Part 30: Bad News
November 2nd, 2011 - New York
1 : McKay
Monsters walked the Earth.
The Head of the Special Unit looked at the footage on their makeshift headquarter outside New York City, his inner thoughts revolving around how to enter enemy territory that was defended by unknown special capabilities.
He refused to call them powers. It made them sound invincible, even if technically he'd just watched video of some sort of shield that had made them bullet proof, followed by a car exploding not ten feet from the door.
Yet Max Evans had already been captured and brought to his knees once. One of his own had been blinded and captured not four hours ago. Not to mention that Nasedo had spent three years in captivity back in the forties.
No, these human-shaped monsters were not invincible, not by a long shot, yet McKay was neither stupid nor impatient. He just needed enough information before going in.
"It can't be an abandoned warehouse," Andrews, one of his technicians said as they inspected the inner space with a miniature drone. "We know there are at least five hostiles inside."
"No, wait, get back," another agent said, pointing at the bottom of the screen. "Something is at ground level."
"It looks—it looks like something was burnt there," Andrews said, slowing the drone down and pointing it directly at the out of place mark.
"They're underground," McKay said. "Bring me something to see how far that rat nest goes."
"Yes, sir," Andrews said. He liked this guy, tech savvy and disciplined to a fault. He wished more of his team were like that, but it was hard enough to recruit for a clandestine unit that most of the time was chasing false leads. Even McKay had to admit that if he hadn't found that little snitch that used to work for David, he might still be chasing ghosts down in Roswell, New Mexico.
Danny boy was the star of his own show, and McKay had flamed every vendetta the kid had against David and stroked every corner of that hacker's ego. Plant an idea here, push for an update there, and little by little, Daniel had given them all the little crumbs they needed to find their way right into the heart of the alien group. Including the fact that they were going to be all together today.
Pity I have no more use for him, McKay thought as he got out of the van to make a few calls. Either that rat nest had no more exits, or it had enough that they would need to keep hunting for them. Both scenarios required far more manpower than McKay currently possessed. It was time to call for the cavalry.
He would show these alien monsters what the combined powers of the FBI and NYPD's finest could achieve.
2 : Max
He'd barely saved Van by a couple of seconds. As Max splashed water over his face on a bathroom somewhere, he replayed the scene again in his mind, his stomach feeling like a rock at the prospect of seeing that man dying in front of him. Van was the key to solving this puzzle. Granted, Max barely knew him, but having the leader of the rebellion dead at his feet was not a good outcome no matter how the Zan side of his brain tried to spin it.
At least one of us knows how to spin things, he thought as he looked at the mirror with a slight smile. Gone were the days Max had dreaded looking at his reflection in case it was Zan who would look back.
Zan had had a dry sense of humor, something Max appreciated. Some sort of kinship between them, however flimsy it was, but he would take it. He needed to be Zan for the foreseeable future, after all.
A polite knock on the door told him his time alone was already gone.
He opened the door expecting to find Liz, but instead it was Violet's intense eyes that looked straight at him.
"It's been confirmed, Your Majesty. Khivar has been actively using the mind-link technology for the past hours. It matches your fainting spells. We just don't—I mean, we knew he was planning an attack on you today, but we thought—we were certain the threat would be here, on Earth. Van is being informed as we speak, as well."
It felt as if the floor had moved beneath him. To suspect and to know where two vastly different things. Khivar was going to kill him, sooner rather than later, and there was nothing he could do to stop him.
Not so fast, a tiny voice said at the back of his mind, one that sounded suspiciously like Ray's.
"If you can confirm it, can you also disconnect it?"
"The Rebellion is not sitting idle, Your Majesty, but we didn't disclose it was you he was targeting. Chaos would erupt if anyone even thought for a moment that Khivar can control you—and through you, us as well."
"No, that's—that's good thinking. Yet the Rebellion needs to buy me time, at least enough to settle things with Van. If this is inevitable and Khivar succeeds, Van will need the Seal."
"Max…" Violet whispered, her eyes going round at the prospect of his imminent death. The implications were far reaching, far more than Max could even really think about right this moment. For Violet and all shifters though, that Seal was the literal symbol of their slaved lives. That it had to be handled with care was an understatement.
"Best case scenario, they destroy the machine and I'm not dead in the next five minutes," he said, trying to reassure her as much as reassuring himself. "But contingencies need to be placed. Once we target the machine, Khivar will know it's working."
"We will—will transmit your orders, Your Majesty," she said, blinking fast.
"At the 2000 summit, all representatives came here taking over some random people. They all have that puppet machine, don't they?"
"Yes, most likely, sir."
"We need to disconnect them all. Even if it legitimizes Khivar's plan, I cannot have him winning, not again. Never again."
"I'll transmit the orders right away, sir," Violet said, wasting no time and walking away.
"Ash?" Max called, and in walked his other Guard. It was nice to know that at least no one had followed him into the bathroom.
"Your Majesty?"
"Call everyone into the same room. I need to deliver the news."
"The General is already assembled at the War Room, assessing our position with the Special Unit."
"Good, let's go there, then."
"Your Majesty…are you sure we cannot just go out and execute McKay and his men?" Ash asked as they walked down the hall. Liz was nearby, hopefully having a nice early supper.
"McKay managed to ambush all of us not four hours ago, Ash," Max pointed out. "He captured Van, Jake, and Dave within the same hour. I'm not blindly sending you, any of you, into that man's territory. We need to be smart about him. If anything, McKay has proven to be a worthy challenge to us all."
Ash wasn't happy with that answer—most likely Jet and Shade weren't either. "Tell you what," Max said as they passed the first security door, "if he's on your sight, you have my permission to execute him for crimes committed against the crown."
Ash nodded once, though Max didn't miss the fleeting approval in his eyes. With a little luck, they would all be long gone before McKay set foot on the compound.
3 : Van
"Colors are starting to become brighter," Van said as Rose shone a light on his pupil. It was the third time in the last ten minutes, while they both waited for his sight to be completely restored. Sitting on a bed in their small medical wing, Van looked around, waiting for colors to meet his eyes. "Everything seems grayed out for the most part. Green is the only vivid color I see."
"We're lucky this was nothing but a scare," Rose said, finally placing the penlight in her pocket. She was dressed in a white coat, looking grim. "Maybe we should ask His Majesty to take a look at you. Heal anything we might be missing."
"He doesn't heal," Van said with the same certainty his shifters had told him over the years. "Besides, I'm as alien to him as humans are to us. I don't think my biology would click in his mind as easily as earthlings' do."
"It wouldn't hurt for him to at least check," Rose pointed out.
"You should've seen it, Rose," Van said above a whisper, "He was suddenly there. For all we hate the idea of what this human body has done to his mind, the fact that he could project that energy shield to protect himself—I was so relieved. They do have the means to survive, no matter the challenge. Those who designed his every cell knew what they were doing."
"We always knew he would be different," she said, softening her stance. "He heard you were in danger, and he just took off—as if he'd always known you and fought for you. Even his own Guards were left to scramble after him, including the General."
Van smiled at that.
"Yet they're alien in nature, Van. Don't let this fool you."
"You've never believed they survived, Rose, yet here you are, in this alien world, keeping tabs with all of them. You volunteered if I remember correctly."
"Making sure the Rebellion is not running on a fool's hope. You know how I promised the Queen mother I'd watch over you, Van. That means making sure you're not—"
A double knock on the door announcing Luke coming cut her words short.
"Come in," Van said, blinking a bit harder to will his sight to come back faster.
"Van, I bring troubling news. It looks like His Majesty was right. Khivar has been using the mind-link technology today."
"He could be just reaching for any human to control and carry on his assassination attempt," Van said, standing up. "There's absolutely no way Khivar would be able to take over Zan's mind."
"We knew he would attempt to kill him today. That's why we came. That's why we took the chance to move our planned date. We cannot take this as anything less but Khivar succ—"
"He has not succeeded," Van fiercely said, which was punctuated by the color red suddenly becoming vivid in his eyes. "He has to be stopped. Here, in Antar, anywhere he's trying to pull the trigger—" Van looked Luke straight in the eye. "We cannot lose him, Luke. Not this close."
Outside the room, one of the shifters who resided in the compound cleared his throat. "His Majesty has requested your presence in the War Room, sir," Finn said.
"I just left the General there," Luke explained as all of them left the room. "The Unit has surrounded us, though Langley has yet to come inside."
"We'll have to assume he won't be coming inside," Van answered, following their resident host. That any human could ambush or kill Langley was as unlikely as Van losing his sight, so he was not going to gamble on the safe side of that equation.
"His Majesty has ordered that the Rebellion prevents Khivar from using that machine by any means necessary," Finn elaborated, "same with any machine in the sister planets. Violet is about to send His Majesty's orders through our comms console—unless you object. I didn't give her the codes."
The fact that any of them could even suggest disobeying Zan's direct order unnerved Van. Violet and the other Guards would never question his word, but the rest of them? He wasn't so sure.
"My word pales against Zan's word," he answered. "Get the order through."
"Yes, sir." Finn took a left, while Rose took the lead to the War Room.
If his own shifters were doubting Zan's claim to the throne over Van's, he would have an uphill battle with the Rebellion at large.
First things first, we have to get out of this place alive.
4 : Maria
It was one thing to feel useless in a superpowered situation, but it was a whole new level to feel useless in the middle of alien conspiracies and Special Unit men shooting at them.
"This day sucks," she said as she took some instant ramen out of the microwave. Jade had shown them the kitchen-slash-dinner room, and here she was with Liz. "We were supposed to be having lobster or something fancy tonight. Gosh, I had the entire night planned, you know? Like, I've been planning this whole week for months and months on end, but noooooo… Michael had to bring his past life baggage and—"
She sat down without finishing that sentence. Liz was barely listening, and she had no idea where Kyle was. She was just hungry and angry and blaming Michael for things beyond his control was suddenly not fun at all.
"This day sucks," she repeated, before settling to blow over her yellow, salty food.
"I can't sense any difference," Liz said, blinking fast as she came back to the here and now. "Like I thought—I don't know, that maybe he would feel less Max and more…Zan?" In front of her, her own ramen cup laid open, the vapor slowly stirring up. Liz hadn't started eating yet.
"Well, I for once am happy Space Boy is not about to explode something. He feels…he feels calm," she said, narrowing her eyes. "Collected. Like he has no time to worry like a headless chicken now that I'm here. I mean, he's worried, just being smart about it."
"How far we've come," Liz said with a teasing smile as she started stirring her own cup of ramen.
"Indeed. This day is changing everything, though."
"Because we finally know the truth?" Liz asked, testing if her steamy food was ready for consumption.
"Well, there's that, but that's just a tiny fraction of it. Let's say for the sake of argument we're not all dead tomorrow—"
"Maria!"
"—just being pragmatic here. So, not dead or captured," she said, ignoring Liz's horrified eyes. "This is it. This is Dave's endgame. Once we're out of here—heck, even since the moment we stepped foot in this place, the deal is over. We're no longer his 'wards' or however he thought of it. He's delivered us—them—to the Antarians."
"We don't know for sure…" Liz said, but there was no conviction behind her words.
"Max and Michael and Isabel need to deal with this whole Antar problem," Maria continued, ignoring Liz's non-doubt and stabbing her ramen instead, "And since Max is playing king, Michael is playing general, and Isabel is playing victim, I don't see this ending in our favor."
"I don't see a future where Michael chooses to go," Liz said with a smile.
"No, but it doesn't mean they won't drag them out to their world. These people have not spent all this time here to politely take 'no' for an answer."
"Even if they're dragged there," Liz said rolling her eyes. "They would come back. I don't know, maybe the answer is that we go with them," Liz said, shrugging.
"You are being way too casual about that prospect right now," Maria said, her food forgotten for a moment. She was a woman of this world. She knew how to deal with this world. She was not going to suddenly become the alien by living in that world.
"I guess it just hasn't sunken in. I'm still rattled about what Jade said. That he would take Max away from me to make sure Antar is free. Like maybe the answer is that we go with them."
"It would be like changing Dave for a Palace… And we don't even know what kind of life they would have. The Rebellion is far from over at this point. What kind of world is Antar, anyway?"
"I feel kind of guilty, actually," Liz said, wincing slightly at her food. "We've never really even thought about Antar. And it's not like we thought their mother's message was an echo of the far past. Nikolas was here. Khivar was here. We even knew Courtney—"
Maria gagged at that name. "I'm eating…" she muttered.
"The point is, we've known all these years that Antar's political problems are alive. People are losing their lives every day, waiting for Zan to come back."
"Yeah, but that's on them," Maria pointed out, blowing her ramen once more. "It's up to them how they're ruled. They should pick Van and move on. Leave Space Boy alone. Let Zan's memory rest in peace at last."
"Maybe. It doesn't change that the reason Max, Michael, and Isabel are here is because their Rebellion bioengineered them to be reborn and go back. We're the extras in this life, Maria. They were always meant to go back."
"And it doesn't change the fact that we're stuck with them…" Maria said, biting her food. That she couldn't do a darn thing to change things in this chess game made her skin crawl. She was not a damsel-in-distress, and she was not going to become a nameless "General's wife." She had her own set of skills. She had her own life to shine in.
Maybe things are moving too fast… maybe I just need a moment to think, here. There's no way in hell Michael would allow me to go if he thinks it's too risky, for starters.
"I still would rather stay," Liz said as an afterthought. "It's like you said, everything is changing today."
"You know what else has already changed?" Maria asked, her food forgotten for a second again. "It also means we're free. Free of Dave's contract. We're finally free to move out in the world. We have the resources to tuck ourselves on a paradise island and not work a day in our lives. As long as we don't call the government's attention, of course."
"How ironic that the day we're free of Dave we're just stuck with Antar and the Unit at our doorstep," Liz said, sighing.
"Well, you know it can never be easy with the Czechoslovakians…"
"I just need this day to be over—" Liz said when Jade knocked on the door.
"Your Majesty?" the shifter said. "His Majesty has requested everyone to meet at the War Room."
Maria was up and out of the room before the man had finished the sentence. She was needed at the table, and she was not going to sit and passively watch while others made life-altering decisions for her. Now she only had to figure out what exactly she was bringing to fix this mess.