Well, here we go! From now on, all chapters will be in the present.
Part 27: Point of Reunion
November 2nd, 2011 - New York
1 : Dave
The first servers finally came back online after a tense hour of multiple intents and remote calls, though Dave was far from getting his network back. By his side, Daniel smirked as he wrote one last line of code.
“Told ya’ we could do it.”
“We’re barely starting…” Dave said, his mind looking for the pieces he needed to put the puzzle together: Where was the Unit, where was Van, where was Max.
The Network Keepers in Europe and South Asia were already connected and working together to get things back, but it would take days if not weeks or months to get everything up and running. Bringing his Network down was a small price to pay for Earth’s safety, though. It was slow work from Antar’s hidden headquarters, but at least the internet was secured, and the computer was decent enough.
“Oh, this is interesting,” Daniel said as he stared at a secondary monitor. Security footage from the outside showed up. The first thing Daniel always did was hack the security systems so he couldn’t be surprised the same way Dave had surprised him years ago. “It looks like Michael is here. With Ray in tow, rah-rah…”
Dave looked at the monitor, “And Luke is also in tow, rah-rah…” Van’s second in command was hostile on a good day, and this was most definitely not a good day.
He went back to his own monitor and keyboard and resumed what he’d been doing for the past twenty minutes.
“What are you looking for?” Daniel asked, frowning.
“We were tracked through the Network. I have to make sure we’re not being targeted anymore.”
“Uh…” Daniel said, frowning deeper. “Your people don’t know they have to get rid of their phones at the first sign of trouble?”
“Hmm…” was all Dave responded. Ordinary people? Sure. Max and his merry band? Not exactly. Dave wouldn’t risk losing contact with Max, especially not when Van was coming to speak with him. They hadn’t been instructed to lose them, so chances were they hadn’t.
But if McKay tracked them down, I can track them down as well, Dave thought, looking for a way to verify if they were trackable or not.
A knock barely sounded on the door before Ray came in.
“You’re the first bit of good news I’ve had in the last couple of hours,” Ray said as Dave looked up. Then Ray looked at Daniel and his face went from confused, to suspicious, to downright anger. “You! It was you in the middle of this whole mess!”
“Ray—” Dave warned, aware that one of the shifters was watching them by the door. He couldn’t afford the Rebellion executing Daniel here, at least not yet.
“Don’t protect him! Stop falling for his antics!”
“Ray. Not now.”
“Then when?”
“Whoa, there, I’m just trying to help here. I even rescued Dave earlier today!” Daniel innocently said, and then was utterly silenced by both Dave’s and Ray’s glares.
“Later,” Dave answered with a pointed look at Ray. “We need to find Zan and Van, and Daniel can help to speed that up by tenfold. So, later.”
Ray sighed for patience but nodded twice. “We were being tracked by the phones. Luke told us you had left a backdoor so they could trace Max. It was only a matter of finding the right hacker for the Unit to find their way in, so things clicked in place. We got rid of our phones then. I don’t know about the others.”
“I’m trying to see if there’s any tracking I can do on my own. Daniel is trying to see if the Unit has captured anyone today besides me. He’s been leaving backdoors of his own on their software.”
Daniel studiously continued typing. It was finally dawning on him that the trouble he’d made—that the consequences to his actions—were about to catch up with him.
“What is this thing I’m hearing about Isabel being arrested?” Ray asked.
“Antar politics transcend lifetimes, apparently,” Dave said. On the second monitor, Daniel changed the outside cameras to the inner cameras. Michael was talking with Isabel while Jesse paced. They couldn’t hear them, but it wasn’t looking promising.
“Tell me about it. Luke was explaining to Michael—I mean, the General—about what happened on Antar in the last seventy years, with an emphasis on the last eleven. What are we even doing here?” Ray rhetorically asked.
“We’re helping the Rebellion gaining their rightful leader—and in the process we’re hoping they leave Earth alone.”
“You’re selling Max out?” Ray asked, looking incredulous.
“I’m bringing Max to the table. Whatever he decides it’s up to him,” Dave said, his coding forgotten. He couldn’t look at Ray, though.
“Since when are you working with them?” Ray whispered, aghast.
“Since the beginning, Ray. You teaching them was a big reason why the Rebellion let me keep them under my wing.”
“You—” used me? Ray tried to say, the words clearly written on his face if not spoken out loud.
“Van wanted to wipe out the entire human race for crimes against the crown. What was I supposed to do?” Dave whispered back, angry now. Jake had been so mad at him when he’d found out what the offer had really been about, and now Ray was too, as if Dave had taken all these decisions lightly. As if the fate of the Earth was some random game he’d picked years ago on a whim.
“And you didn’t tell anyone, did you?” Ray said, now looking hurt if resigned.
“I couldn’t. It was part of the deal.”
“What else are you hiding from them?”
Years of calls with Langley and logistics with the Antarian shapeshifters flashed in Dave’s mind. A lot was not really what Ray needed to hear right now.
“Listen, I will explain, I will, but we have bigger problems now. I need your help or we won’t make it out alive, do you understand? This day was supposed to go smoothly yet suddenly it all went to hell—” they both glanced at Daniel and then kept talking, “—so we need to get everyone to safety once more.”
“Oh…” Daniel said from his quiet corner, “looks like they heard you.”
Frowning, both Dave and Ray turned to look at the main monitor as Daniel switched the image once more to the outside: Liz, Maria, and Kyle were visibly walking towards the front door.
“Is that Max?” Daniel asked, hopeful.
“That’s not His Majesty,” the shapeshifter who had guided Ray here said, making all three of them jump. “That’s Jade, the Queen’s guard. He must have taken Zan’s form for a good reason.”
“Or maybe he’s actually Max,” Daniel insisted.
“He would never walk so detached from his wife,” Finn pointed out. The Max on the screen walked a bit faster and reached the warehouse door first. He opened it for the others and looked around, clearly looking for hidden trouble. He didn’t look at Liz once.
“You’re good,” Ray said with approval.
On Daniel’s corner, a warning beeped on the smaller monitor. The hacker cursed. “We have a beacon.”
“What are you talking about?” Dave asked, now looking at whatever warning was on Daniel’s computer.
“Someone’s tracking us here.”
“Impossible,” Finn said.
“They used the phones, didn’t they?” Daniel asked, turning to look at Dave as he started typing, looking for the tracking source.
“Michael destroyed ours,” Ray said, “maybe Liz, Kyle, and Maria still have theirs?”
Dave’s fingers flew over the keys as he searched for the beacon in the hopes of redirecting it somewhere, anywhere else but there. For how long have they known we’re here?
“Wait,” Dave said, stopping on his mental tracks, “What did you do with Isabel’s and Jesse’s phones?” he asked the shifter. The four of them looked at each other for a second, and then the shifter ran out of the room.
“We found the beacon…” Daniel muttered as he and Dave went back to their keyboards and codes. They had to redirect that beacon—or it would be only a matter of time before the Unit landed on them.
2 : Maria
The corridors of this place were amazingly long, she decided, as she took another turn left. She knew where exactly Michael was, to the point their escort was visibly rattled.
“How do you know the way?” Lance asked as Maria waited for him to open yet another closed door.
“The same way you feel a train coming: the vibration is impossible to ignore.”
“The General vibrates?”
Both Kyle and Liz swallowed their laughter as Maria threw daggers at the shifter. “You have no idea. Can you just hurry up? It feels as if—”
“—I’m going to explode something,” Michael finished for her as the doors opened, and he was right there, in front of her.
“Micha—”
She didn’t get to finish. He swooped her up and crash-kissed her as if his life depended on it. The lights flickered as she grabbed his jacket to be as close to him as humanly possible while still clothed. They came for air for a second, and she kissed him back as fiercely after that.
The light closest to them burst out in a spectacular shower of sparks, but they didn’t care. Although there were no real words exchanged through their connection, he kept asking her if she was all right, and she kept asking him if he was really there.
“What are we up against?” Maria finally asked, breathless and worried and ready to do something. He was still holding her head in his hands, almost touching their foreheads.
“One hell of a mess,” he answered, equally breathless. He looked past her to Liz. “Max is getting closer.”
“Yeah, but he’s not…right.” Liz said, biting her lip.
“Van’s still missing. And Isabel is jailed,” Michael added, kissing Maria one more time before separating.
“So, what do we do first?” Maria asked, glancing at the burnt light in the ceiling with mild interest.
“We regroup—and then we get some answers. Dave’s here, and the Rebels are here. It’s time we learn what the hell is going on.”
3 : Max
He’d been dreaming about Antar again. About loud sounds and screams. About adrenaline running through icy veins as he realized the Palace had been breached.
They were coming for him.
“Are you all right?” Violet asked from the front seat, worried eyes searching his face for signs of something she could fix.
Max blinked, trying to reacquaint himself to his present life on his present planet. His head felt heavy for a moment. “How long was I out?”
“Um…about fifteen minutes, tops?” she said, unsure. They were parked somewhere dark on the outskirts of New York City. He could see the lights of the bridge they had crossed while he was having a blast from the past.
“Where’s Ash?” he asked. Shade would be invisibly watching over him, never leaving his side.
“We’re close to headquarters. He’s just making sure the coast is clear.” She looked outside, tense. “This day has been so full of surprises; we’re not leaving anything to chance.”
For a moment, something tingled on his chest—and then jolted his heart. Max literally bounced against the seat, clutching his chest.
“Max!” Violet shouted, while Shade shifted right beside him, ready to defend.
“I’m—I’m okay,” Max said through clutched teeth. “Liz is really close,” he said, apologetic. “We’ve just…reconnected, I guess.”
The two shifters looked at him for a moment, and then let a long sigh out. When the door suddenly opened a moment later, they were ready to jump Ash.
“We’re good to go—what?”
Three pairs of jittery eyes met him in contempt.
“I just need this day to end,” Violet muttered, turning the car on. She only drove for a couple of minutes until an abandoned warehouse came by. All shifters vanished as Max opened the door, making sure the perimeter was secured.
Out of habit, Max counted his resources at hand: he had about three hundred dollars, and he could be back in New York in about an hour. He had no phone, no way to contact back-up, and was walking into unknown territory. On the bright side, everyone he cared about was—down?—there. He bet there was a basement somewhere.
Liz was the easiest to find, but both Michael and Isabel were there, too. If everything had worked out, then their entire group would be here.
Violet and Ash reformed, both bowing. “Welcome to Antarian soil, Your Majesty,” Violet said with a small smile, as if this were an embassy of sorts.
Max hesitated. He was entering what little Antarians could claim here not as Max Evans, but as Zan, their king. For all the memories he had, for all the lessons he’d learned, once he stepped into that warehouse, there was no going back.
