by Minton, Toby
Cole's bright green eyes locked onto Gideon's in the mirror and the mirth disappeared. "I know what you're doing, old man." The intensity in his nearly glowing green eyes was almost enough to breach the emotional wall. "It won't work. I'm deciding which of those black limbs to beat you to death with for sticking your claws where they don't belong. Know that."
"The Daemon would not give you what you want," Gideon said, matching Cole glare for glare. "You must have seen that by now."
"And you think you can?" There was more challenge than question in Cole's voice, and that, more than his regenerative powers, was the true reason he was still alive. As desperately as he wanted the release he'd been seeking for years, his nature simply refused to cooperate. It wasn't in him, or the alien DNA inside him, to back down and surrender. His quest was futile, as he well knew.
"No," Gideon said simply, glancing at Nikki briefly before returning his gaze to the sky. Then he tied the last knot, the one he knew would bind Cole to them until the end, even if all others failed. "But Nikki can."
He met Cole's stare again. "She will," he said.
Cole's eyes narrowed at that word. He picked up on the implication. He knew what Gideon could do. Thanks to their history, he had no reason to doubt Gideon's visions, no reason to doubt their interpretation, unlike the others.
"She's still sitting right here," Nikki snapped, "and she's got an idea. Since you two can't seem to talk to me like a person, or make any sense at all for that matter, let's all play stick-a-sock-in-it. My head is killing me."
She fell silent and tried to rub her temples, only to curse in pain when she hit her swollen cheek. In the rearview, Gideon saw Cole watching her. His eyes were as feral as ever, but with his gaze on Nikki the intensity softened just enough to reassure Gideon that he'd made the right choice recruiting the man, made the right choice trusting his instincts.
Gideon believed Cole would be able to track the creatures, and fight them if needed, but that's not why he'd sought the man out. Cole had something Nikki had lost, something she needed back if she was to have any hope of surviving what was to come. He had a lesson to teach—
Nikki noticed Cole's stare and twisted in the seat to shoot back one of her own. "Eyes front, hillbilly. I don't know what's in that nappy old head of yours, but I've got nothing you want here, no matter what Gimpy the Pimp over there says."
—assuming Nikki was willing to learn.
She turned back and trailed off in mumbled curses that gained volume only at key words like "dirty old bastards."
From the back seat, a low rumble grew into deep, rolling laughter without a trace of bitterness this time.
* * *
When Gideon climbed out of the shuttle into the dusky orange light of the hangar, Elias was waiting. Gideon had expected as much. Convincing Elias to entrust him with Nikki's safety had been a delicate dance for Gideon, one he felt he'd performed clumsily at the time. Elias had given his consent, but Gideon had suspected he was anything but happy about doing so. Seeing him waiting in the doorway of the hangar confirmed that suspicion.
Leaning against the doorway at the top of the steps, arms crossed, Elias could have been perfectly at ease. His lack of expression said otherwise. When Nikki climbed out, straightening up slowly with a wince, the blasé pretense melted. Elias pushed away from the door and strode down the steps to her, his concern manifesting as anger.
"Remind me not to go out with Gideon again," Nikki groaned through a stretch.
"What happened?" Elias said evenly, despite his thunderhead expression.
"I got my ears yapped off, that's what," Nikki complained. "These two wouldn't shut up."
He gently brushed aside a lock of blue-black hair to look at Nikki's swollen eye. "This didn't come from talking."
Cole climbed from the back of the shuttle, his size making the vehicle look ridiculous by comparison. Elias reacted immediately. He took a half step to put himself between Nikki and the massive man, his hand dropping to his sidearm. But he stopped there. Cole had been in the shuttle with Nikki for over an hour, after all. If he was going to cause her harm, he could have done so long before now. Elias had to be thinking the same thing. Gideon could practically see the thought progression in his eyes. Besides, he knew Cole. His reaction had been instinctive, a soldier's reaction to a threat. More than that—it was a father's reaction.
Cole wasn't bothered. If anything, he looked amused, which might have caused trouble were he facing a less controlled soldier. Even among veteran officers, Elias stood out for his self control, his lack of ego. More precisely, he stood out for his ability to recognize impulses born of ego and will them aside in favor of logic and common sense. Gideon hadn't chosen his ally at random.
Gideon stepped in to ease the tension. He needed these men to work together, if not in a friendly manner, at least in a trusting one. A confrontation now would only make his work that much harder.
Once he explained the conflict at Avalon and how Cole stepped in to save Nikki, Elias relaxed, albeit only slightly. In truth, Nikki had done the saving, but only Gideon and Cole knew the full extent of that truth, and only Gideon considered it a good thing.
"Let's get you to the infirmary," Elias said.
"I'm fine, really." Nikki pushed away, gently brushing off Elias's hand. She wasn't used to being cared for, not by anyone in this room, at least. Gideon suspected that a part of her wanted, even needed, the contact, but the greater part of her was not ready to accept them into her life in any obvious way. What few inroads the others had made with her had come through stealth, not open overture. Nikki's defenses were too strong. If she saw kindness coming, its destruction was assured.
"I just need some time away from Jabberdy Anne and Andy," she said, stepping around Elias and heading for the door.
Elias looked like he was going to argue but wisely held his tongue when Nikki turned and backed up the steps to give them a double thumbs-up and a tired grin. "Really, all good here." Then she was gone, leaving the three of them alone.
"Elias, if you would show Cole to empty quarters—"
"No," Cole cut in. "But thanks," he added after a pause. "I've been inside too long. Besides," his green-eyed gaze dipped toward Gideon's alien side, "I need to get the scent of what I'm hunting."
Gideon nodded.
"You have a way out with a shorter first step?" Cole asked with a nod at the hangar doors.
Gideon looked to Elias. "If you would, Elias."
Mouth set in a tight line, Elias inclined his head and led Cole from the hangar without another word. He was angry, more obviously so than Gideon had seen him show before. Gideon had pushed him as far as a man could bend, and then pushed more.
There had been a time when Gideon had feared Michael's death would be the end of their relationship, the step too far over the line that would make Elias walk away. It would have been, if not for Nikki. As long as she was around, Elias wasn't going anywhere. Savior had seen to that, and that was one sin for which Gideon was grateful to his enemy. He needed Elias.
Gideon made his way through the quiet, dimly lit corridors between the hangar and the command center. He was tired, mentally and physically—going unnoticed in L.A. metro had taken its toll—but he couldn't sleep yet, not when so much was still unsettled, not when so many unknowns were vying for his attention.
The command center was even darker than the corridors—with the overhead matching the moonless light outside and most of the systems in standby mode—but what little light emanated from the server towers arranged around the platform was more than enough for Gideon's alien eye. He climbed the steps, circled around the tactical display and keyed in his access code to bring the main screen online. He wouldn't have been surprised to find his access code disabled, but the system powered up without hesitation.
For several minutes, Gideon lost himself in the global network, searching for needles in a planet-sized haystack. He searched for every detail he recalled from his vision of Seattle's fall, looki
ng for anything that might give him a date—anything that might tell him how long they had left.
"We need to talk," Elias said from behind Gideon.
Gideon turned to find him standing on the other side of the tactical table. Gideon stepped away from the console but didn't sit. Elias made no move to sit either. He looked calm and at ease once again, but not a peaceful calm, rather one of firm resolve, of a decision reached. Gideon knew him well enough to recognize the look.
"This has to change," Elias said evenly. "Neither of us can pretend to go on like we did before."
Gideon nodded. He knew Elias well enough not to interrupt, not when he was like this.
"I've followed you for a long time. I've followed your orders. I've jumped when you said jump, and never pushed for more information than you were willing to give. I've kept to the chain of command."
Gideon nodded again and waited. He'd never seen this moment in a vision, but he'd imagined it so many times over the past few months, he felt a stirring of déjà vu.
"But not because I trusted you."
Gideon blinked. This he had not expected. He'd never questioned Elias's loyalty, and certainly not his trust. For the second time in a matter of months, Gideon was faced with the unfamiliar feeling that something he knew for certain was not as it seemed.
"I followed you because I believed Savior had to be stopped, and I stood a better chance of stopping him with you than without you. I still believe that. I need your help to stop him. But my days of following blindly are over."
Even though he had known it was coming, hearing Elias say the words and seeing the look in his eyes was more of a blow than Gideon had imagined. Elias hadn't said he was leaving, but Gideon suddenly felt more alone than he had the day he'd awoken in the crater. He slipped behind the emotional wall in his mind, keeping his face from showing his true feelings.
"Where does that leave us?" His voice was cold, even to his own ears, but at least it held none of the dread he was feeling. Elias might believe he needed Gideon, but Gideon knew he needed Elias far more.
"With two changes to the way we operate," Elias answered, his composure unfazed by Gideon's apparent detachment. "Number one: Nikki is off limits. You need something from her, you vet it through me first."
"Agreed." Had he not been cut off from his emotions, Gideon might have felt a rush of satisfaction. Elias's first change put him exactly where Gideon needed him—closer to Nikki. "And the second?"
Elias leaned forward onto the darkened table display. "No more secrets. No more telling us what you think we need to hear. No more handling the people putting their lives on the line for you. Everyone here knows what we're up against and what we're fighting for. I trust every one of them, and they all want to trust you. But you know that. You counted on that when you walked into this room last night and said what you knew they wanted to hear."
"What would you have me do?" Gideon asked.
"Earn it. Trust them if you want them to keep following you. Trust me."
"You don't know what you're asking."
Elias smiled sadly. "Exactly my point, Gideon. I don't know what you've been carrying around on your own all these years, only that you've never trusted me enough share the load. And it's cost us. More than we should have paid." Elias paused only for a second, but the tension in his jaw showed clearly in that brief window.
Behind the emotional barrier, Gideon couldn't feel the remorse, but he knew it was rising in a tide that would have made it impossible for him to keep a clear head if he let himself feel it. "Elias, what happened with the boy—"
"Don't. If I hear the word 'mistake' from your mouth again about Michael, I take Nikki and I leave." His voice was stone, his gray eyes could have cowed Cole at that moment. "He might still be here if you'd trusted us."
Thanks to the wall, the lie Gideon needed came easily to his lips. As calm and controlled as he seemed, Elias was acting out of anger and pain. He was letting emotion bury his judgment. Gideon's was unencumbered. He saw clearly what he needed to say to turn the discussion where he needed it to go.
But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. Free as it was from his own fear and doubt, Gideon's logic followed the path of least resistance. It made connections he'd failed to consider. His mind was a finely honed tool, but it had its limitations. Situations that didn't conform to his conceptions of the world and the laws that shaped it could be misfiled, misinterpreted. That's why he'd failed to understand his vision of Nikki and Michael's future. That's why he'd misread Elias's motivation for following him. In light of this evidence, continuing to guide events and interpret the future on his own was clearly…a mistake.
He opened his mouth again, but this time he didn't voice the lies and partial truths that might bind Elias to him once again. Instead, he did what unfettered logic now told him he should have done years ago.
He told Elias everything.
Basics
Chapter 18
Nikki
Despite her best intentions, Nikki got up well before noon. She woke up hungry and in desperate need of a caffeine fix, but she opted for hiding out in her room, despite the discomfort, to avoid setting unrealistic expectations. The others were used to not seeing her until the afternoon when she'd been out all night. No need to shake things up.
She quickly ran out of things to do though, and boredom almost got the better of her. She showered, dressed, fixed and changed her hair three times. Then she took inventory of everything she'd accumulated over the past few months, which would have seemed like a lot for one person to own once upon a time but looked meager to her now. Finally, she resorted to staring at herself in the mirror.
That's where she was, examining the pattern of bruises on her face, when Elias knocked on her door. She swung the door open to find him standing at ease, which came close to looking relaxed, for a soldier. He had his hands clasped behind his back and a smile on his lips that looked genuine enough but barely reached his eyes.
Nikki gave him an exaggerated smile. "What's up, buddy?"
She liked Elias. He was a little stiff sometimes, a little heavy on the rules, more so than any of the others, but he treated her with a level of respect she wasn't used to getting. He always wanted to hear her opinion in his little briefings and meetings, and even more surprising, he seemed to really consider what she had to say, no matter how stupid it was. He was good people. But his showing up at her door had happened exactly never, which made her suspicious.
"Mind if I come in?"
There was that respect. She stepped back and gestured broadly. "Knock yourself out. You guys own this place, not me."
His smile deepened, crinkling the lines around his eyes, and he stepped past her to the center of the room. Even with the wrinkles and graying blonde hair, Elias was still a good-looking man, in a soldiery way. He wasn’t magazine-worthy or anything, but he had a solid, dependable look that had its own special kind of draw.
They stood in silence for a minute while Elias looked over the room from where he stood, like he was afraid to touch anything, and Nikki looked him over trying to figure out what he wanted. Awkward didn't seem a strong enough word.
Eventually his gray eyes shifted her way and even the slight smile that had lingered flattened out as he studied her bruises. "Tell me about the fight."
"Oh, I'm fine," she said, seeing where this was going. "Really, like I said last night, the ride home was a lot more painful."
"That's not why I'm asking," he said, his tone becoming more commandery than before. "I want you to tell me about the fight. Details," he clarified when Nikki just stared at him blankly. "I want to know how they attacked you and how you defended yourself."
"Oh," she replied, a little surprised. "Um, yeah, I can tell you all about the shway moves I laid on them, but defending isn't really my style."
"I can see that."
Nikki frowned at him. Was that a dig? What happened to that respect she was so fond of?
"I'm not interested in
how you attacked them," he said, glancing at her bruises again. "I want you to tell me about every hit you took."
"Is this some kind of fetish thing?" Was every older guy here a perv? How had she not seen that from the start? She was usually good at picking perverts out of crowds, but her pervdar hadn't gone off once with these guys. What had happened to her people skills?
"Humor me," he said, smiling slightly again and turning to face her directly. "Let's start with that bruise on your right cheek, the one that looks like a hand print."
"Well," she said, thinking back, "this guy grabbed me while I was distracted by…everything that was happening." Nikki swallowed before she went on. She'd almost said, "by Michael shouting at me," which would have been all kinds of bad. She had to be more careful. "Then he slapped me."
"Show me."
Gladly, she thought. His tone was starting to get on her nerves. She reached for his arm like the gypo had, but Elias batted her arm aside with his forearm, leaving her wrist and hand tingling.
"Geeah! What the—"
"Hmm," he said, nodding and squinting at his own arm like he was puzzled before he said, "Forgive me. Please, again."
She rubbed her wrist for a minute, eyeing him.
He just bobbed his head again in apology and said, "Please."
She lunged for him and grabbed his bicep, or the shirt around it, at least, smiling in victory like an idiot when he didn't block her. She brought her left hand around in a slap that was probably too hard, but he deserved it for messing with her. The slap never landed.
He stepped into her somehow as soon as she swung, his open palm sending her wheeling backward. The back of her head nearly kissed wall before he caught her and pulled her back on balance.
"Really?" She could barely make words through the adrenaline rush suddenly pounding through her. "That's what we're doing now? You want to go?"