They half dragged him down a cement hallway devoid of all light except for one at the end of the tunnel. A simple lightbulb dangled above a steel door. It was an ironic perfect cadence of their marching with his black shoes scraping the floor until they stopped at the door and one of them buzzed in.
Chad growled, hair askew and itching for a communicator to Moonbase that wasn't there, was suddenly tossed into another large hallway. This time the walls were lined with some strange geometric foaming which reminded him of a sound studio.
A man stepped into his line of sight from his place on the floor wearing a three-piece tuxedo with twin trails of fabric following his jacket in the back. It was obvious from the get-up what kind of adult villain he was supposed to be.
"Maestro," Chad glared. "Looks like Father wasted no time trying to hire you, did he?"
"He pays really well," Maestro admitted, his Italian accent thick and amused, "and he supplied my poor artistic soul with a beautiful academy devoted to the musical arts!" He spun around at the gloomy walls. "Isn't it lovely?!"
Chad pretended to examine the surrounding place before the barrel of a security guard's weapon pressed hard against the back of his head. "Looks like you got the short end of the stick, Maestro. Looks like a prison."
With a shrug, Maestro snapped to the side and maneuvered with a grace across the room. "Toh-MAE-to, ta-MAH-to."
There were two covered objects near the end of the room, one larger than the other. With a flourish, Maestro whipped away the white fabric from the smaller object, revealing a grossly modified violin.
Chad's lip curled. "You wish."
"You don't really have a choice," Maestro said softly and walked forward with the grace of a Bond villain. "I was a wee little thing, about your age, maybe younger. My mother came from a long line of sousaphone players. So, obviously, I too should become a sousaphone player. My mother handed me an antique sousaphone and said, 'Go my boy and become a sousaphone player I would be proud of!', but no matter how many nights I practiced, I never got better. Do you know why?"
The preteen shrugged. "You just naturally sucked?"
"No! No!" The adult huffed and wagged a finger in his face. He pulled away before Chad bit it. "I was never taught to play the sousaphone! What kind of mother gives their child an instrument and say, 'Play like a god in one week'?! No one! The more I practiced, the more I grew angry until one day I threw my great-great-great grandfather's sousaphone right into a wall. It shattered into tiny little pieces, you should have seen it!"
Maestro's story became erratic the more he paced the length of the room. Chad's head was spinning from the pacing. "Is there a point to this story or is this part of the torture?" he asked wearily.
The adult chuckled. "Oh, we are getting to that. Children are so naturally impatient. One day you will regret speeding through life when you are old and balding."
"Welcome to the Music Administration!" Maestro sang alongside a chorus of security guards.
Chad's fingers danced along the fret board to an audience of three: his strict violin instructor and his parents. The bow slid across the strings in a bounce, picking up speed as the piece demanded a climax.
Despite the perfect cadence, the catch of every note, his mind was always elsewhere, somewhere far off beyond the auditorium's rafters, beyond the very sky.
Earth was no longer his home, not when the Moonbase called to him like a siren's song, greater than any musical piece on earth. His thoughts drifted to anything but the music and his last thought was of Numbuh 362 sitting primly on his throne, always uncomfortable in command and more suited to solitary work.
The bow fell into a fading crescendo and his parents clapped eagerly at the empty stage.
I've always hated the violin.
If living the NFL dream was his father's, living the life as a famous violinist had always been his mother's. Since both dreams failed on their own, they fell back on their only son and hoped he achieved either or both when they couldn't.
He didn't even realize he resented the treatment until he turned twelve and stoked up the courage to go toe-to-toe with his overbearing parents. They were slowly becoming less of the untouchable forces of nature he couldn't help but worship and more like dictators human like him, deserving his burning of their effigies for making things unfair for him.
His mother laughed it off and called it a touch of puberty.
His father warned him to keep his rebellious nature in check.
For the first time in his life, he was torn. If he acted like a preteen, it only cemented the fact that time was slipping out of his favor and his Time would eventually be upon him. If he tried to reign his newborn taste of rebellion, he knew it would tear him from the inside out.
Bottling things was never a good thing. Look what happened to his XO in her confidential past.
After practice, his instructor led his mother to a private conversation while Chad wordlessly packed up and half-listened his father's ramblings about his upcoming admission to junior high and the prospects of joining the Hendry JV Football Team in the fall.
"I met with the coach during the last PTA meeting," his father clapped his unresponsive son on the shoulder. "He was extremely interested in the trophies you got from MVP Camp the last few years. Said if you show off that secret throw we were working on, you can be a shoe in for QB this year!"
"Great, dad," Chad answered in a slight monotone, more interested in strapping the instrument and the erratic movements his mother was making in the corner of his vision.
His instructor shook his head despite his mother's hushed pleading and realizing the prodigal son was watching them, he walked over.
Chad's father blinked. "Something the matter, Mr. Pierre?"
His violin teacher primly sighed and crossed his fingers together. "I think we may have to suspend any further instruction with young Chadworth."
Taking it the wrong way, Chad's father clapped him on the shoulder. "My boy too perfect for the violin, you say?"
His mother was on the verge of tears, which alarmed her son. "I don't understand! His playing was perfect, Pierre!"
"Technically perfect, but little else," Pierre said shortly. "I'm afraid there is little else we can do. The violin will have to be something he could not pursue and succeed in."
He had never failed at anything in his entire life. "Are you mad?!" Chad snapped, blue eyes blazing at his snobby teacher. "I've done everything you've asked and you've got the guts to tell me I've failed?! I've done better than all of your students combined! I've passed each one of them in competition! What are you playing at?!"
"Chad!" his mother tearfully protested.
"Where was this energy when you played?" Pierre regarded him plainly. "You have no passion for the instrument. No dance, no romance. One note after the other without deviation; your mind is elsewhere instead of the music. Chadworth, you are no better than a computer playing a tune verbatim."
Chad could only stand there stunned while his mother cried, unable to comprehend what just happened.
He had been deemed incompetent at something.
The door slid open without ringing and he knew it was Numbuh 362. He gave the entrance to his private quarters a second's glance before returning to the cascade of sheet music littering his desk and floor, the aftermath of his subsequent breakdown from yesterday.
There had to be some incriminating bit in this music that set him up to fail and he would examine every single note until he found it.
Rachel's soft footsteps paused beside him. The light ruffling of her clothes brought the heat of her body almost flush to his when she knelt beside him. He attracted to it like a moth to flame until he forced it down and focused entirely on the music.
"I had no idea that you play music," she said neutrally, no doubt gauging his occasional bouts of manic frenzy. The last time he was like this was a week before a giant test in a subject he was weak in.
He tilted his head and snarled, "You haven't heard? I utterly suck at music. A computer playing a tune verbatim!"
Instead of recoiling, she blinked, letting him get used to her intrusion until he settled. Eventually the sharpness in his gaze lost its bite, and he returned lethargic to the sheet music and the violin half turned on the floor.
"If you don't like the violin, then don't play it," she answered.
He laughed humorlessly. "It's not what I want. It's what my parents want. I'm the key to their goals. Their prodigy."
Quietly accepting the answer, he watched her pick up the sheets and put them back in order. "You're not a robot. Not like..." she paused in her wording, but he didn't need to hear the rest of it. There was a little startle of her shoulders and when he looked over his shoulder, he found her staring at a paper cut on her finger like she had no clue what to do with it.
Without thinking, he reached for her hand and pressed the cut finger to his lips, an instinct he always did whenever his fingers were cut up. She stiffened, which brought him to reality.
"Sorry," he said unapologetically and let her fingers drop. "Force of habit."
A light flush dusted her cheeks, but her neutral tone gave nothing more away. "Do you always stick other people's cuts in your mouth?" An undercurrent of humor lifted away the awkwardness that would have ensued and it made him grin.
"No, just my XO's. Comes with the perks of being second-in-command," he teased, though his thoughts continued to wander to what was almost a half a year ago, when he felt her lips press against his during the Valentine debacle and the promise that it never happened.
There it was. That tiny lift on the corners of her mouth, which was more of a victory than any forced kiss. "I see."
They sat in a comfortable silence for a minute while Chad plucked his violin back up and tested the strings.
"What do you want to do?" Rachel changed the subject and returned to reshuffling the papers, this time taking care of her paper cut.
"What I want?" he sat back on the floor and watched her work with a quiet efficiency he admired. "I have simple tastes. I want to stay on Moonbase. Forever."
Rachel paused. "Me too," she whispered. "I'm happy here."
That odd fluttering in his gut came back again. Spending an eternity running the Kids Next Door with his XO by his side sounded like a dream come true.
Then his thoughts drifted to his impending 12th birthday that solidified an impossible dream.
I don't want to lose this, I decided. I didn't want to lose my command, or lose her. They were the only things I've earned so far in my life. Rightfully earned.
"You mentioned something about your school's winter concert last week," she continued with an air of thoughtfulness. "If you're in the orchestra, maybe I'll watch you play."
Something in his chest beat frantically, hard but fluttery, like anticipation and fear all at once. Fight or flight instinct was kicking in when realization dawned on him.
He had never seen her outside of the KND before.
He had been in captivity for one whole week and yet it felt like an entire year.
Maestro forced him into a chair and ordered him to play soft songs, difficult songs, technical and improvisation until his fingers blistered running them up the fret board for hours on end.
Every time he refused, he was given front row seats to an orchestra blowing horns into the captive Sector Q's ears until their screams and whimpers urged him to keep playing.
"No, no, no!" Maestro frowned and smacked Chad's already stinging hand with the conductor's stick. "More passion! More emotion!"
It took every ounce of Chad's willpower not to slam the violin directly over Maestro's head and risk a sector's wellbeing. "I'm trying, you idiot!"
"You are NOT trying! Feel the music! Let your emotions soar! Find the catalyst to your soul!"
Before Chad can put two-and-two together and ask, "Mr. Pierre?", Elite Sectors Sigma and Theta from the Kids Next Door Intelligence Agency busted through the door in a percussion blast that was literally music to Chad's ears.
"KNDIA! We have you surrounded!" Numbuh 355 yelled, shoving Maestro into one of the soundproof walls. "Hands up or we'll cover you in ten kamilllion tons of gum all over your instruments! You're under arrest for the kidnapping and unlawlike imprisonment of our Supreme Leader and Sector Q! You DON'T have the right to remain silent and you have no right to an attorney or a trial with a jury of your ADULT peers! We'll allow you to cry all the way to Arctic Prison so look forward to that!"
Immediately Maestro's guards caved shortly after and Chad was untied from his chair and the lone music stand, nodding and betraying nothing short of professionalism when his operatives asked about his state of health.
"I'm fine. Did you locate Sector Q?"
Rachel emerged through the rubble with her own line of guards, taking in her Supreme Leader's state with a guarded expression. "They have been found. Are you injured, Supreme Leader, sir?"
Chad ruefully rubbed his wrists and gave her a bitter grin. "Just my pride, Numbuh 362. And maybe my dignity." He stiffened when she looked him up and down, feeling a tad self-conscious when her eyes lingered longer than necessary at the state of his fingers.
"In that case, please see to a medic during your guarded transport back to Moonbase," she nodded and then ordered him escorted off the premises. "I would rather not a repeat of your kidnapping happen so soon in one week."
If it were anybody else issuing orders like that, he would have taken offense. He was subordinate to no one and he sure as heck wasn't some piece of china to be coveted and protected.
But the way Rachel looked at him, like he was something more than china, something precious the way her eyes were softened despite her cold tone, brought pleasure to him than irritation.
One week ago, he was due to be transported off base to oversee the monthly progress of Arctic Base when Sector Q's vehicle instruments went haywire and sent their ship spiralling down Earth's atmosphere and into Delaware, where Chad had been sure was just a mythical place people just talked about.
That was when communications to Moonbase disappeared and they were picked up by Maestro and his jolly symphony of evil.
During his time imprisoned, Rachel took over as acting Supreme Leader and despite two days passing, the Board decided that Chad had gone MIA for too long and wanted her to take command permanently.
Chad scoffed at the report. Kids and their short attention spans.
Unsurprisingly, Rachel refused the post and instead pulled sectors Gamma and Theta from Intelligence to work on his and Sector Q's disappearance, no doubt peeving off her former superiors for pulling rank.
The rest, as they say, was history.
With a sigh of content now he was back in his room on Moonbase, he tossed the tablet on the couch, (gingerly, seeing as his fingers were wrapped and healing), and heard his door swish open.
"It's open," he teased, finding Rachel approach past the threshold always at parade rest before he waved the formalities off. "So stiff around me. You can visit my room without knocking, but you can't walk in like a normal person?"
"Force of habit," she echoed and eased her shoulders down. "How are you?"
He wiggled his bandaged fingers at her. "Alive. Good news though, I probably won't play the violin ever again."
She frowned and walked around the table to sit next to him, so close he could feel her heat again. It made him calm and lethargic, way more than any amount of ice cream they shot him up with to take the edge off his fingers.
"I'm sorry," she finally said, gaze dropping to his hands. "It took so long to locate you..."
There was something in her words, so lost and defeated, he instinctively reached for her despite the pain shooting up his fingers when he wound them around hers. "I read the report. Any other leader would have given up, so thanks."
She lightly squeezed around his fingers, enough for him to feel it and not wince in pain. "But you have a concert coming up."
"I'll just try to get better faster," he smiled gently. "Or I'll bite my tongue through it. It's no big." Rachel once said she'd be there though he wasn't sure if she was just joking or not. "You have to wear a dress though."
Her nose wrinkled. "Why must I wear a dress?"
"No reason," he chuckled. "Just never seen you in one before. May encourage me to play better."
Her eyebrow nearly shot up to her hairline. "You are strange. Very strange."
"You know you like it."
A thrum of anger hit Chad hard the night of the concert watching his former violin teacher sit smugly in the front aisle of the concert hall amidst the growing viewers in attendance. He was there to prove to the world that his pupil was nothing more than a machine playing the violin... and he may be right.
Chad wasn't exactly sure what he was doing wrong. However, he could play it to the note, with a perfection worthy of being a Dickson.
And that was more than enough. Right?
One of the teachers ushered him over after the band finished their last piece, causing a polite round of applause to mediocrity and as soon as he walked onto the stage on his own carrying the violin, a wave of nausea hit him with his parents eagerly video taping and Mr. Pierre's self-righteous grin.
The music piece picked was supposed to be festive and awe-inspiring and here he was probably going to puke all over the conductor below. He had never had this bad of a stage fright before. Doubled with his fingers still callused and split from before and his self-confidence was plummeting down, down, down...
...Rachel was standing in the back of the room, unable to find a seat but maybe that was better. He could easily see her wearing a simple white dress with silver snowflakes all over them. Her shoulders were hitched up, almost looking uncomfortable despite her neutral complexion.
No, maybe not uncomfortable. When they locked eyes, it was almost shy, bashful. It was adorable. She actually left her double shift for this, even dressed up for him when he asked, hoping to see for herself what he was capable of.
And really, who was he to disappoint?
He flashed her a reassuring grin and as soon as the orchestra started, he followed his cue and played.
That was when she closed her eyes, opting to listen to his playing than distracting him with the staring like everyone else. She wanted to feel the music or whatever she could get from it.
He made her jump when he pulled a haunting crescendo and gained speed, intending on impressing her anyway he could with Carol of the Bells.
His shoulders moved around in time with the music, something he had never done before. She showed more expression in the way she listened to him than he had ever seen on Moonbase and it was him pulling these emotions out of her through his playing.
There was something noticeably different here than what he practiced. He was actually enjoying the piece and enjoying the sounds that came out of the instrument.
The song ended much too soon, and he lost Rachel from the sea of people rising for a standing ovation so he could only lower his violin and bow, wishing he could see the look on her face instead.
"That was... fantastic!" One adult said, pulling him aside once he was safely behind stage. "I've never heard such a heart-wrenching rendition before!"
Then another grabbed him and congratulated him. And then another. Honestly, he didn't know what he did different and was forced to bask in the glow of praise which doubled when his parents ran up and he had to deal with his mother's tears of pride.
After he detached himself from everyone, he found Rachel waiting patiently near a stage exit with a medkit ready. It made him realize that his fingers were throbbing from the continued use and he sheepishly offered his hands for her to re-wrap.
"It was stunning," she said after a quiet moment of wrapping his first two digits. "And you managed that with your fingers... you really are the best there is."
Something about those words hit him hard and he couldn't help but beam at her. "I am, aren't I?"
"And they say humility is overrated," she said lightly, her lips quirked when she dabbed alcohol on the sores, causing him to hiss. With a blink, she brought them to her lips and blew gently.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe he was imagining things, but he thought he felt her lips brush against the rough pads of his fingers in apology before redressing them.
That lethargy returned and his eyes darkened. He wanted to lean forward, lightly bump foreheads with her...
She looked up in question and their gazes locked. It gave him liquid courage, it ignited something in him, and he really leaned forward...
A slow clap broke the connection and Rachel immediately drew back into her second-in-command persona. Inwardly cursing, Chad turned around and found Mr. Pierre there giving his own brand of congratulations.
"See what hard work can do to a stubborn pupil?"
Another wave of anger hit him, this time harder than before. "I was right," he spat, "you were Maestro."
"Almost," Mr. Pierre sighed. "If I was, I would have been sent to Arctic Prison and not here, yes?"
Rachel stiffened by Chad's side when she slipped in until there was no distance between them. He could feel her hand slip under her skirt for a KND weapon strapped to her thigh.
He reached over and grabbed her wrist, embarrassed at the placement of their hands, but he needed her to stop.
There was a time and place for fighting. This wasn't one of them.
She flashed a look at him in question, but his gaze was determinedly fixed on his former teacher.
"Yeah, well your teaching sucked," Chad growled, pulled Rachel's hand aside and dragged her with him out of the concert hall. "And I'm not playing the violin anymore. Consider this my closing show."
Pierre watched them leave with a curious air, until he murmured to himself, "So that was the incentive needed to play? What a waste of talent."
Rachel's fingers curled pleasantly around Chad's until they were locked together and giving away everything and yet nothing. "It's disappointing to hear you won't play the violin anymore," she mused once they left the theater and was hit by the cold winter air.
She was here, holding hands with him, and wearing a dress that wasn't KND issued. His mind was pleasantly buzzing, unable to comprehend this moment and almost missed her words entirely.
It was almost surreal. "This is the first time we've interacted outside the KND," he blurted out.
Her next words were hesitant. "Is it... is it bad?"
Was she overstepping her boundaries taking professional to a personal level? That was what her eyes said, and he immediately squelched that negativity. "Nah. It isn't bad. It's just a statement. Now you're like... not some kind of dream anymore. It's real now."
"That's... an interesting way to put it," she admitted quietly, letting her breath fog over in little puffs. "Because I feel the same way."
That thrumming in his chest was in full force and this time he couldn't deny it. He was breaching his own code without realizing it. He was falling. Hard.
