by Minton, Toby
Normally, Nikki would steer clear of anything or anyone so popular with the masses, but for Max she made an exception. Max was just…different. He was special. He could do something no one else could do, and the world loved him for it, which was one reason Nikki was drawn to him with a funky mix of kinship and envy. She used to be able to do something no one else but Michael could do, and it ended up bringing her nothing but grief.
"Funny place to find a doctor," Nikki said as Ace continued her circuit above the naturally forming traffic lanes, studying the ground below.
"Not a doctor," Ace replied distractedly. "A brother."
"You mean like Mos?"
"I mean like a sibling," Ace replied with a short laugh, leveling out the four-seater and preparing to set down in the middle of some official looking vehicles behind the theater. "My sibling."
"Your brother is a zoner?" Not in a million years would Nikki have pegged Ace for a former zoner. Nor would she have pegged Ace for the type to leave a brother behind in the free zones while she lived the posh life at the bunker. Maybe she'd misjudged her entirely.
"Not exactly," Ace said.
"Hmm," Nikki replied, trying to keep at least part of her attention on the conversation as she scanned the transports in what was obviously a secured staff landing area. She saw no indication of whose staff was bustling around the brightly lit lot, however. "So, who's performing tonight?"
"That would be Max."
Nikki caught a jubilant shout before it could burst out, and swallowed it hard, nodding like this news was the least interesting tidbit she'd heard all week. She gave Ace her most innocent and nonchalant look, even though it was wasted. Ace was focused on landing.
"I don't guess we'll stick around long enough to catch any of the show," Nikki said. "Meet up with your brother and run, right?"
The four-seater touched down and Ace glanced over after shutting down the power. "How mean do you think I am, kiddo?"
The words "shuttle run" and "burpee" jumped into Nikki's mind. "Is that a serious question?"
Ace gave her a grin that was balanced by a raised eyebrow. "We have time to take in the show. We can't talk to my brother until after he's done anyway."
"Done what?"
"Performing," Ace said, the eyebrow climbing.
"I thought you said Max was performing tonight?"
"I did."
"So…exactly how many people are performing?" Nikki asked, starting to think Ace was messing with her. The older woman must have guessed how much she liked Max and was proving just how mean she could be.
"Just my little brother," Ace replied, her smile filling with fond amusement. She was enjoying this dumb game way too much.
"Well how can that be, smart ass, unless your brother is—"
Ace nodded as Nikki trailed off into silence. "Give it a minute. It'll sink in." She checked her watch. "No more than a minute though. He starts in fifteen, so unless you want to miss the show—"
Nikki didn't say another word. She was too busy trying to unlatch her restraint, open the door, and jump out all at the same time. Her haste was self-defeating, of course, each rushed task slowing the others. And it was wasted. Once she managed to extricate herself from the four-seater, to the tune of a few choice curses and with a couple new bruises forming, she was forced to stand and wait while Ace took her sweet time.
On the plus side, the wait gave her a chance to realize she was on the brink of a full-blown fangirl geek out. She took a few breaths as Ace examined an imaginary ding on the rear quarter panel. By the time Ace strolled over with a smug little smile on her face, Nikki had herself back under control, her casual demeanor restored.
"OK," Ace said with a nod. "You read—"
"Yes, dammit!" Nikki snapped. Well, it was mostly restored.
Ace laughed and clapped her shoulder, then led the way to the gaggle of security goons that had multiplied since the four-seater set down. Apparently they didn't take too kindly to people landing in their secure area. Some of the dark looks lightened as they drew closer, however. A few of these people, at least, seemed to recognize Ace. She flashed an ID chip anyway as she stopped in front of them. Nikki wondered if it was the real deal this time. Every member of the team had a half dozen fake chips that Kate reprogrammed on a regular basis, or had reprogrammed before her breakdown, but Nikki doubted Ace used a fake ID to see her brother. Max, that is. Ace's brother was Max. The Max.
Nikki laughed, earning funny looks from several of the goons. She didn't care. Nothing could ruin the beauty of this situation.
A couple of the goons exchanged semi-familiar greetings with Ace, then led the way through a gate and between a couple mid-size transports toward the sloped concrete walls of the back of the theater. The goons buzzed them through a set of heavy duty scanners and led them through the heaviest doors Nikki had seen outside the bunker, and then down a sloping concrete hallway that looked to be leading them under the theater.
They took turn after turn, each one into another hallway identical to the last, making Nikki lose her sense of direction pretty quickly. She suspected the drab, repetitive design was a careful choice, a security precaution. If any whacked out fans made it down here, they'd get so turned around and lost they'd have as much chance of finding their way out as wandering farther in, giving the security goons plenty of time to deal with them.
After maybe a tenth turn, the hallway ended in a bowl-shaped room with a couple of identical side halls leading out and one nondescript door dead ahead. Guarding the door were a handful more security goons—how many did Max need?—led by a stocky, spiky-haired woman with an easy air of command that set her apart from the others, even though her plain, dark suit was identical to theirs. She looked over as Ace and Nikki entered, and a wide smile split her square face.
"Well, well. If it isn't Tess Eline," she said, stepping forward and puffing up her chest in a way that made her an even more imposing figure.
"It is," Ace replied, stopping a good two paces from the thicker woman.
The way they squared off against each other gave Nikki the distinct impression she was about to watch a scuffle, despite the smiles. After a minute of study, the other woman shifted her gaze to Nikki.
"Who's the candy?" she said, looking Nikki up and down in a way that made her feel weighed, judged, and found wanting.
"A friend," Ace replied. "Becks—Nikki. Nikki, this is Becky Campbell—"
"Becks," the stocky woman cut in.
"An old friend," Ace went on, "and my little brother's head of security."
Becks nodded then dismissed Nikki, returning her gaze to Ace. "I think that's the first time you haven't introduced me as your ex," she said, crossing her thick arms over her chest and giving Ace a baiting smile.
Nikki blinked and gave the stocky woman a closer look. Ex? Becks was everything Ace was not, with a gelled-up, unflattering haircut and a build that could at best be described as intimidating, not to mention the kind of features that indicated a great personality. Nikki couldn't imagine a stranger match for Ace. As athletic and tough as Ace was, there was no mistaking her for anything other than a woman, and a strikingly attractive one at that. Her fitted dark cargos and flannel shirt, which should have been a terrible choice for anybody, somehow accentuated all the right features.
"Feels a little disrespectful to Sarah," Ace replied, her stance easing back a bit. The smile she directed at Becks had a soft familiarity Nikki hadn't seen from her before. "Calling you my ex implies some level of ownership. I don't want to step on any toes."
Becks snorted, not unlike the way Nikki did when she was about to make fun of somebody. Nikki liked her already.
"That never bothered you when I was with Carla," Becks said. "You tromped all over her toes."
"I didn't like Carla. She was no good for you," Ace said flatly.
Becks laughed outright. "Fair enough. No need to sing that old song again. And don't worry, I won't tell Carla you said that next time I see her."
&
nbsp; Ace's expression made Nikki feel like she should look around for a weapon. "Don't try too hard."
After a long pause, Ace relaxed into a real smile, and Becks laughed again. "I've missed that sense of humor, Tessy," Becks said. She strode forward and pulled Ace into a hug as fierce as it was genuine.
Looking at the powerful affection in the bigger woman's face as she closed her eyes and held Ace, Nikki started to understand the attraction.
Becks broke the embrace and stepped back, lowering her arms and shifting her stance just slightly, but it made a world of difference. The warm friendliness was suddenly gone again, replaced by a cold professionalism that reminded Nikki of a cop eyeing an unruly crowd. Watching the transformation reminded her of Sam when he was working—being "switched on," as he called it.
"You ready to go in?" Becks said, her tone matching her demeanor.
Ace nodded, apparently neither surprised nor fazed by the sudden shift.
Becks nodded back and stepped closer. She pulled a couple of small devices from a pocket and handed them to Ace and Nikki.
"You'll need those," she said, taking out another and hooking it over her own ear. "He's prepping. He keeps the feed open in there."
Once the earpieces were in place and activated, to no effect Nikki could see, Becks led them through the door into a room that gave Nikki an uneasy chill. The broadcast equipment arranged around the perimeter of the room, connected by thick, snaking cables and conduits, all fed into a single contraption in the center. It was a glorified chair, in no way a torture tank, and it was in the middle of the room instead of at one end, but the quiver in her stomach didn't make those distinctions. The scene was enough like the lab Savior had used to harvest her power that Nikki stopped just inside the door, the chill growing into full-fledged nausea. This was not how she imagined feeling when she met Max.
"He looks tired," Ace said. She and Becks were only a few paces farther into the room, looking up at the wired chair like a couple of worried mothers.
"Nightmares," Becks said, crossing her arms. "He downplays how often, but I know he's up most nights."
Nikki had been so distracted by the chair she'd looked right past the man sitting in it staring off into space. It was him all right. The Max. He was long, lanky, and sharp around the joints—a little on the thin side of healthy looking—with that short, messy red hair that always looked so perfectly out of place on camera. She could see the family resemblance now that she knew to look for it, especially around the eyes, which hadn't reacted to their entrance. He didn't seem to hear them either, even though Ace and Becks were standing less than two meters away and not even trying to be quiet as they talked about him.
"I thought something might be up when he called me," Ace said. "Has he said what's bothering him?"
"Nothing specific," Becks replied. "Just says something bad is coming. You know how into his art he gets though. It's probably a new story he's working on."
Nikki stepped up beside Ace. "Didn't anybody ever tell you it's rude to talk about someone like he's not here?"
Ace smiled slightly, but kept her eyes on her brother. Despite the smile, Nikki could see the concern deepening the faint crow's feet at the corner of her eye. She almost looked her age for once.
Becks snorted and looked over. "He can't hear or see us, hon," she said. She pointed to her earpiece and then gestured to the tiny black emitters spaced around the room.
What Becks had said about rehearsing sunk in, and Nikki fumbled at her earpiece for the off switch. When she flipped it, the room and everyone in it disappeared.
Suddenly she was standing beside a bonfire blazing on a high bluff, a dark sky full of stars overhead and light desert scrub underfoot. A teenage boy stood staring into the fire, his slim profile facing Nikki. She had the urge to move closer, but she held back, knowing that's not how this worked. This wasn't her first movie experience.
The sensory immersion was convincing, but she knew she couldn't interact with the world around her. She saw and experienced only what the movie maker intended. It was a testament to the maker's skill that she had to keep reminding herself not to move. The world he'd created was perfect.
Nikki was stepping into the middle of the story, she could tell, but that didn't stop her from feeling a connection to the boy in front of her. The passion and emotion he was battling was clear without a word of dialogue. He was scared of what he was about to do, but he wasn't backing down. He was committed to doing whatever he was doing, probably something stupid, because something stronger than fear was driving him.
Nikki could relate. He looked like she'd felt before she'd stormed the command center with Kate in tow. She hoped she'd hidden her fear better though. She felt for this boy, whoever he was, but she didn't want anybody reading her the way she was reading him.
"I'm sorry, Dad," the boy said, but he didn't sound too convincing. He knelt beside the fire and started scratching a strange symbol into the dirt. Nikki didn't recognize the symbol, but the sudden tingling in the air felt more than familiar. Nikki's breath caught as the goosebumps rose on her arms and a shiver ran across her back. She knew it was just a movie, just something Max had dreamed up, but the sensation was so much like—
Nikki blinked. She was back in the room, back with Ace and Becks. She tapped the earpiece, flipped the switch back and forth a few times.
No, she thought. Bring it back. Bring the power back.
But it was no use. There was nothing wrong with the earpiece. The show had stopped because Max had stopped it. He was stepping down from the raised chair, his eyes intent on Ace, his gaze brightening with each step.
"You came," he said, his casual tone at odds with the joy in his eyes and the half smile on his lips. Come to think of it, that was the most emotion Nikki had seen from him, ever. Every vid and picture she'd seen of Max, he was always alone and always had only the faintest ghost of a smile, if any.
"Said I would," Ace replied, stepping up onto the platform and wrapping Max in a hug. That was surely something Nikki had never seen.
Ace stepped back and ran a hand through Max's hair. "You're keeping it longer. I like it." Her other hand took Max's hand in hers almost absently.
Max didn't respond. He just looked at her like he was slowly taking everything in.
Nikki felt her heart catch, in part because she was face-to-face with the only celebrity she'd ever cared about, but mostly because seeing Ace and her brother together struck a little too close to home. Ace adored her brother—everything about her body language screamed it. And Max felt the same, Nikki believed, but he barely showed it. To a casual observer, what he felt for his sister was more tolerance than anything else.
Nikki wanted to shout at him to forget about his pride, or shyness, or whatever was making him so reserved and tell his sister how he felt, every day if possible. She wanted to shake him and tell him to hug his big sister like he'd never see her again. Holding back was a mistake, one he'd regret forever if he waited until it was too late to make it right.
Ace didn't seem to care though. Max's distraction just deepened her smile. Michael hadn't cared either, or so he'd said, but that didn't assuage Nikki's regret in the least.
Nikki swallowed the lump forming in her throat when Max shifted his gaze her way. She beamed a smile at him, but he just blinked and started chewing his upper lip. Whether that was supposed to be a good thing, Nikki had no idea.
"Max, this is Nikki," Ace said.
Max nodded and scrunched his brow like the words were redundant, like they already knew each other. He looked at her for a long five-count, his head tilted slightly to the side.
"You've been lost a long time," he said softly.
"She was that," Ace replied. "Nikki and Michael were on their own for over ten years before we found them."
Nikki had the unsettling feeling that wasn't what Max meant. He was looking at her like he knew more about her than she did. He continued to study her, apparently content to do so in silence, until Ace c
ut in.
"The other friend I told you about before—Kate—she needs your help, Max."
He looked at Ace, his expression unreadable. Nikki was getting the feeling the people who knew Max got used to expressions like that pretty quickly.
"Of course," he said, smiling that half smile that Nikki was starting to think only Ace received. "I want to do this show first though."
Ace laughed. "I didn't mean right this second, super star."
One of the guards outside knocked on the door twice then opened it enough to stick his head in. "Two minutes," he said to Max then shut the door.
"All right. I'm out of your way." Ace squeezed Max's hand and then turned to step off the platform. "Have fun up there."
"Let's get you to a seat," Becks said to Nikki, starting toward the door. But Max's voice stopped her.
"Don't you want to watch from up here?"
Nikki looked at him in shock, and she wasn't the only one. Becks looked like she thought that was one of the worst ideas she'd ever heard. But Max—Max was standing next to his chair, looking at her with genuine confusion wrinkling his brow.
"You sure?" Ace asked, to which Max looked even more confounded. "Right."
Becks didn't look any happier though. She opened her mouth for what Nikki was sure was going to be a protest, until Ace said, "It's OK. You can trust her."
After a second's hesitation, throughout which Max continued to look at the three of them like they were crazy, Becks nodded and waved Nikki forward.
She stepped onto the platform, and it immediately began to rise toward the ceiling, which opened in the center as they approached it.
"Don't get too close to the edge," Max said simply as the stage rose into the din of thousands of cheering voices.
Nightmare Walking
Chapter 26
Impact
The wind pushing through the dark branches around Impact sent a chill tingling across his skin that had nothing to do with the cold. The woods north of the church felt alien to him tonight, menacing in a way they never had, like these forested hills that had sheltered him for years had suddenly turned against him.