, but some of the area's denizens she'd spoken to over the years told her that the Boulevard was the one part of the city that the Quake hadn't changed all that much.

  “Where we goin'?” Fresca asked.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “How about that waffle place over on La Brea?”

  “Sure. Waffles are good. I got nothing against waffles.”

  Fresca giggled at that, as if Max were the soul of wit; she smiled to herself and they walked along.

  The Belgian Waffle House was on the corner of La Brea and Hawthorn, a healthy but doable walk from Mann's. The place had once been all windows, but the Quake had destroyed them, and the plywood hung to replace them temporarily had become permanent. Littered with graffiti, the plywood was now the waffle house's trademark, and customers were provided with markers to add to the decoration while they waited for their food. The booths were still vinyl-covered, but wear and tear had taken them beyond funky into junky. Sparse early-morning traffic meant that only nine or ten other patrons were in the place when Fresca and Max strolled in.

  They took two seats at the counter so Fresca could watch the wall-mounted TV adjacent to the food service window from the dingy kitchen.

  The Satellite News Network, with headline stories in half-hour cycles, was at this hour about the only choice in a TV market that had gone from a pre-Pulse high of over two hundred cable channels to the current half dozen, all of which were under the federal government's thumb. The SNN and two local channels were all that was left out east, and in the Midwest, they got SNN and scattered local channels; so the West Coast remained, by default, the center of the television world… it was just a much smaller world.

  “I'm gonna make a leap here,” Max said, “and have a waffle.”

  Fresca grinned. “You buyin'?”

  Max favored him with a wide smile. “What have you done lately, to deserve me buying you breakfast?”

  “Uh… I just figured… you were on some big score, and wanted to, I don't know, celebrate. Maybe share the wealth.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  Fresca seemed hurt by her kidding. “I don't know… I just… kinda hoped… you know… ”

  She reached over and patted his hand. “Relax, mongrel. You know I won't let you starve.”

  He brightened and, as if keeping up Fresca's end of the conversation, his stomach growled.

  A waitress
came up to them with all the urgency of a stroke victim using a walker. She was in her late forties, early fifties, skinny as a straw, with a tight, narrow face. She was not thrilled to see them. “Save me a trip— tell me you don't need a menu.”

  Fresca shook his head. “I don't need one! I'll have two waffles and a large chocolate milk. Oh, and some bacon too.”

  “We been out of bacon for a week now.”

  “You got sausage?”

  “Link.”

  “Okay! Double order.”

  Max looked sideways at him. “How big a score you think I pulled off?”

  His face fell. “Uh, Max, I'm sorry, I, uh… ”

  “Kidding. I'm kidding.”

  “Chitchat on your own time, honey,” the waitress said, and she wasn't kidding. “You need a menu?”

  “Waffle, sausage, coffee with milk,” Max said.

  The waitress sighed, as if this burden were nearly too much to bear, turned and left. Max and Fresca settled in to watch the news. Max was not particularly interested— Moody had made it clear to her that the news was controlled, and not to be believed— but Fresca enjoyed the clips of fires and shootings and other mayhem.

  While Fresca sat riveted to the screen, waiting for the next disaster, Max reconsidered her meeting with Moody. He seemed to be pushing her to take a step she wasn't ready to take… a step into a personal relationship. Seemed the king of the Clan was in the market for a queen…

  Oh, he'd been subtle about it— no direct mention; but she could read the man… she could feel the pressure.

  Over and above that, she knew he was right about Kafelnikov, the Brood, and some of the other gangs she'd ripped off over the years: she was building a reputation, attracting attention, and this made her uneasy. Maybe it was time to move on…

  Although the Clan had become her family, she would get over it. She'd lost family before; sometimes, it seemed losing families, and moving on, was the only thing she did with any regularity… that the only thing permanent about her life was its impermanence.

  She glanced at Fresca. Her leaving would break that redheaded, oversized ragamuffin's heart; but eventually he would get over it and find someone his own age to fall in love with. And besides, if her being gone took some heat off the Chinese Clan, that probably wouldn't be a bad thing, either.

  The waitress showed up with their food, glancing at them as if disgusted by their need to eat, and Fresca immediately drowned his two waffles in syrup and butter, and dug in, scarfing the stuff like he hadn't had food for weeks.

  Maybe the waitress is right,

  Max thought;

  Fresca eating

  is

  a little disgusting…

  Max sipped her coffee and picked at her food; she was never very hungry after a big score. Fresca chugged his chocolate milk and asked the waitress for seconds. On the TV, a series of commercials ended and a news cycle started. The doe-eyed Hispanic woman reading the headlines had straight black hair, high cheekbones, and wore a sharply cut charcoal business suit.

  “And in Los Angeles, with the sector turf war between the Crips and the Bloods escalating, Mayor Timberlake assured residents that he would double the number of police officers on the street by the end of the year.”

  Max glanced up to see video of the curly-haired mayor speaking to a gathering of citizens in front of City Hall, delivering the same old b.s. Max, like every other resident of southern California, knew he was talking through his ass. The clans and gangs had the police outnumbered nearly three to one and the city's only hope was to declare martial law and call in the National Guard.

  And maybe that would finally happen… which was just one more reason to hit the road, she thought.

  The Hispanic woman started a new story.

  “Police in Seattle are stepping up their efforts in the search for the dissident cyberjournalist known as ‘Eyes Only.' Well-known for breaking into broadcasts with his pirate ‘news' bulletins, ‘Eyes Only' is wanted by police on local, state, and national levels.”

  Max watched idly; politics bored her.

  “This amateur video shot in Seattle just last night,”

  the newswoman continued,

  “shows a suspected Eyes Only accomplice, doing battle with officers. The police are searching for this young rebel as well.”

  Courtesy of amateur video, Max watched as a brown-haired young man in jeans and a denim jacket— surrounded by Seattle police officers— suddenly sprang to life.

  A straight kick to the groin dropped the cop in front of him and, even before that one fell, the young man did a back flip that took him easily eight feet into the air before nailing a landing behind the officer who a moment before had been facing him. When the officer turned with nightstick raised, the young man hit him with a straight right to the throat that dropped him.

  One of the remaining three rushed at the rebel with a Tazer, and the young man leapt out of the way at the last second, so that the cop shot one of his fellow officers. As the officer who had fired the Tazer stood in astonishment, the young man spun and kicked him twice in the face before the officer fell.

  The remaining cop drew his service pistol and emptied the clip at the young man, whose response was to cartwheel, spin, and dodge until the officer's pistol was empty. When the last round missed him, the young man stepped forward and hit the cop with half a dozen alternating lefts and rights, before he mercifully let the public servant drop to the ground unconscious.

  Max sat as wide-eyed and amazed as the boy's victims.

  Even though she'd only eaten a tiny amount of her breakfast, the food began to roil in her stomach. She had just witnessed superhuman feats that few on the planet could have accomplished: and the only humans she knew of capable of such things had been bred and trained at Manticore…

  The video was grainy, shot from a distance, and she was reasonably sure it wasn't Zack; but the young man who took out the five cops could definitely have been one of her sibs. He looked vaguely like Seth, but Seth hadn't made it out that night… had he? The picture was so lousy, even with her enhanced vision, she couldn't tell much of anything, for sure.

  This gifted guy just had to be one of her sibs… didn't he? Who else could do what they could do? Or were there other places like Manticore, turning out supersoldiers?

  “Max. Max!”

  She turned to look numbly at Fresca. “What?”

  “Why… why are you

  crying,

  Max?”

  She blinked. She didn't know she had been, but those were tears, all right, running down her cheeks; the streaks of moisture felt warm. “It's nothing, Fres,” she said. “How you doing with your chow?”

  “I'm gonna blow up soon.”

  “Then why don't you stop eating?”

  “After you treated me to this feast? I would never insult you that way, Max!”

  She couldn't help but smile through the tears. As she sat watching the boy shovel in the food, she knew her course was clear: a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

  But she knew when she left, she'd miss Fresca most of all. “You ready to go then, waffle boy?”

  He slurped down the last of his second chocolate milk. “Yeah, yeah, I'm ready to blaze… And thanks, Max. I haven't eaten like this in days… You sure you're okay?”

  “Just somethin' in my eye,” she said. “I'm great, now.”

  “You're always great, Max.”

  The waitress came over as they rose and Max paid their bill, including tip.

  “Be sure to come back,” the waitress said; it seemed vaguely a threat.

  As they walked back to the theater, with considerably less urgency, Max's mind was nonetheless racing.

  She'd always wondered how she'd go about finding her siblings, and now, at breakfast, one of them had practically dropped into her lap. How long would it take her to get to Seattle, and how would she get past all the checkpoints? What would Moody think about her leaving? He had all but suggested it before, hadn't
he?

  Or had Moody wanted her to stay with him?

  The bike's gas tank was full, more or less; but would she be able to get fuel on the road? Even if she could, the price of the stuff would eat through her bankroll. The questions engulfed her like swarming insects.

  As they neared the theater, Fresca again asked, “You sure you're okay, Max?”

  She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, taking her good sweet time, the

  smack

  of her lips like a sweet slap. When she let him go, Fresca flushed red, his thousands of freckles merging into one big glowing blotch. She knew instantly that he was thinking the same thoughts about her that she'd been thinking after Moody's lingering kiss on the cheek… only Fres didn't seem weirded out like she had been: he seemed pleased, even… excited.

  Uh

  oh…

  Her motivations had been purely innocent, which made her wonder if maybe Moody's had been, too…

  Mann's was slowly coming awake, Clan members stirring and lining up to use the bathrooms, the smell of breakfasts cooking on hot plates wafting pleasantly. Max deposited the still-beet-faced Fresca next to his concession-stand berth and headed into the auditorium in search of Moody.

  The sloping floor was scattered with sleeping bags and beds appropriated from the Roosevelt wreckage, while blanket “walls” were draped from clotheslines. Despite the breakfast odors, the smell of stale sweat and unwashed souls hung in the air; and yet very faintly lingered the olfactory memory of buttered popcorn.

  It was a motley crew Moody lorded over, but they were a family— Max already was viewing them with a sort of nostalgia— and they loved the old man.

  Moody's second-in-command, Gabriel— an African American in his late twenties— was rousing the kids when she came in.

  “Moodman in his office?” she asked.

  Gabriel had a shadow's worth of black hair, brown eyes, and an ostrich neck. He cocked his head toward the movie screen. “Yeah, and he's happy as a clam. What the hell you pull off last night, Maxie?”

  “Little score. Same-o same-so… save-the-day kinda thing.”