Current Transmissions:

20131208

DAY TWENTYSEVEN 23:43PM


Homesick 

Max watched the highway scroll through the headlights of the car. He tapped the tip of his cigarette out the window, embers falling away into the night like shooting stars. The owner had a few CDs in the glovebox - Springsteen, the Pixies, REM. Max had played through them all during his long drive and was on the last, Radiohead, with miles and miles more to go. 

That there... That's not me... I go... Where I please... 

Yesterday had been the day that Max was going to make proper contact with the Agent that LEGACY had enlisted to hunt him. To try and turn him. To transform the weapon of the enemy into the shield of the innocent. It was Max's preferred tactic; it had worked for Frank and Goner and others too, who he could only remember like shadows from dreams. Of course it had failed for as many, if not more. 

Max sighed. He had lived too many lives. 

I walk through walls...  I float down the Liffey... 

This Agent Light would have the contacts and resources to ensure the safety of Alice's tribe. If Max couldn't reunite with them, then he'd send them a guardian in his place. Or that had been the plan. Until Max's mole had informed him that Agent Light was leaving on a major field assignment, to a remote lakeside cottage. Max had figured it had to be where the church had taken sanctuary. 

I'm not here... This isn't happening... I'm not here... 

He was sorry that Stone had cracked and hoped his end had been a quick one, but the exigencies of the battlefield forced him to be glad that the detective had tipped his partner to the laptop before he tried to storm the downtown offices of LEGACY. And that Riveta had come onboard.

Another player invited to the game. Until her time came. Max took a long drag off the smoke. He had lost too many lives. 

In a little while... I'll be gone... 

So now Max had to somehow stop Simon Light. And to rescue Alice's people, without coming into contact with her. He had already called in too many favours from the Otherworld and the Spirit Realm - he would be paying for years to come. Once upon a time, Pretty George might have had something up his sleeve, but things had ended badly between them... Or the Professor would have had some wild sci-fi metamathematical solution... But that was another wound that had long since scarred over. 

The moment's already passed... Yeah, it's gone... 

And something else had happened. Earlier today, before he got the call from Riveta. That charge that ran through him, that burst of static that almost swallowed him whole... Something had changed, but he hadn't had the time to meditate on it. Some part of him felt like it was gone, or had been replaced with something new. It was almost like the transmissions he used to receive, before he had gone into hiding. 

Strobe lights and blown speakers... Fireworks and hurricanes... 

In the end, Alice had to live. That was clear from the evidence at the Facility. And LEGACY couldn't bring the rest of them to harvest. Max would do whatever it took to prevent that from happening. 

I'm not here... This isn't happening...

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