Read After the Dark for Free Online

beauty, with lively brown eyes and a wide grin that challenged the cold.
    Not one to ever be considered “ordinary” on any level, though, Original Cindy's powers were somewhat more discreet than those of Max, her best friend and sistah, her “Boo”; but Cindy's attitude was in no way discreet. Original Cindy came on like a four-hundred-pound tiger on its fifth espresso, and she didn't give a diddly damn whether anyone liked that approach or not.
    Which, Max knew, was probably why O.C. and her had hit it off from the beginning, each recognizing the rebel in the other and relishing it.
    On Original Cindy's right stood Alec, his dark blond hair grown out some; normally he combed those locks back, though now the wind tossed them back and forth. He had sharp dark eyes and his face bore its usual wiseass smirk; he could be a self-centered jerk, Max knew, but he had his good side.
    An X5, like Max, Alec had never met a hurdle too low to try to find a skirting shortcut; he would happily spend an hour looking for a way around a problem that he could've solved with hard work in half that time. Lately, though, Max had noticed that Alec—to his credit—had finally started to realize that what he'd once considered a gift might really be a flaw.
    Next to Alec stood Joshua, the towering dog boy, the first of the Manticore experiments and now every bit a man, at least physically. His cruelly sheltered upbringing—literally in the basement of Manticore—had crippled his development, and on first meeting, you could take him for mentally challenged. Truth was, he was keenly intelligent, and had the best heart of them all. His long mane of brown hair thrashed furiously in the wind, but he seemed not to notice, his leonine face wearing a beatific smile that beamed like a lighthouse as he saw Max.
    Beyond Joshua was Sketchy, the surfer bum/messenger turned tabloid journalist, another of Max's “ordinary” friends from Jam Pony. Of course, Sketchy wasn't ordinary in any sense other than that he wasn't a transgenic—tall and lanky, with stringy brown hair highlighted blond, Sketch seemed to be all knees, elbows, and bobbing head, a marionette operated by a clumsy puppeteer. The guy could be a beat behind, and often seemed to just be getting the joke the rest of the group had already finished laughing at.
    To Original Cindy's left stood the two bald, albino engineers turned welding sculptors—Dix and Luke—and beyond them, the lizard man inexplicably dubbed Mole. Even in the heavy wind, Mole still chomped on an ever-present cigar.
    “What's the dealio?” Max asked, practically yelling to be heard over the near gale.
    The semicircle parted to reveal a large Christmas tree lashed to the corner of the roof with steel cables; the spruce—both tall and full—was strung with unlit lights and tinsel roping. Even with its heavy-duty moorings, it seemed the tree might fly off the building at any moment.
    Max looked from the tree to Original Cindy, who still had her hands behind her back.
    Eyes wide, Max shouted, “This had to be today?”
    Original Cindy's grin faded and the rest of the group all developed a quick interest in studying their shoes.
    Immediately realizing her insensitivity, Max plastered on a grin and said, “Don't get me wrong, guys—the tree rocks!”
    Eyes rose to her, bright; smiles blossomed, glowing.
    “It's just . . . it's so windy! It looks like any second it'll give Santa's sleigh a run for the money . . .”
    Shrugging, Original Cindy said, “Weather report called for conditions to get better, later tonight, so we took a chance. Tree was gonna die if I let Normal take care of it one more day.”
    Reagan Ronald, aka Normal, was the manager of the Jam Pony messenger service where Max and Original Cindy had both gotten jobs when they first hit Seattle. O.C. still worked there, as did Sketchy—his journalist gig wasn't yet full-time—though Max herself hadn't been back since the hostage crisis that led to the siege