Part 28: Magnets
November 2nd, 2011 - New York
1 : Jake
"Why Dave?" Jake asked Van as they were finally leaving Manhattan. Both Langley and Jet kept searching for tails, signs that the Unit was following them somehow. The last thing any of them needed was to guide them to their headquarters.
"He came highly recommended by Zan's Guard," Van said, though there was a subtle tone there that spoke of lingering doubts.
"How did you even meet Dave?" Jake asked, now looking at the rearview mirror. The only Zan Guard who was still standing was Langley himself.
"He found out about me and decided to corner me on a flight to Japan," Langley answered with a raised eyebrow.
"Charming," Jake said with sarcasm.
"Ill-advised," Langley said, nodding. "Yet I was impressed. I've been dodging bullets, Antarian threats, and FBI Units for decades—and I didn't see him coming. Not a whisper, not the slightest of inklings. It doesn't hurt he has many resources, and I'm not just talking about finances here."
"You do not surprise a Royal Guard every day," Van said, now more resigned. "Langley said Dave had the means to keep Zan safe. Then Dave proposed to have you help them improve their skills, and Ray to help them develop strategic thinking. And in all this time, I haven't been disappointed."
"He kept you informed," Jake said, finally understanding Dave's obsession with their reports. Accurate, short, always on time. It wasn't like Dave to need so much information in such a scheduled way, but Langley and Van? Yes. A thousand times yes.
It was all making sense now. The secrecy, the planning. Dave's need to keep the kids inside his innermost circle. But it also made sense that Van was here, now, hoping for a future that might never be. Dave had made sure to keep those flames alive.
"Those reports, though…" Van said, thinking something through, "they lacked perspective. You didn't know what the end goal was, no one besides Dave and Langley did. So, I sent my own eyes and ears."
"You were spying on Max?"
"Guarding him," Jet said from the front seat as a matter of fact. "Wherever the King goes, so does his Royal Guard."
"Since the moment they stepped out of the compound, everywhere he went, I knew about it," Van said, looking rather pleased with that.
"And yet you don't know what Max will choose," Jake stated. No matter how this Royal Guard thing worked, they hadn't been privy to Max and Jake's talks about his memories.
"We will all get our answers soon," Langley interrupted, speeding up. "We're not ten minutes away from headquarters. With a little luck, this day can still be salvaged."
2 : Liz
Max's presence was suddenly there. It was a force that started right in the center of her being and zigzagged like wildfire through her chest, her arms, and straight to the tips of her fingers. Green electric sparks shone for a moment in her hands as she stopped in her tracks and almost lost her balance. Kyle held a hand to help steady her.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Max—" Liz whispered, as Michael also stopped ahead of her.
"—he's here," he said, nodding.
She turned to walk towards Max's direction, just to see a shapeshifter running towards them.
"General! There's been a breach!"
She moved past him. If hell was going to break loose in the next five minutes, then she had to hurry and find that elusive husband of hers. Michael and the shifters would cover this, she knew, but a thorn in her stomach was rapidly growing around her soul. What if she was not fast enough and she missed Max yet again?
Leaving Michael, Maria, and Kyle behind to deal with their newest problem, she walked and then ran, and it was just a matter of seconds before she was faced with a security door she had no way to open on her own. Exasperated, she turned to scream for someone to open it, and was met right there by a man she didn't know. She stepped back, afraid of who this new person—shifter?—was. Her face gave her confusion away as the twenty-something guy smiled.
"I can no longer be His Majesty," he said, his blue eyes and black hair adorning a boyish smile. He passed his hand over a point in the wall, and the door slid open.
"Jade?" she asked, already starting to walk down the hall, still frowning at him.
"Yes, my Queen. This way."
He ran in front of her, easily navigating the maze of halls as she felt Max the way two magnets sensed each other. Closer and closer, until Jade opened the last door ahead of her, and at the end of the hall, Max was running straight to her, too.
Jade vanished as she crossed the door, the same way her anxiety and fear vanished at seeing Max, so alive and, as she collided into his arms, so real.
3 : Max
Everything with the world—with the whole universe—was right again.
He held Liz as close as he could, his chin on her head, the touch of her arms around his body, her breath warming the chill in his soul. She listened to his heart, beating so fiercely he thought everybody around them could hear it.
His hands moved from her back to her neck and her shoulders, and he moved one step backwards to see her eyes, to connect with her in the unique way they shared. His soul sang at the stars he saw in those expressive eyes of hers, and they were kissing before he even registered they had moved towards each other.
The connection formed instantly. Liz at the lab, looking through a microscope. Liz, walking through a forest in the middle of winter, hugging her coat as she turned to smile at him. Liz running through the New York metro, a man who looked like him holding her wrist.
Liz laughing, Liz thinking, Liz worried about him.
They came for air, both with their eyes still closed. He had no idea what she had seen from his side, but he knew her worries were not fading away.
"Someone said there was a breach…" she panted, her forehead touching his.
"I'm sure Khivar has found a loophole to execute me…" he panted back.
She smiled, both finally opening their eyes. "Nothing can be easy when you're a dark-haired, mysterious man from an exotic location, uh?"
He smiled back, "Why, Ms. Parker, would you like it any other way?"
"A vacation without incident once in a while would be nice," she said, wrinkling her nose. They were both stalling for the inevitable, and neither of them cared.
He winced, embracing her once more, his chin comfortably resting over her head. "I thought—I thought that they would never let me see you again," he confessed in a whisper, knowing Liz had seen some of that just now.
"I had little hope of finding you again so soon as well," she answered, her hands clasped behind his lower back.
Behind her, at the end of the hall, Max saw his Invisible Guard reformed, waiting for him. As much as he wanted to remain here, in this little piece of heaven, more pressing matters needed their attention. He had managed to get here, now he had to manage to get them out. With one last breath of her essence, he finally let her go.
Time's up.
4 : Michael
The problem with being in this place was that Michael had no real intel on how it worked, how extensive it was, or how to defend it. Having Max here was a short-lived relief as the General in him started to make a list of all the things he needed to know—and all the things that could go wrong.
"Right now, we don't know how deep the breach goes," Luke said, updating Michael on whatever Dave had said. He hadn't seen the man himself, too busy trying to convince Isabel to stop blaming herself, while they both knew they had roles to play to keep Max alive.
Yet Max was here now, so the show didn't have to last long.
Maybe.
"Get everyone who's gathering information in one room, and we'll decide on strategy then," Michael said to Luke, turning to look at Max as he met them in the middle of the hallway.
On his end, Max was talking to his own Guard. "We need confirmation that this is, in fact, Khivar's doing. You have the means to contact home, right?" They all nodded. "Good. We'll deal with this once we know it's real."
All shifters vanished then, Max's Guards, Liz's Guard, even Luke himself. It was way beyond unnerving to know most of them had been watching their every move for years without them knowing about it.
"Max," Michael said, embracing him for a moment. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking him down as if expecting to find a bleeding wound somewhere.
"Not exactly," Max answered, freezing Michael. "I'm fine right now, but I won't be for much longer."
"What?" both Liz and Michael said at the same time.
"It's a rather odd theory that I'd rather tell just once. Where's everyone else? Where's Isabel?" Max asked, rather puzzled at feeling her close by but not seeing her here.
"Jailed," Michael said with a raised eyebrow. "Looks like Vilandra is finally getting the punishment she deserves, one lifetime too late."
"This again?"
"Oh, you have no idea how serious they are about this, including Isabel herself," Michael said, now guiding him down the hall. "They want blood and the only one around good enough for that is Vilandra. I wouldn't advice pulling the King card on this just yet, though."
"Pulling the King card is the only good thing about playing Zan," Max said in a hushed tone.
"I know, I'm having so much fun playing the General as well," Michael said with mocked enthusiasm. "But they're nervous about Van, and everyone is waiting for your answer, Your Majesty," he added as they reached a set of doors. Michael waved his hand, and it opened with a hiss. "Maria and Kyle stayed with her, trying to come up with a way to get her out. Jesse is there, too."
"Van isn't here, yet?" Max asked. "He was shot last I saw him."
"You're the last of us to come," Liz said.
"Dave, Ray, and some other geek are here, too," Michael elaborated. "We're still missing Van, Jake, and one of your Guards."
"Jet. My Guards informed me he stayed behind with Van after we got separated. I had no idea Jake was involved in this, but I thought they would be here by now."
"Not yet. Dave is trying to figure out where Van was taken. Needless to say, everyone wants him back far more than any of us."
Max chuckled at that. They might want their long-lost royalty, but it was Van who they knew. It was Van who they followed.
"So," Liz said as they walked down the hall, "do you guys actually remember Antar? Like…who you were?"
The question was loaded with a million other questions. Are you Zan? How much do you remember? Do you want to go back? Why did you hide it all this time? He hadn't let Maria ask him yet, but the truth was, Max and Michael had to come clean now. At least Isabel had been able to do so while locked down with Jesse.
"No one is getting me away from you," Max said, pulling her closer. "I—I've been meaning to tell you some things, it just never seemed to be the right time to do so."
She nodded, absently biting her lip. Maria was not going to be so passive about this, Michael knew. She was buzzing through their connection, barely containing her need to blurt out her own questions.
On they went through the halls, getting closer to Isabel while Michael detailed his side of things. About finding Ray, about getting rid of the phones, and most importantly, about Van's second in command, Luke. It was all a blur of short answers and no time before they finally arrived at Isabel's and Jesse's makeshift jail, where Maria and Kyle were already waiting.
"Glad to see you're in one piece, girlfriend," Maria said as she briefly hugged Max, while Jesse looked like a caged panther ready to pound. Michael had thought about offering Jesse to be out of the cell, but he was afraid Jesse would think he could take on shapeshifts and win.
He mentally sighed in relief to have everyone who mattered to him here, regardless of Isabel and Jesse being jailed. Maria gave him a warning glare that he was not out of the hook of questioning, and Liz was glued to Max's side. Kyle took a few steps back, probably attempting to hear their thoughts less.
It gotta suck to be a telepath.
From his corner, Kyle nodded.
"Please tell me you have the authority to release her," Jesse said to Max, while Isabel's eyes filled with tears of shame as she saw him. Max's heart went out to her, and so did Michael's.
"Lonnie," Max said, and in that moment, he was speaking as Zan and she was listening as Vilandra. "No matter what he said, or what you believed, you are my sister, and I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. Now it's time for you to forgive yourself for the wrongs of others. You did what you did because you thought it would lead to better outcomes, to a better future. And there's nothing I admired the most than those stubborn ideas of yours about making things better."
"But I betrayed you…" she whispered. "I believed your ways were wrong, that you wouldn't listen to reason no matter what I said. I wanted change; I wanted you to change. How is that something you can forgive when it all led to our downfall?"
"Because that downfall led to them," Max said, stepping aside so she could see Jesse and the whole gang. "We cannot change what happened. We all paid a high price then. We don't need to keep paying it now."
"Why are you so intent in being Vilandra?" Jesse asked from his side of the hall.
"Yeah, I'd like to know that, too," Maria said, turning to look at Michael. "Everyone's calling you 'the General' and I don't see you making any corrections."
"Look," Kyle said, still from his corner, "we all have seen it. The three of you clearly have some big conflicts in your heads I don't want to keep hearing about, but beyond that... Liz, Maria, Jesse, and I know sometimes there's—I don't know? A tone in the way you speak?"
"A change in your eyes when you look at things," Maria clarified.
"Or the way you walk into a room," Liz said.
"Definitely the way you phrase your thoughts," Jesse added.
"Yeah, those things," Kyle said with a dismissive hand. "So, since we're all here without an audience, who are you, really?"
Michael opened his mouth and faltered, looking at Max and Isabel. This was something they had talked about for so long that it was comically frustrating they were still stuck on how to say this. Max moved forward, facing their questions.
"We know who they were. Each of us, Michael, Isabel, and I have—seen their lives. Like a movie."
"You remember…" Liz whispered, afraid.
"Yes…and no," Max said, looking back at Isabel and then at Michael. "We don't think of ourselves as Zan, Rath, and Vilandra. But we do know what they thought, how they lived. We have a pretty good idea how they died, too, though we've never really remembered that part. Sometimes, though, sometimes we wish we could go back and change their lives. Soothe their fears. We know them so intimately that we feel sorry for how things ended. And sometimes we need reassurances that everything is going to be okay now," he said, looking back at Isabel.
"And sometimes," Michael said, looking at Maria, "sometimes their personality traits sneak on us. Things that mattered to them, or thoughts about similar things—that's what you sense. It's not like they're taking over us or something like that."
"So you are Michael," Maria said, looking at him with narrowing eyes. "You are always Michael, right?"
He nodded.
"Just with a dash of Rath," Maria said. "I mean, you can't go through something like this and not be…changed somehow."
"It's still us, though," Max said. "With a wider perspective and some hard life lessons gleamed from them."
"They don't seem to think that's a problem," Liz said, hugging herself. "Jade said… he said that they want to take you back. They want to use—they want to use the people you used to be so they can win."
"We might have to act as the rulers of Antar today, maybe a few days after that. But know that we are who you know we are—with a dash of our previous selves," he said with a ghost of a smile as he looked at Maria. "Once this whole Antar rebellion is past us, we'll answer all your questions. For now, though, you'll have to have a little faith in us—and play along."
5 : Dave
It took him a few minutes and some creative programming to trace back Danny's backdoor. And there, in black and white, Dave's worst nightmare came true: McKay was tracking him down to this exact location.
He was six years old looking up at his imposing silhouetted shape. He was seven years old, escaping to his own mind to avoid thinking about McKay. He was nine, he was ten, he was desperate to leave that place, yet so afraid of what that man would do. Jake had always known they would escape, but Dave had not been so sure.
And once they were out, it was McKay's shadow that had always threatened their lives.
Now McKay was almost at their doorstep. Worse, Max was already here, the man who'd died in another world and stood to bring the wrath of an entire solar system if he didn't accept to be called Zan.
How can everything be converging right here, right now?
"I bet McKay's not coming alone," Daniel said beside him, following the communications between the Unit. "Oh, this is interesting," he said suddenly, snapping Dave out of his paralyzing fear.
"What?"
"Jake's on his way, too."
Time slowed down to a crawl. He heard himself asking once more, what? but his mind had stretched in ten different directions, all running away from McKay yet now stuck on how to save Jake.
"They have just crossed the perimeter. Tell me that's not Jake on the window."
On Daniel's screen, a still shot of a car could be seen. Langley was driving, and Jake was, indeed, the one on the window. Langley wouldn't be driving Jake here without Van. Not a chance in hell for that.
"How far is McKay?"
"McKay himself? About twenty minutes. But his tactical team? I can guarantee they're just about to shoot that car."
"No," Dave said, getting up to run to stop them, to help them, to do something, when the door he'd been about to reach opened. Ray was coming back with Luke in tow. Van's second in command narrowed his eyes at the tension in Dave's face. If worst came to worst, Dave could afford to lose Max, but never Van.
"What?" Luke asked.
"Van is about to get shot outside the warehouse."
Luke didn't ask for more.
AN: I will be posting daily for the next week, and then I should go to two times a week until the end. It's getting closer!
Also, thank you Guest for the warm welcome! I wasn't expecting much in the way of readers, so it was really nice to get your review.
And Nicodemus, if you ever come to read the third book, I so wish you had left a review other than as a guest, so I could have answered to you directly, but I read and reread your 2023 review tons of times, it was awesome!