Evolution

by R S Penney

  “You mean people,” Harry said.

  “It would depend on your nomenclature,” Ven replied. “I consider myself to be a person, and yet I am unaffected.”

  Already, Jena was feeling annoyed, and their pointless conversational tangents were only making it worse. Yet another mission she couldn't go on; once again, she had to stay behind and let others do the hard work. What precisely had convinced her that taking a desk job was a good idea?

  Clenching her teeth, Jena let her head hang. “This is academic,” she said, brushing bangs off her forehead with the back of one fist. “Our first priority should be to recover the cipher. Discussions on personhood can wait.”

  “You want me and Harry to go?” Jack asked.

  “I want you all to go.”

  She turned away from them, slipping her hands into her pockets and marching back to the wall. “At this point, Slade will be getting desperate,” she went on. “I want Harry to have all the protection we can give him.”

  It was disorienting, tracking them with her spatial awareness. Harry, Jack and Anna were all wispy silhouettes in her mind, but Ven was absent. Her Nassai could only sense matter. The discrepancy between what she knew and what her mind perceived was more than a little unnerving.

  “What about Ben?” Anna suggested.

  Jena felt her face twist into a haggard expression, then shook her head with a soft sigh. “No, you won't be taking Ben,” she said. “I'm sure that you've all been thinking it – Jack most of all – but it must have occurred to all of you.”

  She turned back to them.

  Her three teammates stood there with wide eyes, blinking as if she had suddenly started speaking gibberish. And then there was Ven; the hologram just floated an inch off the floor, watching her.

  “Slade has been too good at staying one step ahead of us,” she said. “I think he has someone on the inside.”

  Well, that did a good job sucking the air out of the room. Jack and Anna exchanged glances, and Harry just gave her one of those detective stares that implied he had found a hole in her story. It made her want to snap at him, but Jena managed to keep her irritation under control. She was a professional, Bleakness take her. “So,” Jena went on. “We keep this one between us; we get that final cipher, and then we end this.”

  Ven floated upward, drifting across the room like a leaf on a cool breeze. “I shall forward the coordinates to your multi-tools,” he said. “With any luck, we'll be able to do this with minimal bloodshed.”

  As he sat behind a desk in a dark, cramped little room that had once been a study, Grecken Slade listened to the recording delivered by the bug Isara had planted in the Lab on Station Twelve. So, Jena Morane and her happy little band of misfits had discovered the location of the final cipher.

  “I shall forward the coordinates to your multi-tools,” that artificial being said through the speaker. “With any luck, we'll be able to do this with minimal bloodshed.”

  There would be no such luck.

  Anger flared within him when he was forced to contemplate the many failures of his subordinates. Arin, who had gotten himself captured while battling Jack Hunter and that ridiculous old police officer, Flagg who was dead at Jena Morane's hands. Valeth who had fled in fear and weakness.

  This time, Slade would go himself.

  This time, there would be no failures.

  His multi-tool beeped when the bug transmitted the coordinates of the third cipher. Jena Morane was correct; the time had come to end this.

  Chapter 21

  A single-story house with white aluminum siding and black shingles on its gabled roof stood in the shade of a tall elm tree that grew in the front yard. The grass was that pristine shade of green that only came from consistent watering, and there was even a nice flowerbed under the front window.

  In Harry's opinion, it was the kind of house that ought to have belonged to a sweet old lady, and the rest of this quiet suburban street was no different. It was a remnant of a simpler time.

  Harry leaned against the driver's side of his rented car with arms folded, ignoring the sweat on his brow. “It's cute,” he said, nodding. “You're absolutely certain these are the coordinates Ven specified?”

  Why he insisted on wearing a gray suit on a hot day like this was beyond him – he wasn't a detective anymore – but there were times when looking sharp just made him feel that much more confident. In some ways, Harry was also a remnant of another time.

  Anna sat on the hood of his car in denim shorts and a light blue t-shirt, her hair done up in a nubby little ponytail. “Yup. This is the place,” she said, checking her multi-tool. “According to Ven, the Overseer device is buried under that house. Address registry says it belongs to a widower named Patrick Osborne.”

  The house looked so unimposing, nestled between two other cute little homes. He could even see a round wooden table through the front window and paintings hung up on the dining room wall. It was hard to imagine that a human family might be able to have anything resembling a normal life in a house built atop Overseer technology, but then he had bonded the N'Jal several times now with no major side effects. True, he was clearly an exception to the rule, but… Perhaps the device beneath that house was dormant.

  On his left, Jack leaned against the car's back end with a distant look on his face. Like Anna, he wore casual clothing – gray jeans and a navy-blue polo shirt – but the kid also wore sunglasses, and that made him at least look like something out of a cop show. “So, what do we do?” he asked. “Ring the bell and casually explain that he might have some alien tech in his basement?”

  “We can't do that,” Harry said.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Jack studied him through those dark lenses. “Well, we better think of something,” he said, his eyebrows rising. “Because if Mr. Patrick Osborne comes to the window, I will have to lift a boombox over my head.”

  “Really? You'd Cusak an old man?”

  “It's the only thing that turns stalker behaviour into adorable quirkiness.”

  Anna was hunched over on the hood with her elbows on her thighs, her chin resting on laced fingers. “There's also the issue of digging it up,” she said. “I'm betting the house has a concrete foundation.”

  Jack let his head hang, then used one finger to push his sunglasses all the way up his nose. “Well those things are pretty powerful,” he countered. “The last two tunneled through hard packed dirt and the floor of a cave.”

  “Digging it up won't be an issue,” Harry confirmed. He clasped his hands together behind his back and took a few tentative steps into the middle of the road. “Our problem is secrecy. We're dealing with classified subject matter. Right now, no one outside of our team and Slade's people knows the Key exists.”

  “We better find some place else to hash this out,” Jack suggested. “Come on. I saw a motel a few intersections back.”

  Lying prone on the roof of a small house, Slade watched the car drive off through a pair of binoculars. A sleek red sedan that drove to the end of the block before its taillights flared at a stop sign. His blood boiled when he saw the back of Lenai's head through the rear window.

  He couldn't believe that his enemies would be so pathetically softhearted. The third cipher was right there for the taking! And they hesitated because some miserable old man might balk at the thought of strangers entering his home?

  The house with the white aluminum siding was undisturbed on the other side of the street, the elm tree in its front yard sighing as a breeze passed through the branches. Slade could go in there right now – he had no qualms about killing the old man who lived there – but he lacked the technology to extract the cipher from the Inzari device buried beneath the house's basement.

  That unnerved him.

  The Inzari had not given him the ability to use their technology, but the Fallen Ones had done so for Harry Carlson. Until recently, it would never have occurred to Slade that such a thing was possible.

  Was he not worthy enough?
<
br />   He would simply have to capture Harry Carlson and force him to extract the cipher. That meant killing Hunter and Lenai.

  He relished the thought of that.

  The sunlight of early evening streamed through the front window of Anna's motel room, illuminating the neatly made bed and the cream-coloured walls. A wooden table in the corner was home to a bunch of pamphlets that boasted the best service in all of Minnesota. And free Wi-Fi! You had to have free Wi-Fi.

  Anna sat in a wooden chair with her knees together, a bottle of water in one hand. In the golden light, she looked absolutely stunning, her hair seeming to shimmer. “So he's just going to putter about while he mulls it over?”

  Jack sat on the bed with his hands on his knees, head hanging in frustration. “It's Harry's way,” he said with a shrug. “The one thing we have in common is a penchant for slipping into Loner Cop Mode.”

  Anna winced, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please, don't remind me,” she muttered. “I just don't see any way around it; we're going to have to talk to Patrick Osborne.”

  “Well, you know Harry and rules.”

  The glare she gave him could have stripped paint off a car, but she quickly replaced it with a smile and a chuckle. “The two of you…” she said, shaking her head. “You know, there are options beyond following the rules to the letter and breaking them outright.”

  “Like what?”

  “Talk to your superiors; explain the need for an exception.”

  Tilting his head back, Jack felt his brow furrow. “Now, why didn't I think of that?” he murmured to himself. “Oh, yeah! Because it almost never works! People in positions of authority believe that adherence to policy trumps any practical considerations.”

  Anna lifted the bottle to her lips, then closed her eyes and downed almost half of it. “Even Jena?” she asked. “You seem to trust her.”

  “Jena's different.”

  “And me?”

  Blushing hard, Jack lowered his eyes to stare into his lap. He rubbed his forehead nervously. “You're different too,” he said. “If you told me you needed me to hop on one foot for an hour, I'd start hopping.”

  When he looked up, she was grinning at him, her eyes full of surprised pleasure. It was the kind of smile he saw every now and then, usually when he said something that made her very happy. He couldn't remember the first time he had seen that smile, but he could remember the first time he had noticed.

  That was the smile she had worn right before she kissed him that night while they sat on a bench by the Ottawa River. It was hard to keep himself focused, but he caught it when Anna asked him, “So, why do I deserve so much faith?”

  He stood up and tried to find the words to express himself without looking like an ass. “Because,” he replied hesitantly. “If you ask me to hop, it can only mean the world is ending, and I can somehow give you the time you need to save the day by making an ass out of myself.”

  Anna got to her feet.

  She stood on her toes to lightly press her lips to his cheek, then pulled back and blinked at him. “That's…” Her face reddened, and she looked away. “That's one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me.”

  He flinched instinctively and turned his head so that she couldn't see his expression. “So, you're going to Leyria to join the new task force,” he said. “That'll be good. I was afraid I'd miss you.”

  Anna stood before him with her hands in her pockets, keeping her eyes downcast. “Yeah,” she said. “It's such a mixed bag too. Dealing with the craziness of Earth culture is driving me crazy, but…”

  “But?”

  “In some ways, I'm gonna miss it here.”

  Jack crossed his arms and shuffled past her, moving into the warm light spilling through the window. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “My mom…I can't stop thinking about how much I'm going to miss her.”

  When he turned, Anna was standing there with her eyes closed, breathing deeply. “There's a lot to miss,” she agreed. “But change is good, right? They're always telling me change is good.”

  “What about Bradley?”

  Her face lit up with a warm smile that vanished half a second later. “That's the best part,” she said in a shaky voice. “He's coming with me! He surprised me with it last night. Said he wanted to see Leyria.”

  Those words hit Jack like a kick to the chest. Here he was, making noises about how much he respected Anna, how much he admired her and trusted her judgment. The respectful thing to do would be to keep his damn mouth shut. She was happy. She didn't need an idiot like him gumming up the works.

  No, his mother was wrong; Gabi was wrong. Bringing up these stupid feelings of his would only result in heartache for everyone concerned. The past was the past, and it should bloody well stay in the past.

  “Jack?”

  The sound of Anna's voice drew him out of his reverie, and he found her watching him with her head tilted to one side, one eyebrow arched quizzically. “I asked you if you thought it was a good idea.”

  Chewing on his lip, Jack turned his face up to the ceiling. “A good idea,” he said, eyebrows rising. “Well, of course it's a good idea! You two are great together! You love him, don't you?”

  Anna frowned and looked down at herself. “Yeah,” she said, nodding to him. “I do. He's a great guy.”

  Something about her tone seemed to invite him to say something, but he wasn't entirely sure what to say. Jack was no fool – he had a knack for reading people, and he could sense that she wasn't being entirely honest with him – but if she had chosen to go forward in her relationship with Bradley, she must have done so for a good reason. It was her life; he had no business sticking his nose in.

  “I'm gonna go for a little walk,” Anna said, though he was only half-aware of her saying it. “Lots to think about, you know? I could use a little air.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered.

  After she was gone, Jack slid down against the wall until his butt touched the floor. Good God, was he really about to start crying? Not over this, surely. He'd already come to terms with the fact that he and Anna weren't meant to be! He'd cried all his tears over it years ago when she got on that shuttle to leave for Alios. She told him she didn't want a long-distance relationship, and that was the end of it.

  So, why was he sniffling now?

  Summer was equally unhappy; he could feel her sorrow and her desire to comfort him. In fact, his symbiont was quite eager to talk. He could slip into a trance and let her tell him whatever it was she wanted to tell him, but he decided against it. Right then, he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

  Besides, if he knew Summer, then she would almost certainly urge him to go find Anna and tell her how he really felt; he had avoided direct contact with her for several days for exactly that reason. There was no way in hell that he was gonna make this even more awkward.

  Damn it, Anna had probably sensed that he was holding back sadness, put two and two together and decided that she needed to be away from him. The last thing he needed to do was burden her with his feelings.

  No, for once in his life, Jack Hunter would keep his mouth shut.

  The golden rays of the setting sun hit the front wall of the motel, illuminating every scuff in the blue aluminum siding, glinting off the windows that looked into various rooms. Most had curtains drawn for privacy.

  The parking lot was nearly empty with only a few cars nestled between two yellow lines. Across the street, she saw a restaurant with a red neon sign that promised the best burger in town. Anna had never questioned eating meat growing up, but after coming to this world and learning that they still killed animals for food…It made her shudder. She had developed a real love of vegetables; she might continue with her new diet once she went back to Leyria.

  Anna shuffled along the motel's walkway with her head down, strands of red hair falling over her face. “ 'Do you think it's a good idea?' ” she mumbled, eyebrows rising. “Come on, Lenai. You can't put him in that positio
n.”

  When she reached the end of the walkway, she went around the side of the building and continued onward for no particular reason. She just needed to keep moving, and any direction would do.

  A narrow road led from the parking lot to an alley behind the motel. That would be private enough, and if anyone caught her skulking…Well, she was a Justice Keeper. There could be something dangerous lurking nearby!

  Anna shut her eyes tight, then tossed her head about in disgust. “You're not doing yourself any favours,” she muttered under her breath. “If you feel something for him, just bloody well tell him!”

  At the end of the road, she found a paved alley between the motel's back wall and a wooden fence that bordered the property. There was a dumpster a little ways off with its lid open to display trash bags inside.

  Anna kept walking.

  The windows on this side of the building had frosted glass for privacy. It was nice and shady back here, and quiet too. Companion have mercy, the last few weeks had just thrown her life out of whack! She needed some time to think, to reflect. And she wasn't thrilled about the growing cloud of anxiety that seemed to be centred on her boyfriend.

  Seth offered comfort as best he could, but there was little a Nassai could say on the topic of human relationships. No, she would just have to sort this one out on her own, and then make the difficult-

  Hair stood on the back of her neck.

  She sensed it with spatial awareness before turning around to see it with her own eyes. Slade dropped from the motel's rooftop to land crouched in the alley. The former Chief of the Justice Keepers wore black pants and a red coat with gold embroidery, his dark hair blowing in the wind.

  “You!” she growled.

  He spun to face her with a great big smile, watching her with eyes that practically glittered with murderous intent. “Hello, Anna,” he said, taking a step forward. “I really was hoping that you would be first.”

  Lifting her chin to study him, Anna narrowed her eyes. “The first to kick your ass?” she said, shaking her head. “Because I need to tell you, I usually don't go for virgin boys, but I'll make an exception in your case.”