Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two

by JC Andrijeski

  “What kind of information?” I said, wary.

  Gantry gave me a disbelieving look, leaning back in the chair hard enough that the chrome legs let out a loud squeak. “You mean besides where the hell you’ve been for the past eight or nine months, Dakota, while all of us half-killed ourselves looking for you?”

  Gantry let out an irritated grunt. I flinched. I couldn’t help it. It was the first time he’d shown any anger towards me since I got back.

  Even as I thought it, Gantry pointed through the kitchen door.

  “...Or who the hell your new ‘friend’ in there really is? Because I’ve run his info, honey, and I got nada on the guy. And trust me, I was thorough.”

  “You ‘ran his info’?” I said, fighting anger. “What ‘info’ was that, exactly?”

  Gantry’s expression remained wholly unapologetic.

  “I had Irene do it,” Gantry said, not bothering to be cagey. “And before you get all pissed off at her, she defended the guy. She thinks he’s all right, too...but she was worried about you. We gave you three weeks to tell us something, chica...and when you didn’t, I got curious. I asked Irene and she got me fingerprints while he was sleeping and took a picture of his face. Nothing crazy, okay? But I ran the basics, along with the fake name you gave her, and none of it came up. There’s no Nihkil Jamri listed anywhere...in any system I know of, for any country, at any spelling. The closest I got was some old guy in Prague, and that was Nikki Jemri, an octogenarian.”

  I pressed my lips together, but didn’t answer.

  Sort of funny that Gantry assumed I’d given Irene a fake name for Nik.

  Ironically, I’d been so out of it, I’d given her Nik’s real name. If I’d thought to use a fake, I’m pretty sure I would have come up with something a lot less conspicuous...and a lot more likely to get a few thousand, if not million hits.

  “Look,” Gantry said, pointing a finger at me. “Don’t give me that look, okay? I’m not your enemy, Dakota, and I never will be. I’m just saying, I’ve been hearing some weird stuff, and it makes me curious. Most of it came down the pipe right around the time when you showed up here again, with...”

  He gestured towards the kitchen door.

  “...this ‘Nik’ guy...whoever he is. Now there’s a contract out on my best friend for a live capture...a best friend I just spent half a year looking for, fearing the worst, who hasn’t told me dick in the three or so weeks she’s been back. I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it right now.” Leaning forward, Gantry gave me a harder look, fingering his coffee cup. “I know you. I know whose team you play for, Dakota. This guy, I don’t know. So I have to ask.”

  “Well, trust me then,” I said, folding my arms. “Nik’s all right. I promise.”

  Gantry shrugged, his expression openly noncommittal that time.

  “I’ll do my best for both of you,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “But maybe you can enlighten me on a few things, first.”

  “Like what?” I said again, already eyeing him warily.

  That time, Gantry gave me an openly exasperated look.

  “Like what?” he said, disbelieving. “Are you kidding me, Tonto?”

  I winced. No one had called me that in long enough that it hit me pretty hard, somewhere in the heart region. It had been a bit of a joke between me and Gantry for ages, an off-hand reference to his half-Cherokee roots.

  “...You’ve got a lot of nerve, asking me that,” Gantry said, dropping the pretend calm and letting me have it, which was almost a relief, truthfully. “What? You think my IQ magically dropped to twenty or thirty during your absence? You owe me more than that, Reyes. You owe a hell of a lot more, after what you put us through!”

  Gantry trailed right as I was raising a hand to concede his point.

  I saw his eyes harden as they trained behind me at the doorway again.

  I didn’t have to turn to know who stood there.

  When I was finally did turn my head, I was relieved to see that Nik wore pants that time, at least, and a black shirt thrown over his broad shoulders.

  Gantry seemed to make up his mind, in those few seconds, not to censor himself around the new guy, either. I knew he was pretty danged ticked, too, because his accent came out more prominently, and a vein throbbed on his neck, right around where that tattooed jaguar’s own throat lived in precise, black ink.

  “...How about you and your new chico fantastico explain to me your role in that incident on the golf course in Washington Park, while we’re at it?” Gantry said, louder. “...That whole ‘escaped zoo animals’ bullshit? You know? Rumors about that crap have been all over the back channels, but disappeared from the news entirely...along with all of the witnesses, incidentally, except the two of you,” Gantry added, still glaring at Nik as if he blamed him personally. “How about one of you dropping the secretive thing and telling me who this asshole really is? And what the hell happened that day you got back? Because I know you were involved in that whole mess, Daks. I know it...I feel it in my fucking bones.”

  I swallowed a little, glancing at Nik, in spite of myself.

  Nik’s eyes remained on Gantry, now a near-black in color.

  I knew that color meant either anger, or danger, or possibly both.

  Since Nik otherwise looked pretty calm, I figured he was trying to decide if he might have to fight Gantry. He was also probably trying to decide how and if he could win, in this form, at least, meaning in his human body.

  But I knew Gantry. I knew it wouldn’t come to that.

  I seriously hoped it wouldn’t, anyway.

  Grunting in open annoyance at me and Nik’s silence, Gantry swiveled those intense blue eyes of his back towards me.

  “Well?” he demanded. “You gonna talk to me or not? Because I’m a little hazy on all of the details. And like I said, I’ve been hearing things. Some are flat-out unbelievable. So I’d like a little clarity, before I stick my neck out for you...again, Dakota.”

  Before I could think of a reply, Nik cleared his throat.

  When I turned, he didn’t look at me, though.

  He watched Gantry instead, and Gantry alone.

  Something in his expression told me that Nihkil had made up his mind about him, in some sense, at least.

  “I will explain it to you,” Nik said simply. “What you want to know.”

  Staring up at him, I shut my mouth with a snap.

  I think my whole body froze up, the instant I realized Nik meant it.

  2

  Kitchen Confessions and a Demonstration

  And he did, too.

  Nik, that is.

  Mean what he said.

  “...I would like coffee first,” Nihkil told me, looking away from Gantry for the first time and aiming those now-blue eyes at me. I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were almost the identical color as Gantry’s. I wondered if Jake or Gantry noticed, then pushed that aside, too.

  They would notice, eventually.

  Maybe that was even the point.

  Jake laughed, looking delightedly up at Nihkil, who I assumed Jake had some sort of boy-crush on at this point.

  “Oh, sis,” Jake said, confirming my suspicions. “He is simply adorable. Can I keep him? Just one night.” He glanced down Nik’s body again. “...Maybe a long weekend.”

  Nihkil barely spared him a glance, other than to take in his expression.

  He looked back at me. “Coffee?”

  “What am I? Everyone’s waitress?” I muttered, but I pulled myself back to my feet, walking over to rummage around in the cabinets for a more-or-less clean fourth mug. Truthfully, I kind of liked having the distraction. I felt my shoulders tense more than a little when I glanced back at Nik, though. I warned him with my eyes before Nik turned back to face Gantry.

  Even so, I nearly dropped the Disneyland mug I held in one hand, when I heard Nik’s first words to my pal from special forces.

  “I am not human,” Nik said simply.

  I turned sharply, glaring at
him.

  “Nik,” I said. “Not a good idea.”

  Nik looked at me, his now-brown eyes placid. “Why not? He is your friend, isn’t he?” He looked back at Gantry. “We will need friends. We will need as many allies as we can find, if we are going to stop Razmun and his people, before it is too late.”

  “Nik,” I said, my voice sharper that time. “No...seriously. Not now.”

  Nihkil looked only at Gantry.

  I saw him measuring the other man with his eyes, barely looking at Jake at all.

  Nik had good instincts about people, I knew. I’d seen it before. Despite some of his questionable choices in friends...Razmun and his alter-ego “Ledi,” being chief among them...or maybe because of that, really...Nik had gotten really good at seeing past the surface with people. Somewhere along the line, Nihkil learned how to read people’s faces, too, maybe even better than Gantry himself.

  Nik was also spooky smart...regardless of whatever he might or might not understand about particular social norms and whatnot.

  I suppose he had to be all of those things, being an inter-dimensional space explorer, as well as living as a slave under an alien race. Otherwise, he’d likely be dead, eaten or rotting away in some interstellar prison about now.

  Even so, I was a little stunned at how quickly he zeroed in on Gantry over my brother.

  “You are a soldier?” he said to Gantry. “A fighter. Is that not true?”

  “More or less,” Gantry said, glancing back over his shoulder at me.

  Seeing his cocked eyebrow, I only shook my head, motioning towards Nik, as if to say, you asked for it.

  I’d pretty much decided to go with Nik’s gut on this one, even if it was already making my palms sweat and causing me to spill coffee on the counter as I wondered what Gantry would do with whatever information Nik gave him.

  Before Gantry could press Nik again, Irene showed up in the kitchen doorway, wearing her trademark morning kimono over a white tank top and men’s boxers.

  “Who’s not human?” Irene said, rubbing her face with one hand.

  The skin of one cheek and part of her forehead had an uneven ridge embedded into one side, likely from being sweated to her pillow. Her white-blond hair bunched up strangely in the back and on one side of her head, and the black silk kimono hung open, trailing a silk belt.

  “Is there coffee?” she asked me.

  Giving in to the fact that I was the morning’s coffee girl, I dutifully dumped the dregs of the last pot into her favorite unicorn mug and handed it to her. Then I turned around and dumped out the remaining grounds, washing the built-in, metal filter of her German coffee maker so I could make a fresh pot.

  I figured we’d need it. It was looking like it was going to be a long morning.

  Gantry faced Nik again. He gave my alien friend a puzzled smile. When he next spoke, Gantry’s voice held a note of humor. Still, I might have been the only one to hear the faint thread of real curiosity beneath that.

  “You said you aren’t...human?” Gantry said, still watching Nihkil’s face. “So, uh...what is it that you are, exactly, friend? Nik, is it?”

  “Nihkil, yes.” He took the coffee mug I offered him, sipping some off the top and making the same grimace Gantry always did, without hesitating to take a longer drink. “...I am morph,” Nik added, his irises shifting to a darker brown color as he spoke.

  He glanced at Jake, pausing briefly on Irene before finally looking at me.

  “Morph are not from this world,” Nik added. “Truthfully, I am not even sure which dimension I am in currently. I did not see the map for this one,” he added, glancing at me.

  He took another longish swallow of the dark roast.

  I dumped more coffee grounds into the clean filter. I didn’t really want to look at Gantry or Jake or even Irene at that point.

  Still, as Nihkil began to talk, I found myself gradually tensing.

  I listened to every word he said, too, even though he talked for awhile.

  I’m assuming no one else missed anything Nik said, either, since not one of them broke the silence that entire time, not to laugh at either or both of us, to make sounds of disbelief, to cough, to clear their throats, or even to ask for more coffee.

  Nik told them everything.

  Well, more or less.

  He told them about the morph, how they can shape-shift from birth––well, from the womb really––and how morph take a primary form when they’re first born. He explained that the primary form then served as a kind of “default” for individual morph forever after, and was the one they normally would revert to when wounded or sick.

  He told them about the locks. He explained how morph have one person with whom they share their shape-shifting ability at any given point, and that this person can either stop them from shifting, allow them to shift, or compel them to do so.

  He told Gantry, Irene and Jake that he used to work for humans, back in his home-dimension, where morph were conquered and then enslaved.

  He told them about the dimensional portals they called “gates,” and how only morph could pass through them. He told them how every human who tried, prior to me, died pretty much on the spot. Nik also told them how he met me in that alley that night in Pioneer Square, and how I ended up following him back through that portal to Nik’s world after we ran away from a bunch of other morph, from a different planet in his home dimension.

  Nik told them about Razmun, how he kidnapped us after pretending to be a human for however-many years while secretly running a morph terrorist organization on the side.

  Nik explained about the bombing, the third gate, how Razmun wanted us to help him re-locate all of the morph to a human-free world.

  Nik then explained how he, Nik, wrestled the gate navigation from Razmun and gave it to me so I could bring us all back to Earth. He explained that the “escaped zoo animals” on the golf course were fleeing morph, shape-shifting to get away from the human authorities.

  Nik also told Gantry, Jake and Irene that he had no idea where any of the several hundred morph who’d come through the portal with us currently were.

  Nik told them all of that, and then he stopped talking.

  He just sat there, looking at them, and sipping his now-cold coffee.

  While he did, there was this really big, really heavy-feeling silence.

  “You have no idea where they are?” Gantry said finally, looking over at me before his eyes swiveled back to Nik’s. “None. Whatsoever?”

  He said it more like he was confirming a fact, not really asking a question.

  “No idea,” Nik said.

  I’d seen Gantry’s facial expression change a number of times while Nik spoke, but now, truthfully, I couldn’t get much of a read on him at all.

  “So what do you plan to do?” Gantry asked Nik, raising his coffee mug politely to indicate that he wanted some, when I pulled the pot off the warmer and sloshed it in people’s general direction. After I’d poured more for everyone except Jake, I jumped up to sit on the tile counter.

  By then, Nik had apparently finished thinking about Gantry’s question.

  “I have considered that,” Nik said, glancing at me. “I think that I should try to determine if the gate in that golf course could be stabilized.”

  “Stabilized?” Gantry said, his voice still unemotional. “So it can be re-used, you mean? Like those two gates the humans were using on your other world?”

  “Yes,” Nik said, visibly relieved that Gantry had followed the basics, at least.

  I found myself watching Gantry a bit more warily, wondering how he could possibly be as cool with all this as he was acting.

  “...Yes,” Nik repeated. “If we can find or create a stable portal from a naturally-occurring gate, it is possible that we can persuade Razmun to take his people somewhere else. Somewhere not here...” he added, as if that part wasn’t particularly clear.

  “Can you show us?” Irene blurted, staring at him with much clearer eyes than what
I’d seen when she’d first entered the room. “...The shape-shifting thing?”

  Jake’s eyes widened at the question, right before he looked back at Nik, nodding enthusiastically at the idea.

  Gantry only frowned, but he seemed to be waiting, too.

  Nik glanced at me.

  Again, I shrugged. Might as well go the whole-hog now.

  Anyway, it was probably the only thing that would keep both of us from waking up in straightjackets because Gantry decided I’d gone completely nuts and tried to have me committed along with Nihkil.

  Nik stood up from the table.

  There was a general scraping of chair legs and moving feet as everyone except Gantry got up and stepped back, giving Nik space. I continued to sit on the kitchen counter, wearing only the long t-shirt and the Hello Kitty underwear, swinging my legs as I clutched my coffee, which I’d missed enough in Nik’s world to still appreciate each and every swallow.

  Even so, I watched along with the rest of them as Nik took off the black shirt, hanging it over the back of the nearest of the kitchen chairs.

  I was curious, in spite of myself.

  Apart from the erensyi and the dragon on the golf course, I really hadn’t seen Nik do his thing. His lock had been closed for most of the time I’d known him.

  I saw curiosity in Gantry’s face, too, but it barely touched the harder look of skepticism that masked his expression as he stared up at Nik. We’d definitely fallen into the fruitcake category at this point. I could almost see it in those blue irises.

  Nik had, anyway. Maybe Gantry was still reserving judgment on me, until he heard what I had to say about Nihkil’s story.

  I recognized the other flavor in Gantry’s posture, too.

  He was trying to decide if he might have to restrain Nik in some way, or maybe even fight him, if Nik’s delusion got any more elaborate than it already was. He also was trying to decide if this “demonstration” might get violent, probably based on the story about the golf course.

  Therefore, when Nik gave me a last glance, then appeared briefly to concentrate, as if recalling some far away memory, I could tell Gantry didn’t expect anything to happen really.