As we're getting closer to the climax of the story, are there any flashbacks you guys would like to see? Something in their past you're curious about? About the PodSquad or any other character?
Part 25: Anywhere But Here
November 2nd, 2011 - New York
1 : Michael
In his other life, Rath had easily absorbed information from multiple sources about multiple threats. Leaders would always have enemies, especially when said leaders were young and idealistic and wanted to change the world.
In this life, Michael had learned to look for threats hiding behind every shadow. He had no reports and no spies and no situations to keep his eyes on. No, he had special unit agents, alien enemies, and whatever Dave had, to deal with. Rath could plan. Michael had to react.
In the last couple of years, with Rath’s memories intensifying, Michael had taken a few lessons from his former self. Rath had known how to project an aura of authority and order people around, which were useful skills when Michael was walking into the Rebels’ headquarters. He just had to nail it.
Beneath the warehouse, a dozen identical hallways led to a dozen different places. It was designed like a maze to confuse the enemy. It told Michael that the three shapeshifters who lived here were ready for trouble, the kind no one needed today. So when Luke introduced Ray and Michael to the rebels who ran the place, tensions were already high for ten different reasons.
“Is this everyone?” Michael asked Luke as he met one elderly woman and two young men.
“Yes, General. Eight shapeshifters were assigned to Earth. Four for the Invisible Guard, one for Liz’s protection, and three to oversee communications and other duties.”
In front of him, three expectant faces practically stared in starstruck awe. Rose, their chief scientist and only woman of the group, looked at him with slightly curious eyes. After all, he was Antar’s last cloning experiment. For someone who could take on any form, he wondered why she’d chosen to be old. Was she old, herself?
And then there were the twins. He had absolutely no recollection of shapeshifters being brothers. It was a big no-no to take each other’s form, so he had no idea how to solve the puzzle in front of him—and no inclination to do so. Tall, lean, around mid-twenties, they would look right at home at an Air Force base. One was Lance, and the other was Finn, and they both had the military air that accompanied seasoned soldiers.
These were the men charged with security—the first line of defense in case of trouble.
These were his men.
“Van informed us they were bringing Zan here,” Lance said, “He fainted at their meeting, but that was more than two hours ago.”
“And Van isn’t here either,” Luke said in a grim tone.
“No Max, no Van,” Michael said, unhappy.
“But there is a Dave, right?” Ray asked Lance, who nodded once. “Where is he?”
“Trying to piece back together the Network from our main computer room,” Finn said. “We might find Van and Zan that way.”
“There’s a thought,” Ray said, knowing full well the phones were beacons to their locations. Michael, Luke, and Ray had gotten rid of theirs, but what about the others? Was someone carrying their phone to this secret location? “Can you take me to him?” Ray asked.
Finn glanced at Michael, a silent question of what the General wanted to do. Michael nodded, and off the two went. There were so many questions Michael wanted to ask Dave, starting with why shouldn’t I just let the rebellion kill you? But all that would have to wait a bit longer.
“Our first priority is to find Zan and Van,” Luke said, used to making plans and being the one in command. Still, Michael had something else in mind right now.
“Yes, but first, where’s Isabel?”
A look passed between Rose and Lance, one that neither Michael nor Luke missed.
“Tell me she wasn’t harmed,” Luke said, knowing what Michael would do to all of them if she had.
“She’s in custody,” Lance said, visibly annoyed. If Isabel hadn’t put up a fight, then he had no reason to kill her.
“She surrendered,” Rose elaborated. “She’s aware of her crimes against the crown.”
“Not that nonsense again,” Michael said, exasperated. “Why is it so hard to see that she was being used?”
A frosty silence met his words. Luke and Lance would never speak up against his authority, but Rose, even if a rebel, was not beheld to the same military sentiment.
“When your entire race has been enslaved for seventy years, General,” she said, “you’ll get justice on whoever you can, even if she was just being used. It was her hand that opened that door, after all.”
“You don’t want justice. You want vengeance.”
All three shifters looked at him with cold in their eyes. Gone was the starstruck aura, replaced with the dark air that followed rebels everywhere. Vengeance or justice, they were getting it. It dawned on him that the moment he stopped being the General, he had no chance against three trained shifters. He wondered if Isabel had weighed her options against them, too, and had decided to surrender instead.
“Take me to her,” he said. No one moved. “Look, she’s better than I am at sensing Zan. For all we know, she’s the only link to our Fearless Leader right now. Even if he’s unconscious, she’ll be able to talk to him.”
Maybe.
It was as good an excuse as any. More importantly, they actually led the way.
2 : Isabel
A lifetime ago, a princess had believed the lies of a cruel, cunning man who’d told her she’d held the keys to bringing her world together.
A lifetime ago, Vilandra would be both horrified and relieved to be sitting at a makeshift cell while awaiting some sort of trial for crimes committed against her brother.
This time around, Isabel felt the same way. Sitting on the floor of a narrow, concrete cell, she couldn’t stop thinking about Khivar, about her role in Antar’s current situation. About how one person could change the world—for the worst.
The cell was some ten feet wide and three feet large, and instead of bars, it had some sort of invisible force field. Crystal clear to have a view of her worst nightmare: Jesse trying to understand who Vilandra was.
“Look, if they believe Max is Zan,” Jesse said as he paced the cell in front of hers, “then all Max has to do is issue some royal pardon or something, right?”
Despite her dark mood and the darker situation, she chuckled. “I don’t think these people are going to let me off the hook that easily.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because we’re both symbols, Jesse. Zan is the symbol of what was great about Antar before Khivar. I’m the symbol of who opened the doors to the usurper. I’m the reason Khivar is there, and we are here.”
Jesse stopped pacing and looked at her. “I don’t understand why you believe you deserve this.”
“Well, I did open those doors,” she said, not looking at him. She was back in the palace. The navy blue of the door had Zan’s Royal symbol painted in silver. She was smiling as she reached for the doorknob. Everything is going to be all right, now!
“Did you want your brother dead?” Jesse asked in all seriousness.
“Of course not!”
“Did you know Khivar was going to kill him? Kill you?”
“I should have,” she evasively answered.
“Had he been declared an enemy of the state—I mean, the crown?”
“I—no, not publicly, not exactly.”
“So you had no intention of causing Zan’s death, no way of knowing this man was going to destroy your family and the monarchy, and no one had forbidden Khivar of setting foot on the palace. Don’t you see it? You were just a pawn.”
She sighed. She owed it to Jesse to explain the whole thing, but it was so painful. In the last couple of years of gaining her memories back, she’d always been so angry at her past self. So angry and so helpless. How could Vilandra have been so naïve? The Lonnie from New York had been the exact opposite of that. Hell, even Isabel would be a better ruler than the princess who’d been raised for that.
She looked up at Jesse, and for the first time in her life, she finally admitted the truth out loud: “I believed him.”
“Who?”
“Khivar, of course. Zan wanted social changes that needed to be done. Unpopular changes. Khivar latched onto that, spun a tale of everything wrong with change and Zan’s reign, and I believed him. I honestly thought Khivar was coming to sit down and talk to Zan, and then my stubborn brother would understand the world as Khivar had made me understand it. I never saw Khivar’s intentions, never saw how he was manipulating everything and everyone, but that’s not the point.”
Tears formed in her eyes and silently rolled down her cheeks. “I did betray Zan, Jesse. I betrayed what he believed in, what he knew was right because those truths were rather inconvenient. Because I was a princess who didn’t need to change and didn’t want to change. And in the face of a man who told me what I wanted to hear, I devised a plan that would secure Khivar a fair audience. And I knew my brother couldn’t stand being in the same city as him. They despised each other to pieces. But then I grew impatient, I grew hostile towards Zan, and then lashed out at Rath, who was advising my brother to take it slow. But the thing is that I believed Khivar, and I was willing to risk a lot for his views to prevail.”
“Even Zan’s life?”
“No, never that. No one’s life, never. But in principle, I did betray my brother, and I do deserve to be on trial.”
“I can’t believe I have to say this, but you do realize you’re not Vilandra anymore, right? Why is Isabel Evans less important than Vilandra? Why is your legal status in this life less than her legal problems in the other? I mean, help me understand here. Are you Vilandra? Is Isabel a fake identity you’ve taken on Earth?”
“If I’m not Vilandra, I have no idea what these rebels would do to Max,” she pointed out as if that had been Jesse’s question all along.
“Isabel. Are you my wife?”
“Of course I am!”
“Then why does this past life of yours holds you prisoner? You could totally be out of here in two minutes. These cells are useless against your powers.”
“Because I remember, okay? Because I remember Vilandra’s actions, her thoughts, her choices. I know her as I know me, and she needs to have consequences.”
Jesse shook his head. “She died! And then her family died! Isn’t that consequence enough? My God, this is insane.”
“This is why I didn’t tell you. I know it seems crazy, that it sounds crazy, but until these rebels showed up, I had no reason to face Vilandra’s betrayals. No one to answer to. But now that they are—” she cut off, sensing through her connection. “Michael’s here,” she said, standing up and moving towards the force field to have a better look of the corridor.
“Well, maybe his General persona can get us out of this mess,” Jesse muttered.
On her other side of the connection, Max’s presence faded again. What is happening to you, Max?
3 : Liz
“Are you sure you people want me to drop you off here?” the taxi driver asked as Jade told him to stop by the side of the road. It was, by any estimation, the middle of nowhere.
“Yes,” all four occupants said at once, with various degrees of anxiety.
“Okay, okay…crazier stuff has happened, I guess,” the driver muttered.
Crazier than an interplanetary civil war fueled by cloned royalty who works for a shadowy man? Liz wondered as Maria paid the fare. Jade still looked like Max and still wouldn’t let go of her wrist, but at least his eyes weren’t glazy anymore.
They all waited a full minute until the taxi was no more.
“Well, if there’s an axe murdered around here, now would be the time to go find him,” Kyle said as they turned to look at the dark unknown behind them.
“He wouldn’t get a chance,” Maria said with determination as she started walking straight up, following her connection to Michael, most likely. Kyle followed her, but when Jade tried to walk, Liz just turned to look back to New York City.
“What is it?” Jade whispered.
“Max…I think—I think he’s coming this way, but there’s this—this fog, I guess, it’s getting thicker again. Jade, do you have any idea what might be happening to him?”
Jade shook his head in the exact way Max would. It unnerved her.
“You must have been watching us for ages to act so much like him,” she said as she finally followed her friends. It was slow going since none of them had cell phones to illuminate the path, but a path there was.
“It is my primary duty to guard you, but when the King is present, we all have to be able to take his place at a moment’s notice.”
“Must be weird to live in a society where no one knows if the person in front of you is the person in front of you,” she said. She’d never given much thought to Antar and its alien cities and citizens, mainly because Max never wanted to talk about it. She never pressed, but now that she was walking to Antar’s headquarters, she realized how little she knew about her husband’s other duties.
Was I really that naïve in thinking Antar wouldn’t come back to reclaim its king?
“There are many laws to regulate that,” Jade said, “and we respect them for the most part. It used to be…different before Khivar took power and made us his scapegoats, but it’s never been…right. Not until Zan took it upon himself to fix the system. Many thought that was the beginning of his downfall, but now he has a legion of supporters.”
“Including Van, right? He wants Max to rule, but then…what would Van do? Without a rebellion to lead, I mean.”
Jade paused for a moment while Maria cursed at something in the overgrown grass.
“I have no idea. It’s hard to think about a future when we don’t fight. I guess he’ll take his cue from whatever Max decides.”
“Rebuilding might take ages,” Liz said as they all resumed their walk towards a tiny yellow light in the distance. “Is Antar destroyed? Like infrastructure is ruined and stuff?”
“Not really,” Jade said. “We don’t fight wars in the way you think of wars. Nowadays, it’s more like a quiet desperation that sips through everything. Large cities have been abandoned. Our four sister planets are full of fleeing Antarians who bring their misery and their problems to their doors, all wanting Antar back. Of all the planets, Antar has always been the beacon of knowledge and prosperity. Still, you can’t have that without people or without your leader wanting fundamental advances. Khivar has never been able to legitimize his power, and seventy years is a long time to not fulfill your promises.”
“Sounds like dictators everywhere,” Kyle said. “They never know when to quit.”
“But Antar is a monarchy,” Maria said, “They’re stuck with whoever rules until they die, right?”
“Antar’s political system is far more complex than simply monarchy, but technically, you’re right,” Jade said. “Zan was deemed too young when he came into power, but he died too young as well. His reign is the shortest recorded in the last five millennium.”
“How long does an Antarian actually live?” Liz wondered out loud. “I mean, in human years.”
“About two-hundred, give it or take a couple of decades.”
Kyle whistled. “No wonder they think Max, Michael, and Isabel can still be a thing,” he said.
“I’m married to an old man, figures,” Maria muttered.
“Is that true?” Liz asked, stopping in the middle of the road. “You still think Max should come back and rule? After all you’ve seen here, do you even think he’s going to pretend to be Zan and start ruling?”
Jade stopped, just a silhouette against the night sky. He sighed. “We need Khivar to end. That’s all I really care about.”
A non-answer. She didn’t like it.
“Will you take him away from me?” she asked directly. Jade’s grip faltered at the unexpected question, and Liz finally got her wrist back. “Will you?” she pressed, knowing this was the last opportunity she would have to ask Jade questions in private.
“Yes,” he finally answered in Max’s quiet voice, “to end Khivar’s reign, to restore order to Antar, to finally be free…Yes, we will.”
