Original Cindy smiled and Max gave her half a smile back. They sat and sipped their coffee for a while, letting the silence grow, both of them comfortable with it.
Finally, Original Cindy sat forward again, saying, “What the hell
was
that back there, girl?”
Max shrugged, playing it low-key. “What was what?”
Original Cindy made a couple of mock Kung Fu hand gestures. “That Jet Li, Jackie Chan action— what was up with that?”
Another shrug. Avoiding eye contact, Max said, “Had some training.”
The other woman waggled a finger. “No, girl, no no… Original Cindy was in the army and
she
had some training, can take of herself… but
whew,
nothin' like what was goin' on in that bar.”
Max stared into her coffee. “Let's just say I'm a good student.”
“You wanna leave it at that?”
Max held her coffee cup in both hands, as if warming them. “You don't mind?”
“That's cool. That's where we leave it then.”
A smile blossomed on the heart-shaped face. “Thanks.”
“
You
thankin'
me?
That's whack.”
“If you say so.”
“Anyway, Original Cindy just wants to say she owes you big-time.”
This seemed to embarrass Max, who said offhandedly, “I was just jealous, all the attention you were getting.”
“Well, you my girl now— you need anything, anytime, Original Cindy got your back.”
Max saluted her with a coffee cup, and said seriously, “That's good to know.”
“From now on you my Boo.”
Max frowned, and looked vaguely nervous. “I, uh… thought I made it clear I don't go that way.”
Original Cindy cracked up, the laughter bubbling out of her; but Max just studied her.
“Bein' a Boo ain't about…
that,
Max— it's about bein' stand-up, it's about I got your back, you got mine… it's about bein' tight. You my Boo.”
A natural smile blossomed on Max's lovely face. “Well, then… you're my Boo… too.”
The rhyme came out awkward, and made Original Cindy start laughing again, and this time Max got caught on the wave, and the two young women just sat there and giggled for maybe a minute.
Then Original Cindy extended a fist, which Max bumped with her own.
The waitress brought them refills on the coffee, an act that served as a time-out. When the waitress left, the two women sipped and talked, the conversation shifting gears.
“So,” Original Cindy said, “where you headed?”
“Seattle.”
“No kiddin'?”
Max looked at her curiously. “Shouldn't I be?”
“No, girl, it's just… I'm headed home myself.”
“Seattle is home?”
“One of 'em. Spent some time in the Emerald City.”
Max's eyes tightened in confusion. “Emerald City?”
“Yeah, that's what the peeps used to call Seattle back before the Pulse. You know… like
Wizard of Oz
?”
Max got a funny expression on her face. “I've heard of that… ”
“'Course you have!” Original Cindy looked at Max like the girl was speaking Esperanto. “Who hasn't seen the best movie ever made?”
“Me,” Max admitted.
“Back in the old days, every kid saw that movie.”
“Well… I had a kind of sheltered childhood.”
“Oooh, Boo, we got to introduce you to the
finer
things.”
Grinning, Max said, “I'm up for that.”
“Look, chile, here's the dealio: Original Cindy needs a ride to Seattle… and you're already goin' that way.”
Max looked into her cup. “I need to haul. I'm sort of… meeting someone there.”
“Haulin' ass is fine with Original Cindy. The sooner we get there, the sooner we're there… right?”
Max's eyes widened but she also smiled. “How can I argue with that logic?… Let's blaze, Boo.”
Original Cindy's face exploded in a smile. “Boo, the Emerald City ain't never been hit by a pair of witches
this
fine… ”
Going inland and traveling on the interstate might have been faster, but Max still took precautions to avoid any possible contact with Manticore; so they kept to the winding PCH and moseyed up the coast at a leisurely eighty-five to ninety miles per hour.
They stopped only for food and the call of nature— and to gas up the bike, which at eight or nine bucks a gallon was burning a hole in her bankroll, as Max had known it would. The roar of the motorcycle and the wind kept conversation to a minimum, but the two young women somehow knew that each had finally found the sort of friend they needed.
There weren't a lot of questions about each other's past; instinctively they both knew the other had secrets not for sharing. Nevertheless, they just sort of fell in together and the start of their friendship felt like they were already in the middle of it.
The last five hundred miles of the trip flew by and before they knew it, Max and Original Cindy were tooling through the streets of Seattle, still a striking city despite the squalor of post-Pulse life.
“Everything's so green,” Max said, over her shoulder.
“That's why it's the Emerald City, Dorothy girl.”
“Dorothy?”
“Boo, you ain't got no sense of culture whatsoever.”
“I might surprise you, Cin… ”
At Fourth and Blanchard, Max eased the Ninja over to the curb in front of a place called Buck's Coffee. The sign looked as though it used to have four letters before the B, but they couldn't be made out.
“Caffeine calling,” Max said.
“Original Cindy hears it, too.”
Inside, the pair of striking women walked up to the counter behind which stood a heavyset man barely taller than Max, a lascivious grin forming on his fat, five-o'clock-shadowed face. At a counter behind him, a blowsily attractive blond woman about their age— wearing knee-high pink boots, a blue miniskirt, and a pink top that bared both her midriff and most of her formidable chest— hovered over a sandwich in the making.
“Ladies, don't even bother orderin' no frappes, lattes, cappuccinos,” he said. Staring at Original Cindy, he added, “I serve my coffee just like I like my women— hot and black.”
The blue-cheeked guy seemed proud of himself, under the illusion he had minted this deathless phrase.
Max could tell that Original Cindy was considering jumping the counter to bitch-slap the white right off this horse's ass; so Max gently said, “Come on, Boo— let's go someplace where we can get a grande.”
“Yeah… instead of the limp mini this mope is peddlin'.”
Max giggled, and the blonde toward the back giggled, too… but the counter guy did not laugh; in fact, he reddened and fumed.
He started to say something, but Original Cindy cut him off with a wave of a finger accompanied by a sway of the head and shoulders. “Don't hate the playah, baby… hate the game.”
Max and Original Cindy bumped fists and the blond woman laughed out loud.
The counter guy turned on her. “You know what's really funny? A skank like you lookin' for a new job in this market, is what's
really
funny.”
The blonde fell silent.
“Hey,” Max said, taking a step toward the counter.
“Butt out,” the counter man said. “This ain't no concern of yours. And you… ” He turned to the blonde. “… you're movin' on to bigger and better things. Get your fat butt outa here!”
Max leapt the counter, landing between the blonde and the counter guy, who was startled and a little afraid by this sudden impressive move. “Hire her back.”
“What do you—”<
br />
Max lifted him up by the throat; his eyes were bulging as he stared down at her, too afraid and in too much discomfort to be properly amazed by the petite woman lifting him gently off the ground, a fact neither Original Cindy nor the put-upon blonde picked up on.
The blonde touched Max's arm. “It's all right… he can't fire me, 'cause I quit… I'm tired of workin' for this sexual-harasshole.”
“Good call,” Original Cindy said.
Max shrugged and put the guy down.
He was leaning over the counter, red-faced, choking, when the three women strolled out onto the street together. They stood at the curb, near Max's bike, and chatted.
“My name's Kendra Maibaum,” the blonde said, extending her hand.
Max shook it. “Max Guevera— and this lovely lady is Original Cindy.”
“Pleased,” Original Cindy said and shook hands with Kendra too.
“How did you do that?” Kendra asked. “Handle Morty like that, I mean.”
Original Cindy raised her eyebrows, smirking. “Girl had training.”
Max at that moment realized she would have to watch herself, from now on— she had been entirely too careless around Original Cindy.
“Training but no coffee,” Max said. Her X5 skills would have to be better concealed. “And we haven't even started
talkin'
about findin' a place to crash.”
Kendra asked, “You guys need a place to crash?”
“We're kind of new in town,” Original Cindy explained.
“Like five minutes new,” Max added.
The blonde shrugged. “If you don't need a lot of space, you can stay with me. I've got a place. Room enough for two, maybe three.”
Original Cindy glanced at Max, who shrugged, asking, “Why would you do that for us? You don't know us from nobody.”
Kendra gestured toward the coffee shop. “You stood up for me with Morty.”
“Cost you your job, you mean,” Max reminded her.
Laughing, Kendra said, “Yeah, but it was worth it, seein' Morty, scared shitless… and, anyway, that job sucked. Besides, it wasn't my only means of income.”
“Workin' girl?” Original Cindy asked, again glancing at the pink top filled to the brim and the postage-stamp miniskirt.
Kendra's hands went to her hips. “Why would you ask that?” She didn't sound hurt, exactly— more surprised.
Original Cindy's eyes widened. Max frowned at her friend, who said nothing about the former waitress's provocative attire, merely saying. “Uh… uh, don't know, girl, it just sounded like maybe you, uh… ”
“Oh, I work a lot… but not at that. I do some translating, language training, transcription work. I've done a buncha things, but never that.”
“Sorry— Original Cindy didn't mean no offense.”
Kendra shook her head. “Not to worry. Anyway, 'fyou guys need a place to crash, I've got room.”
“Sweet,” Max said. “Where?”
“Not far.”
“Walking distance? I hope so, 'cause it's gonna be a bitch gettin' three of us on my bike.”
“Oh yeah,” Kendra said, with a dismissive wave, “easy walking distance.”
They wound up walking for most of the next hour, Max pushing the Ninja, Original Cindy lugging her backpack, but they didn't complain— after all, a roof was a roof. But Max didn't know quite what to make of Kendra. For a woman who knew languages well enough to work as a translator, the blonde seemed remarkably like a clueless airhead.
Nice one, though.
Finally, when Original Cindy gave Max a rolling-eyed look, signaling she was sure she was about to drop, Kendra said, “That's it over there! Told ya it was close.” And pointed to an apartment building two doors up and across the street.
The building didn't look like much, six stories, most of the windows plywood-covered; and, as they got closer, a piece of paper tacked to the front door became all too evident.
“The place is
condemned?
” Original Cindy asked.
Kendra shrugged a little. “Not really condemned— more like… abandoned.”
They got to the door and Original Cindy studied the notice on the door. “Original Cindy ain't no translator, but she reads English… and this says ‘condemned.' ”
Shaking her head dismissively, Kendra said, “That's just to keep out the, you know, riffraff.”
Max asked, “How many people live here?”
Kendra shrugged. “Fifty or so.”
“Fifty?” Original Cindy blurted. “Fifty people live in a condemned building? Thank God you're keepin' out the riffraff!”
“Come on in, girls,” Kendra said. “You'll see— it's not that bad. Really.”
When the trio got to the fourth floor— up a freight-style elevator, Max walking her Ninja along— Max and Original Cindy discovered that Kendra was right. Like the building itself, the apartment was unfinished, a study in taped drywall and plastic-tarp room dividers; but the place had running water, two bedrooms, and some decent secondhand furniture. They all crashed in the tiny living room area, Kendra in a chair covered with a blue sheet, and the other two on a swayback couch covered with a paisley sheet.
“Kendra, you right,” Original Cindy said, leaning back, getting comfy. “Kickin' crib.”
“And nobody bothers you in here?” Max asked.
Kendra made a small face. “Well… there's Eastep.”
“What's an Eastep?” Max asked.
“He's a cop. Who collects from all us squatters.”
“He's crooked?”
Kendra smiled a little. “I said he was a cop.”
“They
all
bent in Seattle, honey,” Original Cindy said to Max; then to Kendra, she asked, “What's the goin' rate?”
“Too much,” Kendra said, and proved it by telling them.
“Ouch,” Max said, but asked, “Are there any empty apartments left in this building?”
With a shake of her blond mane, Kendra said, “None fit for humans. Hot and cold running rats… holes in the walls, missing ceilings… no water, no electricity… you name it, they've got the problems. All the habitable apartments have been taken.”
“Great,” Max muttered. She turned to Original Cindy. “Any ideas?”
“Original Cindy's got a friend she could stay with for a while.” She shrugged regretfully. “But girlfriend's only got room for one more… We got to think of somethin' else, Boo.”
“No you don't,” Kendra said. “You two have to live together?”
The two women looked at each other.
“Not really,” they said in unison.
“You aren't a couple?”
“We friends,” Original Cindy said.
“Just friends,” Max said, overlapping Cindy's answer.
“Fine,” Kendra said. “Max, if Original Cindy's got a place to crash, why don't you move in here? I could seriously use some help payin' Eastep's rent… and it'd be nice to have somebody to talk to. But I just don't have enough room for all three of us.”
“Sounds prime,” Original Cindy said. “My friend's place ain't that far from here; she was sort of expectin' me, anyway. We can still hang, Boo. No big dealio.”
Max looked back and forth from Original Cindy to Kendra. Finally, she said, “Cool— let's do it.”
“Next thing,” Original Cindy said, “we got to find a way to get some cash.”
Screwing up her face, Max said, “You mean like a job?”
“What else you gonna do, Boo… steal for a livin'?”
Max said nothing.
Kendra perked up, getting an idea. “We should go talk to Theo!”
The two women turned to her.
“Theo?” Max asked.
“Yeah, he lives next door with his wife, Jacinda, and their kid, cute kid, Omar. Place Theo works is
always
looking for help.”
Max and Original Cindy exchanged glances— that was
a rarity in this economy.
Original Cindy said, “Well, let's not keep the man waitin'… Original Cindy needs some money, honey, to allow her to live in the high style she's become accustomed to… Luxuries, like eatin' and breathin' an' shit.”
Kendra led the way and they knocked on the door to the adjacent apartment. A tiny, knee-high face peeked out, his eyes big and brown, his skin a dark bronze.
“Omar, is your daddy home?”
The adorable face nodded.
“Can we come in?”
Omar looked over his shoulder and a female voice said, “That you, Kendra?”
“Yeah, Jacinda— I've got a couple of friends with me. They're cool.”
“Well, come on in, then.”
Stepping back, Omar, who couldn't have been more than five, opened the door for the three women.
Max took in the apartment, which looked a lot like Kendra's. A thin black woman in a brown T-shirt and tan slacks stood in front of the couch, an Asian man— shorter than his wife, his hair black, his eyes sparkling, his smile wide— standing next to her.
“Jacinda, Theo,” Kendra said, “this is Cindy and Max.”
“Original Cindy,” the woman corrected.
“Original Cindy. They both need jobs and I thought maybe Theo could hook them up.”
The smile never faded as he waved for the women to sit down on the couch. Jacinda moved to a chair with Omar climbing into her lap, Theo standing next to them, a hand on his wife's shoulder.
“There's been a ton of turnover lately,” he said. “It's a hard job… very physical, and you go into dangerous parts of the city, sometimes. Lots of times.”
Original Cindy asked, “What kinda job we talkin' about, Theo? Repairing power lines? Filling in potholes?”
The smiling Asian asked, “Either of you young women ever been a bike messenger?”
They looked at each other and shook their heads.
Theo asked, “You
got
bikes?”
Max half grinned. “I do— Ninja, two-fifty.”
Theo's smile actually grew wider. “Bi
cycles
. Either of you have a bicycle?”
“No,” Original Cindy said.
“But we will by tomorrow morning,” Max said.
Original Cindy looked at her disbelievingly, but Theo took it in stride, his smile unfailing.
“Excellent,” he said. “You can go in with me. The place is called Jam Pony Xpress. Normal, the fella that runs it, he's a bit uptight… but he's not evil. Pay's lousy, hours are worse; but the other riders are a nice, easygoing group.”
Dark Angel Before the Dawn da-1 Page 11