10:00 am

Max didn’t go home last night or show up for work this morning. I made the usual round of calls to Cindy and Jam Pony, but all I succeeded in doing was irritating Max’s boss and worrying her best friend. I tried to calm Cindy’s fears, but I doubt I was able to hide the concern in my own voice. This time, we all have reason to worry.

Max is out there trying to stop a serial killer and, once again, I have no idea where she is. Bling tried to reassure me that she can take care of herself, but I’ve seen the way she responds to her family. This is the one circumstance where I doubt that she can take care of herself. Her brother, Ben, is out there killing people, and if she gets in his way, I know that her life is at risk. Even though it is what she wants, she isn’t going to be able to handle this on her own. She will hesitate to act because he is her brother, but he will not hesitate. His limits have already been breached. He won’t have any qualms about killing Max or anyone else if he is threatened.

Max insisted that I back off, but how can I? I can’t let Max face Ben alone. Neither can I let him go on killing. There is no way this guy is going to stop on his own. I have to do something and I have to do it fast. Despite the risks, my best option is to contact Lydecker. He has been involved with this since the first body turned up in Chicago and will know more than anyone what is going on. The one thing I don’t understand is why he has been shutting down the investigations. Ben presents an enormous risk of exposure to the whole Manticore project. Lydecker should be extremely motivated to get him off the streets as soon as possible. I’ve already asked Sebastian to track him down. Maybe some pressure from Eyes Only will motivate him to put an end to this.

10:00 pm

I have to hand it to Lydecker. He can turn almost any situation to his advantage. I talked to him tonight and he acted as if our meeting was his opportunity to do a little speculating about my ‘relationship’ with Max. I know that he doesn’t have a factual base for his assumptions, that most of what he said was conjecture on his part. But still, he came much closer to the truth than I would ever have expected or would have wanted to acknowledge. And he didn’t stop there. He took the things I appreciate the most about Max, her kindness, her compassion, even her undeniable beauty, and managed to twist them into an unsettling picture.

"You think this is all some kind of a joke? That these kids are like puppies that you can bring home and housebreak?" Lydecker said, suggesting that I was a fool to think that Max could change. I’m not sure how he realized this, but he tapped into exactly how I felt about Max when I first met her. I thought I could show her that there was more to life than just self-preservation, that there was a much bigger world out there. I was sure that with some encouragement, she would discover many wonderful qualities in herself that she didn’t realize she possessed. And I thought that I had succeeded. She has grown in awareness and understanding every day. I have seen enormous amounts of compassion in her. Yet, Lydecker seems to think that with the right trigger, all of the things that Max has worked so hard for will just disappear, and she will revert back to her design and training. He believes that she can never be anything more than the killer she was designed to be.

"You think that because she is so pretty, she’s not dangerous," he continued, as if Max’s beauty is a lie. I understand that Manticore would design its soldiers to be physically attractive. It would be especially effective for the women working undercover operations. But I’ve always felt that Max’s beauty was more than just a result of gene sequencing, that it was something that came from deep within her. Now he is trying to tell me that it is just a mask, that she is hiding her true nature.

The disconcerting thing, though, is that Lydecker actually seems to believe what he said, that the X5s were designed to kill coldly, efficiently and happily, as he put it. I have no doubt that the X5s can kill efficiently. Zack had no qualms killing Vogelsang when he posed a threat. But even Zack, with his intense anger and obsessive over-protectiveness of the X5s, has never shown an indiscriminate love of killing. What Ben is doing is completely different. It is irrational and insane. Lydecker seems to think that all the X5s are capable of becoming like Ben. How could it be true? Max has never exhibited the type of behavior he is suggesting. On the contrary, she has always shied away from it. She is afraid of guns, for goodness sake! I don’t care what her brother, Ben, may have done. Max is not a person that would kill ‘happily’.

I know Lydecker was hoping to cast some seeds of doubt. I’m not even sure what he expected me to believe. I have no reason to trust him. Still, he insisted that I have no idea of what Max is capable of. Well, he won’t change my perception of her so easily. Does he think I will just give up on the Max that I know? Was he hoping that he could maneuver me into providing some information on her? Does he think that I will allow Ben to go on killing just because I care about Max? Does he think I won’t expose him if he doesn’t do something to stop Ben? If he does, he has no idea what I am capable of.