by Noah Harris
“We dress for Sunday dinner. It’s not an every time thing with my father, just on Sundays. My Mom started it a long time ago, I think it was because we were wandering around in pool and boat clothes all the time, and somehow it just stuck. Forrester turned out to be a less formal gentleman than Nick had imagined. Though still firmly in the realm of house staff, he did not don a coat and tails, or speak with a clipped British accent, as the stereotype might suggest, but he was a gentleman with red hair, grey trousers and a white button down shirt. He greeted them at the door and shook Nick’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, young sir,” he said, before disappearing behind the doors leading to the kitchen. Nick and Jared sat in their seats which, hysterically with only three dinner participants, held place cards.
“He just likes to dictate where people sit,” Jared whispered very quietly into Nick’s ear before sitting across from him. A camera in the corner moved with the usual accompanying motor noise. Within three minutes, Mr. Finley entered, pausing in the doorway briefly to assess Nick before entering fully. He too, was less formal than expected, wearing khakis, a light blue shirt and a navy sport coat, similar in weight to the one Nick had selected. Looking almost exactly like an older version of Jared, it was clear to Nick that his friend favored his father more than his mother, for he was nearly a carbon copy, except for the salt and pepper hair and a few extra lines on the tanned and boat-weathered face of the elder Mr. Finley.
“You didn’t have your protein powder this morning,” he chose as his first words to Jared.
“We were in a rush,” Jared explained. Mr. Finley scowled slightly, but let it go, only because they had a guest. He strode toward Jared.
“Sometimes I wish I had a time machine,” he said. “To go back and prevent your mother from ever instituting the Sunday rule.” He hugged Jared briefly in greeting before returning his attention to Nick. Extending his hand warmly, he said, “It’s nice to meet you, Nick. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Finley,” Nick shook back.
“So, is Jared studying as much as he should be at school?” the man asked. Nick was momentarily flustered at being asked for a report, but quickly recovered.
“Of course. Of course he does, and I can safely say I’ve never seen anyone rehearse as much as he and Abby do.”
They were able to engage in some polite small talk through the appetizers and halfway into the main course, during which time Nick gleaned that Jared’s father was truly concerned for his son’s well-being, and curious about his school and friends. Their interaction was not as easy as he was with his own parents, but much less strained than he expected, based on Jared’s behavior and prior descriptions. Nick could sense that Mr. Finley was a bit tense at his presence, but assumed this was a reflection of still adjusting to Jared’s choices, on which the father and son had disagreed in the past. Halfway through the main course, however, the conversation escalated beyond small talk.
“So, Nick, Jared tells me you are a business major. Are you familiar with my company?” he asked, watching closely for the response. Nick saw a camera move subtly out of the corner of his left eye, and he felt almost as if it were closing in on him.
“I had heard of it in passing before I met Jared, just by virtue of the fact that it’s a Fortune 500,” Nick replied, honestly. “After we became better friends, I looked at it more closely, of course.”
“Checking out our internship program?” Mr. Finley stated, with a tone that wasn’t quite accusing Nick of befriending Jared for an internship opportunity, but seemed to be just short of that. He was apparently somehow disconcerted, though it wasn’t clear exactly what the man’s problem was.
“I actually hadn’t really checked on that, sir,” Nick replied openly. “I was really hoping to do an internship with an aerospace company next summer.”
“Commercial Space, a fine choice, very interesting,” Mr. Finley complimented. “But I was only asking because I have heard much about this strategic, analytical brain of yours.” He looked at Jared, who shook his head slightly as his father embarrassed him. “I was actually hoping you might consider applying with us instead. It would be a pleasure to have you.”
11
When Monday’s classes were over, Nick met up with Michael, Isda and Gideon. The minute he entered the room, Michael was in his personal space and exhibiting a heightened sense of slight but unmistakable aggression.
“Where were you? I rang and rang you this weekend.” Michael accused, trying to keep himself moderately cool.
“I went out of town for the weekend? What’s the big deal?” Nick responded.
“The big deal is that we still need to protect you,” Michael responded.
“Look, I told you I didn’t want that. I can take care of myself. I’m much more capable now than I was a month ago, and I didn’t even like it then. I didn’t agree to be a prisoner,” Nick rebutted.
“I know it’s hard because you weren’t raised properly,” Isda added. When she realized from Nick’s expression that this was not the best choice of words, she softened her tone. “Oh sorry, no offense intended. What I meant was, that you were raised with a more human mindset,” she corrected. “But we operate as a pack, a unit. We have to know where everyone is at all times, for safety, for unity. It’s not even just about protecting you, ya know—what if one of us needed your help, and we couldn’t find you?” Nick hadn’t contemplated that thought before, and he considered it for a few moments.
“I thought you could track me wherever I was. This hasn’t seemed to be a problem so far,” He gestured to Gideon with a hitchhiker’s thumb. “Gideon seems to show up wherever I go.”
“You must have gone over a large body of water,” Gideon responded. “Sometimes I have a hard time with a lot of water.” He seemed to be looking for an explanation, or affirmation, but Nick duly noted it and just grunted in a noncommittal fashion.
“Look, I know it’s difficult to become part of a team that’s already formed, so can we start with the assumption that if I’m calling you after hours, if it’s something normal, I will just text once as usual, but that if I text several times and start calling repeatedly, you will assume something is very important and pick up. Is that fair?” Michael proposed.
“So, you needed me urgently this weekend, then? There was some emergency? What was it?” Nick challenged. Michael smirked, accustomed to this type of challenge from new members.
“Okay, so there wasn’t an emergency this weekend. I just wanted to know where you were so we could know you were safe. But, what I’m proposing going forward—that’s reasonable, is it not?” Michael pressed.
“Okay,” Nick acquiesced. “But only if you don’t abuse the privilege.”
“Deal,” Michael smiled slightly.
They trained for the next hour or so. Nick was still not as great with ‘mech’ shifting as Isda would have liked, but he was making continued progress. Gideon thought Nick had picked up animal shifting better than almost anyone he had seen, aside from himself, of course. Nick had progressed further in a month than most people do in six. His favorite animals to shift into were a wolf and an eagle. Gideon had advised that wolves, eagles and snakes were comfortable beginner animals, and since observed more by ancient humans, this was exactly why these animals were often considered spiritual animals by native peoples around the world. Once a shifter became more experienced, the diversity of animals and the skill level of the shifter increased to the point where they were less often, if ever, observed by humans. Nick didn’t like being a snake, unless he was in a very remote region, as it tended to make humans chase him with shovels, hedge clippers and the like. He actually enjoyed being ether more than most, the shimmering, barely-there mist-like form he had seen Gideon assume on a few occasions before. He had finally talked Gideon into teaching him, but he wouldn’t do it around Michael, and would only teach Nick occasionally when they were hanging out alone outside of their formal training time. Because of this, N
ick’s progress with ether was slower than average, but he enjoyed it immensely. He found something in the experience, though he was still not very good at it, and could only hold the ether form for about three or four minutes, tops. For now, Nick thought, noting to himself that if there was any one area where he wanted to improve for his own sake, and not because it was being asked or required of him, that would be the goal he chose for himself.
After that first training hour, the group took a break for some water and to allow Nick to catch his breath.
“I’m going to grab an iced tea,” Gideon relayed. “Anybody want anything?” Isda, Michael and Nick all shook their heads no, content with the cool water before them. Nick had noticed right away what a profound effect nutrition had on his abilities. He felt sluggish with caffeine, or too much sugar, sometimes too much red meat, which he had mostly avoided anyway, even before learning he was a shape shifter. He was still on about a half of his old dose of Nydor, but was reducing it at about ten percent per week. After determining this was the optimal level of reduction to gradually increase his powers and still keep the headaches under moderate control, he had started right away, and hoped to be off of it completely in another month or so. Isda had informed him that the final ten percent was the hardest, and some could never fully remove themselves because the headaches were just unbearable. Being on too much caused the headaches, but after becoming used to it, being on too little, it turned out, also induced headaches. Plus, some shifters just couldn’t deal with their full power. Isda thought this probably wouldn’t be a problem for Nick, but Michael was hoping so even more, watching Nick very carefully for his health and adaptability.
When fifteen minutes went by and Gideon did not return, Michael grew impatient.
“Isda, will you please get Gideon. It seems he’s become distracted again.”
“Sure,” she responded, and made her way to the large, metal door. Immediately upon opening it, Nick was overwhelmed with a sense of panic and anxiety. He looked at Michael and Isda, and noticed they looked immediately alarmed. Nick had never experienced this sensation before and—at first—thought their alarm was for him. It took him only a few seconds to realize something was very, very wrong.
“Shift trap!” Isda yelled, slamming the door quickly.
Keeping a cool head, but with great intensity, speed and concern, Michael instantly flipped open his laptop and began entering the information for the exterior camera records. Nick regained some sense of composure, though he was still feeling as if his entire body was flooded with adrenaline, mixed with nausea and something else he couldn’t quite identify. Maybe some things were hard to describe in human terms.
“What’s a shift trap?” Nick asked Isda as Michael raced on the computer.
“It’s a human device, used by the enemy humans. They have some new way of masking themselves, and if they have learned where we are, and if we are otherwise focusing our attention, they place this device outside the nearest door. It stuns whoever emerges and then they put them in a power cage, which hinders a shifter’s abilities while they’re in it. It’s new. Our intelligence teams don’t really even know how it works yet.”
Michael flipped the screen around so they could see this description playing out with Gideon’s image on the camera. “It’s kind of like a Faraday cage, but for shifters,” Michael explained. “How in the hell did they know we were here?” he shouted, growing more agitated as he watched Gideon being tied at the feet and wrists.
“So, he can’t just turn into ether, or a small animal, and get away?” Nick beseeched.
“No, his powers are tied. No one has ever returned, so we don’t know how long it can keep his powers in check. They killed everyone else they’ve used it on pretty quickly. It takes them a day or two to do their stupid rituals before crushing the bones. Let’s hope he recovers his powers, or we find him, before then,” Michael continued. He stepped inordinately close to Nick, spinning him around as if looking for something. The action was so quick that it further disoriented Nick, still nauseated, who stumbled for a second. Michael leaned in close and smelled him. Nick recoiled slightly.
“What are you doing?” he said with disdain.
“Isda, I need nanobots—did they put a tracker on him?” Isda looked alarmed, and shifted quickly into a ‘mech bot’, which then broke down into a million tiny, nearly invisible pieces. She swarmed around Nick’s body, which added a vague itchiness to his existing list of residual symptoms from sensing the shift trap when the door opened. Now, it felt as if he had bugs crawling under his skin. He reflexively started to shift, and Michael yelled at him.
“DON’T shift! Hold still!” Michael bellowed. A few moments later, Isda reemerged as herself, holding a small, clear device the size of a headache capsule in her hand. Michael swiftly grabbed it, threw it on the ground and stepped on it, though their location was already burned now.
“They were tracking you! I knew that human could not be trusted! We never should have let you continue with that ridiculous pet!” Michael directed his ire at Nick, who was confused.
“Jared? Are you crazy? He doesn’t even know I’m a shifter? How on earth could they track me? And, where did they take Gideon?” Nick was frantic.
Isda was beside herself. “We don’t know where they took Gideon. My God, if they do anything to him…” she trailed off, lost in her own thoughts of how to approach the problem.
“Nick, we were working up to telling you this, but you just need to know. We think Jared’s father, correction—we know Jared’s father is the head of the human enemies. So far, we haven’t been able to tell if Jared is working with him or not. Up until now, our intelligence team actually thought he didn’t know, but I guess this puts that into question. Did you take any capsules when you were there?”
“No, wait, yes. I took a headache capsule from the bathroom medicine cabinet before we watched a movie. His father could not possibly be the head of the enemy humans. He was nice to me. Wouldn’t they have just tried to grab me or something?” Nick pleaded.
“Not necessarily. Not if he’s setting up the long game. They wanted to find our location. Now they’ll probably try to track us when we leave here.” Michael said.
“At least they had the sense not to try to take all of us at once,” Isda added.
“Yeah, they just preyed on poor Gideon when he was alone. They know better than to take us head on. That’s why they let Nick go, so they could come at us sideways,” Michael concluded.
Nick’s head was reeling from so much information, but his senses were beginning to return from reacting to the shift trap.
“So, will that thing still be out there when we open the door?” Nick asked, examining the camera screen closely. Isda leaned in.
“No, it’s gone. Just the residue remains and the echo of Gideon’s emotional reaction. I can still feel his struggle,” Isda added.
“Look, I’m having a really hard time believing Jared’s father did all this. Are you sure you have the right person?” Nick asked.
Michael was frantically texting as he responded. “Nick, we’ve been tracking him for a long time. Not us per se, but the pack and the Wisdom, since before you or Jared were even born. He steals shifters, crushes their bones and ingests them. Didn’t you wonder how he looks so young… so similar to his own son? How he’s in such good physical shape, and sharp enough, intellectually, to be the head of a global company, though he only had a mediocre education?” Michael finished his first round of frantic texting, and switched to the computer.
To Isda, he said “The pack’s been warned. I’m going to message the Wisdom and the intelligence team. We must act quickly, but with a solid plan, if we’re going to recover Gideon.”
“Count me in!” Nick shouted, growing even more concerned for his friend’s safety with each passing moment.
“You’ve done enough!” Michael barked. Nick’s head hung low for a moment as he continued to process everything, and then a new worry crept in. Could Jar
ed actually be part of this? Nick’s mind raced—had Jared encouraged him to take the capsule? Told him where they were? He concluded with fair certainty that he’d just found the capsules on his own, but his mind raced with other details of the weekend. What had he missed?
Michael pounded furiously on the tablet and continued. “Nick, we think Jared has been ingesting shifter bone. He is a little too strong, a little too fast, but he’s careful not to take too much. It’s so slight as to be barely perceptible. We were going to test him when, without warning, you decided to do a healing. Now, since he has shifter material from your stunt, we can’t tell if we sense it from you, or from ingestion. You have rendered us powerless to be able to tell whether he’s an enemy or not.”
“Son of the leader, and now this—he must be!” Isda exclaimed.
“Isda,” Michael put his arm around her to calm her down. “I’m as upset as you are, but we will find him. We can’t just go around killing innocent humans.” Michael’s counsel was polished.
“Killing!” interjected Nick. “No one is killing Jared! I’ll find out the truth. I know he wouldn’t do that.” Nick sounded more confident than he actually was. Every fiber of his being— for whatever reason—told him to trust Jared, but he could not deny the doubt which had crept into his mind.
“You just need to go home,” Michael instructed. “We can’t take you along. There’s no time to get you up to speed on all you need for this kind of battle. Just go home, lay low and don’t open the door for anyone—no one, not even pizza delivery, got it?” Nick nodded his head affirmatively out of obedience, but didn’t have time to really decide if he agreed or not. He wasn’t given much choice.
“Follow us out and never come back here. This location is burned. Once we get beyond the cameras, we’ll assess if there are any human trackers nearby. When you get the signal, change into something small, something difficult to see and go home. Don’t leave there until we come and get you,” Michael instructed. In accordance with the plan, the three sprang from the front door and ran speedily away from the building. Stopping to assess the situation, they decided there was no remaining human presence detectable. Isda motioned to Nick, and she and Michael shifted and were gone in the blink of an eye. As he was told to do, Nick shifted as well. He chose ether, as he thought it tactically best. He would be nearly invisible and this form gave him some internal comfort at least. Flying back toward the dorms through the air in a shapeless form, he thought of Gideon and realized just how much he didn’t know. His thoughts drifted to Jared and then to his father. How could they be so sure? How could he have not detected anything amiss when meeting the man? How could the pack have let him go there, if he was such an enemy? At that moment, it struck Nick why Michael was so upset with him about the weekend. They didn’t let him go; he had just gone on his own. He had ignored the needs of the group, and wouldn’t even answer when Michael called. The value of operating in the pack was becoming apparent to him. How could he possibly navigate this world of enemies on his own? Nearing the outer woods near the school grounds, Nick felt his ability to retain the ether form draining. He was probably over four minutes by now, a personal best, but he barely made it to the cover of the trees before losing form. He reverted to himself momentarily, but quickly shifted into bird form. He flew high, and circled a few times, breathing deep into his lungs and hoping that somehow the fresh air would also clear his head. Once he reached his dorm roof, Nick the eagle shifted to Nick the pigeon and flew down the outer air shaft into the internal HVAC system. He had done this a couple times before as a training exercise, and now he saw why Isda had assigned it at the time. They were preparing him to evade, to live his life on the run. Once he reached his own duct, Nick shifted from a pigeon to a snake so he could get through the grate. Once inside, he shook off the slithery feeling as he returned to his base form. He still didn’t like snakes, but it got the job done. Once he was safe, and his adrenaline returned to normal, it took only a few minutes for Nick to determine he could not just sit here hidden in his room while so much remained at stake. What if they killed Jared? What if Jared knew where Gideon was? If Jared’s father was indeed the leader of the human enemies, what if he captured the others? It took only a few moments of pondering before Nick knew what he had to do.
