Free Dark Angel: Skin Game by Max Allan Collins Page A

the door.
    Original Cindy put her arms around Max. "You watch behind you, Boo, 'cause I ain't got your back."
    "You too."
    Original Cindy's smirk dug a dimple. "You think Normal's holding a job for a bitchin'
    Nubian princess who just happens to be playin' for the home team?"
    Max grinned. "In a lot of ways I think you scare him more than I do.... Oh yeah, he'll have a job for you."
    The hug went on a few seconds longer, neither of them wanting to let go. Then Sketchy ducked back in and said, "Group hug! Can I join in?"
    "In your skinny-ass dreams, maybe!" Original Cindy said.
    He disappeared back through the door, Original Cindy

    sprinting behind him, yelling something about kicking his ass until his ears bled.
    With her friends this close to safety, Max couldn't help but smile.
    Logan hung back and said, "So .. . I'll see you soon."
    "Yeah. Take care out there."
    "I will," he said, his eyes boring into hers, their feelings burning back and forth, riding the connection. "And you too."
    She gave him a little nod. "I will. You better get going before Cindy kills Sketchy's skinny ass. Of course, if she does, we won't need my diversion."
    Still refusing to take his eyes from hers, he said, "Seeya."
    "Yeah, seeya."
    This is where they would have kissed—if hers wasn't a literal kiss of death.
    Then Logan Cale edged through the door, paused for one last look at her, and shut the door. Joshua stepped forward, gave her a quick hug.
    "Gonna be okay, Little Fella," he said.
    "Yeah, I know."
    He said, "We better go."
    She took a last glance at the door and said, "Yeah, we better."
    As they walked back down the tunnel, Joshua's face turned somber again, just as it had that morning.
    "You still worried about our brothers and sisters outside?" Max asked.
    "They don't have family out there. Even Freak Nation has freak family. But out there,"
    he said, and pointed vaguely toward the ceiling, "out there, they're alone. Might get scared by things they don't understand."
    "What?" Max asked.
    "Like Isaac. Afraid."
    Isaac had been Joshua's test-tube twin brother, a gentle soul. But abuse from the guards at Manticore had snapped

    the young transgenic's mind, and when Max had set them all free, she'd turned loose a serial killer who preyed on men in uniform.
    But she couldn't figure how Isaac tied in with whatever was bothering Joshua.
    "What are you talking about?" she asked him.
    "What Mole said this morning."
    That only served to confuse Max more. "What did Mole say this morning?"
    "When we saw the news story about the murdered policeman."
    "Yeah?"
    "Mole said, 'And they're worried about us?' "
    "Go on."
    "What if the one who killed the cop is one of us?"
    "Joshua, don't pay any attention to what they said on TV—they're going to blame us for every bad thing that happens in the city, for a while."
    He turned those soulful, sorrowful eyes on her. "What if—we deserve the blame?"
    "Why would you even think that?"
    The dog man gazed toward the city. "Our brothers, our sisters ... they could be out there now, alone. Scared, like Isaac."
    All of a sudden, Max saw where he was going. "You think a transgenic really may have killed that cop?"
    Joshua shrugged. "People are afraid of what they don't understand. We are people too.... Could be."
    "But it could just as easily be one of them too."
    He shrugged again. "Could be."
    "You ... you think it's one of the basement people?"
    She was referring to the animal DNA experiments— like Joshua himself—who'd literally been caged up in Manticore's basement.
    "A lot down there had it bad, Max ... real bad. Isaac, Dill, Oshi, Kelpy, Gabriel. Many bad things done to our brothers. Guards were afraid of what they didn't understand and they did bad things."
    Joshua didn't have a theory—he had nothing to go on but his experience, and in his life, if someone was killing men in uniform, it was a transgenic. Like Issac. Max tried to rid herself of the thought...
    ... but it didn't go away easily.
    Hustling back