by Toby Minton
“We’ll give you something for your head,” the yummy voice said.
“No need,” she said, keeping her eyes closed as she pressed her fingers to her temples. “I just need to find my bro. Where are we, by the way?”
She had no idea when Mr. Pretty had come into the picture, but she was proud of herself. She’d left the club with one hot guy and woken up with another, even prettier guy. Her drunk alter ego was apparently a player of unparalleled skill. She should write a book.
“Give her something for the pain,” Mr. Pretty said, obviously not talking to her.
Uh oh. Her drunk self might have a little too much of the slut going on. Every girl should have a little slut in her bag of tricks, Nikki firmly believed, but she also believed the fun stopped being fun if someone else took the reins. She liked to party as much as the next girl, or maybe the next five girls put together, but Nikki always wore the pants, so to speak. She maintained the upper hand. She was the instigator. She was always the one in control, even when she was completely out of it. Waking up with more than one guy and not remembering who they were or what had happened—no control there.
Not being able to remember the night was a new experience for Nikki. Maybe she had Michael to thank for that. Now that she thought about it, he always did find little ways to hurt himself on big party nights. He’d stub a toe in the dark of a club, or twist his ankle on the rocky terrain of a Wasteland rave. And he’d give her a clarifying boost of healing each time. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember ever getting as drunk as she had last night. Apparently Michael’s little slips had always pushed the reset button on her binges before they’d gone too far.
Huh. She didn’t know whether to punch him or hug his neck. Maybe both. Punch first though. This hangover sucked. She’d been hung-over before, a time or two—probably as a lesson from her brother, she now realized—but never like this.
Nikki eased one eye open, expecting to see Lane with Mr. Pretty, but instead she saw a hypodermic needle the size of a missile headed for her arm. She jerked her arm back, lurched up in the bed, and scuttled back against the wall.
She instantly regretted it. Her eyes felt like they were floating in pain soup. Moving them sent waves of agony out through the rest of her head. And the nausea. Ugh. The adrenaline suddenly rushing through her was the only thing keeping her from heaving.
She kept her eyes open, but doing so took a supreme effort of will. She kept her head as still as possible while still trying to look around to figure out what the hell was going on.
She was in a tiny gray room, the wall against her back made of rough concrete, the others something smoother but painted the same dull gray. The wall opposite her, the one with the door in the middle, was all glass on the top half, like she was in some kind of hospital.
The two guys in lab coats, one with the giant syringe, added to the effect. And behind them, standing in the doorway and turned to the side like he was about to leave, was Mr. Pretty. Only, her awake brain recognized him now. Savior—hero to the masses, darling to the media, big bad evildoer to Gideon and his crew. That Savior.
“Shit,” Nikki breathed.
“Relax, child,” Savior said. “They’re not going to hurt you, just ease your pain while we prepare the tank. The lingering effects of the tranquilizers, and the alcohol, will fade once we get you rehydrated.”
“Where’s Michael?” she said, her heart hammering up into her throat. Syringe guy reached for her again, but Nikki slapped his hands away.
“Not here,” Savior said, his eyes showing a slight tinge of annoyance, more so when she smacked syringe guy again and snarled at him. “He would just get in the way of what you’re going to do here, Nikki.” He looked outside the door and motioned, and two burly guys in tan fatigues came in.
“And what exactly do you think I’m going to do?” she said.
Syringe guy stepped aside to let the burly guys at her. Nikki wanted to fight—she really did—but her body betrayed her. The two goons overpowered her and pinned her to the bed while syringe guy did his work.
“You’re going to do what I designed you to do,” Savior said like they were still having a civil chat, not at all like she was being manhandled by his soldiers.
Once syringe guy managed to get the shot in her arm, Nikki felt a soothing, slow-moving wave spreading through her body, like a sedative made out of molasses.
“You’re going to fulfill your destiny,” Savior said as the lab coats slipped out past him and the soldiers let her go and backed away. “You should be proud. Very few of us live to see our full potential realized.”
He motioned for the soldiers to leave. He started to follow them but stopped and turned his head to look at her again. “Now that you’re here, I will be one of those few. For that you have my gratitude. Rest well, Nikki Flux,” he said, emphasizing her made-up last name with a smile. “We need you at your best for what’s to come.”
Chapter 28
Kate
“A chiphead worth his salt—” Kate grumbled to herself as she positioned her ten-diopter swing-away lens over the magnifier to examine the bottom of the locator board. “It just so happens to be her salt in this case, jackass. And I’ll show you how worth it I am alright.”
Not with this thing you won’t, Kate, the rational part of her brain argued as she stared at the board for the hundredth time. Her brain was right. The micro board she’d pulled from the Corso guy’s device was just too simple for her to work any miracles. It was a beacon, nothing more.
Designed to send a continuous signal on a single frequency, the beacon was worthless for locating whoever was tracking it. She’d known that from the start, but when Michael told her what Corso had said, she’d committed herself to showing off for the jerk. Corso, that is, not Michael.
Professional pride wasn’t her only motivator of course. She wanted to find Nikki as much as anyone. Perhaps not as much as Michael, but still enough to spend every waking second focused on the task. She wanted to get her back for Michael so he could be whole and happy again. She wanted her back for Elias so he could return to his weird fantasy and keep his abandonment guilt at bay. She wanted her back for Gideon so he could do whatever it was he had to do to keep Nikki and Michael, not to mention the rest of humanity, safe in the future. And she wanted Nikki back for herself because—well, because she still thought they could be friends, deluded as that thought might be.
She’d asked herself the obvious question, more than once, but the answer was no. She didn’t want Nikki as a friend just because she was the only other girl around who was close to her age. Granted, that was probably a factor. It did get a little lonely around here if she went too long without getting out to the city to socialize. But it was more than that.
Nikki was funny. She was protective of those she loved, which was just Michael at this point, but still. She was also strong and independent. She wasn’t afraid to say what she wanted or do what she wanted. And she feared nothing.
Kate wanted to be more like that. Spending time with Nikki would be crazy, she knew, but it would be good for her, maybe good for both of them, if she could ever get around the girl’s mammoth jealousy issues over her brother.
Kate understood where Nikki’s issues came from. Michael had been Nikki’s and Nikki’s alone for her whole life. He’d never really dated anyone. He’d never had close friends. He’d never had any other family members around competing for his affection. He’d been hers. He’d always been there for her whenever she needed him, day or night, literally. Kate had never had anyone she was that close to. She doubted many people did. She could understand how it would be hard to share that kind of devotion.
She could only imagine how hard it was to have it ripped away. Nikki and Michael were both suffering right now. They had to be. That was the real reason Kate hadn’t slept since they got back to base. Thinking about how the twins were feeling hurt Kate, almost physically. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone suffering like that. Especia
lly Michael.
Kate leaned back from the magnifier and slid her glasses off her head and back into place. She pulled her feet up into the padded seat and hugged her legs to her chest. On the other side of the rail the servers hummed quietly in the pit, their red lights dimly shining at her out of the darkness like dozens of glowing eyes. The effect might have been creepy to some, but to Kate the eyes made her feel safe. When she was alone in the command center surrounded by their unwavering stares, she felt protected—the way she felt around Michael.
She was a little alarmed at how fast her feelings for Michael had developed. That just wasn’t like her. In fact, a steady boyfriend just wasn’t like her—not that casual boyfriends were. The truth was, not having a boyfriend at all was more her speed.
She’d had her share of boyfriends growing up. She’d even been head-over-heels for a few of them, for a while. But once she’d left high school, she’d focused on her studies and working toward a career, and boyfriends had ceased to be a priority. A casual date here or there was the most she managed in college.
Then she’d chosen a life of seclusion in her broken home country instead of a vibrant career anywhere else in the world, not that there’d really been a choice. Once she’d met Gideon and learned about the future he saw approaching—well, it wouldn’t have been easy to enjoy a life of luxury somewhere else knowing that life was going to come to a fiery end. So she’d given up her comfortable life and moved into the base. Again, not an environment conducive to romance.
But when Michael stepped off that transport three weeks ago, she’d taken one look at him and known she was in serious danger of falling hard. He was beautiful, for one thing. Sculpture beautiful. Better still, he didn’t seem to realize how he looked at all. In fact, he’d been so focused on his sister’s health and safety, he hadn’t spared a thought for himself. That kind of selfless devotion would attract any woman. Even Ace had given him an admiring glance, and she’d been strictly a woman’s woman since birth.
If Kate’s first look at Michael had tripped an alarm, his first look at her had triggered a full-blown evacuation of her senses. No one had ever looked at her like that. Ever. He looked at her with such a naked desire and hunger… No child had ever looked at pizza with that kind of wanting. No woman had ever looked at chocolate with that kind of need. He’d made her feel like the most desirable woman in the room, something she wouldn’t have thought possible next to Ace.
Kate didn’t understand it, especially since he’d spent his whole life with his sister, who would make a room full of models feel self-conscious. How could any woman live up to the standard of beauty a lifetime with Nikki had created?
“How’s it coming?”
Kate jerked her head up and blinked her eyes open. She hadn’t realized they’d slipped closed. How long had she been sitting here thinking about—not what she was supposed to be thinking about? She sat up straighter and dropped one foot to the floor to pivot the chair and watched Michael walk around the tactical table to her workstation. He looked tired too, but his eyes still held that hard core of determination that never seemed to waver when Nikki was in trouble.
“Not so good,” she answered, shifting her focus back to the micro board. “There’s just not enough to work with here. This little guy was made for one purpose. It knows the one trick. I’m trying to make it do the opposite. It’s pointless.”
Michael pursed his lips and nodded like he understood, but Kate could see the disappointment. It hurt to be the cause of it, but she just didn’t have any good news to make him feel better.
“Is that it?” he asked, looking over her shoulder through the magnifier.
“That’s it.”
“What happened to the rest of it?”
“The rest was just a standard recorder. I gave it back to Corso,” she said with a shrug.
Michael looked at her, obviously questioning her judgment.
“Don’t worry. He can’t do anything but record and play back with what’s left. He can’t send a signal without this, and I disabled this before we left the city.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“Really, Michael,” she said, putting her hand over his on the desk. “He can’t cause any trouble with what he has. I made sure of that.”
He smiled like he believed her, but the doubt was still strong in his eyes. “Why did he want it back?”
Kate shrugged. “Maybe to record his memoirs,” she joked.
“Did it have anything on it?”
She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask. She’d listened to what Nikki had recorded, and it was harmless enough, but it was not something a brother wanted to hear.
“Yeah, but it was nothing,” she said. She briefly considered making something up, but the thought of lying to Michael right now didn’t feel right. “Just Nikki messing around with it after she swiped it.”
He perked up at that, his eyes looking past her as his thoughts churned. Then he nodded, touched her on the shoulder, and headed for the door.
“Michael, it’s really nothing. It’s not like she said anything that could tell us where she is,” she called after him, but he was already out the door by the time she finished.
Michael
He was almost to the secure room when he heard her voice. It was a recording, he knew, but it still brought him up short and caused a surge in his chest. He stopped just outside the heavy door and listened.
“—If you’re in a good mood, then you must have kept doing everything right. If not, oh well. You must have screwed it up something awful. Too bad. But buck up. If you’re as lucky as you are smooth, you just might find me again someday.”
Michael heard a faint click. Then the message started again.
“Testing, testing. Hello, tall, dark, and tempting. You’re probably hearing this the day after you met the hottest girl—”
Michael spun the latch wheel and pulled the door open. Unlike the other doors in the bunker, this one hinged on the outside and had no latch on the inside. It was the only door in this place made to keep people in a room instead of out.
Corso was seated on the edge of a small cot with his forearms on his knees, staring at the recorder in his hands. He clicked it off and looked up as Michael entered.
Michael stepped over the lip, leaving the door open, and took a look around the nearly bare room. The cot was the only furnishing in the room. Heavy iron loops set into the wall and floor in several places were the only other distinguishing features. Those and the strange deep gouges in the concrete near the loops. The marks looked almost like the claw marks of an animal, but Michael knew no animal had made those marks, at least no animal from the world he knew.
“Come to let me out of here?” Corso said, giving Michael a grin with little to no hope in it. His lip and cheek were swollen and mottled with red and purple bruises. The rest of Michael’s blows had landed in less obvious places, but the way Corso carefully eased himself from one position to next was evidence of their effectiveness.
Michael just shook his head and motioned to the recorder.
Corso looked from it to Michael, then shrugged and tossed it over. “She’s really something, your sister,” he said.
Michael caught the recorder and looked it over. He was about to press the one button when Corso said, “Double-tap it. Otherwise, you’ll record.”
Michael played the message. Kate was right. There was nothing there to help them find Nikki, but hearing her voice helped Michael breathe a little easier for a minute. If he closed his eyes he could imagine she was in the room with him. He could see the look on her face as she recorded the teasing message.
But the illusion faded quickly. He couldn’t feel her inside his head, so no amount of imagining was going to fool him for long.
He opened his eyes, his brief smile fading. As he listened to the message again and thought about what Nikki was joking about, his mood darkened further. He looked up at Corso, but the man just shrugged, grinned, and looked away. The thought of Corso,
or any man, with Nikki in that way threatened to bring back the anger Michael had carefully locked away on the ride back to base.
Nikki had been intimate, at least to some extent, with guys before. Michael couldn’t pretend otherwise, not with their link the way it was, but it wasn’t an easy thing for him to think about. She was his sister, after all. His twin. The thought of her being with a man like that felt almost like a betrayal. He knew those feelings were just a product of their unique link, but that knowledge didn’t make them any easier to shake off.
He also knew that Nikki’s behavior toward Kate over the past few weeks was probably due to the same kind of feelings, even though he and Kate hadn’t done anything…intimate like that. He should have cut Nikki a little more slack. He should have understood what she was feeling and talked to her about it instead of trying to avoid her.
I should have done a lot of things differently over the past few weeks, he thought. Then maybe he and Nikki would be in a free zone somewhere right now. Together. Safe.
Michael clicked the playback off and tossed the recorder to Corso. The thief snagged it out of the air and lounged back against the wall, one leg dangling over the edge of the cot.
“I could be more help if you’d let me out of here,” Corso said, looking at the recorder instead of Michael.
“I don’t see how,” Michael replied. He knew he was being too hard on the man, but even though something was telling him to trust Corso, he couldn’t get past the fact that the man had let Savior’s men take Nikki without putting up a fight.
Corso shrugged. “I couldn’t be less.” He looked around the small room. “What’s the point of keeping me locked up? I’m no threat to you. I’m here to help.”
“How do we know this wasn’t part of the plan? You get us to take you in and then tell Savior where Gideon’s base is,” Michael retorted, but he didn’t buy his own argument. He was needling the man just to make himself feel better. It wasn’t working.
