More and more, Nik’s going to Razmun directly struck me as a really good idea.
After all, at base, Razmun wanted the same thing as we did.
Meaning, all of us wanted Razmun and his friends to leave Earth. All of us wanted them to find a planet where no humans lived.
The only real sticking point was Nik himself.
Razmun, last I knew, had been determined to bring Nik with him to that new morph-only world. I could only hope he could let go of that idea, because I seriously doubted that would work out well for Nik, whatever Gantry tried to imply.
Nik agreed with me.
Even so, Nik didn’t trust Razmun to negotiate openly on that point, either. He also told me that he thought Razmun suffered some kind of “emotional attachment” to the idea that defied reason to a large degree. I could tell something in that had to do with Nik having been lock-bonded to Razmun when they were young, but Nik was cagey about it, and I didn’t ask.
I knew from other things Nik said, that being lock-bonded to someone against his will was a kind of hell for him. It was by far the worst part of being enslaved, according to Nik.
He didn’t go into detail, but I knew he’d been forced into a lock-bond with his human owner, Yaffa, and that they’d tortured him to get him to do it. I also knew the guy was a total reptile, and that he’d treated Nik like shit. Due to the nature of the lock-bond, Nik had been unswervingly loyal to Yaffa, anyway. He couldn’t help himself, from what he told me. Rebellion was out of the question. Escape, even more so. For a morph, having someone hold your lock wasn’t just having your shifting ability owned by someone else...it was having your mind and heart and even your perception of reality owned by someone else, too.
Nik also told me that I’d been the first lock-mate he’d ever really chosen himself.
Unsurprisingly, Razmun had been the one to approach Nik when they were kids. While Razmun may not have tortured Nik to get him to agree, Nik described the other morph’s pursuit of him as “incredibly persistent.” Nik had been young enough and naïve enough to be flattered by the attention...and also to mistake it for loyalty and affection.
Nik now strongly suspected that, even back then, Razmun’s motives for wanting Nik as a lock-mate had less to do with affection and more to do with controlling him. Nik admitted he hadn’t seen it clearly at the time, again in part due to the bond itself, but that he’d sensed that Razmun had been jealous of him. Maybe more than jealous. Nik even suspected that Razmun had pushed his sister and Nik together romantically, to strengthen that bond between them, and to solidify Razmun’s control in the long-term.
Nik described it by saying that he, meaning Nik, had something Razmun wanted.
When I asked him what that something was, Nik got cagey again, but I definitely got the sense it had to do with the gates. Nik did tell me that his mind worked differently than that of most morph. He said that Razmun didn’t really understand how Nik’s mind worked, which made him want to control Nik even more.
Nik didn’t really explain what he meant by that, either.
I already knew Nik was different, of course. Humans and other morph told me the same thing back when we were still in Nik’s home dimension. Most morph could only do a few dozen jumps through inter-dimensional gates before it made them sick, or even killed them. Nik had over twice those numbers logged, “more than he could count,” he confessed to me while we were still in that other world...and without any discernible ill-effects at all.
So yeah, Nik was different.
Whatever the truth of Razmun’s motivations, Nik didn’t trust him to keep his word in letting Nik remain on Earth. As a result, Nik had been forced to set up meetings with a lot of safeguards in place. Like, he only met with the morph leader in public places. He also did it surrounded by Gantry’s guys, and with Nik and Razmun both in human form.
The last of those meetings took place at a trendy coffee shop not far from the train station downtown. Razmun had been on his best behavior, but Nik said the real test would come when and if he managed to help Razmun stabilize the gate in some way.
Either way, I knew Gantry was pushing for Nik to be on that one-way train out of here, too. He’d stopped nagging me about it, but he’d made his feelings clear. Not only to me, but to Nik, too, who told me Gantry all but threatened him on that score.
Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely sure I could trust Gantry when it came to Nik.
I wasn’t wholly convinced Gantry wouldn’t still turn Nik in to some of his old pals in the Pentagon. Gantry was such a military guy in so many ways, no matter how long he’d been working in the private sector. I suspected he always would be.
Gantry must have seen some of this on my face, because he exhaled, plopping himself down on the chair across from my brand new desk.
Well, really old, crappy, scuffed up desk...but brand new to me.
“I’m not going to turn Nik in,” he said, confirming my suspicion that he was a mind reader, or at least a damned good face-reader. “Not unless he gives me a reason. I just wish you’d think about this more, chica...and with your brains. Not with other parts of your body...” he added cynically, motioning up and down at my torso with a wave of his hand. “...You know. The non-thinking, dumber parts.”
I rolled my eyes, but had to fight a bit of annoyance anyway.
“Gee, Gantry, thanks for that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know that it’s sexist crap.”
Gantry didn’t flinch. “Bull. I’d say the same if you were a guy. Maybe more so.”
I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help thinking he was probably right.
“Fine,” I said. Sliding deeper into my chair, I folded my arms. “But it’s still none of your business. And it’s still, well...tacky.” When Gantry didn’t flinch under my death stare, I decided to drop it. “Look,” I said. “Nothing’s changed. Nik will solve the morph problem, and we’ll go back to how things were before.”
Gantry gave me a disbelieving look. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” I began. “I’m not. Look, Gantry––”
But he cut me off.
“––I’m still don’t even know who’s after you, chica!” he said, his blue eyes boring into mine. “That contract. Remember? The one that wanted you brought in alive? Or did you conveniently forget all about that?”
I blinked at him, stumped. “I thought you said––”
“––The notice got withdrawn, yeah,” he growled. “Far as I know. For now. But my people never sourced it back all the way. Which tells me you were right...that it’s probably black ops. Which means someone knows your friend is down here. Or suspects. Or at least thinks you’re involved in something that could pose a serious fucking threat. They don’t screw around with that stuff, Dakota. If they withdrew the contract, it’s either because they’re tackling it some other way...or they hired someone and don’t want it known...or they know I caught on to them and they’re backing off to get me to lower my guard. Or maybe in the hopes that you’ll lead them to the morph in those damned hills...”
I bit my lip. Looking away from the intensity of his stare, I shrugged. “So?” I said, leaning back in the chair. The swivel mechanism let out a pained squeak. “What am I supposed to do? Disappear into the Golden Triangle or something? Or were you hoping I’d hop back through that dimensional portal, too?”
Gantry’s face turned bright red, and I waved him off, regretting my words.
“Look,” I said. “I’m hearing you, all right? I am. But for now, I’m all about normal. At least until I hear something that tells me otherwise...” Seeing the disbelieving look return to Gantry’s face, I raised my voice slightly. “I’m not going to run and hide until I know I have to, Gantry. Until then, I’ll go back to work. Nik will work for me. You can contract him out for side gigs. No more morph terrorists. No more weird run-ins with the police.” Rolling my eyes, I sighed, adding, “Nik’s even going to be making extra money as a model...”
>
There was a long-feeling silence as I trailed.
Then Gantry snorted for real.
Hearing the humor there, I smiled back involuntarily.
Shaking his head, Gantry gave me a more genuine smile. “Does he have any idea what he’s gotten himself into, there? Nik, I mean?”
“I doubt it,” I said, twirling on the chair a bit and bringing another hard squeak out of the old swivel. The whole office looked like something out of a Mickey Spillane novel to me, including the dust and the run-down building. Truthfully, that’s why I’d picked the place. It even had an apartment in back, big enough for me and Nik to share.
Smiling again, I added, “...Jake’s got him completely bamboozled. I think Nik’s more in shock that anyone would hand him money for just standing there, ‘doing nothing,’ as he put it. He did tell me it was boring...and that he didn’t like it when they took his clothes off.”
Gantry’s humor evaporated. “And what about you?” he said neutrally.
“I’m not crazy about it, either. But whatever.”
“So you two...?” Gantry began.
“Yep,” I said, nodding. “Still absolutely none of your business, G-Man.”
Gantry scowled. He looked about to say something more, then didn’t.
As if buying himself thinking time, he looked away from me and out the dingy window in the side of the room. Then, letting out another openly-irritated sigh, he pulled himself up off the leather seat, giving me an annoyed look.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.
Before I could react, or make a snide comment back, Gantry raised his voice, meeting my gaze directly, his poker face firmly back in place.
“...I have another job for you, Tonto,” he said. “If you want it. If you can manage to not get yourself half-killed this time...or dropped into an alternate dimension filled with shape-shifting, anti-human terrorists.”
I smiled, shrugging. “No promises.”
“Do you want the fucking job or not?” he grumped at me.
I held out a hand, scowling up at him. “Of course I want it! Do you have any idea how much it costs to stay in the hospital for a night?”
He laughed a little at that, too, as if in spite of himself.
I could tell he hadn’t let it go, though.
I knew how stubborn Gantry could be. He might not ever let it go entirely, but he also might accept it, given enough time. He might even accept Nik, given enough time.
But I wasn’t holding my breath.
Well, I wasn’t holding it for anything to change in the foreseeable future.
Gantry and Nik had gotten into it pretty hardcore that night I got back from the hospital. I’d heard the shouting outside Irene’s door and briefly got an adrenaline rush, sure that Razmun had appeared out there, or some of the other rebel morph, and that they’d ambushed Nik and Gantry outside. But when Irene and I rushed to the door, flinging it open, it had only been Nik and Gantry, facing off against one another and yelling. They looking like wolves circling, and Nik’s irises were pitch black under the streetlights.
“Just stay the fuck away from her!” Gantry snapped while I watched.
“I will stay away from her when she tells me to,” Nik shot back. “And not before. I would hope you would do the same, if she were to tell you that...”
“That’s never going to happen, morph-boy...”
“You are so sure?”
“I’m sure she’ll never settle for some kind of alien mutant over her own kind...”
At that, I’d slammed Irene’s front door.
Loudly.
Both of them had jumped, looking up.
“What the fuck is this?” I’d asked, staring down the steps at the spot of lawn where the two of them stood. I’d been as much bewildered as angry at that point, but I limped my way down the top few stairs anyway, clutching the bannister and still looking between them, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“What is this?” I repeated, when neither of them answered. “What are you doing?”
They exchanged looks, then glanced back up at me, like guilty schoolboys.
When I started to go down more steps, Nik held up a hand, stopping me.
“No,” he said. “It is all right, Dakota. We are finished.”
“We are?” Gantry muttered.
“Yes,” Nik said, glaring at him. “We are. Unless you would prefer to involve Dakota in the middle of this...when she is injured.”
“Don’t fucking lecture me on Dakota,” Gantry snapped. “I’ve known her a fuck of a lot longer than you have, alien asshole...”
“Then maybe you could put her ahead of yourself for once,” Nik shot back.
Gantry scowled at him that time, too, but he backed down in the same set of seconds, mumbling and muttering. I could tell Gantry let the argument die mostly for my benefit, whatever he’d said...and maybe for Irene’s, or the neighbor’s.
Either way, the animosity between the two of them hadn’t exactly been subtle in the time since. Neither would say much to me about it outright. I hadn’t been able to get much out of Nik when we were alone, either, but yeah, the tension between the two of them was palpable.
I suspected it was getting worse right now, not better.
Even as I thought it, Gantry turned towards me again, right as he reached the door.
“Just make sure you can trust him, Tonto.”
Blinking at him in surprise, then another flush of anger, I frowned. “I can, Gantry. Maybe you should try trusting me for a change. You used to, you know. Once upon a time.”
Gantry snorted, then shook his head.
That time, I bit my lip, but I couldn’t quite keep my mouth shut.
“Just say it, G-Man,” I said, not hiding my anger. “Clearly you think I’m too much of a fucking idiot to see what you see...so just tell me. Explain to me why you’re being such a raging asshole to Nik lately. What did he do, exactly, apart from try to save my life when Razmun and that asshole Evers had me?”
Gantry turned around that time. Pausing, as if trying to decide if he wanted to get into this with me, he sighed then, closing the door where he’d been about to leave. Facing me, he folded his arms, glaring at me with more intensity than I’d seen in him since he first saw me out in that field, covered in my own blood and Evers’.
“He’s not human, Dakota,” he said, blunt.
“I’m aware of that.”
“Are you?”
I stared at him. Then I gave a short laugh. “Holy crap. Racist much?”
“Now I’m racist?” Gantry said, his voice building in anger again. “Really?”
“Nik not being human isn’t enough of a reason for you...or for me...not to trust him,” I said, biting back my anger again.
“The hell it’s not!”
“It’s not!” I shot back. I raised my voice that time, standing up from the chair. “You need an actual reason not to trust someone, Gantry...you know? Some kind of evidence...or observed behavior of some kind? Or is that too much to ask? I thought you were detective guy...Mister Rational Hysterical. Now your only evidence is that his blood is different? That he’s not enough like you to be trustworthy? Not being human means guilty until proven otherwise?”
“Dakota,” Gantry said, obviously controlling his own temper with an effort. “There’s no possible way you can know what that thing is thinking...or even what its motives are. There’s no way you can expect him to continue to be loyal to you, or to your race because of you, not given how completely different you are from him. Humans enslaved his people on his home world. Do you think he’s forgotten that? Speaking of which, he’s not just from another race...he’s from a whole different dimension! How can you even begin to pretend you understand what motivates him? Or that you even know why the humans of his world decided they needed to control his species before it posed a serious threat?” He clenched his jaw briefly, as if trying to decide whether he should say it, then blurted.
“How do you know they were wrong, Dakota?” he said. “Did you ever hear their side of things? Or only Nik’s? How do you know they didn’t enslave them for a good damned reason?”
I stared up at him, seeing the anger there and the depth of that emotion.
I fought to think about Gantry’s words, unable to avoid the truth of some of them, at least on one level, but also furious at the last few things he said.
I knew he was right that I’d probably never fully understand Nik.
But then, there were a lot of people on Earth I’d never fully understand, either. Like people who only wanted to have sex with people who dressed up like Japanese anime characters...and people who collected creepy dolls, or people who thought t.v. dinners were the bomb.
So yeah, Gantry had some points, but most of what he said frustrated me beyond reason because it was just flat wrong.
Like Nik.
Nik might not be human-human, sure, but when he was in a human form, he had a human brain, and human emotions, and human thoughts.
When Nik was in human form, he was as human as me.
Or Gantry himself, for that matter.
But I didn’t know how to say that to Gantry in a way he would hear it. I knew his arguments were fear-based and maybe some of that fear was even for me. Truthfully, I didn’t think he’d believe me, whatever arguments I used. He’d just accuse me again of engaging in magical thinking, or being brainwashed, or whatever else. I could see the thoughts forming behind his eyes even now, the arguments already lined up...and I knew Gantry. When he got his mind stuck on something, he was as hard to move as a boulder stuck in the dirt.
I honestly wasn’t sure if it was even worth trying. Not now. Not when he was expecting me to come at him, guns blazing. Not when he wanted to fight about this.
Anyway, I knew he’d never be convinced until he learned to trust Nik on his own.
So I just didn’t say anything.
I could tell that irritated Gantry even more, although that wasn’t really my intention.
“Fine,” he snapped, throwing up his muscular hands. “But I can’t promise you I’ll always be on board with this, Dakota. Or that I’ll always be willing to keep quiet about who...and what...he really is.”
Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two Page 28
