When the World Made Sense (Part One)
Title: When the World Made Sense
Author: hunters_retreat
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 26,000+
Warnings: pre-story off-screen death of a secondary character, slash
Author's Notes:Thank you so much to the mod's for this amazing challenge! And all my love to my amazing artist sillie82!
Summary: Once upon a time, Logan Cale's life made sense. Maybe not to anyone else, but it did to him. That was before he'd ever heard of Manticore, or X-5's, and certainly before he found himself the head of the Trans-normal movement that had sparked after the explosive outing of transgenics in Terminal City. Two years of fighting for the cause had taken its toll though, and not just on Logan. Anti-trans groups put a price on their heads and none more so than for Alec McDowell.
Alec tried to act like none of it bothered him but Logan knew different. They were co-conspirators and stood shoulder to shoulder leading the movement. An offhanded comment has Logan thinking it's time for a change, for the movement and for himself. Will Logan's grand experiment - a self-sustaining farming community for humans and transgenics alike - give them the chance to make peace with the world or will it fail? Will it give Alec the chance to finally heal from his emotional scars that a life as a Manticore assassin left him? And will they both finally realize what they’ve been fighting for all along?
The room was silent as the clatter died away, the remnants of Logan Cale’s usually pristine desk scattered across the floor by a transgenic who had yet to learn how to keep his temper in check. He would in time because no one actually got close enough to Logan to make a mistake like that twice.
Logan tuned out the forthcoming words - threats - about the proper way to address Logan and what the right amount of respect was for him, human or not. He turned to look out the window of his high rise apartment, taking in the beauty of the night sky and for once not seeing the reminder of what it once had been. If there were fewer lights to fill the sky it just gave him more of a chance to catch the stars by.
“Logan,” he was being addressed by one of the usual speakers. There were fifteen members of the Tribunal, a mix of humans and transgenics of different specialty, but few spoke as bluntly as Mole did. “No matter how he says it, he’s right. How much will the next bounty be set for? When will it become so high that-“
“The price isn’t the problem.”
It was the first time Logan had spoken since the outburst and there was a brush of shoulder on shoulder as he felt his partner in crime at his side. Not that Logan needed the show of support. Everyone knew that where Logan went so did Alec McDowell. The Trans-normal Movement had no choice but to follow Logan anyway. The transgenics on the Tribunal had little enough dealings with the human population to be able to handle it well and most of the humans that worked with the movement kept their association hush-hush for fear of reprisal on their families.
Logan looked over at Alec and the casual way he’d brushed against him. Two years ago that wouldn’t have been possible. A year ago it wouldn’t have been, but the bounty hunters had created a pathway between them that Logan was grateful for, no matter how he hated the rest of the outcome.
“The problem,” Logan said, turning to look back to the transgenic that Alec had backed into the wall earlier, “is that there is an illegal bounty in the first place. We’ve got people on the inside of the police and we should have seen this circulating before it hit the public like this.”
“Come on, Logan.” Mole interrupted, “The problem is that we live in a shithole that doesn’t want us.”
Logan signed and he felt Alec shift his stance. Alec and Mole were fairly adversarial in their roles on the Tribunal but mostly because Mole spoke what no one else wanted to. Alec and Logan knew what was being said just as well as the others did, but Alec took Mole’s attitude as challenging their authority while Logan knew that Mole was simply trying to be a voice of reason - even if he failed at keeping his personal feelings about the ordinaries outside of Terminal City aside.
“So you think we should just give up? I don’t know about you Mole, but I spent enough of my life in a cage. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running,” Alec commented offhandedly.
“Yeah, it’s a real hardship for you, pretty boy, having to fit in with the humans.”
Logan placed a hand on Alec’s wrist and stopped his partner before he could move forward. It spoke volumes of the way their friendship had developed that he could interpret Alec’s intentions quickly enough to stop him. That Alec was willing to stay his movements for Logan.
“Alec might be an X-5, but it’s been his face on the front of most of the bounties we’ve come across. Tease him about his good looks on your own time because we all know that Alec is the most well-known and easily identifiable face of the Trans-normal Movement.”
“I’m just asking, why are we still here?” Mole said, speaking directly to Logan this time. Alec relaxed but Logan didn’t take his hand from his wrist just yet. “We settled into Terminal City because the humans that lived there left us alone and it was the closest place we could find to fill our needs and keep us hidden. There was never a warm fuzzy welcome for us here, never an open invitation to join their ranks of citizenship. Why are we making the head of our movement in a place where the human allies we want to keep can’t live and where the authorities refuse to back us?”
Logan’s grip on Alec’s arm tightened and he swallowed against the lump in his throat. Why were they? Why had he never once thought about moving out of the area? There were plenty of transgenics that were making more successful transitions in different cities. He’d had contact with a number of them when they first started reaching out to make alliances in other places. The head of the Trans-normal Movement had somehow remained in Seattle where the going was the roughest and Logan wondered why he’d never thought of moving to another city before.
“We’ll take care of the bounty in the morning,” Alec said to the others while Logan was still reeling with Mole’s last comment. “In the morning,” he said again, apparently stopping an objection though Logan couldn’t for the life of him have said who it was that was complaining. “We have office hours for a reason and complaints - even as whole unit - about the price tag on this one bounty don’t warrant overstaying your welcome this far.”
No one questioned Alec. No one dared. There were transgenics that had been around longer, transgenics that had specialties that Alec couldn’t touch on, but Alec had an impeccable reputation among his kind. He had a service record that they’d have killed for - which Alec had done actually - and he never stopped learning new skills to add to the arsenal he already had at hand. When Alec fought it was dirty and bloody and he was the only one left standing. Logan had seen it a few times in the early days when the transgenics picked the strongest based on that sort of might-makes-right pack mentality. That Alec had always deferred to Max had given her the key leadership role without having to prove her worth. Logan still didn’t know if Alec regretted that choice or not, but Max wasn’t their problem anymore.
It wasn’t until the door shut that the sound pulled Logan from his thoughts. He looked up, realizing at the same time that he still had Alec’s arm gripped tightly. “Sorry,” he muttered, dropping the other man’s wrist.
Alec gave him an odd smile. “Don’t mention it,” he said as he walked to the door and locked it up. “You seemed a little out of it. Something happen that I’m not aware of?”
It wasn’t the accusation it would have been a year ago. It had been a good year between them, no matter the cost. “Why are we still here?” Logan asked.
Alec cocked an eyebrow at him as he moved into the kitchen and helped himself to Logan’s stocked fridge. When he came back with two waters and no answer, Logan nodded in his direction, asking for an explanation.
“You’re serious?” Alec asked. “I know you aren’t thinking about giving up on the cause, so what’s behind this?”
“We started this fight because we didn’t have a choice, Alec. None of us could have walked away after the day White trapped us at Jam Pony and all of this is just a consequence of that. It’s been worth it, you know I believe that. You know that Eyes Only believes that. Mole had a point though. Why are we killing ourselves to make peace with a city that wants to kill us?”
Alec sighed. “You know why. If this had been handled differently, if White hadn’t been the fanatic he was, maybe we would have had a different reaction from the general population. The what ifs will drive us crazy though, Logan. We can’t think like that.”
“Try this one. What if we moved? What if we took the whole damn movement and got away from Terminal City and Seattle? What does it say to the world that the place we make our ‘capital city’ is uninhabitable to half the populace we claim to represent? What if we took our people and declared Seattle unsuitable for Trans-normal populations and asked people to join us in leaving the city?”
“I know you well enough to know you’re serious, Logan, but are you serious?”
Logan gave a half laugh. “There are other cities that would welcome us in and there are large stretches of land that haven’t been inhabited since the Pulse. We could make a choice this time, Alec.”
Alec let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes, letting Logan get a good long look, assessing his friend. There were dark circles under Alec’s eyes which made the green seem duller and less lively than usual. He wasn’t getting outside much and he was pale. Physically, Logan knew that Alec was in great shape, but that didn’t mean his emotional state was something to write home about. In fact, the more Logan thought about moving the community into a remote area, the better he felt about it. He could always keep the Trans-normal Movement relevant with Eyes Only broadcasts, the alliances they had made and the branches they had in other cities. Having a chance to run a grand experiment - to live hand in hand with humans and transgenics - in a new home which had no animosity for either party seemed an opportunity too great to pass up, and it would give Logan time to make sure that Alec took care of himself.
“We make choices every day, Logan.”
It would be Alec’s final words of the night if Logan let it go. “Are you okay, Alec?” he asked. Two years of taking care of others had left them both exhausted but it was more than that with Alec. A year ago, a bounty had come out for both Max and Alec heads and while Alec had scoffed at an ordinary trying to kill him, someone had come for Max. She held the same disdain, but when the bullet had come, Original Cindy had pushed Max out of the way and died for it. Max had fallen apart and Alec did the only thing he could; he took on more and more responsibility while Max drifted further away from them. Neither had been able to live with their guilt and Logan knew that Alec still believed that if Max had been able to turn to Logan in her grief that she’d have recovered and been able to move the Trans-normal Movement along better than he had. And Alec still carried the blame of giving Logan the virus that had separated them in the first place.
“You know me, Logan,” Alec said, his smile looked tired but genuine. Right up until he turned the nob on the door and looked back at Logan again. “I’m always alright.”
**
“Did you go to bed at all last night?”
The voice tickled his ear and Logan would have jumped out of his seat if it weren’t the steady hand on his shoulder. The laughter behind him was warm and Logan looked up to see the smile that lingered there. “Alec, what are you doing here?”
“I got a call last night about a bounty hunter. Detective Sung got some information and asked me to drop by this morning so I did. Not much on who put it out there but this current round of bounty hunters should be out of our hair.”
“Until the next one comes,” Logan reminded him.
“Yeah, well that’s why we’re moving right?”
“You think we should then?” Logan countered the question with one of his own. No matter that Alec never went against him in front of the others, Logan needed to know that Alec agreed with his assessment of things. They debated things long and hard when everyone else was gone, Logan hammering his ideas into Alec’s head until he gave in or until Alec took that nail and turned it around until it was Alec convincing Logan. They worked well together and in the last year they’d been able to do miraculous things, even with the bounties.
Alec shook his head. “I was sitting there in this meeting with Sung and all I kept thinking about was that all the things we were talking about might happen easier if we weren’t actually here. If we weren’t surrounded by a city full of people ready to take a shot at us, the anti-hate message might get through. If the bounties stopped and the city was allowed to let its wounds heal, the message might get through.”
“You believe that?”
“It can’t hurt, right? Look, White screwed us ten ways to Sunday-”
“Common verbal usage again?”
Alec smiled at the interruption. “Right in one. Anyway, with the way White had everyone in Seattle worked up against us and the way we came out to the public, it’s not exactly hard to understand why we’re feared. So I started wondering, what would it be like if we had been able to control our integration into the city like the rest of Transgenics could? We can’t change what happened in Seattle and the way we had to fight against White to keep our lives but maybe we can start new? Make those choices you said we could. That is if you really think you could do it.”
It was meant to poke at him and it did a bit. Alec didn’t let anyone second guess Logan’s ability but the man was more than happy to do it himself.
“No, I can’t do it. Not alone. Do you think the Tribunal will support a move?”
“The Tribunal will do whatever we tell them too.” There was confidence in Alec’s voice; annoyance as well. The Tribunal gave justice to their community, made sure they treated each other fairly, and they voted on important matters for the Movement. Alec was right though. If Alec and Logan stood together on an issue - and they always did - the Tribunal did as they wanted. The humans seemed to be more likely to fight with them and Max had always said that the transgenics would eventually too. They just needed time to adjust to making their own choices and to stop taking orders. When Max left though the progress she’d made went with her though. They’d started at square one with Alec and he’d made them fight for it every step of the way. If they didn’t go along with an idea, he made them explain why. He bullied and browbeat them to make them stand up for themselves even though they didn’t know that was why he did it. They were starting to be advocates for their community again though. It wasn’t enough yet, not by a long shot. It wasn’t enough to have a Tribunal to make their choices official; they needed a legitimate form of authority and until they had the ability to make their own decisions without feeling the need to bow down to a higher authority, they were still just a group of people who were lost.
“I guess the real question then, is where do we move?”
**
It took three months to answer that question. It hadn’t happened quickly or easily. Logan had researched the larger cities to see if one of them would be better suited to the Trans-normal Movement but when Alec had made a crack about just pitching a tent and farming for themselves, Logan had taken the idea and run with it.
Alec wasn’t really sure how that joke had made it into a real idea. He wasn’t sure how his comment about wine country and drinking away the profits had amounted into a road trip either. That didn’t change the fact that days later he and Logan were standing in the middle of a kitchen in what was once the family owned house on a huge self-sustaining farm.
“We could set up a temporary base of operations in the house and start converting the largest barn into living quarters pretty quick,” Logan said as he stared out the large bay window that overlooked the gently sloping yard.
The land was fertile and the valley was in a good location; close to a river and there was a large pond on the premise in case anything happened to the public water system. There were signs of wildlife but not so much that the farm had been overrun and there were neighboring fruit tree farms that had been left on their own when the entire valley had been left unattended.
Dead bodies in the house explained what had happened to the previous occupants. When the initial Pulse had hit the country, it took more than the electrical equipment. With power out and the lights down, America had gone cannibalistic, tearing away at itself. Looters and scavengers had done plenty of damage and a lot of people fled for the supposed safety of numbers in the cities. Not everyone made it out though and not all of the deaths were murder. Some people just got sick from improperly treated water and illness had spread. Large areas of country were left to fall fallow, waiting for a chance to start again. Looked like they were going to get that chance now.
“So we have our offices here. We’ll use the existing structure of the barns to create cabin-style housing until we can get ourselves established, then turn to finding a way to make us self-sufficient in the next year or so. Piece of cake.” Alec didn’t bother to hide his disbelief at the amount of work Logan had in store for them or the sheer scope of his vision.
Logan looked at him, smiling slightly and Alec tried to ignore the way it made him feel. He loved to see the normally stressed look on Logan’s face leave if only for a moment. It was even better when Alec was the one that made it happen.
“We could set it up in three teams. After the quarters are livable, we have one group start working construction, one group working on farming and hunting, and then another working on security.”
Alec nodded, though the logistics were more Logan’s thing than his. It all made sense and Alec was more than happy to let Logan take control.
“What do you think about the valley?”
They were located in the Sierra foothills in southern California and while Alec liked the sun overhead and the lack of rain, he still couldn’t help but feel that moving would change everything they’d done. That didn’t make it the wrong move, but he still worried. Hell, worrying about what Logan was talking him into this time was practically his job description now. So much so that he sometimes had to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to get emotionally attached to other people. He’d screwed up, letting them in as far as he had.
Logan was as far under his skin as Max had been and nothing Alec did or said could change that now, but Alec kept close to Logan, hoping that he didn’t make the same mistakes again. He indulged himself with his friendship with Logan and he couldn’t afford it with anyone else. He couldn’t allow himself to lose any more pieces of himself.
“It’s defensible,” Alec answered Logan’s question. “There are some hills that have been cut through for roads that would give us a way to wall in the surrounding area and make it a more secure location. There are the houses on the other side of the farm that could be used also if they’re as abandoned as all the rest of this. The ones we saw on the edge of the fruit farms?”
Logan nodded his head and Alec knew Logan remembered the houses he was talking about. They’d talked about bringing a small contingent of people up first to get things started. It would be hard work - all manual labor - just to get the place ready for anyone else to live. The local government had been thrilled at the idea of having them there so they’d ceded the abandoned land to them which left them with just a need to feed and fend for themselves.
Using the barns to create small rooms with large main common areas had grated on Logan but then Alec pointed out that their safety was assured in close quarters like that and that they’d had far worse both in Manticore and in Terminal City.
“You know it’s a good place Logan. Hell, what are the chances that we found an already designed self-sustaining farm that just needs to be fixed up?”
That was the icing on the cake. They’d have found a way to make it work but this place wasn’t just an average farm. It was built to be a permaculture masterpiece. Everything about the design had three to four functions from the placement to the type of crops, to the use of elevation and native flora. The entire thing was centered on the farmhouse and the inner buildings and worked their way out from there. It was solar powered and featured a variety of crops and livestock that would survive well together and that would feed one another. There was a composting site and a series of greenhouses on the premise also. Alec didn’t know much about permaculture - or agriculture in general - but Syl did and she’d gone crazy over the place. The greenhouses and the solar panels needed some repair but they were minor.
Logan nodded. “Chances?”
Alec smiled because he knew how many hours Logan had looked and searched for the right place. It might have been his offhand comment that got Logan thinking about farming but Logan did the research and exhausted his resources until he had what he needed.
“Yeah. Not like you went looking and found it or anything.”
Logan snorted at that and Alec smiled. Logan rarely let himself just laugh. He had become guarded over the years, they all had, but it was nice to see him let himself out just a little bit.
“Camp out here tonight?” Logan asked Alec.
That hadn’t been the plan and Alec hadn’t packed camping gear, but the house had a working fireplace and there was plenty of wood to stave off the cooler night air. They both had a change of clothes in case they’d needed to get dirty while they were there but they had intended to go back to the city and find lodgings there for the night. As much as Alec would prefer to find a nice soft bed, he thought Logan might benefit from the break.
“You get a fire started in the main house and I’ll see what else I can find around here.”
He left before Logan could answer but he knew the other man would go along with him. Alec walked outside and grabbed their bags and took them inside before he ran back out. He found an old bucket and it didn’t take long to fill it up with produce from the farm. It would take a lot of work to get everything back into the shape it had been but they had the time and the people to do it.
Alec left the food by the door and went in search of water. He wasn’t sure if the pond was drinkable but there was a well pump close to the house and he pulled out their water testing kit. They’d brought it along to check everything and now what as good a time as any to try it. He ran the tests and they came out good. He’d expected them too since they’d been assured that the water was good but Alec took a couple vials of water and labeled them ‘well’ so that Logan could get a complete analysis done when they got back. Though the land was already theirs, it was contingent on Logan’s findings about water and soil balances.
He brought the water back in the jugs he had in the back of the car. It was safer to keep water in the car when they were travelling, just in case they hit a stretch of road that had none which was all too likely since the pulse.
Alec walked through the back door and stopped to kick his shoes off in the mud room; he wasn’t a total heathen, no matter what Logan said, thank you very much. Alec might be rough around the edges but he preferred it that way. He always had. It probably had something to do with the nice polish Manticore had always tried to force on him but Alec didn’t like to look back at that. Sure, he had some sleepless nights about what he’d done as a soldier - as an assassin - but he tried not to let it interfere with the here and now. It was the here and now that was important and Alec was damn good at pushing the rest of it away when he had to.
The mud room would be good when they had a full contingent of people working the fields and they were using the main house as a meeting area. Logan had talked about keeping their personal offices in the main house and allowing the outer buildings to hold all the personnel but those were the sort of details they needed the Tribunal to make.
He set the jugs up on the large island counter in the kitchen. It was a nice sized kitchen, more suited to a large family unit - which the house had obviously been built for - and it felt empty with just Alec there. The bucket of produce he’d left had been moved and Alec was about to call out when Logan entered on the other side.
“Decided to take a vacation or something? I thought X-5s were fast?”
“Ha ha,” Alec said as he tapped the jugs. He remembered the water vials and pulled them out of the pouch he carried. “From the well for later.”
Logan smiled and Alec knew it was because he’d remembered to do it no matter that it would just take a few minutes to go back out and get it. Logan was always awed when people did small things like that. It made Alec want to strangle whoever made him think that he had to take care of every little detail himself, but it was part of who the man was and Alec was rather fond of Logan, even if he’d never admit it aloud.
“Come on in. I figured we could just settle in the main room with the fire.”
Alec grabbed the water and followed Logan through the dining room, past the massive table, and into the next room. It was a common room where a great fireplace stood with furniture that delineated a group meeting area as well as two smaller nook areas for private conversations. One wall held a bookcase that was still full. A lot of them were about the native flora and fauna and the things needed to run the farm and Logan had been ecstatic at the find. Alec was happy to find a couple good spy novels and a mystery series.
It smelled good and Alec looked at the fire to see that Logan had not only gotten it started but had brought their food supplies out of the packs and had rigged a pot over the fire. He knew it would be a while before whatever Logan was doing was edible but it was already starting to cover the dusty scent of the room.
Their bags were by the fire and their sleeping mats were unrolled in front of it. The furniture was pushed to the side because of the dust that covered it. They’d have to clean it well before using it, maybe let it air out a few nights after to get it good and clean and make sure dust wasn’t the only scent lingering. They’d opened up all the windows that morning to try to let the place air out but Logan had gone through and closed them to keep the heat in.
“This was a good idea,” Alec said as he put the water on the floor.
“The farm?”
“Staying tonight,” Alec said with a small smile.
“What, you’re ready to leave your big city already?”
Alec scoffed at that as he sat down on his sleeping mat. “As long as you can promise me a distillery at some point, I’m willing to put the assassination attempts behind me. Don’t know about you but I’m more than happy to get the bounty off my head.”
Logan frowned and Alec knew that look. It wasn’t a bad look exactly, but it meant Logan was reading more into his words than Alec wanted him too. When had he realized that Logan had a look like that anyway?
“You know,” Logan said, picking at the corner of the blanket he had draped over the end of his bag, “I wanted to be a photographer before I became a journalist? My family hated the idea of it and I ended up being a photojournalist to appease them a little. I never wanted that, but then I felt like I couldn’t turn my back on what I was seeing and I was good at what I did. When I became a cyber-journalist it was just a step away from what I’d already been doing and then Eyes Only happened. I never wanted any of that, but there I was, neck deep in politics and espionage and a one man terrorist group. I thought when TC opened up and we were all exposed that it would get easier. Funny, huh? The idea that being exposed as part of a secret agenda would make my life easier?”
Logan sounded tired and Alec felt every bit of it with him. Alec had never chosen any of it. He hadn’t asked to be freed from Manticore. He hadn’t asked to be part of a revolution. He hadn’t asked to be part of a new alliance of humans and transhumans, trying to forge a future that didn’t have to mean one or the other. He was though and there were days when it wore on him so much he didn’t want to get out of bed. Those were the days he planted his feet, dug in, and remembered that he wasn’t the only one in that position.
“As much as I understood the hate, I never realized the anti-trans would go to these lengths to get rid of us,” Logan said, shaking his head as he looked down at his hands. He looked up then. “This community could give us all the time and distance to be happy again. If we can get people to give it a chance.”
Alec took one of the water jugs and filled Logan’s canteen with it before handing it off and filling his own. He tipped it towards Logan and smiled when they let out a dull clunk. “We’re giving it a chance. If you and I can leave all that behind us, who are they to say it can’t work?”
Logan’s smile grew brighter then and it was moments like this one that Alec lived for. Since OC’s death, Alec had been trying to make up for the pain he’d caused. He didn’t think he could. No matter what he did or said he could never be the source of earthy advice that OC had been. Nor could he take Max’s place as Logan’s confidante or friend, but if he’d been quicker, if he’d taken the threat more seriously, maybe OC wouldn’t have died and Max wouldn’t have closed in on herself to the point that she left TC and disappeared into the night without a word.
“You’ve got a good point, Alec. If you and I can see eye to eye on this after everything that’s been stacked against us, we can make everyone else see the benefits too.”
On to Part Two
Author: hunters_retreat
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 26,000+
Warnings: pre-story off-screen death of a secondary character, slash
Author's Notes:Thank you so much to the mod's for this amazing challenge! And all my love to my amazing artist sillie82!
Summary: Once upon a time, Logan Cale's life made sense. Maybe not to anyone else, but it did to him. That was before he'd ever heard of Manticore, or X-5's, and certainly before he found himself the head of the Trans-normal movement that had sparked after the explosive outing of transgenics in Terminal City. Two years of fighting for the cause had taken its toll though, and not just on Logan. Anti-trans groups put a price on their heads and none more so than for Alec McDowell.
Alec tried to act like none of it bothered him but Logan knew different. They were co-conspirators and stood shoulder to shoulder leading the movement. An offhanded comment has Logan thinking it's time for a change, for the movement and for himself. Will Logan's grand experiment - a self-sustaining farming community for humans and transgenics alike - give them the chance to make peace with the world or will it fail? Will it give Alec the chance to finally heal from his emotional scars that a life as a Manticore assassin left him? And will they both finally realize what they’ve been fighting for all along?
The room was silent as the clatter died away, the remnants of Logan Cale’s usually pristine desk scattered across the floor by a transgenic who had yet to learn how to keep his temper in check. He would in time because no one actually got close enough to Logan to make a mistake like that twice.
Logan tuned out the forthcoming words - threats - about the proper way to address Logan and what the right amount of respect was for him, human or not. He turned to look out the window of his high rise apartment, taking in the beauty of the night sky and for once not seeing the reminder of what it once had been. If there were fewer lights to fill the sky it just gave him more of a chance to catch the stars by.
“Logan,” he was being addressed by one of the usual speakers. There were fifteen members of the Tribunal, a mix of humans and transgenics of different specialty, but few spoke as bluntly as Mole did. “No matter how he says it, he’s right. How much will the next bounty be set for? When will it become so high that-“
“The price isn’t the problem.”
It was the first time Logan had spoken since the outburst and there was a brush of shoulder on shoulder as he felt his partner in crime at his side. Not that Logan needed the show of support. Everyone knew that where Logan went so did Alec McDowell. The Trans-normal Movement had no choice but to follow Logan anyway. The transgenics on the Tribunal had little enough dealings with the human population to be able to handle it well and most of the humans that worked with the movement kept their association hush-hush for fear of reprisal on their families.
Logan looked over at Alec and the casual way he’d brushed against him. Two years ago that wouldn’t have been possible. A year ago it wouldn’t have been, but the bounty hunters had created a pathway between them that Logan was grateful for, no matter how he hated the rest of the outcome.
“The problem,” Logan said, turning to look back to the transgenic that Alec had backed into the wall earlier, “is that there is an illegal bounty in the first place. We’ve got people on the inside of the police and we should have seen this circulating before it hit the public like this.”
“Come on, Logan.” Mole interrupted, “The problem is that we live in a shithole that doesn’t want us.”
Logan signed and he felt Alec shift his stance. Alec and Mole were fairly adversarial in their roles on the Tribunal but mostly because Mole spoke what no one else wanted to. Alec and Logan knew what was being said just as well as the others did, but Alec took Mole’s attitude as challenging their authority while Logan knew that Mole was simply trying to be a voice of reason - even if he failed at keeping his personal feelings about the ordinaries outside of Terminal City aside.
“So you think we should just give up? I don’t know about you Mole, but I spent enough of my life in a cage. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running,” Alec commented offhandedly.
“Yeah, it’s a real hardship for you, pretty boy, having to fit in with the humans.”
Logan placed a hand on Alec’s wrist and stopped his partner before he could move forward. It spoke volumes of the way their friendship had developed that he could interpret Alec’s intentions quickly enough to stop him. That Alec was willing to stay his movements for Logan.
“Alec might be an X-5, but it’s been his face on the front of most of the bounties we’ve come across. Tease him about his good looks on your own time because we all know that Alec is the most well-known and easily identifiable face of the Trans-normal Movement.”
“I’m just asking, why are we still here?” Mole said, speaking directly to Logan this time. Alec relaxed but Logan didn’t take his hand from his wrist just yet. “We settled into Terminal City because the humans that lived there left us alone and it was the closest place we could find to fill our needs and keep us hidden. There was never a warm fuzzy welcome for us here, never an open invitation to join their ranks of citizenship. Why are we making the head of our movement in a place where the human allies we want to keep can’t live and where the authorities refuse to back us?”
Logan’s grip on Alec’s arm tightened and he swallowed against the lump in his throat. Why were they? Why had he never once thought about moving out of the area? There were plenty of transgenics that were making more successful transitions in different cities. He’d had contact with a number of them when they first started reaching out to make alliances in other places. The head of the Trans-normal Movement had somehow remained in Seattle where the going was the roughest and Logan wondered why he’d never thought of moving to another city before.
“We’ll take care of the bounty in the morning,” Alec said to the others while Logan was still reeling with Mole’s last comment. “In the morning,” he said again, apparently stopping an objection though Logan couldn’t for the life of him have said who it was that was complaining. “We have office hours for a reason and complaints - even as whole unit - about the price tag on this one bounty don’t warrant overstaying your welcome this far.”
No one questioned Alec. No one dared. There were transgenics that had been around longer, transgenics that had specialties that Alec couldn’t touch on, but Alec had an impeccable reputation among his kind. He had a service record that they’d have killed for - which Alec had done actually - and he never stopped learning new skills to add to the arsenal he already had at hand. When Alec fought it was dirty and bloody and he was the only one left standing. Logan had seen it a few times in the early days when the transgenics picked the strongest based on that sort of might-makes-right pack mentality. That Alec had always deferred to Max had given her the key leadership role without having to prove her worth. Logan still didn’t know if Alec regretted that choice or not, but Max wasn’t their problem anymore.
It wasn’t until the door shut that the sound pulled Logan from his thoughts. He looked up, realizing at the same time that he still had Alec’s arm gripped tightly. “Sorry,” he muttered, dropping the other man’s wrist.
Alec gave him an odd smile. “Don’t mention it,” he said as he walked to the door and locked it up. “You seemed a little out of it. Something happen that I’m not aware of?”
It wasn’t the accusation it would have been a year ago. It had been a good year between them, no matter the cost. “Why are we still here?” Logan asked.
Alec cocked an eyebrow at him as he moved into the kitchen and helped himself to Logan’s stocked fridge. When he came back with two waters and no answer, Logan nodded in his direction, asking for an explanation.
“You’re serious?” Alec asked. “I know you aren’t thinking about giving up on the cause, so what’s behind this?”
“We started this fight because we didn’t have a choice, Alec. None of us could have walked away after the day White trapped us at Jam Pony and all of this is just a consequence of that. It’s been worth it, you know I believe that. You know that Eyes Only believes that. Mole had a point though. Why are we killing ourselves to make peace with a city that wants to kill us?”
Alec sighed. “You know why. If this had been handled differently, if White hadn’t been the fanatic he was, maybe we would have had a different reaction from the general population. The what ifs will drive us crazy though, Logan. We can’t think like that.”
“Try this one. What if we moved? What if we took the whole damn movement and got away from Terminal City and Seattle? What does it say to the world that the place we make our ‘capital city’ is uninhabitable to half the populace we claim to represent? What if we took our people and declared Seattle unsuitable for Trans-normal populations and asked people to join us in leaving the city?”
“I know you well enough to know you’re serious, Logan, but are you serious?”
Logan gave a half laugh. “There are other cities that would welcome us in and there are large stretches of land that haven’t been inhabited since the Pulse. We could make a choice this time, Alec.”
Alec let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes, letting Logan get a good long look, assessing his friend. There were dark circles under Alec’s eyes which made the green seem duller and less lively than usual. He wasn’t getting outside much and he was pale. Physically, Logan knew that Alec was in great shape, but that didn’t mean his emotional state was something to write home about. In fact, the more Logan thought about moving the community into a remote area, the better he felt about it. He could always keep the Trans-normal Movement relevant with Eyes Only broadcasts, the alliances they had made and the branches they had in other cities. Having a chance to run a grand experiment - to live hand in hand with humans and transgenics - in a new home which had no animosity for either party seemed an opportunity too great to pass up, and it would give Logan time to make sure that Alec took care of himself.
“We make choices every day, Logan.”
It would be Alec’s final words of the night if Logan let it go. “Are you okay, Alec?” he asked. Two years of taking care of others had left them both exhausted but it was more than that with Alec. A year ago, a bounty had come out for both Max and Alec heads and while Alec had scoffed at an ordinary trying to kill him, someone had come for Max. She held the same disdain, but when the bullet had come, Original Cindy had pushed Max out of the way and died for it. Max had fallen apart and Alec did the only thing he could; he took on more and more responsibility while Max drifted further away from them. Neither had been able to live with their guilt and Logan knew that Alec still believed that if Max had been able to turn to Logan in her grief that she’d have recovered and been able to move the Trans-normal Movement along better than he had. And Alec still carried the blame of giving Logan the virus that had separated them in the first place.
“You know me, Logan,” Alec said, his smile looked tired but genuine. Right up until he turned the nob on the door and looked back at Logan again. “I’m always alright.”
**
“Did you go to bed at all last night?”
The voice tickled his ear and Logan would have jumped out of his seat if it weren’t the steady hand on his shoulder. The laughter behind him was warm and Logan looked up to see the smile that lingered there. “Alec, what are you doing here?”
“I got a call last night about a bounty hunter. Detective Sung got some information and asked me to drop by this morning so I did. Not much on who put it out there but this current round of bounty hunters should be out of our hair.”
“Until the next one comes,” Logan reminded him.
“Yeah, well that’s why we’re moving right?”
“You think we should then?” Logan countered the question with one of his own. No matter that Alec never went against him in front of the others, Logan needed to know that Alec agreed with his assessment of things. They debated things long and hard when everyone else was gone, Logan hammering his ideas into Alec’s head until he gave in or until Alec took that nail and turned it around until it was Alec convincing Logan. They worked well together and in the last year they’d been able to do miraculous things, even with the bounties.
Alec shook his head. “I was sitting there in this meeting with Sung and all I kept thinking about was that all the things we were talking about might happen easier if we weren’t actually here. If we weren’t surrounded by a city full of people ready to take a shot at us, the anti-hate message might get through. If the bounties stopped and the city was allowed to let its wounds heal, the message might get through.”
“You believe that?”
“It can’t hurt, right? Look, White screwed us ten ways to Sunday-”
“Common verbal usage again?”
Alec smiled at the interruption. “Right in one. Anyway, with the way White had everyone in Seattle worked up against us and the way we came out to the public, it’s not exactly hard to understand why we’re feared. So I started wondering, what would it be like if we had been able to control our integration into the city like the rest of Transgenics could? We can’t change what happened in Seattle and the way we had to fight against White to keep our lives but maybe we can start new? Make those choices you said we could. That is if you really think you could do it.”
It was meant to poke at him and it did a bit. Alec didn’t let anyone second guess Logan’s ability but the man was more than happy to do it himself.
“No, I can’t do it. Not alone. Do you think the Tribunal will support a move?”
“The Tribunal will do whatever we tell them too.” There was confidence in Alec’s voice; annoyance as well. The Tribunal gave justice to their community, made sure they treated each other fairly, and they voted on important matters for the Movement. Alec was right though. If Alec and Logan stood together on an issue - and they always did - the Tribunal did as they wanted. The humans seemed to be more likely to fight with them and Max had always said that the transgenics would eventually too. They just needed time to adjust to making their own choices and to stop taking orders. When Max left though the progress she’d made went with her though. They’d started at square one with Alec and he’d made them fight for it every step of the way. If they didn’t go along with an idea, he made them explain why. He bullied and browbeat them to make them stand up for themselves even though they didn’t know that was why he did it. They were starting to be advocates for their community again though. It wasn’t enough yet, not by a long shot. It wasn’t enough to have a Tribunal to make their choices official; they needed a legitimate form of authority and until they had the ability to make their own decisions without feeling the need to bow down to a higher authority, they were still just a group of people who were lost.
“I guess the real question then, is where do we move?”
**
It took three months to answer that question. It hadn’t happened quickly or easily. Logan had researched the larger cities to see if one of them would be better suited to the Trans-normal Movement but when Alec had made a crack about just pitching a tent and farming for themselves, Logan had taken the idea and run with it.
Alec wasn’t really sure how that joke had made it into a real idea. He wasn’t sure how his comment about wine country and drinking away the profits had amounted into a road trip either. That didn’t change the fact that days later he and Logan were standing in the middle of a kitchen in what was once the family owned house on a huge self-sustaining farm.
“We could set up a temporary base of operations in the house and start converting the largest barn into living quarters pretty quick,” Logan said as he stared out the large bay window that overlooked the gently sloping yard.
The land was fertile and the valley was in a good location; close to a river and there was a large pond on the premise in case anything happened to the public water system. There were signs of wildlife but not so much that the farm had been overrun and there were neighboring fruit tree farms that had been left on their own when the entire valley had been left unattended.
Dead bodies in the house explained what had happened to the previous occupants. When the initial Pulse had hit the country, it took more than the electrical equipment. With power out and the lights down, America had gone cannibalistic, tearing away at itself. Looters and scavengers had done plenty of damage and a lot of people fled for the supposed safety of numbers in the cities. Not everyone made it out though and not all of the deaths were murder. Some people just got sick from improperly treated water and illness had spread. Large areas of country were left to fall fallow, waiting for a chance to start again. Looked like they were going to get that chance now.
“So we have our offices here. We’ll use the existing structure of the barns to create cabin-style housing until we can get ourselves established, then turn to finding a way to make us self-sufficient in the next year or so. Piece of cake.” Alec didn’t bother to hide his disbelief at the amount of work Logan had in store for them or the sheer scope of his vision.
Logan looked at him, smiling slightly and Alec tried to ignore the way it made him feel. He loved to see the normally stressed look on Logan’s face leave if only for a moment. It was even better when Alec was the one that made it happen.
“We could set it up in three teams. After the quarters are livable, we have one group start working construction, one group working on farming and hunting, and then another working on security.”
Alec nodded, though the logistics were more Logan’s thing than his. It all made sense and Alec was more than happy to let Logan take control.
“What do you think about the valley?”
They were located in the Sierra foothills in southern California and while Alec liked the sun overhead and the lack of rain, he still couldn’t help but feel that moving would change everything they’d done. That didn’t make it the wrong move, but he still worried. Hell, worrying about what Logan was talking him into this time was practically his job description now. So much so that he sometimes had to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to get emotionally attached to other people. He’d screwed up, letting them in as far as he had.
Logan was as far under his skin as Max had been and nothing Alec did or said could change that now, but Alec kept close to Logan, hoping that he didn’t make the same mistakes again. He indulged himself with his friendship with Logan and he couldn’t afford it with anyone else. He couldn’t allow himself to lose any more pieces of himself.
“It’s defensible,” Alec answered Logan’s question. “There are some hills that have been cut through for roads that would give us a way to wall in the surrounding area and make it a more secure location. There are the houses on the other side of the farm that could be used also if they’re as abandoned as all the rest of this. The ones we saw on the edge of the fruit farms?”
Logan nodded his head and Alec knew Logan remembered the houses he was talking about. They’d talked about bringing a small contingent of people up first to get things started. It would be hard work - all manual labor - just to get the place ready for anyone else to live. The local government had been thrilled at the idea of having them there so they’d ceded the abandoned land to them which left them with just a need to feed and fend for themselves.
Using the barns to create small rooms with large main common areas had grated on Logan but then Alec pointed out that their safety was assured in close quarters like that and that they’d had far worse both in Manticore and in Terminal City.
“You know it’s a good place Logan. Hell, what are the chances that we found an already designed self-sustaining farm that just needs to be fixed up?”
That was the icing on the cake. They’d have found a way to make it work but this place wasn’t just an average farm. It was built to be a permaculture masterpiece. Everything about the design had three to four functions from the placement to the type of crops, to the use of elevation and native flora. The entire thing was centered on the farmhouse and the inner buildings and worked their way out from there. It was solar powered and featured a variety of crops and livestock that would survive well together and that would feed one another. There was a composting site and a series of greenhouses on the premise also. Alec didn’t know much about permaculture - or agriculture in general - but Syl did and she’d gone crazy over the place. The greenhouses and the solar panels needed some repair but they were minor.
Logan nodded. “Chances?”
Alec smiled because he knew how many hours Logan had looked and searched for the right place. It might have been his offhand comment that got Logan thinking about farming but Logan did the research and exhausted his resources until he had what he needed.
“Yeah. Not like you went looking and found it or anything.”
Logan snorted at that and Alec smiled. Logan rarely let himself just laugh. He had become guarded over the years, they all had, but it was nice to see him let himself out just a little bit.
“Camp out here tonight?” Logan asked Alec.
That hadn’t been the plan and Alec hadn’t packed camping gear, but the house had a working fireplace and there was plenty of wood to stave off the cooler night air. They both had a change of clothes in case they’d needed to get dirty while they were there but they had intended to go back to the city and find lodgings there for the night. As much as Alec would prefer to find a nice soft bed, he thought Logan might benefit from the break.
“You get a fire started in the main house and I’ll see what else I can find around here.”
He left before Logan could answer but he knew the other man would go along with him. Alec walked outside and grabbed their bags and took them inside before he ran back out. He found an old bucket and it didn’t take long to fill it up with produce from the farm. It would take a lot of work to get everything back into the shape it had been but they had the time and the people to do it.
Alec left the food by the door and went in search of water. He wasn’t sure if the pond was drinkable but there was a well pump close to the house and he pulled out their water testing kit. They’d brought it along to check everything and now what as good a time as any to try it. He ran the tests and they came out good. He’d expected them too since they’d been assured that the water was good but Alec took a couple vials of water and labeled them ‘well’ so that Logan could get a complete analysis done when they got back. Though the land was already theirs, it was contingent on Logan’s findings about water and soil balances.
He brought the water back in the jugs he had in the back of the car. It was safer to keep water in the car when they were travelling, just in case they hit a stretch of road that had none which was all too likely since the pulse.
Alec walked through the back door and stopped to kick his shoes off in the mud room; he wasn’t a total heathen, no matter what Logan said, thank you very much. Alec might be rough around the edges but he preferred it that way. He always had. It probably had something to do with the nice polish Manticore had always tried to force on him but Alec didn’t like to look back at that. Sure, he had some sleepless nights about what he’d done as a soldier - as an assassin - but he tried not to let it interfere with the here and now. It was the here and now that was important and Alec was damn good at pushing the rest of it away when he had to.
The mud room would be good when they had a full contingent of people working the fields and they were using the main house as a meeting area. Logan had talked about keeping their personal offices in the main house and allowing the outer buildings to hold all the personnel but those were the sort of details they needed the Tribunal to make.
He set the jugs up on the large island counter in the kitchen. It was a nice sized kitchen, more suited to a large family unit - which the house had obviously been built for - and it felt empty with just Alec there. The bucket of produce he’d left had been moved and Alec was about to call out when Logan entered on the other side.
“Decided to take a vacation or something? I thought X-5s were fast?”
“Ha ha,” Alec said as he tapped the jugs. He remembered the water vials and pulled them out of the pouch he carried. “From the well for later.”
Logan smiled and Alec knew it was because he’d remembered to do it no matter that it would just take a few minutes to go back out and get it. Logan was always awed when people did small things like that. It made Alec want to strangle whoever made him think that he had to take care of every little detail himself, but it was part of who the man was and Alec was rather fond of Logan, even if he’d never admit it aloud.
“Come on in. I figured we could just settle in the main room with the fire.”
Alec grabbed the water and followed Logan through the dining room, past the massive table, and into the next room. It was a common room where a great fireplace stood with furniture that delineated a group meeting area as well as two smaller nook areas for private conversations. One wall held a bookcase that was still full. A lot of them were about the native flora and fauna and the things needed to run the farm and Logan had been ecstatic at the find. Alec was happy to find a couple good spy novels and a mystery series.
It smelled good and Alec looked at the fire to see that Logan had not only gotten it started but had brought their food supplies out of the packs and had rigged a pot over the fire. He knew it would be a while before whatever Logan was doing was edible but it was already starting to cover the dusty scent of the room.
Their bags were by the fire and their sleeping mats were unrolled in front of it. The furniture was pushed to the side because of the dust that covered it. They’d have to clean it well before using it, maybe let it air out a few nights after to get it good and clean and make sure dust wasn’t the only scent lingering. They’d opened up all the windows that morning to try to let the place air out but Logan had gone through and closed them to keep the heat in.
“This was a good idea,” Alec said as he put the water on the floor.
“The farm?”
“Staying tonight,” Alec said with a small smile.
“What, you’re ready to leave your big city already?”
Alec scoffed at that as he sat down on his sleeping mat. “As long as you can promise me a distillery at some point, I’m willing to put the assassination attempts behind me. Don’t know about you but I’m more than happy to get the bounty off my head.”
Logan frowned and Alec knew that look. It wasn’t a bad look exactly, but it meant Logan was reading more into his words than Alec wanted him too. When had he realized that Logan had a look like that anyway?
“You know,” Logan said, picking at the corner of the blanket he had draped over the end of his bag, “I wanted to be a photographer before I became a journalist? My family hated the idea of it and I ended up being a photojournalist to appease them a little. I never wanted that, but then I felt like I couldn’t turn my back on what I was seeing and I was good at what I did. When I became a cyber-journalist it was just a step away from what I’d already been doing and then Eyes Only happened. I never wanted any of that, but there I was, neck deep in politics and espionage and a one man terrorist group. I thought when TC opened up and we were all exposed that it would get easier. Funny, huh? The idea that being exposed as part of a secret agenda would make my life easier?”
Logan sounded tired and Alec felt every bit of it with him. Alec had never chosen any of it. He hadn’t asked to be freed from Manticore. He hadn’t asked to be part of a revolution. He hadn’t asked to be part of a new alliance of humans and transhumans, trying to forge a future that didn’t have to mean one or the other. He was though and there were days when it wore on him so much he didn’t want to get out of bed. Those were the days he planted his feet, dug in, and remembered that he wasn’t the only one in that position.
“As much as I understood the hate, I never realized the anti-trans would go to these lengths to get rid of us,” Logan said, shaking his head as he looked down at his hands. He looked up then. “This community could give us all the time and distance to be happy again. If we can get people to give it a chance.”
Alec took one of the water jugs and filled Logan’s canteen with it before handing it off and filling his own. He tipped it towards Logan and smiled when they let out a dull clunk. “We’re giving it a chance. If you and I can leave all that behind us, who are they to say it can’t work?”
Logan’s smile grew brighter then and it was moments like this one that Alec lived for. Since OC’s death, Alec had been trying to make up for the pain he’d caused. He didn’t think he could. No matter what he did or said he could never be the source of earthy advice that OC had been. Nor could he take Max’s place as Logan’s confidante or friend, but if he’d been quicker, if he’d taken the threat more seriously, maybe OC wouldn’t have died and Max wouldn’t have closed in on herself to the point that she left TC and disappeared into the night without a word.
“You’ve got a good point, Alec. If you and I can see eye to eye on this after everything that’s been stacked against us, we can make everyone else see the benefits too.”
On to Part Two