xmag, I think the shifters' opinions represent how many things everyone expects from Zan. That no matter what Max decides, someone is always going to want something else
keepsmiling7, still a few more chapters to go before the Max-Zan questions is settled
To everybody else reading, I hope you're enjoying the story so far. I would love to hear what your thoughts are, and what do you think Max should decide: does he stay or does he leave? What's best for Antar?
Part 23: On The Road
November 2nd, 2011 - New York
1 : Jake
“As I told you, Dave didn’t tell me a thing,” Jake sincerely said while Langley took the wheel, and Jet turned from the front seat to make sure Van was unharmed. “Dave kept the whole deal secret until last week, but then he wanted to know if I had any insights on what Max might choose, so he finally told me.”
“Someone still betrayed us today,” Van said, perfectly still on the backseat they were sharing.
“How much time do we have till they know we escaped?” Jet asked Langley looking intently at Van’s eyes, willing his sight to come back. Even Van could probably feel his anxiety.
“A few more minutes,” Langley said. “McKay will find out that Max is not in custody and will figure out it was all a ruse. I don’t like that he wasn’t prepared to deal with shifters. He’s not an idiot.”
“No, he’s not,” Jake agreed. The man who haunted his dreams was anything but an idiot. “You think he’s letting us go on purpose?”
“Maybe. We’ll take the long way to headquarters to make sure we’re not having any tails.”
The thing about Langley was that Jake had a good idea of what he could do. The black sedan the Unit had given them was no longer black, for one, and Langley had scanned it to make sure no tracking devices were attached. But beyond the extent of his powers, Jake had no idea who Langley was or what history he had with Dave, Van, or Max.
“Here, can you—clean him up?” Jet asked as he found a bottle of water and a few discarded napkins and handed them to Jake. It was certainly upsetting to see Van’s face smeared with real blood.
“Of course,” Jake said. “Where are you bleeding, exactly?” he asked Van while inspecting him closely. Van didn’t move.
“It’s a small cut,” he said, raising his hand. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he added a bit louder, probably wanting Jet to hear that, too. “I’m far more interested in your answer, actually.”
“What answer?” Jake asked, pouring water on Van’s hand first. He tensed.
Not used to being touched, are you? Jake wondered.
“The one you gave Dave. What do you think Max is going to choose?”
Jake froze. Seven years of talks with Max came to his mind at once. The fear of the unknown, the need for control, and the sense that he was losing himself.
“He’s not going to play games, for one,” Jake answered as he wiped dried blood out of Van’s fingers. “He’ll decide to be true to his heart. That’s why I was so angry at Dave. He’s been trying to walk Max through life without giving him the benefit of the doubt. For some reason, he thought Max is incapable of making his own decisions, no matter who wants what.”
“He certainly has Zan’s stubbornness,” Langley said. “We could have done without that trait when we cloned him,” he added as an afterthought.
A ghost of a smile graced Van’s lips. “You know my brother in a way I can only wish for. You Guarded him when he was a ruler, and you trained him when he was an outcast.”
“He’s certainly had a couple of interesting lives,” Jake said. “I’ll clean your face now,” he added before pressing the wet napkin to his cheek. “You’re having quite the day, as well.”
“It’s the most important day of my life.”
There was such deference, such longing in Van’s voice that Jake sincerely hoped Zan had survived to meet his little brother. Max, on the other hand, was probably not as thrilled to have a living reminder of his alien donor. After all, Van represented everything Max wanted to forget: another planet, a royal status, and a life away from Liz.
“You’ve already talked to Max,” Jake said, taking one last look at his work. At least Van didn’t look like a late Halloween trick-or-treater anymore. “What do you think about him?”
Did he pass your test or not?
“He had questions, as I expected. He also fainted, which prompted us to move him to headquarters. As I told you earlier, something’s not right with Zan today, he admitted as much.”
Langley looked at Jake over the rearview mirror, and then glanced at Jet, who nodded.
“It can’t be coincidence everyone’s landing on us today of all days,” Langley said from the front seat, easily maneuvering around New York’s streets. Jet kept checking the mirrors.
“We contacted him today because there’s a credible threat to Zan’s life,” Jet said, looking at Langley. “His fainting might be related, though I can’t see how Khivar would have managed that.”
“If Max dies, all of this would’ve been for nothing,” Langley muttered. Of course, since Langley had been playing with Max’s destiny since the moment Zan died, it was no wonder the shapeshifter felt responsible for this.
“What happens if Max says no?” Jake asked, curious. “If he doesn’t want to go back?”
“Why is everyone so sure he’s not Zan?” Van asked, for the first time exasperated. “He already sat as Zan at a Summit in this exact same city eleven years ago. He had no memories, no safety net, no back-up, and yet he stood his ground with the Granolith. He did the right thing even when he barely knew his name. I’ve never understood why everyone centers on the fact that he doesn’t remember when what really matters is that Zan’s sense of duty is intact. He would give his life for the things he believes in.”
Jake looked at Van, at the rebel who’d spent his entire life fighting, who knew no peace but was filled with way too much hope. “Max is just a man, Van,” Jake carefully said. “He’s prone to make mistakes and have selfish desires like everybody else does.”
“Everyone tells me I shouldn’t have high expectations. That my brother died on Antar decades ago and there’s no replacing him. That this world and this body has changed him beyond recognition, but—I can’t stop thinking that he seems like the right man. And that’s all I really care about.”
2 : Dave
The warehouse was shabbier than he remembered. The last time he'd set foot in this place had been seven years ago, when he'd given it to Luke's unique group of killers. They were here as much to train as they were to execute Antar's enemies to the crown. They would eventually become Max's Invisible Guard, and for that, Dave was thankful. Keeping an eye on all seven of them was difficult on any given day. Knowing there were assassins, agents, and rebels all trying to get a piece of his Majesty was not comfortable news to let them loose in the world.
By his side, Daniel slowed the car to a crawl.
“This place was not in your codes," he accused, for once Dave managing to keep
something secret from this kid’s prying hands.
"You think I would risk having the exact location of a group of interplanetary rebels in anything but my head?" he simply asked. He'd kept a lot of information about a lot of people in his codes, but Antar's Rebellion was something he kept out of any written records as much as he could.
"So, what's here, their ship?" Daniel asked, finally stopping the car.
"A ship, but not exactly theirs. They have some sort of wormhole technology now, which does, in fact, open down there. But the ship is the original one from 1947. They used it mainly for communication purposes."
"The '47 Roswell crash ship?
That ship?" Daniel asked, his eyes going round like when he used to work for Dave.
He nodded. "Langley knew where it was. I just went and fetch it." He smiled at that. He loved it when things sounded so easy and yet had been hell.
"What else do you have stashed around the world? The Yeti? Nessie in an underground lake?"
"No, I just limit myself to otherworldly aliens," Dave said dryly, no longer amused. The fate of the Earth was never an amusing matter.
"Okay, okay...don't be so touchy. So, you gave them a ship and headquarters, plus all paid expenses. Are you part of their Rebellion?" Daniel asked, frowning, as if this should be obvious but really wasn't.
Well, that's because it really isn't obvious, Dave thought with a heavy sigh.
"They want Zan. I want this planet to stay in one piece. It wasn't a difficult decision."
Daniel slowly nodded as if things were starting to make sense. "What if Max says no?"
"Then he says no," Dave shrugged. "He's been trained for life on Earth, that was my goal. If he chooses to go or stay, I won't even be in the same room when he says so. Van will make sure of that," he darkly said. For Van, Dave was a secondary lifeform who got the divine task of looking after his beloved king and brother. It was never an easy or happy moment to be in the presence of the Rebellion’s leader. But Dave understood, maybe a little too well, that Van was risking an entire planet.
"Way to go, Dave. Making deals on Earth's behalf without no one being the wiser."
"What can I say? Making deals is what I do," Dave said as he opened the door. It was time to reclaim his domain, if only in name.
3 : Michael
Sixteen minutes later—exactly sixteen minutes, as Dave would tell them—Ray finally found the deserted road that led to the aliens’ headquarters. Beside him, Luke was impatient, a feeling Michael shared. They both needed a new direction to follow, a way to identify where they had to go to find Maria, Max, and Van—in that order.
And there was also the question of what was going on with Isabel. He didn’t sense fear from her, not the kind that came from danger. Instead, her emotions were running high on their connection, the sort that put Michael on edge.
“Was this place always a dump?” Ray asked as he parked. The headlights illuminated an old, rusty warehouse that wouldn’t be misplaced in a horror movie.
“We make it look like that on purpose,” Luke said as he exited the car, eager to meet his friends. Maybe Van was already there.
“It’s a hologram,” Michael explained when Ray looked at him on the rearview mirror. “The less attention you attract to your safehouse, the better.”
“Michael—” Ray said before Michael could open the door, “How much do you really remember? About Antar, I mean.”
“A lot,” he said evasively. He hadn’t had this conversation with anyone but Max and Isabel, and he wasn’t in the mood to explain his guts to Ray here. Hell, he knew he had to tell Maria now, and he wasn’t looking forward to that conversation either.
“Enough that I should be calling you Rath?” Ray pressed, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course not,” Michael said, taken aback. “Look, we remember them, what their lives were like, the decisions they made, but I’m no general from another world. All I really care about right now is to find my wife and the rest of my friends and get the hell out of here. Does that sound like you should be calling me Rath?”
“Okay,” Ray said, shrugging. “But you have to admit, this is getting weirder by the second.”
“Yeah, wait till you see the interior.”
Michael got out of the car and then froze. Luke was inspecting a red vehicle hidden in the shadows of the warehouse, and his internal alarms went up immediately. After all, Maria was coming this way. He had to know everyone and everything that was here before she walked into a trap.
“It’s warm,” Luke said as he came to stand with him. “Whoever drove here must be already inside.”
“I bet it’s Dave,” Ray said. “What? He likes flashy things. Who else knows about this place that would drive a sports car to an undercover safehouse?”
“If it wasn’t anyone in the know, they’re as good as dead, now,” Luke said, turning to the warehouse.
“Luke,” Michael warned, “My wife is coming to this place. I’ll burn it to the ground and then some if she so much as gets a papercut in here, you understand me?”
“Ye—yes, General,” Luke said, and then opened the door to hurry inside.
“You know, for someone who claims he isn’t a general, you sure are fond of bossing that guy around.”
“Yeah, it has its perks,” he gruntled.
Before entering, Michael stared at the red car for a few moments, making sure all tires were slashed useless. Whoever had come in that car was not leaving in it. He took one last glance in Maria’s direction, and then closed the warehouse door behind him.