Part 34: Hidden Paths
November 2nd, 2011 - New York
1 : Max
Leaving Maria with Van was one of the strangest things he'd done this day—and that was saying something. He knew through his connection where to find Liz. His wife needed to hear from him why dying was the right thing to do, and they both needed to plan on what would happen next if he didn't make it.
He was oddly pragmatic about his impending death. As if dying was an item on his to-do list, one that had several things happening just after that.
This better work, he absently thought. He went as far as opening his mouth to call his Invisible Guard and give orders when a man younger than him popped up from the nearest door some six feet ahead.
His Guards didn't wait. Violet had him pin by the throat with her arm while Ash's considerably wide frame became a wall between the two of them.
"I just—need a min—ute of—your—" the guy said as Violet pressed harder.
"You would not speak to His Majesty without him addressing you first," she fiercely said. She wasn't happy to be taken by surprise, Max knew.
"Aren't you with Dave?" Max asked, as Ash moved out of the line of sight.
The man somewhat nodded.
"Violet, let him breathe," Max said, which in Violet's mind translated to ease her arm, period. She was still very much pinning him against the wall.
"I helped Dave escaped this morning. I've been working against the Unit for years. I've been your shadow man inside the Special Unit, feeding them misinformation, planting malware, doing all sorts—" Violet pressed him back, unimpressed with the barrage of accomplishments.
"Get to the point…" Violet warned.
"I need your help," the man said, looking straight at Max. "I've been helping you all this time without you knowing it—"
"In the hopes I would help you—how?" Max asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Healing me."
In twenty-eight years of life, Max had healed eight people. Three of gunshots and five of cancer. All of them had drained him, all of them had been worth it, but at least two of them had developed powers. Till this day, he had no idea if the Phoenix kids had developed their own. And that wasn't even counting Brody.
"I do not just heal anybody," Max carefully said. The narrative he'd told Dave and Jake was he would not heal, under any circumstance, and Jake had never put him to the test. It was the one area where Max had never really found his limits or biologically understood his power. And he was perfectly fine with it.
The man's eyes grew in desperation.
"But you do heal! It's nothing but a wave of the hand for you yet the gift of life for me. I honestly have nothing to do with anyone getting your brainwaves, I swear! I never touched those files. I—I can help you to bring down the Unit for real this time. Think about it: if you survive today and the rebellion goes away, Dave has no more reason to protect you. You will need the Unit off your back starting tomorrow."
"They're pretty much on my back right now," Max pointed out.
Here was this man who knew entirely too much about Max, throwing everything at Max to see what would stick, and Max didn't even know his name.
"I'll make you a deal!" he shouted as Max was about to resume walking. He was running out of time, and he had no energy to waste.
"Of course, you work for Dave…" Max said as he stared at him.
"I do—I do," he said, glancing at Violet and trying to wiggle out of her arm. No chance. "If I can help drive the Unit away tonight, and we're both alive tomorrow, I can give you the keys to end them once and for all. Would that be reason enough to grant a dying man his wish?"
"What exactly is wrong with you?"
"Brain cancer. Too deep for surgery. I'll be dead in six months."
"Even if we're both alive tomorrow, you don't know what you're asking of me," nor what might happen to you.
"Please—Please! I can take Dave off your back!"
"The Unit and Dave?" Max asked, skeptically.
"How do you think I know what you can do? Why am I even here if I wasn't privy to all the information both the Unit and Dave have collected on you?"
"That's a good question. Who are you, exactly?" Max asked, now seeing this man as a potential threat to his future self.
"I'm Daniel—I'm—I'm no one, really. It will only be a minute for you."
"I will see every secret you have, every thought, every intention…" Max warned. That wasn't entirely true, but he wanted to scare this man into showing his true colors.
"I don't care. I'm tired of being the outcast, of being the one who—Maybe you can't really understand this, but all my life has been about fighting for what I want, for what I need. This is no different. Either I reach for you or I die, so I reach for you—Your Majesty," he added, more a desperate plea than any real respect for his title.
Something about those words, though, reached deep inside Max. About being different. About fighting for the right to be alive.
"Okay…" Max whispered.
"Your Majesty, are you sure?" Violet asked, her arm ramming into the man's throat at the same time she looked back at him.
"He's willing to let me see," he whispered as Violet finally moved, allowing Daniel room to breathe.
Max moved closer, and Daniel's eyes shone with a strange mix of hope and fear.
"I will have to touch you," Max said, looking straight into his eyes. Something about this man who was not five years younger than himself, made him uneasy.
Despite everything, Daniel gave an unvoluntary step back. He's just realized I will definitely see his mind, Max knew with amusement. What kind of price are you paying for this?
Still, Max finally reached Daniel's body, placing one hand on his neck, and then the other one, right below Daniel's ear.
Fear made connecting exponentially harder. The last time he'd connected to a hostile mind, it had been Kyle. He'd been in absolute pain and had no idea what Max Evans was doing but he'd wanted no part of it. Daniel, though, Daniel knew exactly what Max was, and he wanted to avoid thinking about anything and everything at once.
What are you hiding? Max thought as his energy went looking for the corrupted cells inside Daniel's brain.
The first flash was of meeting Dave. The excitement, the rush, the absolutely awe of meeting his hero and proving himself worthy. The next was of programming lines. Hacking could be so boring at times. Then Daniel's life started to flash faster. Flying to exotic locations alongside Dave. Fighting him, yelling at him. Offers, contracts, millions of dollars. In Max went following Daniel's rabbit down into the Network's hole.
Through Daniel's eyes, Max saw a different side of Dave. He almost laughed at the absurd realization that Jake of all people could hardly stand him. And then the flashes turned darker, miserable. McKay became a frequent face in the kaleidoscope of images that Max was seeing. He would probably be still deciphering these flashes days after this. Daniel's mind was so clear, everything organized, ordered, like a computer with neatly arranged folders. The mind of an engineer, indeed.
Level six codes became a recurrent theme. And in the disjointed and loosely connected flashes, one thing became obvious: the moment Daniel had been diagnosed, he had searched for Max obsessively.
Daniel contacting McKay. Daniel planting the backdoor. Daniel knowing aliens were coming.
This whole day was such a nightmare in great part because Daniel had wanted it this way. To place Max in danger and then save him. Because nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to stand between Daniel and these healing hands.
And yet—
"Did it work?" Daniel barely whispered as Max opened his eyes, taking his hands off Daniel's body as if he'd been burned.
"It was you…" Max whispered, feeling betrayed by the man in front of him. Daniel creating the backdoor for McKay to track them down was the last memory fresh in Max's mind.
"It was…me?" Daniel nervously asked, hoping against hope those words didn't mean what he knew they meant.
"Get him out of my sight," Max almost growled, "Throw him in a cell, now," Ash lost not a second on placing his hands on him. "We'll discuss what to do with you once this is over."
Max turned to walk down the hall.
"Wait! Did it work? Did you heal me?" Daniel pleaded as Ash moved him out of Max's sight.
"There was nothing to heal," Max said. Daniel would not even get a handprint.
"What?"
"You were never sick, Daniel. If I have to guess, someone set you up to believe you were sick so you would come after me. And they succeeded wonderfully."
2 : Langley
They kept launching drones, and Langley kept bringing them down, so the Unit now believed there was some sort of electrical force field that was doing the job. Making one's enemy believe they had more tools at their disposition was a good way to slow them down.
The compound's two emergency exits were their only hope of not being boxed in, and Langley was doing everything he could to keep them secret.
It crossed his mind, just for a second, that he was actually the only one who could walk away without anyone being the wiser. All shapeshifter in the compound could essentially leave without trouble. It was the one Antarian, the three hybrids, and the eight humans that were the problem here.
When the time came, he would need to create a distraction big enough for them to get out and merge with traffic out there. He just didn't know what…
…until the man in front of him radioed that the explosives were on their way.
Of course, they must have run out of them trying to open the main entrance. Antarian technology was superb in every aspect, especially when it came to building safe houses. The Rebels used the best materials they could put their hands on, and Dave had built this place to the last of their specifications.
He became a faceless man behind a SWAT mask and waited. Nothing attracted attention more than one big, fiery explosion. It was only a matter of timing.
3 : Michael
In the dimly lit room, the headquarter holographic blueprint floated between Ray, Luke, and himself. The underground compound was big enough to be an advantage, but no matter how long they could withstand a siege, sooner or later, they had to abandon this place for good.
And sooner was the objective here.
"There are three entrances to the compound," Luke explained, used to his second-in-command duties. Rath used to do this for Zan, he fleetingly thought with a pang of nostalgia. The places Luke was referring turned red. "The main one, which is currently being bridged, and these two emergency ones."
The main entrance had three more doors before it led to the actual compound, and they were counting on those to hold as long as they had to.
"This one is too close to the main one," Michael said. "This one might work; it leads directly to the bridge. Once we're on the move, we'll need a means to leave New York."
Michael turned to look at his right for a moment. Whatever his wife was doing, she was darn happy doing it. Her happy vibes were distracting him from the harsh reality he was looking at right now.
"At least we're not boxed in just yet," Ray said.
"No, but our window to escape is getting narrower," Luke said. Michael turned to look at the blueprint. A vibration passed through the floor and the table, a clear sign that someone was using some sort of explosive out there. They had been feeling that for the past ten minutes.
"If it comes down to it, Isabel and I can improvise an emergency exit with our powers anywhere along this hall."
"We're ten feet deep and all entries are reinforced with depleted uranium," Luke pointed out, "All walls are concrete reinforced to prevent anyone from entering. We're a fortress, General. It would take you the better part of a week to get through that."
"It's still an option," Ray said, but Michael shook his head.
"I'd rather not have the entire US military waiting on us after a week of being holed down, you know. We need to disappear."
"What's in this place?" Ray asked, signaling the largest room of them all.
"The General's ship," Luke answered.
"My ship?" I have a ship now?
"The one that brought you here," Luke clarified.
"The crashed ship, then. Wait, that thing is here?"
"Very much, sir. It may never fly again, but its communication system is intact. It's what we currently use to talk to Antar."
"How did you even get that ship inside this place?" Ray asked, genuinely confused.
"We used a dimensional shifting portal."
Ray blinked, clearly having no clue about what Luke had just said. Michael didn't look any better.
"Does it have anything we could use to get out of here?" Ray slowly asked. Luke thought for a moment.
"The ship has its energy cells fully functional. That's a lot of raw power sitting there."
"What about the portal part?" Ray pressed.
"It doesn't really work with organic matter," Luke said, frowning, but the discussion brought a new angle to Michael.
"What about the wormholes? The technology you use to physically come to Earth?" he clarified at Luke's lost look. "Can you open a portal here and open the other end in the Bahamas or something?"
A loud beep interrupted Michael's question. "General, Luke," Lance's disembodied voice said, coming from a communication system, "We've just received confirmation that all mind-linking machines have been stopped except for Khivar's. They're aiming for the energy source some 50 miles away. It wouldn't look out of place for our people to target it and it will get the job done all the same."
"No, wait! We need Khivar to confirm Max is dead before we shut it down," Michael said. "It all depends on Khivar believing he won."
The door to the room opened, and in came Van, looking like a man on a mission. Maria remained by the doorframe, clearly proud of her work—whatever that was.
"Let's start spreading the news that Zan has just died," Van said with a slightly hungry look in his eyes.
Beside Michael, Luke stiffed, his eyes going round at something only he knew. "He gave you the Seal," Luke whispered.
"He did, against my wishes," Van confirmed. "Right now, though, your wife has come up with a very interesting strategy. It needs for us to confirm Zan has died as soon as possible."
"And Khivar won? Why?" Michael asked.
"On a practical level, we need Max to wake up as soon as we can—and for Khivar to feel confident enough to stop using the machine. It will look like the Rebellion targeting the link-mind machine was too little, too late. A last attempt that didn't work."
"What's the news I'm transmitting, then?" Lance asked over the intercom.
"A preliminary message: Zan has sacrificed himself for Antar. In the face of Khivar's ambitious plan to get him, Zan has just given his life for the Rebellion to continue."
4 : Dave
The door to his makeshift office opened suddenly. He was expecting to see Kyle dragging along their missing Daniel—where did that kid go?—because Dave needed him to navigate the Network. Two hackers were faster than one, especially when those hackers were Dave and Daniel, and the fact that Sybelle was still missing did nothing good to his mind.
He did not expect to see one of Max's Guards entering, inspecting, and approving the room so His Majesty could come. And came Max did, indeed.
"I've just met Daniel in the hall," he said without preamble.
For all the times Dave had met Max, he'd never even considered that Max could be Zan, and yet here he was, as imposing as any monarch anywhere, to the point that Dave felt compelled to stand up in front of His Majesty.
"He was eager to ask you a favor," Dave said, knowing Max wouldn't walk in here with this opening line if Danny hadn't pissed him off. Danny had that kind of effect on people—with Dave being the receiving end of those encounters.
"Healing him, yes," Max said. "I've thrown him in jail after what I saw."
Dave swallowed at that. He was sure Max had come to throw him in jail alongside the kid.
"I haven't processed everything I got from connecting with him, but you should know two things as I know them now," Max continued, standing in front of Dave's desk as if he were giving a proclamation. "He allowed McKay access to several of your files, including Sybelle's existence and current location."
"He what?" Dave said, feeling his legs going stiff and then threatening to become jello in the span of a heartbeat.
"And he wasn't sick at all. I suspect he was led to believe he was so he would sell you out in order to get to me. I hate to say this, but he did get to me in the end. This place won't be safe for much longer, but whatever other places you might think of, they might all be compromised."
Dave looked at him, understanding perfectly why Max was angry yet thinking ahead. "Wherever we go, I'll make sure it's clean—Your Majesty," he added. Max lost a bit of his majestic aura at the reminder, looking far more Max than Zan.
"When this is over, you will answer my questions," Max said, "all of them." He was about to leave, when Dave finally asked the one thing that had been in his mind for eight years now.
"Did you pass?"
Max turned to face him again, clearly not understanding the question.
"Van's test. Did he accept you as his brother?"
"Yes…and no…" he answered, thoughtful. "But it was never about me passing as Zan, or Van accepting if I measured up. It's always been about Antar, and on that we both agree. Van has the Royal Seal now. If I survive Khivar's upcoming attempts, it won't matter. Antar has a new king—they just don't know it yet."
Max nodded once before departing and left Dave there, still standing, wondering when had Max become king—and why did he think he wasn't anymore.