Evolution

by R S Penney

  Jena pulled her gun from its holster.

  “What are you doing?”

  Staring over the length of her extended arm, she cocked her head to one side and squinted at him. “Sorry, friend,” she said. “There are already too many evil pieces of shit like you in the world.”

  “But you can't.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  A hole appeared in Flagg's forehead, and blood sprayed out the back of his skull, landing in the road behind him. The body collapsed to the ground to stare blankly up at the sky.

  Bleakness take her, she was exhausted. She should probably try to move him to some place out of the way. Flagg was dead, but his symbiont was still very much alive, and it would be looking to move to a new host. Nassai couldn't live inside a corpse, and she was fairly sure the same was true of their evil counterparts. Something told her that this twisted symbiont wouldn't be choosy about its new host. It would take anyone who made physical contact with the body.

  That presented a problem, because it was all too likely that if Jena made contact with the corpse, Flagg's symbiont would try to battle her own for control of her body. It was dangerous to move him, dangerous to leave him here, and she was exhausted. What were the odds that someone would find him? These streets were deserted. In just twelve hours, the symbiont in Flagg would be dead, and she could deal with his corpse then.

  Jena turned to go.

  Leaving him here to rot was exactly what this man deserved.

  Chapter 12

  The sound of muffled voices filled her groggy mind, and she became aware of her own body like a lump of numbness. When she opened her eyes, she saw blue twilight in the bedroom window, soft light that made the bed, dresser and posters on the wall visible as mere dark shadows.

  Anna sat up.

  She winced, touched her fingertips to her forehead and let out a groan. “Well, never mind then,” she hissed, falling back against the mattress. “Maybe I'll go back to sleep for a few more years.”

  A crack in the door allowed light to spill in from the hallway, and the sound of soft voices as well. “I think she's awake now,” someone said, much to Anna's disappointment. “You can go in.”

  The door swung open.

  A disheveled-looking Jena stood before her in jeans and a sweat-drenched t-shirt, her eyes fixed on the gray carpet. “Hey, kid,” she said, shuffling into the room. “I heard about the fight today.”

  Despite her exhaustion, Anna managed to sit up again with some effort. Her body ached, but the pain was less now. The memory of everything came flooding back to her. To her credit, she had managed to remain upright long enough to take their prisoners to the police station and bring everyone back to the safe-house. After that, she had shoveled some food in her face and passed out. “I feel like I've been run over by a truck,” she said. “They tell you not to overtax your Nassai, but…”

  Jena shook her head. “Sometimes you don't get a choice in the matter,” she said, moving closer to the bed. “I know what you're going through. My hands are still tingling after that showdown with Slade's people.”

  Closing her eyes, Anna let her head hang. Strands of bright red hair fell over her face, tickling her. “We need to find him soon.” There was no question of who she meant. “Jena, we can't keep this up.”

  Jena crossed her arms and heaved out a sigh, turning her head to stare at the wall. “I know,” she muttered under her breath. “These little piecemeal attacks aren't cutting it. We have to take down Slade once and for all.”

  “Any suggestions on that?”

  “Nothing you should worry about now.”

  Anna yawned, then pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle it. “Companion be praised for small mercies,” she said drowsily. “You should have seen that Ziarogat, Jen. They're everything Jack said and worse.”

  “But you kicked its ass.”

  Anna blinked the sleep out of her eyes. She pressed a palm to her forehead, holding hair back from her face. “I held it at bay for a few minutes, but it forced me to rely on my Nassai until I was wrung out. If Raynar hadn't come along, I'd be dead.”

  Jena turned and paced a line beside the bed with hands clasped behind her back. “Don't be so quick to sell yourself short,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “You will do better next time.”

  “You seem pretty sure of that.”

  “We live, we learn and we adapt.” The other woman sat down on the corner of the mattress, patting Anna's leg through the blankets. “Get some rest, kid. Tomorrow, we'll come up with a strategy.”

  When Jena left, Anna snuggled back under the covers, but despite her exhaustion, sleep was hard to find. Her head just kept racing with thoughts, fears about an army of cybernetic warriors designed specifically to kill Justice Keepers. Of course, her rational mind said it wasn't as bad as all that.

  If Slade had an entire army of ziarogati at his disposal, he would have unleashed them instead of relying on his half-trained acolytes. No, it was far more likely that he only had a handful of those creatures at his beck and call.

  She tried to quiet her mind by focusing on pleasant thoughts. Imagining Bradley curling up next to her made her feel all warm and safe and…No. No, it didn't make her feel warm and safe at all. She just told herself that because she thought that was what she was supposed to feel. But then, wasn't that what everyone did? How many times had she heard her parents insist that there were no fairy-tale endings. Adults stopped complaining and learned to make it work. Bradley was a good man.

  Cursing her insomnia, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. Seth needed the rest as much as she did, and with her luck, they'd be facing another troop of ziarogati before sunset tomorrow.

  The mouth of the cave looked into a tunnel of seemingly endless darkness, a gaping maw that would swallow any wayward traveler who happened to get too close. And worst of all, he could tell that there was a significant drop at the entrance.

  Jack hopped from the ledge.

  He landed in a crouch with his hands on his knees, head hanging as he tried to get his bearings. “Overseers and caves,” he said, straightening. “Somebody really ought to tell them it's getting cliché.”

  When he turned, he found Harry climbing down the rock wall with one hand still clutching the ledge where daylight spilled through. “And somehow,” Harry replied in a breathy whisper. “I just don't think your sense of narrative purity was really at the top of their list of priorities.”

  Harry dropped the last few feet, then crouched down on impact. He straightened and dusted his hands. “Australia,” he muttered. “You have to give those slimy bastards this much credit: they really did travel the world.”

  “Slimy bastards?”

  “I assume the Overseers are gross.”

  With a grunt, Jack turned and thrust his fist into the darkness. “Multi-tool active!” he said. “Flashlight!” A cone of radiance erupted from the metal disk on the end of his gauntlet, allowing him to see a narrow tunnel that was just large enough for a man of his height to walk without bumping his head. Of course, he could sense the dimensions of this cave through his bond with Summer, but he thought it was best to rely on all of his senses. “Come on.”

  Ven claimed that these were the geographic coordinates that he had found in the data that Harry had retrieved from the Overseer device in Northern Ontario. Supposedly, the next part of the cipher that would reveal the Key's location was hidden somewhere in this cave. A lonely little cave in the middle of the Australian outback. For all Jack knew, they were the first humans to enter.

  Harry walked with one hand trailing fingers along the rock wall, the other pointing a cone of light into the darkness. “Let's find this and get back ASAP,” he said. “I want to know the instant Ven cuts through Slade's jamming field.”

  Baring his teeth with a soft hiss, Jack shut his eyes tight. “I don't like this any more than you,” he said, shaking his head. “But I should point out that it really doesn't matter if Ven cuts through the signal.
We're not going to New York.”

  “They're isolated, Jack.”

  Jack puckered his lips and blew out a deep breath. “I know that,” he said, brushing bangs off his forehead with the back of his hand. “But if I had to trust anyone to survive in that situation, it would be Jena.”

  The other man wore a scowl as he peered into the darkness, blinking as though he had something in his eye. “Have you ever researched Grecken Slade?” he asked. “I mean really looked into his past.”

  “No, but I'm guessing you have.”

  “A year ago, you kept trying to tell me that Slade was dirty, but I just didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to accept that an organization like the Justice Keepers could have a snake at the top of its command structure. And then that business on where Jena tried to arrest him on Station One…

  “After that, I realized that Slade had pulled a fast one on me and almost everyone he'd ever worked with. So, my detective instincts kicked in.”

  They had to pause their conversation briefly to maneuver over some uneven terrain where sinkholes provided the perfect opportunity to break your ankle. Jack had to admit that he didn't really care for where this was going, and the lump of anxiety nestled in the back of his mind told him that Summer wasn't feeling much better.

  He'd been biting his nails for the last twenty-four hours, worrying about what might happen to Anna now that she was cut off from help and surrounded by Slade's goons. His concern for her had been so strong it actually eclipsed the sadness he felt about the end of his relationship. Strangely enough, Gabi was down there too, and while he did worry about her, he didn't worry as much as he should have. Not as much as he did for Anna. That was telling, but Jack put it aside to think about later.

  Jack sat down on a rocky ledge with his hands in his lap, heaving out a deep breath. “All right,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Let's hear it. What did you learn after digging into Slade's past?”

  The other man watched him with a solemn expression, his dark eyes reflecting the glow of the flashlights. “You ever hear of Sera Lesar?” Harry asked. “She was the chief of the Justice Keepers right before Slade.”

  “Name sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “She died in a shuttle accident four months before Slade took the job,” Harry went on. “Minor flaw in the fusion reactor caused the whole damn thing to blow up. Funny thing is, you read the reports of the engineers who performed maintenance on that shuttle, and they all insist it passed every test.”

  “Sabotage?”

  “Sounds like.”

  Jack thrust his chin out, arching one dark eyebrow. “You think Slade Macbethed his way into the position,” he said. “Well, you know that I hate to be the voice of reason, but do we have any evidence to suggest it wasn't just an accident?”

  Harry winced, shaking his head. “I don't know,” he rasped. “The point is that we know Slade can be devious and ruthless. And the people we love are at his mercy.”

  “We can't go to them, Harry.”

  “Why the bloody hell not?”

  Only then did it occur to Jack that there was a damn good reason why this would be so much harder for his friend. His best friend and his ex-girlfriend were currently fighting a guerrilla war on the streets of New York, but that was nothing compared to having a kid stuck in that city. “Jena gave us an assignment,” Jack said in the gentlest voice he could manage. “I don't know what this Key does, but if it's as bad as Melissa thinks, the whole damn planet could be in danger. We go to New York now, and there is no one to continue the search. Which means Slade gets it first.”

  Harry stood before him with hands shoved into his pockets, his head tilted back to stare up at the ceiling. “I know,” he whispered. “And all the math there makes sense, but I can't shake the urge to…”

  It was instinct that made Jack stand up and throw his arms around the other man, squeezing Harry in a tight hug. “It's gonna be okay,” he said, patting his friend on the back. “She's a smart kid; she'll survive.”

  They moved deeper into the cave, as deep as they could go before the tunnel ended in an open area about the size of the average person's living room. As he ran his flashlight back and forth, Jack saw nothing but rock walls with minerals that sparkled. The air was musty and damp with a smell that he would prefer not to identify. “There's nothing here.”

  “Nothing we can detect with our eyes anyway.”

  Jack winced, trembling on the spot. “So, we're out of options,” he said, spinning around to face the other man. “You know, I really wish you would have agreed to bring Ven's briefcase device.”

  Harry was standing so that Jack saw him in profile, frowning at a wall of rock. “We don't need Ven's device,” he mumbled. “I can do it faster.”

  The man retrieved a little ball of curled up flesh from his pocket, and Jack felt his skin crawl at the sight of it. He still wasn't sure what to make of Harry's strange ability to control the Overseer multi-tool, but he'd seen enough sci-fi to know that there was bound to be some kind of hidden side-effect just waiting to ruin their lives. Then again, his own sister had made the same claim about his decision to bond Summer. Harry was his friend, and that entitled him to a certain degree of trust.

  The tiny ball of flesh uncurled, conforming to the shape of Harry's palm, fingers included, and for a brief moment Jack wondered if he was going to have to fight off a maniac who threw force-fields at him. It was an unworthy thought.

  Harry turned in a small circle, waving his hand back and forth over the wall as if scanning for something. A moment later, he spun around and thrust his palm down toward the floor. “There!”

  Something oozed out of the cracks between the rocks, congealing into a mass of flesh and then rising to form a pillar roughly as high as the average man's chest. Overseer tech: there was something so creepy about it.

  Harry touched the pillar with two fingers, breathing raggedly as he did…something. For all Jack could see, he was just standing there, lost in a trance. It made Jack worry. If that thing had some kind of safeguard or…

  Harry shook his head like a dog trying to get water out of his fur. “There,” he said, taking a step back and pressing one hand to his forehead. “I have the second cipher. Let's get back to Station Twelve.”

  “That's it?”

  “That's it.”

  Ben expected to see many things when he stepped through the elevator doors onto the concourse of Station One. People milling about and sharing conversations, Justice Keepers walking by as they scanned through reports: any of these things would make sense to him. The one thing that didn't was total silence.

  A small cafe across the way was operated by a human-shaped serving bot that waited patiently for a customer, but no one sat at any of the small, metal tables spread out across the gray floor tiles. The fabrication station next door normally had a small line of people who needed to touch up a piece of clothing, but it was vacant as well. Ben could hear the music from the nearby bar, but there were no sounds of conversation. Something was definitely wrong here.

  Chewing his lip, Ben turned his head to survey his surroundings. “Well then,” he said, eyebrows rising. “It never fails. The instant I leave the party, everybody else stops having fun.”

  Larani stepped out of the elevator with fists balled at her sides, head hanging in frustration. “Something is definitely wrong,” she said. “We need to find somebody who can give us a status update.”

  Ben looked up to squint into the distance. “I don't know,” he said, shaking his head. “Between you and me, I think the smartest thing to do would be to get to your office and scan the news feeds.”

  “Why's that?”

  “Because a bustling hub like this only turns into a ghost town when people are too scared to engage in normal social activity,” he answered. “And if people are that scared on a Justice Keeper station?”

  “I see your point.”

  The long hallways of drab gray walls were practically devoid of life, but
he kept his eyes peeled as they made their way toward Larani's office. Once upon a time, that office had belonged to Grecken Slade, and if he weren't the die-hard skeptic that he was, he would think the place would give off some very bad vibes.

  In truth, the one thing he couldn't get off his mind – the one thing that had made his skin itch and his hands tremble for the last three days – was the urge to contact Darrel and make sure that everything was all right. Ben's heart was aching. Had anyone bothered to tell his boyfriend that he was all right? That he hadn't just up and disappeared. There was no telling how that conversation might go.

  Still, he was a professional. He might have been discharged from the LIS, but that didn't change the fact that he was a professional, and right now there were more pressing concerns that required his attention.

  Double doors to Larani's office slid open to reveal a woman with long blonde hair who sat at the desk with her head down. “Whatever it is,” she snapped, looking up to fix her gaze on them. “I have no time-”

  The woman's face crumpled, and she shook her head. “Larani,” she said, getting to her feet, tugging the hem of her white shirt to straighten the garment. “I didn't expect to see you so soon.”

  Larani closed her eyes, bowing her head to the other woman. “Apparently not,” she said, striding into the room. “I'm pleased to see that you feel so comfortable sitting in my chair. We've been out of contact for three days. Report.”

  “Slade has taken over New York.”

  “Come again?”

  The blonde woman licked her lips, then turned her head to stare at something on the floor. “Slade has begun a series of coordinated terror attacks,” she said. “He's shut down commerce throughout the city, blocked food shipments.”

  “How many teams have you mobilized?”

  “None.”

  The flush that stained Larani's face a deep shade of crimson was probably hot enough to stave off winter's chill. “What do you mean 'none?' ” she asked, approaching the desk. “How have you not taken action?”