Maxwell Huxley's Demon (32 page)

Max walks.
Three more steps. Two. One.

Tock.

Max recalls the fogBots . He appears beside Lara. Three BB
’s and two shockwaves are released toward him. Max puts his arm around Lara and says, “Shield.”

Mr. Newto n scrambles up the steps toward the Lincoln Memorial.
Looking back, he sees the wave front engulf the outline of Max and Lara, bullets and shockwaves lost in the water as it closes in front of them.

Then t he wave crashes over Mr. Newton.

With w ater rushing around them, Max holds Lara within a dome of shieldBots .
The wave passes them , flood s up and around the Lincoln Memorial. Its energy dissipated , it floods the nearby lawns and begins running back into the pool. Lara helps Max out of the pool. She hugs him .

From a round Lara ’s waist , Max watches Keith walk toward them. Max pushes away from Lara, saying, “Shield . . . don’t move Lara.” Max steps away from Lara leaving her protected by bots.

“Max, you have a thing for being a show off. D
id you know that?” Keith rub s his arm and winces. B
lood runs from his scalp.
“That wave was fantastic, ineffective, but still fantastic. I have to give you this, you’re creative. W
ho else would come up with something like that?”

“I’m trying to not hurt people,” Max replies. “But I need them out of my way. You need them out of my way. You don’t know what they did—”

“
I don’t know?!
I was there every day as they did it to me. Watching them give you more and more. I got nothing to help me. They gave you everyt hing—Bolas!” Bolas spins toward Max.

“Infection.”
The Bolas dissolve into nothing.
“Everything they did to you they did to me. You’re fighting the wrong person.
BB
.” Max fires a dozen BB
’s at Keith. Three strike his chest, and he staggers backward.

In obvious pain, Keith says, “You don’t know what I know . Vulcan!”

Max’s cane starts to heat up. “Cullen.” The cane cools. “Keith, you’re nine, you have eleven years left.”

Keith raises both hands .
“SHOCKWAVE!” The concrete crack s as the shockwave streak s toward Max.

“Shield.” The shockwave splits and passes around Max. “Why are we doing this? You can’t win. Neither can I.”

Keith screams , “Whip , ”
over and over.

Max has no defense; his shield doesn’
t recognize the new markers in these bots. They pass through his shield and lash agains t his face, chest, and legs . He tastes blood and feels a whip wrap around his ankle . Keith yanks on the whip.

Max slams to the ground , dropping his cane , saying, “Cullen,” as he goes down.

Keith runs at Max.
Ice forms on the wet concrete .
Keith slide s and trips over Max , falling into the reflecting pool.

Max rolls over. “Cullen.” The water crackles with a coating of ice. Keith starts to rise. The ice thickens. Keith screams and pulls harder, ice travelling up his arms.

Keith’s arms and legs are trapp ed by the ice . “
Vulcan !”
Keith releases b ots under water; they heat the water near the bottom of the pool having little effect on the ice.

“I ’m sorry , Keith . . . Cullen.”
The ice thickens around Keith’s arms and legs.

Max recalls the bots around Lara. She runs to him a nd helps him stand straighter as t hey walk away.

“Max,” Keith says , sounding frantic. “MAX. I was there you know . . . I was there the night Walker died . . . you weren’t the only one with fogBots . . . your own bots let me get up on the roof . . . you made th e tool that let me make him fall . . . Max . . . MAX . . .
I’ll hurt you Max . . . I’ll hurt you again.”

They walk away , leaving Keith stuck in his misery.

‘Cura,’ Max says as he pulls out a tablet . “
Five people are unconscious in the area . . .
four people moving near us . . . two are converging on us . . . Catherine, will we make it to our car?”

“Yes but they will see you. I see Hastings; the other person has not been close enough to a camera to identify.
But, I assume it is Pirelli. There is also a helicopter in the area that may be on route here.”

They cross a sopping wet lawn. “I can see our car.” Lara drags Max toward it . T
he soft wet lawn grips his cane and slows them.

Max looks at his tablet . “Someone is closing in on our left.” They reach the car .
Max looks left. Hasting is bounding at them in a full run. “Lara, we should get in the car now.” She fumbles with the keys. Looking across the parking lot in the opposite direction , Max sees Pirelli round the end of a parked van. “Lara?”

She drops the keys, picks them up , and presses the wrong button. The car starts honking, lights flashing.

“Seriously.” Max smiles at her. “Alohomora.” The doors click open. Lara scoops up the keys , and they get in the car. T
he y squeal out of the parking space, scraping the car on their left. Max sticks his tongue out at Hastings as they drive past him.

“Wrong way.
Lara, turn around.”

“What?
” say s Lara. “T
he exit is this way.”

“You’re not taking the exit. T
urn around and drive onto the walking trails on your right.
”

In the side view mirror , Max sees Hasting s and Pirelli jump into identical cars .
They pull smoothly out of their parking spots and quickly gain on Max and Lara.
Like in Kitimat , the cars remind Max of sharks. This time there are two of them , and this time they ’re trying to flank Max and Lara .

“Lara, go faster.
Get us on the path!
”

The car lurches forward, picking up speed, beginning to go faster than the poor little rental has any business going.
Lara cranks the wheel , and they smash over the curb and onto the path. Max falls forward out of his seat.

“
Max , ” says Lara.
“P
ut your seatbelt on!”
S
he pulls him back up on the seat .

“My what?
” Max looks around and figures it out while the car speeds down the n arrow path. Max tries to understand how Lara can avoid the trees. Light illuminates Lara from behind. Max turns and sees headlights behind them.

“Go straight across this next path and then keep right. Driving faster is recommended.”

They speed up . B
ouncing around on the front seat, Max holds onto anything he c an find. The path straightens but gets rougher. The car makes horrible noises. Max wonders if the wheels are still attached.
Small building s fly past in the dark.

Th e car following them catches up. I ts lights on high beam put Lara and Max under a bright glare. The path turns from gravel to concrete. Max feels the car slide sideways.

Tick.

Max p ulls into himself.
Sounds recede from him. The car feels suddenly quiet.
There is nothi ng I can do now.

Looking over at Lara, he watches her, arms moving rapidly as she steers, feet stomping from one pedal to the other.
What would I want?

Tock.

Max reaches over and holds onto Lara’s shoulder.
Together.
The car following them smashes in the back of their car.

Time goes back to normal , and the sounds of the car flood back over Max.

“. . .
at the roundabout coming up .”

The car lurches to the right; Max sees concrete bench es fly past on the left .
The force of the turn throws Max against the passenger door; he feels his lip split as he hits the glass.

Max hears metal crunch from behind them and looks back to see the car following them partly airborne and missing a front wheel . Then it’
s lost in dust, debris, and darkness after it hits a parked car.

“Go right, stay on the path.”

Lara turn s the wheel but nothing happens . T
he car leaves the path. It’s quiet for what seems a long time , and then the front wheels touch down on the lawn. Lara says something in Portuguese . T
he car spins.
Max wonders why he didn’t understand what she just said.
Were there some Portuguese words they didn’t teach him in school?
Max sees a car flash past them.

The spin stops.
The car moves forward again .

“Angle right . . . more . . .
OK
straight that way.”

The Washington Monument appears out of the darkness. “We’re going there.” Max points at the monument.

“Get around the far side of the monument.”

Lara aims for the monument, thinking neither of them understand anything about cars or driving. The grass ends and the front wheels hit concrete, bursting both front tires . Lara pushes her foot down hard on the gas. The monument looms closer.

Max hears the other car smash up onto the concrete surrounding the monument.
He sees a wall and then everything explodes. The windshield crumbles and his tablet flies through it smashing against the base of the monument.

Lara pulls Max across the seat and out the driver’s door.

The car chasing them skids too far and slides down a set of stairs to their right.

“This way.” He takes Lara’s hand and leads her to the entrance. Behind them, a Cadillac crashes up a ramp and toward them. They reach the door under the glare of headlights.

“Alohomora.” The lock blows.
Max and Lara disappear inside as the Cadillac smashes into the door behind them.
Broken bits of the monument , wall , and door crash into their backs and spread across the floor.

“Up . . . which way Catherine?”

“Left -
stairs -
don’t take the elevator.”

“Grab that sign,” Max says, pointing. Lara picks up a sandwich board that advertises the twenty -
minute elevator ride experie nce. Max blows another lock, then opens an employee’s -only door. On the other side , he takes the s andwich board from Lara and pushes it underneath the bottom edge of the door; it works like a wedge .

They turn and walk up the stairs , hear ing Hastings curse on the other side of the door. On the first platform Max looks up.
That is a lot of stairs.
They keep going.

“Max, why did you trap us in here?”

“They would have caught us in the car soon enough. They would have called in aerial support and other police to trap us. Trust me, this is better.”

“Yup, there’s never a bad time for a stair master workout.”

They hear shots fired below them. Hastings must be shooting at the door now.

They climb for a few minutes and then hear Pirelli’s voice. “
Max , are you really going to make m e walk all the way to the top of this tower?!
”

“Oh shut up and get moving . . .
like they’re going to stop.” They hear the echoes of Hastings voice.

“
Max , ” Pirelli calls again.

Max answers by stopping at the top of a staircase. He plants his can e down one. A shockwave ripples down the stairs . Again . A crack forms on the concrete step. Again . T
he crack widens exposing old brick. One more shockwave and the stair case falls. Raining concrete and brick down the stairs below.

Lara pulls at Max. “
OK
, OK
, let’s keep going.”

Halfway up the tower, Max covers an entire set of stairs with graphiteBots and then leaves vulcanBots to keep the metal railing in that section red hot.

Lara and Max reach the top. Max sits down on the top step. From below they hear cursing and then, “Where did I go wrong in my life . . .”

“Your life?
I’ve been living in frozen Canadian mountain s for ten years.”

Max fires a dozen BB
’s down the middle of the stair case. The y ricochet off the railing s and stairs. In return , real bullets are fired up at them. “You can’t shoot them, ” Max hears Pirelli say.

“Oh, yes I can.”
Hastings voice e choes up the stairs.

“Max, why are we waiting?” Lara asks.
“What do we do now?”

“I need to make sure they come all the way up here . We need them at the top , and I wanted to judge how far down they are. I think it’s time now.”

Max walk s across the tower to a small window. He plugs his coat in an outlet and then fires shockwave after shockwave into the wall. Eventually the wall cracks and bricks are thrown out.
Soon enough a large chuck of wall falls out of the tower taking the whole window with it and leaving an opening the size of a large door in the wall . Max looks down out of the hole he has created , wind wiping at this face , h e sees remnants of the wall covering part of a squashed car . “Are you ready, Catherine ?
”