by Minton, Toby
Nikki squeezed her eyes shut and let out an involuntary groan, the way she always did when she thought of the way she'd treated Michael the last time she'd seen him. She'd been such an ass. She'd acted like a baby, an extra immature one at that. What she wouldn't give to have that day to do over again.
The screech of the marker on the board made her open her eyes. Gideon was still scrawling what Nikki now knew must be equations, but his handwriting was getting more jagged as he went, his motions jerkier, more violent. And something about his body was…off. He was flickering, as funny as that seemed. One second he was his usual stooped, half hideous self. The next second he was all ugly, the skin she could see anyway, all shiny black with jagged looking knuckles and ridges on the back of his exposed neck.
Michael didn't seem to notice anything out of sorts. He was still staring fixedly at the equations like he understood them. But Kate knew something was up. She was drawing in on herself with each second that passed, her arms squeezing tighter across her stomach, her eyes showing the fear that was obviously getting the better of her.
Nikki reached out a hand, but a sharp boom shook the room, and she jerked back as she nearly leapt out of her skin. Nobody else seemed to notice though. Gideon was still scrawling, Michael still staring, and Kate had her gaze fixed firmly on the floor, clearly unable to look in Gideon's direction.
Again Nikki reached a comforting hand toward Kate, but the movement drew Gideon's attention to her for the first time. Only, when he turned toward her, he wasn't Gideon at all. He was the dark shape she'd seen in the alley, the monster she'd seen—or hallucinated—that had nearly ripped her apart. Nikki froze under the stare of those red eyes, her hand hovering just short of Kate's shoulder.
The boom shook Nikki again, shook the whole room really, and this time Nikki knew it was from outside, from the real world. She remembered that this was a dream. She remembered she had nothing to be afraid of. Even so, she couldn't help but feel relief at being pulled out of the dream and back to the waking world.
* * *
Nikki didn't care what had caused the booming sounds. She was just glad they'd ended the dream when they had, even though they had almost woken her completely. Normally she'd hunt down the offender and make him sorry he was ever born, but since she was just barely awake and could feel herself slipping back under, she decided to give whoever it was a pass, this time.
With a grunt she rolled over, curled herself around the blanket she'd kicked off hours before, and tried to slip back into what she hoped would be good, hard, dreamless daytime sleep.
The next crash was even louder than the first few. Nikki opened her eyes with a growl as the last remnants of sleep crumbled away. She sat up, swung her legs around, and dropped to the cold concrete floor, intent on finding the jackass responsible.
The dim light from her faux skylight was all she needed to navigate the tiny room. The lights in the living quarters were supposed to change throughout the day to match whatever was happening outside, but Nikki had complained long enough and loudly enough to get her room dialed down to a constant weak moonlight, regardless of weather or time of day. Sleeping all day became a lot easier after she won that battle.
She crossed the chilly floor to the door without stopping for shoes or pants. Dressing would just be a waste of effort since she fully intended to climb back into bed as soon as she finished dispensing justice.
She rotated the long lever and swung open the vault-like door, squinting against the brighter light of the hall, not that it was really that bright. The hallways of the doomsday bunker weren't what she'd call dazzling. Still, compared to the soft moonlight of her room…
The source of the disturbance was standing right across the hall from her with a satisfied grin on his face as he yanked his door shut again with far more force than had ever been necessary.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Coop said with a tone that said nothing of the sort. "Did I wake you up?"
Nikki stared him down as her eyes adjusted to being not asleep. Coop was a decent looking guy—tall, beach body, Cali blonde hair curling back in a wave, and an always-ready-for-action smile—but he'd never struck Nikki as anything more than an annoying older brother type, even more annoying than the one she had.
"How rude of me?" Coop went on. "I swear I thought you were already up. I figured you must have come home early last night to get some sleep. You know, after you left me to load up by myself." He finished with a contemptuous eye dip that turned into an especially lingering glance up and down her body. He was subtle like that.
She opened her mouth to respond, but he held up both hands and interrupted her. "Save the apology, sweet lips. I'm too busy to listen to you grovel right now. Big doins going on." He started backing down the hall away from her as his smile grew, if such a thing were possible. "Shame too. I kinda want to hear the excuse you cooked up. Nice touch with the bandage, by the way."
Nikki glanced down at her wrapped left hand and then back up in time to see Coop disappear around the corner. She ground her teeth and growled at the empty corridor.
He'd done it again, the wiener. This made three times he'd messed with her at the crack of dawn and gotten in the last word, and the first word, and every other word in between.
She'd never been a heavy sleeper before. Growing up on the move, she'd learned to wake and shake with the best. When you were squatting somewhere you weren't allowed, you either learned to go from sleep to sprint in an instant, or you spent a lot of time in detention pens. One time in the pens was once too many for Nikki, so she'd trained herself to sleep lightly when on the move. The problem now was that she wasn't moving. She'd been in one place so long, a place with a room all to herself, with a locking door to boot, that she'd turned into a real sleep junkie. These days she slept so hard she was a bit zombie-ish until she'd had a shot of coffee, another recent addition to her life.
Nikki looked back down at her bandaged hand and blew out a huff of morning breath and defeat. She peeled back the edge of the bandage, just to be sure, but she knew what she'd see. The wicked purply bruise was starting to yellow around the edges but it was still very much there, which meant she was still very much normal. No magical return of her powers while she slept.
Only one thing to do with that information. She spun on her heel to go back to her soft moonlight and insanely comfortable bed, comfortable to her, at least. She imagined people with higher standards might find the thin mattress on a folding metal rack subpar, but it was by far the best bed she'd had in years.
Before she could take a step, a dripping wet Impact rounded the corner at a jog. Impact jogging just looked funny to her now since she'd seen him run fast enough to suck the leaves off trees, funny enough that she did a double take and realized just how wet he was. Nobody could sweat that much, not even a genetically engineered speedster like him, unless he'd developed speed sweating too.
"How hot is it out there?" She cleared her throat with a grunt and was suddenly glad she hadn't tried to word-spar with Coop. She sounded like she'd swallowed gravel.
"It's not," he replied, giving her his usual nigh expressionless glance as he jogged past. His standard mood made her morning foulness look practically bubbly.
"Why are you so wet?"
"I've been training," he replied, like that explained it. He reached his door but looked over at her as he grabbed the latch. His eyes dipped to her legs and back up without pause. Unlike with Coop, there was nothing appreciative or suggestive about his glance when he looked at her. He might as well have been checking out a wall. "Why aren't you wearing pants?"
"I've been training too," she said with only a slight pause, her voice sounding a little more human this time.
He nodded like that made sense, then said, "Briefing in five," and opened his door.
"Why?"
He stopped and looked at her again. "Gideon is back."
She had no response for that, nothing suitable for early morning conversation anyway. Images of last night's
terrifying chase—and her dream—flashed through her mind, but she shoved them away. Weird as it had been, her hallucinatory escape from a Gideon-like monster wasn't why the mention of his name made her insides go all squirrelly and cold. She had some questions for tall-dark-and-creepy. There was something bugging her that only Gideon could clear up, something that might mean the difference between her enjoying this posh life a while longer or hitting the road before sunset.
"Where is he?" she asked, trying to keep her tone casual. She needn't have bothered. Impact was as oblivious to subtleties of tone as he was to half-naked girls.
"Elias has him in the vault, but the briefing's in the control room, in four minutes now." He stepped into his room without another word.
Fine with Nikki. She had somewhere to be.
She hurried back inside her room and went straight to her wardrobe. She took the time to get dressed but only to avoid further questions about her pants, or lack thereof. She didn't want anything to slow her down. She had to get to the vault, now. No delays. Even the two minutes it took to throw on the first clothes she could grab from her oversized locker felt like an eternity. She finally had an opportunity to talk to Gideon alone, to get answers to questions that had gnawed at her for months. For the first time since her rescue, Gideon was around when Michael wasn't. She couldn't let this opportunity slip away.
She'd tried to corner Gideon before, several times, but each time Michael had popped up in her head to talk her out of it. Beg her out of it, actually. Not this time. This time he was nowhere to be heard, and she was going to get her answers, but only if she hauled ass.
She did not, therefore, take the time to tie her shoes before she headed out her door. After walking out of her left shoe twice in her haste, she gave up and decided to take the time before she got pissed and did something she would regret to her beloved pink sneakers. At the end of the short corridor outside her room, she stopped and knelt beside the wall where she had a good view into the hangar and down the corridor to her left. The hangar looked and sounded empty, which was a relief. Voices drifted toward her from down the corridor, but no one was in sight there either. With a grin, she pulled the knot tight and took off down the hall at a fast walk.
A dozen paces in, the absurdity of sneaking made Nikki laugh out loud at herself. Yes, she wanted to get to Gideon before someone noticed, but that someone was a voice in her head. No amount of sneaking was going to keep Michael from noticing if he was around.
That didn’t stop her from pausing to make sure the next corridor was clear before she took the turn, however, or from darting a quick look into the command center to make sure no one was looking her way before she scooted past the door.
Nikki smiled as she stepped over the lip of the already open door to the lower level, but the smile twitched and faltered on her second step down the spiral staircase when Elias rounded the bend on his way up.
“Hey…buddy,” The words stumbled out before she could catch them.
“Nikki.” Elias nodded in greeting, but his tone and eyes were about as warm as midnight rain. With a slow blink, she mentally congratulated herself on being the worst sneak ever. She couldn’t have sounded guiltier if she tried. Again she had to remind herself she had no reason to feel guilty. It was Michael she was trying to slip past, not Elias or anyone else.
His lined eyes were looking pissed all right, but he was probably grumpy about Gideon, not the completely innocent girl he was staring through. Elias and Gideon had barely spoken over the past four months, or so Nikki had heard from the others. She hadn't been around either of them enough to notice.
"Glad you could join us," Elias said with only slightly more warmth than before. "Briefing's in the command center."
Nikki considered squeezing past him and saying she'd catch up, but Elias wasn't about to let her by, she could tell, even if she did come up with a good excuse—and she was coming up dry at the moment. Instead of pressing luck she didn't have, Nikki turned around with a poorly concealed sigh and stepped back through the door, Elias hard on her heels.
Chapter 7
Nikki
Everyone except Gram was already in the command center when Nikki walked into the big round room. Sam and Ace were talking quietly near the door, the nearest server tower staring toward them with a multitude of lopsided red eyes from the dimly lit pit surrounding the stage. Up in the command hub, Coop was tapping away at Kate's control console on the other side of the tactical table. Mos and Impact were standing behind him, one with his massive black arms crossed, chuckling as he heckled Coop's attempts to operate Kate's systems, the other staring on silently with a grimace on his pale face.
Nikki wasn't surprised to see Impact there ahead of her. She'd been in her room dressing for only a minute or two, and on the staircase with Elias only a few seconds, but either span was more than enough time for Baldy the Speed Demon to make it to the command center without her seeing.
As Nikki walked into the room, she realized Gram wasn't the only one missing. Kate was nowhere to be seen, as usual.
Just thinking of Kate made Nikki press a hand to her belly as it did a painful spin. Michael's feelings for Kate were so mixed up and jumbled with Nikki's own that she couldn't tell one set from the other, even when he wasn't around, a problem she'd been facing head-on by actively avoiding the girl, which wasn't too hard. Kate rarely set foot outside her room. Nikki saw the older girl's reclusive nature these days as a blessing, and of course she felt immensely guilty for that feeling thanks to said emotional jumble.
She passed Sam and Ace, getting a wave and nod from each, and climbed onto the control stage to snag one of the chairs while she had a chance—a necessity for getting through a briefing in comfort. The few times she'd been forced to stand, she'd nearly fidgeted herself to death. Plus, she'd stayed awake the whole time. So, double fail.
She dropped into the thick padding and rolled herself back against the railing as Elias walked past to look over the tactical table, which was showing a whole lot of nothing at the moment. He stared at it anyway for a few seconds like it held the secrets of the universe. Then he looked up and said, "OK, let's get started."
Sam and Ace came up onto the stage and leaned against the rail where they could see the table, leaving one chair empty after Mos and Impact sat. Elias glanced at that chair and tapped a switch on the table. "Gram, you coming?"
“Keep your shirt on,” Gram grated from the hall. He hobbled in with a mug in each hand, his wince bouncing into place with each step.
He grunted a couple curses as he climbed the steps, but despite an honest effort, Nikki only caught bits and pieces. She grimaced at the missed opportunity. Gram was one of her best sources for new curse-cobbling material. Over the years he'd built up an impressive storehouse of truly choice material, a storehouse Nikki made it a point to plunder whenever she could.
As he passed her, Gram pressed one of the mugs into Nikki's hands with a wink that made one bushy brow and one wrinkled cheek meet. “Perk it up, Red. The boss has some wind in him today.”
Nikki took the mug with a rush of gratitude that peaked when the cold seeping through the ceramic hit her palms. Curling up in the chair, she curved herself around the mug with a deep hum, leaning over to breathe in the aroma.
She'd tried coffee many ways over the past few months—Gram and Mos practically lived on the stuff—and she was learning to appreciate it in pretty much any form, but her hands-down favorite was Gram's iced coffee, a blissful swirl of bitter, sweet, and silky cold yumminess.
"What's with this 'Red'? Why do you keep calling her that?" Coop asked with a bump in his tone that said this wasn't the first time he'd wondered.
Gram just rattled a chuckle that made Nikki want to clear her throat as he eased down into his chair. Once he'd settled himself, he cut a glance at Coop and said, "Should be obvious."
Nikki took a sip to hide a smile that had a little to do with the coffee, a lot more to do with Coop's frustration. She'd figured out the
nickname weeks ago—meaning she'd asked. Red because foxes are red, some of them. Foxes because they run around all night and sleep all day, just like she did.
Silly as it was for a nickname, it made her smile. She had a call sign from somebody on the team, one she'd earned on her own, if only by keeping odd hours. She didn't want to be a sworn member of the team or anything—just thinking about it started up a panic—but for some reason, hearing Gram call her Red made her feel warm, despite the cold coffee, like somebody wanted her here. Even though she had no intention of staying, being wanted felt good. Better than good.
"Eyes front," Elias said in his business voice. He wasn't pissed, not exactly, but he sounded serious and had enough of a bark to his tone to spoil Nikki's smile as she turned her attention to him.
He didn't jump right in though. Instead he stared at the tactical display for a few more seconds with a look hard enough to make Nikki wonder if maybe the blank screen was the source of his kinda mood.
"I'm sure you all know by now that Gideon's back," he said at last. "He returned this afternoon and asked me to lock him in the vault."
Nikki wanted to ask the obvious question, the same one she could see in Mos's eyes across the table, but Elias went on in a tone that discouraged interruption.
"Last night he lost control." Elias didn't explain what that meant, but nobody asked. Judging by their expressions, Nikki was fairly sure everyone else around the table had a pretty good idea what that meant. She was hazy on the whole Gideon/monster situation, but they'd told her enough for her to know Elias probably didn't mean Gideon had partied a little too hard.
