The waiting was always the hardest part. After the last shift, Max had been affected. He had disappeared, running off into the night screaming about needles in the brain. Mags tried to take off after him, but she was still wounded from the battle. If only she had caught him before he rabbited.
Mags realized Max was a cosmic instrument, and that with each shift some neural patterns would change in his brain. Like a software program rewriting itself, and that sometimes glitches appeared. This time was one of those glitches. She hoped.
Mags sat on the window sill watching rain streak down the pane. Her left hand touching the window and feeling the vibration of the storm. She was feeling what the tempest was bringing and it made her cry; a tear streaked down her cheek and past the smile on her lips.
Her laptop was open and she was perusing through the news, using the power of Google to find some weird stuff happening in this reality. She caught a news story of how a woman was being attacked by "rabid dogs" and how a heroic rescuer intervened.
There was a fuzzy snapshot of the fellow, but through the blurred photo she could make out Max. It looked like he was giving the finger to the cameraman.
"Take care of yourself, you big fool," she said. She just needed a few more days, then she would begin the hunt.
