Children of Evolution (The Gateway Series Book 2) (36 page)

"Feels a little disrespectful to Sarah," Ace replied, her stance easing back a bit. The smile she directed at Becks had a soft familiarity Nikki hadn't seen from her before. "Calling you
my
ex implies some level of ownership. I don't want to step on any toes."

Becks snorted, not unlike the way Nikki did when she was about to make fun of somebody. Nikki liked her already.

"That never bothered you when I was with Carla," Becks said. "You tromped all over her toes."

"I didn't like Carla. She was no good for you," Ace said flatly.
 

Becks laughed outright. "Fair enough. No need to sing that old song again. And don't worry, I won't tell Carla you said that next time I see her."
 

Ace's expression made Nikki feel like she should look around for a weapon. "Don't try too hard."

After a long pause, Ace relaxed into a real smile, and Becks laughed again. "I've missed that sense of humor, Tessy," Becks said. She strode forward and pulled Ace into a hug as fierce as it was genuine.
 

Looking at the powerful affection in the bigger woman's face as she closed her eyes and held Ace, Nikki started to understand the attraction.
 

Becks broke the embrace and stepped back, lowering her arms and shifting her stance just slightly, but it made a world of difference. The warm friendliness was suddenly gone again, replaced by a cold professionalism that reminded Nikki of a cop eyeing an unruly crowd. Watching the transformation reminded her of Sam when he was working—being "switched on," as he called it.

"You ready to go in?" Becks said, her tone matching her demeanor.

Ace nodded, apparently neither surprised nor fazed by the sudden shift.
 

Becks nodded back and stepped closer. She pulled a couple of small devices from a pocket and handed them to Ace and Nikki.

"You'll need those," she said, taking out another and hooking it over her own ear. "He's prepping. He keeps the feed open in there."

Once the earpieces were in place and activated, to no effect Nikki could see, Becks led them through the door into a room that gave Nikki an uneasy chill. The broadcast equipment arranged around the perimeter of the room, connected by thick, snaking cables and conduits, all fed into a single contraption in the center. It was a glorified chair, in no way a torture tank, and it was in the middle of the room instead of at one end, but the quiver in her stomach didn't make those distinctions. The scene was enough like the lab Savior had used to harvest her power that Nikki stopped just inside the door, the chill growing into full-fledged nausea. This was not how she imagined feeling when she met Max.

"He looks tired," Ace said. She and Becks were only a few paces farther into the room, looking up at the wired chair like a couple of worried mothers.

"Nightmares," Becks said, crossing her arms. "He downplays how often, but I know he's up most nights."

Nikki had been so distracted by the chair she'd looked right past the man sitting in it staring off into space. It was him all right. The Max. He was long, lanky, and sharp around the joints—a little on the thin side of healthy looking—with that short, messy red hair that always looked so perfectly out of place on camera. She could see the family resemblance now that she knew to look for it, especially around the eyes, which hadn't reacted to their entrance. He didn't seem to hear them either, even though Ace and Becks were standing less than two meters away and not even trying to be quiet as they talked about him.

"I thought something might be up when he called me," Ace said. "Has he said what's bothering him?"

"Nothing specific," Becks replied. "Just says something bad is coming. You know how into his art he gets though. It's probably a new story he's working on."

Nikki stepped up beside Ace. "Didn't anybody ever tell you it's rude to talk about someone like he's not here?"

Ace smiled slightly, but kept her eyes on her brother. Despite the smile, Nikki could see the concern deepening the faint crow's feet at the corner of her eye. She almost looked her age for once.
 

Becks snorted and looked over. "He can't hear or see us, hon," she said. She pointed to her earpiece and then gestured to the tiny black emitters spaced around the room.

What Becks had said about rehearsing sunk in, and Nikki fumbled at her earpiece for the off switch. When she flipped it, the room and everyone in it disappeared.

Suddenly she was standing beside a bonfire blazing on a high bluff, a dark sky full of stars overhead and light desert scrub underfoot. A teenage boy stood staring into the fire, his slim profile facing Nikki. She had the urge to move closer, but she held back, knowing that's not how this worked. This wasn't her first movie experience.
 

The sensory immersion was convincing, but she knew she couldn't interact with the world around her. She saw and experienced only what the movie maker intended. It was a testament to the maker's skill that she had to keep reminding herself not to move. The world he'd created was perfect.

Nikki was stepping into the middle of the story, she could tell, but that didn't stop her from feeling a connection to the boy in front of her. The passion and emotion he was battling was clear without a word of dialogue. He was scared of what he was about to do, but he wasn't backing down. He was committed to doing whatever he was doing, probably something stupid, because something stronger than fear was driving him.

Nikki could relate. He looked like she'd felt before she'd stormed the command center with Kate in tow. She hoped she'd hidden her fear better though. She felt for this boy, whoever he was, but she didn't want anybody reading her the way she was reading him.

"I'm sorry, Dad," the boy said, but he didn't sound too convincing. He knelt beside the fire and started scratching a strange symbol into the dirt. Nikki didn't recognize the symbol, but the sudden tingling in the air felt more than familiar. Nikki's breath caught as the goosebumps rose on her arms and a shiver ran across her back. She knew it was just a movie, just something Max had dreamed up, but the sensation was so much like—

Nikki blinked. She was back in the room, back with Ace and Becks. She tapped the earpiece, flipped the switch back and forth a few times.
 

No,
she thought.
Bring it back. Bring the power back.
 

But it was no use. There was nothing wrong with the earpiece. The show had stopped because Max had stopped it. He was stepping down from the raised chair, his eyes intent on Ace, his gaze brightening with each step.

"You came," he said, his casual tone at odds with the joy in his eyes and the half smile on his lips. Come to think of it, that was the most emotion Nikki had seen from him, ever. Every vid and picture she'd seen of Max, he was always alone and always had only the faintest ghost of a smile, if any.

"Said I would," Ace replied, stepping up onto the platform and wrapping Max in a hug. That was surely something Nikki had never seen.

Ace stepped back and ran a hand through Max's hair. "You're keeping it longer. I like it." Her other hand took Max's hand in hers almost absently.

Max didn't respond. He just looked at her like he was slowly taking everything in.

Nikki felt her heart catch, in part because she was face-to-face with the only celebrity she'd ever cared about, but mostly because seeing Ace and her brother together struck a little too close to home. Ace adored her brother—everything about her body language screamed it. And Max felt the same, Nikki believed, but he barely showed it. To a casual observer, what he felt for his sister was more tolerance than anything else.

Nikki wanted to shout at him to forget about his pride, or shyness, or whatever was making him so reserved and tell his sister how he felt, every day if possible. She wanted to shake him and tell him to hug his big sister like he'd never see her again. Holding back was a mistake, one he'd regret forever if he waited until it was too late to make it right.

Ace didn't seem to care though. Max's distraction just deepened her smile. Michael hadn't cared either, or so he'd said, but that didn't assuage Nikki's regret in the least.

Nikki swallowed the lump forming in her throat when Max shifted his gaze her way. She beamed a smile at him, but he just blinked and started chewing his upper lip. Whether that was supposed to be a good thing, Nikki had no idea.

"Max, this is Nikki," Ace said.
 

Max nodded and scrunched his brow like the words were redundant, like they already knew each other. He looked at her for a long five-count, his head tilted slightly to the side.

"You've been lost a long time," he said softly.

"She was that," Ace replied. "Nikki and Michael were on their own for over ten years before we found them."

Nikki had the unsettling feeling that wasn't what Max meant. He was looking at her like he knew more about her than she did. He continued to study her, apparently content to do so in silence, until Ace cut in.

"The other friend I told you about before—Kate—she needs your help, Max."

He looked at Ace, his expression unreadable. Nikki was getting the feeling the people who knew Max got used to expressions like that pretty quickly.
 

"Of course," he said, smiling that half smile that Nikki was starting to think only Ace received. "I want to do this show first though."

Ace laughed. "I didn't mean right this second, super star."

One of the guards outside knocked on the door twice then opened it enough to stick his head in. "Two minutes," he said to Max then shut the door.

"All right. I'm out of your way." Ace squeezed Max's hand and then turned to step off the platform. "Have fun up there."

"Let's get you to a seat," Becks said to Nikki, starting toward the door. But Max's voice stopped her.

"Don't you want to watch from up here?"

Nikki looked at him in shock, and she wasn't the only one. Becks looked like she thought that was one of the worst ideas she'd ever heard. But Max—Max was standing next to his chair, looking at her with genuine confusion wrinkling his brow.

"You sure?" Ace asked, to which Max looked even more confounded. "Right."

Becks didn't look any happier though. She opened her mouth for what Nikki was sure was going to be a protest, until Ace said, "It's OK. You can trust her."

After a second's hesitation, throughout which Max continued to look at the three of them like they were crazy, Becks nodded and waved Nikki forward.
 

She stepped onto the platform, and it immediately began to rise toward the ceiling, which opened in the center as they approached it.

"Don't get too close to the edge," Max said simply as the stage rose into the din of thousands of cheering voices.

Nightmare Walking

Impact

The wind pushing through the dark branches around Impact sent a chill tingling across his skin that had nothing to do with the cold. The woods north of the church felt alien to him tonight, menacing in a way they never had, like these forested hills that had sheltered him for years had suddenly turned against him.

He hadn't been allowed out at night since the first creature attacked Nikki, but that wasn't enough time to make him lose his familiarity with these woods. No amount of time would do that. This was his training ground. This was his home.

Crouched at the edge of the clearing, near the inky darkness under the thick, needle-covered boughs, Impact keyed his watch to check the time. Then, by force of habit, he checked the rest of his equipment, even though he'd already done so several times.
 

Besides his watch and the night-vision goggles on his forehead, he had only half a liter of water, which he'd barely touched, three packets of energy gel, and a compact first aid kit in his pack. The small, dome-shaped pack fit snugly between his shoulder blades, held securely in place by straps crossing his chest. He was geared out for an extended run, far more than this op called for, but Elias wanted this one to go by the numbers. He'd insisted on every precaution.

Under the pack, Impact wore his custom version of the team's night op uniform—fitted, lightweight fabric in a dull black with compression bands every few centimeters across his torso and legs. His tac boots were custom pieces as well, with cutouts for greater ankle mobility, increased heel padding for the pounding he put them through, and aggressive soles for maximum traction. The custom work was expensive, according to Ace, especially considering the rate at which Impact wore out boots. He burned through at least four pairs per year, on average, and three times as many soles. But Elias said the expense was justified.

Thinking of Elias coaxed Impact's lips into the closest approximation of a smile they'd assumed in days. Elias had always taken care of him. Always. He was more of a father to Impact than Savior ever had been, more than he ever could have been. Nikki didn't know how lucky she was.

The smile flattened out, and Impact looked over at the dark trunks beside him and the faint line of the path disappearing into the deeper shadows of the woods.

"Rabbit—Command," Mos said over the com in Impact's ear. "Give us another round, kid."

Mos was coordinating the op from Kate's command center, so he'd chosen the code names. Impact's was supposed to annoy him, he was certain, but he wasn't letting it. He was a key part of this op. He didn't want his focus to waver, even though his task was painfully simple.

He lowered the goggles into position and switched them on, transforming night into day for his eyes. Then he uncoiled from his crouch and tapped his earpiece as he started to run. "Rabbit en route."

Impact accelerated onto the trail and into the dark woods, every smooth trunk and rustling fern clearly visible thanks to his night-vision specs. The goggles were useful but not necessary. He could have done this without them, despite the cloudy, moonless night. He'd run the island's trails so many times he knew every twist and turn, every raised root and hidden depression like they were part of him. He reacted to them instinctively now, even at his steadily increasing speed.