by Toby Minton
The thought was not lost on Gideon that few minds on earth would have been prepared to handle the joining he’d endured. But unlike Savior, such thoughts didn’t delude Gideon into believing anything about the Event was predestined. Nothing about being forcibly merged with another creature was natural. No higher power had guided his fate. The Event was a mistake, an accident born of his own recklessness. Gideon and Savior had both given sway to emotion over reason that day, and the nation had paid the price. In time, the rest of humanity would suffer the cost as well, if the future Gideon continued to glimpse in shattered flashes were to come to pass.
Five long strides past the command center, the door to the lower level stood open. Gideon stepped through onto the spiraling concrete stairs and pulled the heavy door shut behind him. Elias would just have to open it again when he came down, but the closed door would serve as a signal to anyone else wandering the halls that the lower level was off limits.
His mismatched stride was more pronounced as he spiraled down the steps. The alien leg bunched and stretched a little too much with each step, almost like the flesh itself anticipated its coming freedom. Gideon forced himself to slow his pace, exercising control while he still could.
The hallway on the lower level was even darker than those above, the door to the vault a pocket of deeper shadow ahead. Gideon spun the wheel and pulled the door open. They’d given Corso a room on the main level when the thief had made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere until they recovered Nikki, so the vault was once again empty, save for the chains.
Elias had moved the chains back in as soon as he’d moved Corso out. Despite the darkness, Gideon could see them piled against the far wall and snaking up through the rings a pace apart near the ceiling. On the dangling ends of the chains, he could see the thick manacles waiting for him.
He stepped through and pulled the door shut behind him, plunging the vault into total darkness, the kind of darkness that would have terrified Gideon as a child.
As a little boy, Gideon had been at the mercy of his overactive mind, which at that age translated as an overactive imagination. His restless mind would all too readily conjure up a veritable menagerie of monsters and dangers hidden in the dark, waiting to pounce on a defenseless little boy. In a darkness this complete, the boy Gideon would have drawn in upon himself, crumpled by the weight of his imagined horrors.
Not anymore. The boy had grown up, become a scientist. Gideon knew the darkness surrounding him was nothing more than an absence of light. He knew the room held nothing now than it had before he closed the door. He also knew, however, that fear of the dark wasn’t a function of logic and reason. It was an instinctive reaction known to cripple even the most educated of minds, minds that should know better. Gideon hadn’t banished the horrors of his imagination with wisdom and education. He’d simply pushed them to the primal corners of his mind and filed them away. They held no fear for him anymore, but not because he’d grown up, and not because he knew they were his own creations. He didn’t fear the dark or what it might hold because nothing he’d ever imagined could compete with the real monster he now carried within him.
Gideon shed his coat and walked to the back wall. He didn’t fumble or have to search for the manacles, even in the pitch black. He’d done this too many times over the years. He knew all the steps.
He fastened the restraints around his ankles, waist, and finally his wrists. Then he crouched, took a slow breath, and opened the door in his mind.
In the first years after the Event, when Gideon was exploring what he had become, he’d had to wait minutes, at times even hours, for the creature to emerge after he opened the door. Not so now.
His mind jerked and spun like he was strapped into a carnival ride, a violent, accelerating ride spinning him around and down through the sound of a familiar tearing roar, dragging him from cool darkness into heat and light where the answers he so desperately needed awaited.
Nikki
When they came to get her on her second day of captivity, Nikki was waiting. She didn’t give them any trouble. She didn’t fight them, which was obviously what they were expecting judging by the tense postures of the two soldiers with Price and the weapons at the ready. Instead, she did the last thing they expected. She cooperated.
As soon as they opened the door, Nikki stood up from the bed, where she’d been sitting cross-legged and wide awake for hours. She gave them a nod and the best she could do for a smile considering she would have loved nothing better than to mop the floor with the three of them. Then she walked toward the lab without a word.
Her compliance apparently made Price and his men even more uneasy than her fighting the day before. The two beefy goons kept shooting glances at her and each other as they walked the halls, glances filled with confusion and question. Price’s focused indifference was practically screaming his suspicion.
Their discomfort leant a little honesty to Nikki’s smile. Anything that made them unhappy made her day. And she’d take whatever little happies she could find. If she was going to stay the course she’d set for herself in the wee hours of the morning, she was going to need all the emotional strength she could muster.
When they reached the lab, Nikki went straight to the open tank and stepped inside. Kid Technician was so surprised by her cooperation he just stood at his console like a nearsighted, wild-haired statue. With a grunt of annoyance, Price stepped up to fasten her restraints himself.
Nikki raised a hand to stop him. “Whoa there, Shiner. I want to talk to the boss first.”
Price narrowed his dark eyes, accentuating the mottled skin over his swollen cheekbone—her handiwork. His grunt was almost a laugh as he reached for her hand again.
Nikki slapped his hand and waved a finger in front of his face, and she thought a vein was going to pop out of his jaw. “Look, I’m cooperating here. In return, I’d like to talk to Savior before you shackle me up.”
“You think I need your cooperation?” His voice was as tight as his bruised skin. He grabbed her wrist before she could pull away and forced her arm up to the shackle.
He was too strong for her to resist directly, matching strength for strength. If she’d had Michael’s training maybe she could have locked him up in some crazy hold and used his greater strength against him. But she didn’t. She didn’t have Michael’s skill. She didn’t have the strength he could have given her. She didn’t have Michael. Or Sam. She had no one to make her strong or come to her rescue.
This time, she was truly alone.
What she did have was a free hand. So before Price could fasten the heavy manacle, she socked him right in the bruised eye. It was a tap really, nothing with any power behind it. But it was enough.
He staggered back two steps, and his hand dropped to his sidearm before he stopped himself. He pressed the back of his other hand to his cheek to stop the trickle of blood where the swollen skin had split. The look in his eyes was all hairy murder. Nikki understood. The feeling was more than mutual.
“What I think is that I’m more important to Savior right now than you are, when it comes right down to it,” she said. “Unless you can somehow power this crazytraption, that is. I also think the boss isn’t going to be too happy if you have to bloody and break me to get me in this thing today.”
Price held up a hand to stop the two soldiers by the door, who’d started toward them. At his tight nod, they fell back.
She held up both hands to show she was done fighting. And to be ready if he came at her himself.
“I won’t go anywhere or cause trouble," she said. "I just want to talk to him like a person before you plug me in like a battery. You can stand there with your guns on me the whole time if you want.”
He stared at her, his hand flexing on the handle of his sidearm.
“Everybody wins.” She gave him a nearly flat grin.
“Trouble with our guest, Price?” Savior’s calm voice said from the hall. The soldiers at the door snapped to attention as he walked betwee
n them, and no wonder. He was in full uniform today, the kind of unofficial garb he had worn in all the vids of the post-Event conflicts. The uniform had no rank insignia or medals of any kind, but he didn’t seem to need them to command respect—or to look good. He looked like a model for high-end, custom fitted flight suits, this one in cobalt with silver accents.
Savior approached the tank, and Price faded from Nikki’s view. Maybe he walked away, but for all Nikki knew the darker man could have imploded or dissolved into a pile of dust. Savior filled her view, drawing her full attention to his presence like zoners to a food drop.
Something was different about Savior today, something in his energy. It wasn’t just the uniform. He was exuding an aura of power, even more so than usual. A power that called to something deep inside Nikki. For several seconds she just stared at him like an idiot, completely forgetting that she’d demanded to speak to him, completely forgetting why.
“You seem to have recovered from your ordeal, Miss Flux.” His smooth voice broke the spell. Or maybe it was his guiltless understatement.
Her ordeal. Hearing him talk, you’d think she’d gotten mugged in one of the metros, or gotten caught up in a gang scuffle in a free zone. Seeing the benevolent, understanding look in his eyes, you’d think he had been the source of her salvation. Looking at his semi-relaxed posture, his hands clasped behind his back, his hint of a smile, you’d never guess he’d been the one who’d caused her hours of agony.
Nikki had spent most of the night mastering her emotions alone in the darkness of her cell. Little by little, she’d fed her fear of being alone into the flames of her anger until nothing remained of the former and the latter had cooled and hardened into a core of something far stronger. In so doing, she’d found a state of emotional stability that was alien to her. She’d found serenity, of a sort.
But Savior’s casual dismissal of his own guilt in yesterday’s torture shook her calm. A comforting spike of irritation, the first sign of a good fury storm, started growing in her belly.
Nikki almost let out a sigh of relief. Truth to tell, her serenity had made her as uneasy as it had Price and the muscle twins. She just wasn’t comfortable being—comfortable. Anger, irritation, cynicism, sarcasm—those Nikki knew. They were as much a part of her as her skin.
She returned Savior’s almost smile with a twisted one of her own as she tried to come up with the best way to get what she wanted. This was a delicate situation, the kind Michael would handle with careful words, with tact. She had to do the same here, she knew. She racked her brain for the best way to manipulate the man in front of her, to get what she wanted without saying what she wanted, to play the man with skill and guile.
She had nothing.
“Where’s Michael?”
“Straight to the point,” Savior replied, his smile persisting. “You never disappoint, Miss Flux.”
“Call me Nikki.”
His smile softened as he nodded his head.
“Don’t get excited,” she went on. “It’s not because we’re buddies or anything. I just don’t like Miss Flux. Sounds like some little kid’s stuffed cat. Now, where’s my brother? I know you found him yesterday.”
The smile thinned, the look in his eyes hardening, but for a time Savior said nothing. He just studied her.
“You brother managed to evade me, again,” he said at last. “It seems he’s not looking forward to being reunited with you as much as I would have thought.”
“I have that effect on people.”
“So it would seem. What is it you want, Nikki?”
“I want you to leave him out of this,” she said, feeling the fire in her making its way into her eyes. “I want you to quit looking for him. I want you to leave him alone.”
When his only response was a slight lift of his perfect eyebrows, Nikki pressed on. “You already said he would only get in the way here, so what do you have to lose?”
Savior stepped closer, leaned in toward Nikki, a touch of anger creeping into his own eyes. “More than you know, Miss Flux. If your brother were to show up here before we’ve accomplished our goal…more than you know.”
“So you’re what, trying to find him so he doesn’t find you?”
“In so many words.”
“Well, stop,” she said, drawing a blank for a better argument.
“And why would I do that?”
Here it was. The point Nikki knew they’d reach. The choice she knew she’d have to face to keep Michael safe. But now that they’d reached this point, she didn’t find her choice difficult at all. She didn’t feel the least bit of guilt or hesitation.
“Because if you do, I’ll help you.”
Savior cocked his head just slightly as he stared at her. He looked like he was seeing her for the first time—like she was some kind of puzzle he was trying to figure out. Like she’d surprised him.
“Why would your cooperation make a difference?”
“Cause I figured it out.”
“What is it you’ve figured out, Nikki?” he asked. But he stepped closer, and something in his eyes said he knew.
“What kid genius there couldn’t,” she said with a little wave at the statue. Kid Technician started to smile and wave back before he caught himself.
“The juice you were getting from me slacked off when I gave up yesterday. Seems to me, if I give up from the get go today, you’re not going to get anywhere. But if I don’t give up…”
Savior stopped just a few inches from her. This close, she could see the hunger in his eyes. She had him.
“I want your word that you’ll stop hunting my brother. I help you—you leave him alone. That’s the deal.”
“My word. How quaint, Miss Flux.”
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly, her grin coming up strong. “See, my brother thinks he’s good at reading people, and maybe that’s so, but he’s got nothing on me. I heard the way Gideon talked about you. I’ve seen the way you act. You’re not just old. You’re old fashioned. You’re one of those guys who sticks to his word once he gives it. That’s why you kept fighting for the military long after it was a losing battle. That’s why you’re still plugging away to get this Gateway thingy working, I’ll bet. You promised somebody somewhere down the line that you’d do it—maybe yourself. Point is, I think you keep your word. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong, Miss Flux.” His voice was pitched as low as hers, his words a quiet purr for her ears alone.
“Liar. Give me your word, and I’ll light that thing up like a rave spotlight.” She nodded toward the archway beyond the workstations.
His face smoothed, his expression becoming all but unreadable. He stood there staring at her as the seconds ticked away.
“Your word,” she said again when she saw the shift in his eyes that said the decision was made.
“Done.”
“Say it.”
“If you give me what I need, I will leave your brother alone. You have my word.”
Nikki reached down to fasten the restraints around her ankles. When she straightened up, Savior was still standing in front of her. She stretched her arms out to the wrist shackles and looked at him for help. “Do you mind? Little hard to do on my lonesome.”
Savior fastened the restraints himself then stepped away just enough for Kid Technician to seal the tank.
When the technician started flooding the chamber, Nikki met his eye and took a deep breath. “So more is better, right?”
“I don’t—what?” The poor kid looked genuinely baffled.
“The more hurt you send in here, the more power you get out of me, right? Like when Michael and I fight.”
“I—yes, in theory,” the kid replied, looking a little pale around the edges. “But at just sixty percent power yesterday, the pain seemed—”
“You let me worry about that. You just crank it all the way up.”
“But…” The kid looked at Savior, who never took his eyes off Nikki.
“Do as she
says,” Savior commanded. She could have been wrong, but Nikki would swear the look in his eyes was almost proud. He was proud of her.
Whatever.
“Let’s do this,” she said as the BioGel warmed and started to tingle. “Let’s open your damn Gateway.”
Gideon
When Elias pulled open the door, Gideon stumbled across the hall and into the wall, his human leg giving out under him. Elias reached for him, but Gideon waved him away and pushed off the wall. One step at a time, each only a little steadier than the last, he staggered toward the steps at the end of the hall.
He’d been gone too long, far longer than ever before. So long, in fact, that the creature had managed to break free of the chains and was clawing at the door when he finally regained control. But he’d been unable to tear himself away from the visions in the maelstrom on the other side. Once he’d caught a flash of Savior’s demise, he’d been unable to let it go. Each time the vision had tried to slip away into the eddies, he’d chased it down and forced it back into clarity with every ounce of his considerable will.
He was exhausted, mentally from his search and physically from the creature’s exertions in his body, but he couldn’t afford to rest. He couldn’t take the time to recover, not now that he knew. Finally, he knew. He knew which one of the twins would end Savior’s life, and which one would ultimately betray them. He couldn’t take the time to regain his strength and get his bearings. If they were going to stand any chance of stopping Savior, they had to move now.
Gideon cursed his weakness as he climbed the spiral steps, but not his weakness of limb. He’d been putting off the vault for days while they hunted for Nikki. He’d delayed the inevitable out of fear of losing himself on the other side, and he’d wasted precious time. His weakness might have cost them everything, again.
To stand any chance of making things right, he had to act now. No remorse. No hesitation. Time was not on his side.
In fact, he might already be too late.
