Borrowed Time

Synopsis
When Max and Logan finally find a cure for their genetically engineered virus, it turns out to be only temporary. Their time together is limited and to make matters worse they have to stop a strange Manticore creation that is on the loose in Seattle and preying on people.

Full Summary
Max, Original Cindy, Sketchy, Alec, and Logan are all hanging out at Crash. For the most part, they're all watching Alec beat people at pool. As he polishes off another victory, he begins scouting for another opponent. No one is interested until he comes to Logan; Logan agrees, as long as he can break. Logan executes a good break and proceeds to sink several shots as Alec looks on, impressed. As Logan takes aim for another shot, Alec distracts him by asking if he would like a beer, and Logan misses. Alec takes over and sinks several balls of his own. As Alec sets up to take a difficult shot, Logan asks, “Sure you don’t wanna bank it?” Alec replies, “I’m sure,” then misses the shot. Logan takes control of the table again, putting more balls into the pockets. His last shot before the eight-ball shot is a difficult one—he'll have to “jump” the cue ball over one of Alec's balls to hit his into a side pocket. As he takes aim, Sketchy and Alec come alongside him and speculate whether he'll make it. “Guys?” Logan mutters. “Beat it!” They move back, and Logan makes the shot. Max grins and remarks to OC, “You gotta admit, that was pretty cool!” OC replies, “Silly boys playing with their sticks and balls… I may vomit!”

Logan has one shot left—the eight-ball. Alec ups the wager by betting $50 that Logan will miss this last shot. Logan takes aim, banks the shot on the side, and in it goes! Max saunters over to Logan to congratulate him and hands him a mug of beer. As she does, their fingers touch. Max panics and orders Logan to go wash his hands. Alec wonders why she's freaking out, and OC reminds him of the virus and the fact that they can't touch. Logan returns and reassures Max that he's all right. She's clearly upset as she remarks, “I could have killed you over a stupid game of pool!” Logan tries to lighten the situation by saying, “I thought it was a very satisfying game of pool; wanna get a drink?” Max is too distraught to lighten up, so she opts to take off and go home.

At a junkyard across town, a guy is talking to his plastic dog and crunching cans to turn in for money. He hears a noise, tells the dog to stay, then gets hit in the face with some slime and is dragged away.

At Joshua's, Max is trying to read the formulas on the papers from the Manticore doctor that are stuck in one of Joshua's paintings. She has a breakthrough on one of the formulas and thanks Joshua for painting on the papers; otherwise, she might never have figured it out. She leaves to visit another technician. The technician looks at the formula and determines that it isn't so much wrong as it is not right. He inquires as to the origin of the virus. Max blurts out the truth, but he doesn't believe her. Since he doesn't seem to be able to help her, Max asks for the papers back. The technician corrects himself saying the numbers were off, but the idea of luring the virus into a dead end protein coat is right. He likens it to a Pied Piper/Chuck Heston combination- “Take that, you damned, dirty virus!” All he needs is a blood sample and $20,000.

At Jam Pony, OC tells Max that $20,000 is a small price to pay for the man of her dreams. Max decides to enlist the help of Alec in stealing something she can sell to get the money. She tells him they're going after a single surviving copy of Star Wars: Episode VII because the public deserves to see it. Alec snidely remarks, “Is that the one where Captain Kirk dies?” Max shrugs, “I guess…” Alec looks appallingly at Max and gives her a hard time about stealing, but then agrees once she tells him what his take will be.

An unknown man is gargling in the kitchen where his wife and children argue about dinner. He complains, “Somebody, kill me!” Suddenly, the window behind him breaks, and the man is hit with slime and taken away.

Max goes over the mission with Alec, insisting that they'll be in and out in five minutes. Hours later, they're still hiding in the closet waiting for the guards to change shifts. They talk about what they're going to do with the money, and Alec finds out he's wasting time to facilitate Max having sex. He feels like a pimp! Alec then realizes Max and Logan have never had sex and says they're lame. Max defends their relationship saying it was never the right time. The guards change shifts and they leave to complete their mission.

Later, the technician injects Max with an immunoglobulin that will neutralize the virus in her blood. He observes the results under a microscope and says it's working; however, something changes and he realizes the virus is mutating to eat through the protein coat. Unfortunately, Max and Logan will have no more than 12 safe hours of contact. Max sets her pager to countdown the time and arrives at Logan's with 10 hours and 50 minutes on the clock.

Max asks Logan, “Hypothetically, what if there was a temporary cure?” Logan asks how long they would have. Max looks at her pager and responds, “Ten hours, fifty minutes.” Logan's eyes widen as he stares at Max and asks, “You’re serious? So we can touch, and nothing will happen?” Max smiles and says, “I don’t know about nothing, but you won’t die.” Max says they should think about it because when it's over, that's it—no repeats; ten hours is not very long. Logan gives her an intense look and says it will have to be long enough. Max grins and says, “I was hoping you’d say that.” They both stand and move towards each other. Logan holds out his hand, and Max puts her hand in his. They laugh softly, and Logan moves in to kiss her. Max stops him by going all girly, saying she doesn't want to blow this on a quickie; it should be perfect. Logan asks, “How about a perfect quickie?” Max hands him a bottle of wine to open. They sit down to drink their wine, and Max tells him what she had to do to get here. How she was trapped in a closet for hours with Alec, but now she knows it was worth it. Logan agrees that it feels like old times, but Max says it's better.

At Crash, Alec spots Asha and buys her a drink, but she's not interested. She gets ready to leave, but Alec spills the news about Max and Logan. She accepts the drink, and they toast Max and Logan's relationship and talk about what they might be doing right now. Asha thinks Logan would be romantic. Alec turns the tables on Asha and implies that she and Logan had something going on while Max was at Manticore. Asha insists that Logan was lost without Max, and she respected their relationship because it's true love. Alec laughs in disbelief that they've even said “I love you” to each other. He thinks Max would choke on the words, and Logan would send it in an e-mail. He, on the other hand, believes in going after what he wants because they're all living on borrowed time. Intently, he looks at Asha and says he wants her and invites her home with him.

Joshua is at his house painting until he notices the warning label on his paint says it should be used in well-ventilated areas. He runs outside to get some air and catches a scent that he follows to a manhole. Removing the cover, he goes below the street where he sniffs some slime hanging from the pipes and states, “Gossamer!” He follows the scent through the sewers and out an exit where he arrives in time to see another man attacked by the slime-throwing creature.

At Logan's, Max and Logan are slow-dancing, enjoying being able to hold each other. Logan says there's something he wants to tell Max, and she says she has something to tell him, too, but wants him to go first. Before Logan can say anything, Joshua breaks in. Upon seeing them, he averts his gaze and yells, “Stop getting busy, please!” He informs Max that the Gossamer is loose and is hurting people, so Max and Joshua need to go stop it. Frustrated, Max insists that this can wait a few more hours, but Logan reasons that if people are getting hurt, she needs to help them. Resignedly, Max comments, “Can my life suck any harder?” They realize they're going to have to track this thing down first. Logan plots out a search area that's much wider than Max would like, so she decides to enlist Alec's help. Before she leaves, Logan kisses her passionately, and Max remarks that it feels like they're kissing goodbye.

At Alec's, Max bursts in and finds Asha asleep on the couch. Alec comes out of the bedroom in a towel, and Max orders him to get dressed—she needs his help. He tells Max that the Gossamer was created to sniff out targets using certain scents. Some were created to kill, others weren't. Logan calls Alec's cell phone to tell them of another attack. The connection between the two victims is that they both recently visited the same dentist. Logan leaves to check the lead on the dentist and warns Joshua to stay put and to help himself to food in the fridge.

At the dentist's office, Logan is poking around and talking to himself. “Eight hours to be with the girl of my dreams, and I’m at the dentist.” He finds a folder with some information, and tries to call Alec's phone to tell them what the Gossamer is after, but is attacked by the Gossamer's slime.

In the sewer, Alec wonders why Max keeps checking the time, and she wonders what Asha was doing at his place. They discover slime on the pipes and know they're close. Coming back up to street level, they enter the junkyard and split up to search for the Gossamer. Alec gets hit with some slime. Max tries to call Logan back, but realizes she can hear his cell phone ringing nearby. She discovers him trapped in a car, unconscious. As she turns around, she gets slimed.

Max, Logan, and Alec are all trapped in a car by the Gossamer's slime. They realize the other victims are trapped nearby, too. Logan tells Max that the dentist was using Keveral in fillings, and the Gossamer sniffed it out. They realize their situation looks pretty bleak, but Max is confident Joshua will help them. Max and Alec argue about their situation and cast blame. Max cynically comments that this is her life; she should have known that one night was too much to ask. Logan asks how much time they still have, and Max replies, “Not enough.” Logan responds, “It wouldn’t have been enough anyway.” Alec finally catches on and asks if this virus thing is still hanging around. Logan tells him to shut up.

At Logan's, Joshua wakes up, covered with food. He calls out to Max and Logan, then leaves when he finds them still gone. He arrives at the dentist's office where Logan was and sees the slime everywhere. He continues to track the Gossamer through the sewer until he arrives at the junkyard. He's able to free Max before he is slimed himself. Max fights the Gossamer and manages to dodge his slime. She lures him away with the Keveral and locks it in a car that she suspends high in the air using a power magnet. Each of the victims is finally set free, and they all leave except for Max and Logan.

The junkyard guy is playing with the Gossamer and tells Alec he wants to keep it. Alec tells him it's a Tazmanian ant-eating aardvark, escaped from the zoo. But as long as the guy keeps it locked up at night, he can have it.

Still in the junkyard, Max joins Logan in the backseat of a car. According to her pager, they have two minutes left. Logan remembers the night they took down Manticore when he thought he'd lost her. When he returned home, he just sat on his couch for days; he couldn't move because it hurt too much. That's how he feels now. Max wonders if maybe they shouldn't have taken this chance. Logan counters that they had to, but they can't keep going through this. If only he could go back to the year they wasted, being too afraid to admit their feelings for one another, he would have done things so differently. The silence is cut by the beeping of a pager. Logan leans in and kisses Max passionately, then gets out of the car. He turns back to her and says, “I love you, Max,” then walks away. Max replies, “I love you, too,” as a tear rolls down her cheek.

Cast
Guest Cast
 * Dee Jay Jackson as Gordie
 * Scott Bellis as Delbert
 * Tony Alcantar as Irving
 * Fiona Hogan as Muriel
 * Sarah Cole-Burnett as Emma
 * Ryan Drescher as Tim
 * Peter Williams as Hal

Trivia

 * When the junkyard owner is using a press to flatten cans, you see him flattening a silver can. When he hears something and moves his hands away from the press, the shot then changes to the dog and when it switches back and you see him reaching for the gun, the can is now red.

Quotes

 * Alec (to Max and Logan): Whoa, whoa, whoa, call me slow on the uptake, but am I getting the distinct impression that this virus thing is still hanging around?
 * Logan Cale: Shut up.


 * Alec: Max, are you asking me to steal something with you?
 * Max: It's a two-man job.
 * Alec: I'm shocked. I...I...I don't do that kind of stuff anymore, Max. I mean, you yourself showed me the error of my ways.
 * Max: Did I mention your take was twenty grand?
 * Alec: What time do I pick you up?


 * Alec: Hey, wanna know what I'm doing with my share of the money?
 * Max: No.
 * Alec: Fine. Rude, but fine. What are you gonna do with yours?
 * Max: Donate it to charity.
 * Alec: Yeah right, I'm thinking, what, new motorcycle? New apartment? New boyfriend? New DNA markers for current boyfriend?


 * Original Cindy: Where are you gonna get the money?
 * Max (sighs): I'm gonna sell my soul...
 * Original Cindy (nods towards Alec): There's the devil.

Allusions

 * Gossamer is an animated cartoon character that was created in 1946 by Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. The Warner Brothers' Gossamer is a large red hairy monster that wears giant white tennis shoes.

Max: Hey, people have the right to see this stuff. It shouldn't be locked up in a vault.

Alec: Oh, of course, yeah. That Murdoch's one evil fiend. Fox.
 * They are referring to stealing a copy of the only footage of Star Wars, Episode 7, from a vault at "the Fox building". Not only was this a Fox series, and Star Wars a Fox property, but, of course, Rupert Murdoch is the head of

Lab Technician: ...it has a kind of Pied Piper-ness to it with a little Chuck Heston thrown in there: 'Take that you damn, dirty virus!' "The Omega Man" was about a world devastated by a man-made virus that left him as one of the few remaining humans, all others being horribly mutated. His tagline in it was something to the effect of "Take THAT you damned dirty mutant!!" with his characteristic, biblical, just-short-of over-the-top delivery style. Note the similarity between this one and the "dirty ape" comment.
 * Charlton Heston's long career enjoyed a semi-renaissance in the 60s and 70s as a post-apocalyptic b-grade action hero in such films as "Planet of the Apes", "The Omega Man", and "Soylent Green". Each of these films wound up with some Hestonish tagline(s) associated with it, -- "Damn you! Damn you all to hell!" or "Get your hands off me you damned dirty ape!", and "Soylent Green is peeeeeople!!!".

Max: I need your help to steal Star Wars: Episode 7.

Alec: Is that the one where Capt Kirk dies?
 * "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" are two very popular Sci-Fi series from movies and television. There are 6 Star Wars movies, and there are 10 Star Trek movies as well as 6 TV series.