Chapter Five: Virtually Nonexistent

Kim grit her teeth and looked over to where Max was talking with one of the prison guards some distance away. She had already touched base with them, but had been interrupted just as one guard was bringing up Monkey Fist's cell (for whatever reason) by her strange new ally running up to let her know that Ron still needed help untangling himself. She honestly didn't know where the monkey ninjas had gotten that much rope, but now he was standing beside her and rubbing at a chafed wrist.

"Six monkeys plus one Ron equals a very bad start to the last week of summer," he grumbled. "I'm telling ya, KP, Monkey Fist and his freakish minions are the actual worst."

"Normally I'd tell you to turn down the drama, but those statues of his are making things a lot harder," Kim admitted. The fight against Monkey Fist hadn't been a total bust – about half of his monkey ninjas were still in custody – but the ones he'd already freed had managed to overwhelm Ron and Rufus before running off to help their master.

Meanwhile, while she had almost managed to incapacitate one of the stone gorillas with her grapple cable, the two of them working together had ultimately proven too much for her. They'd forced her back until one finally managed to grab her and throw her halfway across the yard. By the time she'd gotten to her feet and returned to the scene, they were gone and the monkeys were sneaking up on Max.

Max… She took another look at the boy, and her eyes narrowed. Why didn't you call for backup?

With a sigh, she pulled out the Kimmunicator.

"Wade, can you get into the Global Justice personnel database?" she asked. "I need you to run a search on Max Lincoln… or anyone fitting his description, I'm not convinced he gave us his real name."

From the other end of the screen, Wade frowned and set down the soda he'd been drinking. "Do you think Max is trying to trick you or something?"

"I'm not sure, but… He's setting off my weirdar in so many ways right now. He hasn't shown any signs of contacting the people he's supposed to be working for, and when I caught up to him and Monkey Fist, he'd captured him, but they were just… talking. And Max looked like he was getting ready to take the guy off somewhere on his own."

"That is weird," Wade agreed. "I'll see what I can find. If you want, I can run a global scan too, and see if that picks up anything on him."

"Please and thank you," Kim said, smiling wanly. She shot one more glance at her mysterious ally. "I don't know what it is he's hiding, but with what's going on, ignoring it could be very bad news."

This mission was a total bust.

Max was working very hard to keep himself from screaming as he half-listened to the warden thanking him for his "help" with the evening's little misadventure. He really didn't feel like he should be thanked – he'd gotten caught up in talking to Monkey Fist, had honestly had no idea what to do with the guy when he refused to cooperate, and now thanks to his carelessness, Aunt Han and the future were in more danger than ever.

Evidently he wasn't the only one upset about the events of the evening. Through the massive gaping hole in the outer wall of the animal holding center, he could clearly hear the angry shrieking of the remaining incarcerated monkeys as a handful of guards prepared to move them to a more secure location.

He couldn't take it anymore. "Will you all just can it in there!" he snapped into the hole. "You're better off without that stupid jerk anyway!"

Great, now he was yelling at a bunch of monkeys that'd probably just been following the training of their primate-obsessed master. He groaned and rubbed his temples. Dad would be so proud right now.

Max resisted the urge to glance back at where the man in question – no, the guy who would eventually become the man in question – was waiting, none the wiser, for things to wrap up around here. This time period's Ron and Kim were plenty eager to stop a criminal from endangering a child as part of some world-conquering scheme, but they had no idea just how high the stakes were.

And he'd gone and let them down.

"Max."

There was a brief, surreal moment in which Max felt the instinctive terror of a child realizing he'd just majorly pissed off a parent, followed immediately by confusion when he remembered that his parents weren't actually his parents in the here and now. Before he had a chance to process just what that meant, he turned to see Kim charging toward him and —

Okay, yeah, that was definitely a younger and less familial variant of her 'majorly pissed off parent' face.

"You've been lying to us," she snapped as she caught up to him. "I just had Wade check Global Justice, and they don't even have a junior division. You're not in their files at all, and don't try to spin some story about them being classified — Wade is very thorough."

She folded her arms. "If we're going to keep working together, I'm going to need some answers, and fast. Who are you, really?"

Max stumbled back as the irate teen hero's eyes bored into him, and he found himself unable to form words for several agonizing seconds. Everything was falling apart, and he was basically alone in this, and if he tried to make up another cover story it would just make things worse and —

"The truth?" He finally said, running shaky hands through his hair. "The truth is that I can't tell you the truth, and I only made up that Global Justice stuff because I thought you'd take it easier than if I told you absolutely nothing about myself."

Kim's expression remained stony. "What is it you think you need to hide from me? Max, helping people is what my team does. How can you expect us to trust you if you won't trust us?"

Max didn't know how to answer that, so he just shook his head sadly and held out his arms in a half-shrug.

Kim frowned and held out her Kimmunicator. Something in the gesture seemed almost threatening.

"Here's where we're at," she said. "Right now, Wade is running a global scan to find any information he can on you. Frankly, I'm not even confident he'll come back with a name that matches the one you gave me. So if you want my trust, tell me honestly, Mr. Hero — what exactly is he gonna find?"

For somebody who technically doesn't exist yet? Max would have laughed at the irony of it if he wasn't on the verge of a complete breakdown.

"Nothing," he said.

Kim's eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Nothing?"

"Yes, nothing! I —" Max took a deep breath.

"Look, here's all that I can tell you. The truth is that I'm in so far over my head that I am literally unable to turn to anyone who actually knows me right now. The truth is that this… this monster who calls himself Monkey Fist is threatening my whole family, and that I would gladly give you more information about it if I thought it was safe, but I am terrified that telling anyone more about myself would only make the problem that much worse. And I know it looks bad, but you and your team are the only chance I think I have of stopping him. I… I do trust you, more than you can imagine, and right now all I can do is beg you to trust me back."

Hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as the words came pouring out. When he finished, he rubbed them away and tried to take stock of Kim's reaction to his confession.

The indignation and anger had all but left her face, he realized, replaced by genuine concern. She still looked a little uncertain, but after a few moments of thought, she sighed and reached a hand out to him.

"Okay, look," she said. "This whole thing is still very weird, and I don't want you lying to us anymore. But… I'm looking at you now, and I think you really are being honest with me this time. You were right about Monkey Fist breaking out, after all. So I'm going to go ahead and trust you. Please don't make me regret it."

She considered something for a moment, and folded her arms again. It looked less threatening and more simply formal this time, though. "But I would like you to tell me one more thing, if you can."

Max nodded hesitantly. "If I can."

"Do your parents know you're out here doing the teen hero thing? Because you don't fight like someone who's suddenly been pulled into it because of whatever's going on with your family, and trying to sneak around their backs with something like this… It never ends well."

Max had to take a moment for that question. He looked at Kim, then over at where Ron was now making his way toward the two of them. And then he did laugh, a wry little chuckle.

"They know exactly what I'm up to, don't worry about that."

"Sooo," Ron cut in as he joined the group, "what's the game plan here?"

Kim raised an eyebrow at him. "Glad to see you're here just in time to miss the difficult talk."

Ron shrugged. "I play to my strengths."

Kim shook her head good-naturedly and sighed. She returned her attention forward and flipped on the Kimmunicator. "Wade?" she asked.

"Sorry Kim, this search is taking longer than I expected," Wade's tinny voice came out the other end.

Now that he was in between villain hunts and no longer had to worry about keeping up a cover story, Max found himself struck with curiosity about the current year's technology. He circled around to get a better look at the Kimmunicator Mk I.

"I don't know if you're just right about the name thing, but I haven't been able to dig up any info on your new friend," continued a baby-faced and almost hilariously short Wade. He was typing absently as he did, but froze when he looked up to see Max watching him. "Uh… I mean…"

Kim shook her head. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Max and I have come to an understanding." She paused to give Max a curious look, no doubt intrigued by the fact that her genius webmaster genuinely couldn't trace him.

"I was actually calling to let you know you can cancel the search," she went on. "Our efforts would be better spent figuring out where Monkey Fist went anyway."

Wade shot off a lazy half-salute. "Sounds good to me," he said. "I'll let you know when I find anything."

"You rock as always," Kim replied with a smile, and the feed cut out.

Max folded his arms absently. "Huh," he thought out loud. "So that's the Kimmunicator? It kind of looks like a smartphone."

Ron gave him a funny look. "What's a smartphone?"

Oops. Max took a moment to think of an answer that was neither a lie nor a treatise on near-future technology.

"Oh, it's… what I use sometimes," he half-explained. "I don't have it on me right now, though."

Kim smirked. "Well, don't tell Wade that. He prides himself on being totally cutting edge."

Max just barely suppressed an amused snort at that.

Ron clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "So now that we're done here, who's hungry?"

"How can you be thinking about that?" Kim retorted. "You've been snacking on leftover Bueno Nacho all afternoon!"

"I asked who's hungry. I never said I needed more than a light snackage."

Rufus popped his head out of Ron's pocket and chittered an agreement to the idea of snackage.

Now that the subject had been brought up, Max realized that he wasn't sure when he had last eaten. What part of the day had it been before he'd gone through the time portal, again?

"I could really use a meal," he admitted.

Kim frowned thoughtfully. "Actually," she asked him, "do you even have a place to stay while you're here? I wasn't worried about it when you said you were with GJ, but after everything you've just told me…"

Max winced a little. "…No, now that you mention it."

Kim nodded. "Let's go, then. You can crash at my place until we get this all sorted out."

"Don't forget dinner," Ron piped in.

Kim smirked and shook her head. "I'm sure we'll have something."

Max's uncles were currently younger than him.

Max's uncles were younger than him.

This really shouldn't have been such a shocker, considering how this whole mission basically centered around the fact that his paternal aunt hadn't even been born yet. But there was a difference between knowing logically that something was the case and seeing it firsthand.

"Mom, can we be excused?" Unc – er, Jim asked as dinner wrapped up and Max tried valiantly not to stare at his unknowing extended family. Ron had already gone home with Rufus, so he was the only guest at the house now. "We've got a project we want to finish before bed."

"We're building a fusion reactor!" Tim boasted.

Kim raised an eyebrow at the two of them. "You guys are so going to burn the house down with that thing."

"Oh, whatever," Jim scoffed, already getting up. "You just worry about the mission thing with your new sidekick."

Tim cackled. "Or is he your new boyfriend?"

Max deeply regretted trying to finish off his water right then. His abject horror at that comment was quickly overshadowed by a sudden fear of choking to death then and there.

"Tweebs!" Kim snarled while he tried to catch his breath without spewing water all over the table. "Honestly, you're as bad as the guys at school who keep assuming I'm dating Ron."

Max, if possible, started choking even harder.

Kim growled at the laughing and retreating forms of her brothers, but after a moment she turned to him with a concerned frown. "You okay?"

Max coughed a few more times, cleared his throat, and finally managed to compose himself. "Yeah," he croaked. "I guess that just, uh, caught me off guard a little." He really hoped the incident itself and his explanation would be enough to excuse the beet red color he was sure his face had turned.

Kim rolled her eyes as she and her parents started clearing the dinner table. "Yeah, that's little brothers for you." She glared in the direction the twins had run off to.

"Especially those little brothers."

Max winced and rubbed the back of his neck. "I really hope I'm not that bad with my sister."

"Oh, you have an older sister?" James piped up.

Oops again. Well, as long as he stuck with the minor details…

Max nodded, getting up to help the others collect dishes. "Yeah. I… I hope she's okay."

Joan had never gotten into the 'family tradition' of freak fighting the way he did, but she was all right, he thought. At the very least, he never really fought with her to the same extent that, if tonight was any indication, their mother and uncles had when they were kids.

Max paused at the kitchen sink, leaning over it and letting his thoughts drift after he'd put his plates in. Was his sister okay? He wasn't really sure how this time travel stuff worked, how or at what point the events of 'now' affected the future. He was struck by a sudden sense of longing, of missing Joan and everyone else and wanting to see them as he knew them again.

It only made it all the more surreal to think that he'd last seen her off right before the team went after Monkey Fist, which from his perspective had been that very morning. Or that, from the timeline's perspective, said morning wouldn't be happening for another twenty-six years.

A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he looked over to see the teenaged Kim's sympathetic visage. She gave him a small, encouraging smile.

"We will find Monkey Fist," she said, "and we'll do everything in our power to save your family, all right? I promise."

"And in the meantime, we'll help you out in any way we can," her father added.

Max couldn't help but smile back at that. "I'm counting on it."