After Atlantis: Elemind chapter 3

Max gets kidnapped

When Max woke up the next morning, the runes on the gauntlet were glowing through the gauze.

He lay there and looked at it, clenching his teeth. Why was it all lit up like this? He touched the lump the trackball camera made beneath the wrappings. Was it moving, or just his imagination?

He rolled out of bed and went to take a shower before his roommates grabbed the bathroom. As usual, the apartment was a mess of discarded clothes, fast food wrappers, and dirty dishes stacked anywhere. Max flung a pile of clothes out of the bathtub and locked the door. It was barely past six, and Hugo and Alfonso were still snoring in their rooms. Perfect, they wouldn’t see the gauntlet and ask awkward questions.

He took the gauze off the gauntlet and set it aside. As he started to wrap it in a trash bag to keep it dry, he again saw the camera was on and watching him. Great, at least he still had his boxers on. He made a face at the camera and hastily wrapped his arm in the trash bag. Showering was awkward, but at least he didn’t smell quite as bad afterward. He had to get to work by eight, which left just enough time to grab a bowl of cereal and ride his bike four blocks. Re-wrapping the gauntlet took longer than he would have liked, and the camera watched him the whole time.

“Admiring the view?” he said to whoever was controlling it. “Pervert.” He covered the camera with a strip of gauze as if blindfolding an enemy.

Eating cereal left-handed was a challenge. Riding his bike to work wasn’t so bad, and his manager only asked a couple of questions when she saw the bandages and sling. But Max had to bag groceries with only one hand. He was one of the fastest baggers, usually, and had to work twice as hard to sort and bag at his usual speed.

He worked five hours, then biked two more blocks to the library, where he met with a tutor three times a week. Part of his rehabilitation was finishing up his education, so his tutor was helping him study to pass the GED, the test necessary to pass high school and enter college.

Max blazed through math, slogged through English, and nearly fell asleep while trying to write a report outline. His tutor finally ended the session, so Max wearily pedaled home.

He was watching the sidewalk, so as not to run down any pedestrians, and paid no attention to the traffic on the busy street. Thus he didn’t notice the black van until it halted and the side door rolled open. Two men jumped out, grabbed him, and hauled him off his bike. They dragged him into the van and yanked a bag over his head. Duct tape bound his free arm to his bandaged arm. When he tried to fight, someone punched the side of his head so hard that he bounced off the van door.

“Keep still,” someone growled nearby. “Or you’ll get more.”

Max sat there, ears ringing, flexing his fingers inside his gauntlet. The van’s engine revved and it lurched back into traffic. This was it, then. The Cult of the Dawn had caught up with him. He should have known they would – they had his address on file. Somebody must have seen him take the gauntlet. Who squealed? Indal? One of the others? None of them seemed fond of the Cult, but you never could tell about people.

What did he do, now? He spun through his options. There were at least three guys in the van: two had grabbed him, and one driving. He was unarmed, unless he tried delivering punches with the gauntlet. That might actually work, now that he thought about it. But his movement was hampered by the sling and the duct tape. If these guys let him loose, they’d have a surprise knuckle sandwich delivery, free of charge.

If they took him to John Walter Watkins, though, his escape plans were over. The cult leader was psychic. All he had to do was mindjack Max, and Max would do whatever he asked, probably. Except take off the gauntlet, because it wouldn’t come off. Maybe this was the part where they’d bring in a saw …

Max sat there, head bowed, waiting. Fight adrenaline pounded through him. He’d seen so many scary things as a shard runner, being kidnapped by the Cult of the Dawn was pedantic. He knew who they were, what they wanted, and even what they’d do to him. If Omniscient was here, he’d throw one of his illusion bubbles over Watkins and torture him until he died.

He missed Omniscient so much right now.

As he listened to the growl of the engine and tried to ignore the way the bag over his head made his nose itch, icy cold crept through his chest. Oh great. He’d gone almost a whole day without an attack, and now his shard picked the worst time to freeze his lungs. He breathed slowly through his nose and willed the cold to fade. But the chill lingered. His throat, mouth, and nose began to grow cold on the inside.

I can help.

The thought formed in his mind by itself. Max brushed it away. Who could help? Was his brain trying to tell him that it knew something about shard control? Which he was sure it didn’t, or he wouldn’t keep having attacks.

The van slowed and turned right, then right again. The suspension bounced as they pulled into a driveway.

If you’re going to help, better do it now, Max thought.

Silence.

Stupid brain. Of course it didn’t know anything.

The van parked and the engine shut off. The door rolled open, and the thugs hoisted Max off his seat and out of the van. They marched him, blind, into a building where sounds echoed. Their feet rapped on concrete. Max coughed a couple of times, but managed to stop himself. He could almost feel the chunk of ice building in his windpipe. Any minute now and he’d be forced to hack it up.

“Take the bag off,” someone said.

The bag was ripped off his head in a whoosh. Max flinched and blinked. He stood in some kind of garage with tools and countertops on three walls. In front of him stood John Walter Watkins. He was an older man with neatly trimmed gray hair and a short beard. Instead of a suit, he wore jeans and a Cult of the Dawn T-shirt with the rising diamond sun.

“Hello there, Max,” said Watkins, smiling like a friendly grandfather. “So glad to see you. Would you happen to know anything about a missing gauntlet?”

Max didn’t answer. Watkins’s tone was ironic, overly friendly, as if speaking to an inferior too stupid to understand him. Worse, he could feel the coaxing, enticing pressure of the man’s empath powers. It made him want to please Watkins, to do anything he could to get into his good graces. Max fought it and said nothing.

“You probably thought you were trying on a fancy glove, weren’t you?” said Watkins, still in that too-friendly voice. “Unfortunately, that glove is very valuable. I’d like it back, please.”

The empath pressure increased. Max’s anger was drawn out into fear of rejection. Max tried to resist, to remind himself that he was being manipulated, but Watkins was too strong. The words tumbled out before Max could stop them.

“The gauntlet won’t come off, sorry.”

Watkins’s smile didn’t waver. “Help him take it off, brothers.”

The thugs ripped off the duct tape, then made short work of the sling and gauze wrappings. In less than a minute, the black gauntlet was revealed, all of its runes blazing with blue light. The camera immediately focused on Max’s face.

“Looks like it’s half-synched already, boss,” said one of them.

Watkins bent down to peer at the screen on Max’s wrist. It said that it was 53% synchronized.

“That won’t do,” said Watkins. The anger beneath his friendly facade showed for the first time. “Get it off him.”

One thug held Max by the shoulders. The other grabbed the gauntlet and pulled with such force that Max’s shoulder threatened to dislocate again. He grunted and tried to twist free. The thug yanked again, then again. The man holding Max pulled back on his shoulders, so Max was the rope in a tug of war between two grown men. He yelped in pain and struggled. They closed on him, delivering brutal blows with their heavy fists. While Max reeled, stunned, they returned to trying to rip the gauntlet off.

“It’s not working,” Watkins said. “Stop.”

As the men halted and Max groaned, Watkins turned to one of the tool benches. He opened a plastic box and revealed a set of syringes.

“If the operator dies, the synchronization halts,” said Watkins, lifting a syringe and tapping it. “I’m sorry, Max. But we must act swiftly to salvage a priceless Atlantean artifact.”

Max stared at that syringe. Watkins was going to casually poison him. Did he kill people so often that he kept the drugs on hand? Max had vastly underestimated the Cult of the Dawn and how dangerous they were. For the first time that evening, he was properly afraid without having his emotions tweaked.

I can help, came that thought in his brain again. Cough on the man with the needle.

The dreadful cold tickle had been building in Max’s chest all through the gauntlet-pulling. As Watkins stepped forward and lifted the syringe, Max inhaled sharply and coughed.

Usually, when he had an ice-related coughing fit, his breath emerged in a white mist, like exhaling on a cold morning. But this time, a cloud of icy vapor blasted out of his mouth like fire from a dragon. It engulfed Watkins, blinding him. Max kept coughing uncontrollably. Each cough produced clouds of cold mist, filling the room with fog. He aimed at the thugs and frosted them. They backed away, shielding themselves and cursing. Stabs of crippling fear hit him from Watkins’s direction, but it couldn’t stop the coughing fit.

Max staggered toward the entrance, still coughing, covering his escape in more clouds. He halted at the garage door to spit out the inevitable chunk of bloody ice, then he ran.

“Get him!” Watkins yelled behind him. “Don’t let him escape!”

“This is my impression of an octopus,” Max muttered, thinking of the mist as a cloud of blinding ink. He barely had time to look around–he was in the front yard of a large house with a wrought-iron fence around it. The gate at the bottom of the driveway was open, and he darted out before it could automatically close.

Then he was on a quiet residential street. The thugs would see him if he followed the road. Instead, Max crossed it, jumped the first fence he came to, and cut through several back yards until he reached the next block. There he crawled under a parked car and lay gasping for breath, his muscles burning. Inside him, the cold was already fading.

It was dark by this time, even the early summer twilight fading. The trouble was that the glowing runes and screen on his gauntlet lit up the space beneath the car like Christmas lights. He tucked his arm beneath him and lay on it to hide the glow.

A black van drove by on the street, traveling very slowly. Max kept still. The van circled the block and returned, this time with one of the men shining a flashlight along the dark fronts of the houses. Max ducked his head so his eyes wouldn’t reflect the light like a cat’s.

That strange little thought formed in his mind again. As soon as they leave, cross the street and climb that tree.

The tree across the street was a vast, well-kept mesquite with a black, twisted trunk. It had a dense, thorny canopy that would defy most lights with layers of tiny leaves.

Max did as the thought suggested. Climbing the mesquite in the dark was less than fun, and he received several bad scratches from thorns he couldn’t see. But finally he was settled on a branch ten feet from the ground, and he could finally catch his breath.

As he sat there, the van returned. The thugs got out and began searching the block, yard by yard. Max curled up in his tree and kept perfectly still. He had time to think about being kidnapped, and beaten up, and how Watkins was going to kill him. And all because of a stupid glove that wouldn’t come off. His shoulder and elbow hurt where they had yanked on it. His wrist ached where the gauntlet was clamped around it. His head ached from being punched and slapped. On top of that, he didn’t know where he was or how to get home. Could he even go home? Wouldn’t the Cult just stake out his apartment and wait for him to show up?

I’m sorry, came that strange little thought.

Sorry for what? he thought in reply.

Sorry that they hurt you. I should have synchronized faster.

That was when it dawned on Max that the strange thought was coming from the gauntlet. It wasn’t quite a voice in his head, like on TV. It was like a secondary thought alongside his own. As time went on, it was becoming stronger, more distinct from his own mental voice.

Who are you? he thought, looking at the glove.

I am Zero, it replied.

Can you turn off the glove’s lights, Zero? he thought. They’re going to see it in a few minutes.

To his surprise, the gauntlet went dark, every light switching off. He sort of thought that he was making it up and talking to himself. But no, the voice really was coming from the gauntlet. This frightened him more than seeing Watkins come after him with a needle.

But he had to keep quiet, because the thugs were approaching with flashlights. They shone them around the yard and porch, then glanced up into the tree. But Max had prudently climbed high enough that a layer of twigs stood between him and pursuit. The thugs didn’t see him and moved on. Max didn’t breathe again until they had moved down the road.

Zero, why are you in my head?

That’s how we communicate, operator. What’s your name?

Max.

Just Max?

Just Max.

All right, Max. What are we going to do next?

I don’t know. Max hugged himself. I can’t go home. I don’t know where to go. Would the police believe me if I said I’d been kidnapped?

Indal might.

Yeah, but I don’t have any way to reach him.

I will, said Zero, as soon as our sync is complete. Then I can access local networks.

Max sat there, hugging himself, watching the lights of the thugs pass through the next yard, then the next. As he sat there, he saw a woman emerge from one of the houses and watch the thugs with lights. She pulled out a cellphone. “Yes, police? I’d like to report a couple of prowlers …”

Max grinned, despite his pain and fear. The Cult wouldn’t continue the search for much longer. Of course, they might tell the cops that Max was more dangerous than they were, and the cops might join the hunt … Max needed to be far away by the time that happened.

Max, you’re hurt, came Zero’s thought in his head.

Not that bad, he replied.

I’ve just gained a better measure of your physical status, Zero said. You are quite battered. Your right arm is strained and badly bruised.

So? he thought. It’s all your fault for locking the gauntlet on me like this. If I could have taken it off, none of this would have happened.

The gauntlet cannot be removed until the sync is complete, Zero replied. The thought hesitated, and Max sensed … uncertainty. Regret. Anxiety. How did a glove have feelings?

I’m sorry, Zero said softly. Something about the words and the inflection was so gentle and feminine that Max started.

Are you a girl?

Yes.

A human girl?

No. But I am female. And I’m sorry all this happened to you.

Max sat back on the branch, trying to figure this out. The glove was a girl, somehow. It could talk, but it wasn’t human. It must be an AI, then. Some kind of crazy advanced technology with a computer that sounded like a person in his head. He clenched his fist in the gauntlet and ran his fingers over the metal. I never thought my first girlfriend would be a glove.

Zero laughed. Max hadn’t expected the AI to laugh, and he listened in wonder.

I’m not capable of being your girlfriend, she said merrily. But I can be your friend. And right now, as a friend, I’m asking you to climb down and start walking southeast. The men searching for you are returning to their vehicle and you have time.

Max couldn’t see down the street from inside the tree’s dense canopy. He’d have to trust Zero’s judgment. Cautiously, step by step, he descended the tree, catching himself on thorns despite his best efforts. Finally he reached the ground and set out at a walk, keeping to front yards to avoid the pools of light cast by streetlights.

Did you tell me to cough back there? Max thought as he traveled.

Yes, said Zero, sounding pleased. She felt pleased, too, somehow, as if her feelings leaked into his. Your shard makes you ill?

Yes, Max replied. It’s an implant, so I wasn’t born with it. I’ve only had it a year.

An implant! Zero exclaimed. Are you Landorean?

Half, Max replied. My mom immigrated and my dad was American.

Hmm. Zero fell silent, but somehow, Max could feel her thinking. He squinted at the darkened screen on his wrist. Despite having no backlight, the display still showed a readout of the synchronization process. 71%. The higher that number climbed, the better he could hear and feel Zero in his mind. Maybe talking to her was making it sync faster?

Max turned onto a busier street and relaxed a little. Here were more pedestrians to blend with, more cars, more lights. He wouldn’t stand out as much if the Cult came this way.

Still, he couldn’t return to the apartment, and he had nowhere else to go. His father had abandoned his mother when Max was born, and his mother was in jail for dealing drugs. The only money he had was the fifty bucks Indal had given him, now diminished to thirty after he’d bought lunch that day, folded up small in his pocket. The men had taken his wallet with his debit card, but they hadn’t found his cash. He hadn’t had dinner and his stomach was woefully empty. And he couldn’t return to his apartment.

Zero, where does Indalrion Tay live? I know it’s somewhere in Mesa.

Picture it, she replied. Clearly as you can.

Max focused on his memory of the drive down the 202, the offramp into the city of Mesa with its industrial buildings and shopping malls, the names of roads he had noticed, and the apartment where Indal had hidden his car. Although he had only visited James Chase’s apartment, Indal had to live nearby.

Ah, said Zero. That’s far away from here. What transportation is available?

Max walked until he found a bus stop. It had a map of routes and transfer points all across the cities of Phoenix. To his bewilderment, he saw that he was deep in Glendale, the slums north of the Phoenix city center. The neighborhood hadn’t looked too run-down, but then he hadn’t paid much attention in the dark.

A bus is due soon, Max thought. Can you finish the sync so I can take the gauntlet off?

At this rate, another hour is needed, Zero replied.

Max heaved a sigh. “Right, whatever.” He rummaged in the garbage can beside the bus stop bench, found an old newspaper, and wrapped the gauntlet in it. Having an arm wrapped in newspaper might attract attention, but not as much as a sci-fi armored gauntlet with a screen in the wrist.

The bus arrived and Max climbed aboard and paid his fare. As he took a seat near the front, he happened to glance out at the road. There was that black van, cruising by in traffic. The men inside were looking at the bus with interest. Max slouched in the seat, below the window, and folded his newspaper-arm across his chest. If the van was waiting for him at his next stop, he was sunk.

Fortunately, the Cultists expected him to run for his home in Tempe, not veer off for Mesa. When Max arrived at his first stop, there were no black vans in sight. It was past ten PM by this time, and traffic was beginning to thin. When the next bus arrived, it only had a few passengers. Max rode slumped in the seat again, just in case the Cult happened to be watching the busses.

He reached the apartment complex in Mesa unscathed. By this time it was nearly midnight. Max was famished, his stomach a weary emptiness in his middle. His bruises had stiffened, and he could barely move his right arm. All that kept him going was Zero’s cheerful voice in his head, encouraging him and giving him directions he didn’t need. She was like having a sister, almost–a friendly, bossy sister who was worried about him and trying to hide it behind a cheerful demeanor.

He dragged himself through the apartment complex to James Chase’s door. All the lights were out, but through the corner of the miniblinds he could see a green glow. Probably the LEDs from Chase’s streaming rig. Max drew a deep breath and knocked.

Movement inside. After a moment, the door opened a crack and Chase peered out.

“Hey, Mr. Chase,” said Max. “I’m just looking for Indal. Do you know where he lives?”

James stared at him for a second in silence. Then he opened the door wide. “He’s my roommate. Come on in. You look like a truck ran you over.”

Max stepped inside, thankful to feel carpet under his tired feet and the safety of walls around him. Sure enough, the computer and its screens were ablaze with lights. A stream was running on two of the screens, and James had been providing live commentary. His face camera was blanked out with a Be Right Back image.

“Sorry for interrupting,” said Max, studying the screens in fascination.

“No problem,” said Chase. The redhead crossed the room to a closed door and knocked. After a moment it opened and Indal looked out, dressed in a grungy shirt and boxers, his black hair tousled from sleep. “What?”

James gestured at Max. “Max is here and he’s looking for you. Looks like he’s been through a meat grinder.”

Indal took one look at Max and vanished back into his room. A moment later he was back, belting a bathrobe around himself. “My gosh, what happened? Come in the kitchen, let me look at you.”

A moment later, Max found himself seated at the kitchen table, trying to assure Indal that he wasn’t hurt as badly as he appeared. Then he explained about being kidnapped by the Cult of the Dawn, who were going to kill him to take the gauntlet. But he left out the way Zero had begun speaking in his head.

James stood nearby, listening, his livestream forgotten in the background. As Max finished his story, James and Indal exchanged a concerned look.

“Indal, if you hadn’t gone off on your own, this wouldn’t have happened,” said James, pointing at Max’s gauntlet. “Will you hurry up and join the team, already?”

“Will you lay off?” Indal snapped. “The kid needs help. And probably food. How long’s it been since you last ate?”

“Noon,” said Max, and his stomach growled.

Indal opened the refrigerator and pulled out the ingredients for deli sandwiches. Max watched him hungrily. He also kept an eye on James, who was pale beneath his freckles. He paced back and forth across the living room, digging his fingers into his red hair over and over. Finally he halted and said, “I’m going to have to bring in the Sanctuary team. We have to stop the Cult.”

“What do you think I was trying to do?” Indal said over his shoulder. “Amberlit has been fighting them for a year now. They spread as fast as we can break them up.”

“It’s Watkins,” said Max. “He forces people to join with his mindjacking. If you can get rid of him, everybody would forget about the Cult.”

“I was trying to get him arrested yesterday,” said Indal pointedly, bringing Max a plate with two generous club sandwiches. He brought Max a bottle of water, then sat at the table, slowly rubbing his hands together. Max gazed at the way Indal’s brown skin shaded to pale white on his palms. A tiny flicker of purple lightning played between his hands, as if Indal’s atmospheric power was responding to his mood.

“You might have to stay here, for now,” said Indal, frowning at Max. “It’s the only way I can think of to protect you from those creeps. Unless we can get the gauntlet off, that is. Judging by how bad they pounded you, it wouldn’t come off for them, either.”

Max shook his head. “I think it will come off in a few hours by itself.”

“How do you know?” Indal asked. That schoolteacher tone had returned, doing math behind the words.

Max held out his gauntleted hand and looked at the screen. Sync 89%. “Once it finishes synchronizing, it should let go of me.”

Indal played with his lightning, letting it walk across the tips of his fingers. He frowned at it. He had thick, bushy eyebrows, and it made his frown quite intimidating. “So, what happens when it synchronizes, anyway? What’s so special about it that they wanted to kill you for it?”

Max eyed the trackball camera, which was studying him avidly. It blinked.

Hi, Zero, he thought.

Hello, said the camera, and blinked again. So Zero wasn’t the gauntlet, not entirely. She was that little trackball thing. No wonder she kept staring at him.

What happens when you finish syncing?

I gain access to the rest of my systems, and so do you.

To Indal, Max said, “I gain access to the rest of the gauntlet’s systems.”

“What does it do, I wonder?” Indal said. “James, have we seen Atlantean armor with weapons in the wrists?”

“Energy swords, sometimes,” said James. “And sometimes small firearms. That gauntlet could do anything. I imagine if he had the rest of the armor, he’d be just as stupidly powerful as the last Black Knight we fought.”

Max grinned at the thought of being stupidly powerful. He wolfed the rest of the first sandwich and started on the second. Indal and James argued about various courses of action as if it wasn’t nearly one in the morning. Max expected Xironi to appear and split them up, but she never did. Was she even home? There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the apartment.

By the time Max finished his second sandwich, James had returned to his streaming rig and was ending his broadcast. Indal sat at the table with Max, still playing with a thin thread of lightning, frowning.

“There’s nothing else we can do tonight,” said Indal, looking up. “Crash on the sofa for the night and we’ll decide things in the morning.”

“Thanks,” said Max in a low voice. As Indal got up and made up the couch with blankets and a pillow, Max was struck by how different he and James were from Watkins. Here was no feigned friendship, no manipulation, no pretending. They were scared and worried, but they didn’t blame Max. In fact, they were taking care of him without question. Watkins would have pretended to be kind and then turned around and stabbed Max in the back. Indal and James might betray him, he supposed. But he didn’t get that vibe from them.

I don’t, either, Zero confessed, eavesdropping on his thoughts. I think they’re good people, although I haven’t had a chance to study them. All my attention is on this sync with you.

Max retired to the sofa. James and Indal retreated to their rooms, the lights were switched off, and Max was left in comfort and peaceful silence. He rested his sore arm in its gauntlet across his chest and fell asleep at once.

He didn’t see Zero’s adoring eye watching him. He didn’t know when the gauntlet’s sync ticked over to 100%, or when the gauntlet’s lock around his wrist eased open. Zero’s eye turned away from him for the first time and looked around the room, studying the computer with its microphone and cameras.

Max is my operator now, she thought happily. Not that dreadful Watkins man. He was proud and cruel, and would have made her do horrible things. And over time, she would have become proud and cruel, too, her own magic and personality aligned with his. What would become of her because of bonding with Max? He was so young, packed with so much potential. His mind was alive with curiosity and intelligence, and a desire to rise above his criminal past.

She gently probed his subconscious, stirring up dreams and memories like dry leaves. She saw him growing up in a tiny, dirty apartment, saw his mother struggle to care for him and turn to more and more awful ways to earn money. One day, she didn’t come home at all.

She saw Max, alone, travel with another teen to meet a pale man in a suit and a fox mask, a man with the power to create illusions that killed. She found Max’s love for this man, his longing for the father he had never known. The love dovetailed into grief when the man was killed in a police raid. The grief traveled the entire emotional spectrum, from anger, to acceptance, back around to denial and bargaining. But Max kept it hidden, locked in a great iron chest in his heart. She found the way he lived now, scrambling through each day, wishing for the guidance of a wise adult, missing his mother, missing the man in the suit, pretending he knew what he was doing when in reality he was adrift.

Oh, Max, Zero thought, moved nearly to tears, if she could have shed any. You’re hurting so much. Let me help you.

She activated the gauntlet’s systems and set about mending the damage in his right arm. It would not mend his heart, but it was a very, very small start.