Symbiosis

by R S Penney

  He braced himself for another flash of pain.

  The map of bus routes that these people used to navigate this city was a convoluted mess. True, she could not yet read their language, but it wasn't difficult to determine the meaning behind the maze of colourful lines that spread out over the page. How they got anywhere in reasonable time was a mystery to her.

  Anna sucked on her lower lip, her eyes flicking back and forth. “This is getting us nowhere.” She tilted her head back, staring up at the sky. “These people have the worst transit system I've-”

  The Nassai within her stirred.

  Anna frowned, glancing over her shoulder. She squinted into the distance. What do you sense? she thought at the symbiont. Danger? It would really help if you would deign to be more specifi-

  Only then did she notice it.

  Around the side of the thrift shop, a woozy Jack stood with his back to her, facing a rather nasty-looking man. A few paces beyond him, a darker man stood next to one of those waste-disposal units with his foot pressed to the back of some other fool who was stretched on the pavement.

  They were too far away for Anna to hear what was going on, but she had the distinct impression that young Jack had decided to put himself at risk to protect the battered man. Young? she asked herself. He can't be more than a year younger than me. Carrying the weight of the world doesn't make you a crone.

  She ran.

  When she got within fifty feet, she was able to make out their conversation. “Why won't you stay down?” the nasty man barked.

  “Because…” Jack replied, “you hit like a girl.”

  Well, that was offensive; but she would let him get away with it on account that he was standing up to an obvious thug. “Tyler, don't,” the dark man put in while keeping his victim pinned.

  “Shut up, Dave!”

  Tyler lunged at Jack, driving a fist into his belly. The impact made him double over and Tyler shoved him. Jack landed hard on his knees, staring up at his attacker. “That all you've got?

  “Enough!”

  Anna strode toward them, dropping the bag of clothes she had purchased. She drew herself up to full height – which, admittedly, was not very impressive – and closed in on the three men. “Leave! Now!”

  Maybe it was the threat in her voice. Tyler backed away until he was standing just in front of Dave and the fallen man. A moment later, he regained his nerve. “Well…look what just came our way.”

  Dave frowned at her, then wrinkled his nose as if he detected something foul. “I don't like this,” he said, stepping away from the fallen man. “Tyler, let's get out of here before someone sees us.”

  “You hear that, Josh?” Tyler mocked. “You have two guardian angels.”

  Pressing her lips together, Anna lifted her chin. She narrowed her eyes to thin slits. “You think you're strong?” she began. “You don't even understand the concept. Let these men go, and I will let you go.”

  “You can go, Josh.”

  Pain or no pain, the fallen man got to his feet and bolted off across the parking lot at a quick lope. Such cowardice. Not even enough integrity to stand beside the one who had come to his aid.

  Tyler's grin deepened as he studied her, and for a moment, she wondered whether an ordinary woman would feel fear. It had been a very long time since she had cringed at the sight of a common street thug. “This one,” he went on, “this one needs someone to teach her a thing or two about manners.”

  “You're welcome to try,” Anna replied. She was cognizant of Dave moving around her left side. No doubt he intended to hold her while Tyler did the pummelling. A good thing she had eyes on the back of her head. “Come on, Tyler,” she mocked, “show me what a big, strong man you are.”

  “You stupid little bitch!” he growled, face reddening until it looked as though he would burst a blood vessel. His fingers curled into a fist and he stepped forward. Well… here it comes. He threw a punch.

  Anna ducked.

  She punched him in the stomach with one fist then the other, then rose and drew back her arm. She slammed her open palm into his nose. The man's head snapped back, blood dripping.

  Footsteps behind her.

  Bending her knees, Anna jumped and rose into the air. She back-flipped over the man's head, then uncurled to land poised on the pavement. She brought her fists up in a guarded stance.

  Dave spun around to face her.

  Anna kicked him in the belly.

  Driven backward by the impact, he stumbled and collided with Tyler, the two of them falling down. In a heartbeat, the idiot pushed himself up and stood on wobbly legs. He doubled over and charged at her like a bull.

  Anna seized his shoulders, stilling him.

  She jumped and flipped upside-down over his head, using her own weight to force him to the ground. Flat on his face. Anna flipped upright, then brought up her fists. How I hate slow learners.

  Tyler lunged at her.

  Anna kicked him in the chest. She spun and hook-kicked, her foot whirling around to strike him across the cheek. The impact was brutal. Tyler fell over sideways, stretched out on the pavement.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Anna smiled down at him. “I trust you understand your predicament,” she said, eyebrows rising. “I hit like a girl.”

  Behind her, Dave was moving, trying to stand. Some people just refused to learn a very simple lesson. “Stay perfectly still,” she spat. “I'd rather not have to knock you both into senseless oblivion.”

  She turned away.

  Jack was sitting with his back pressed to the wall, head lolling. The poor kid must have been exhausted. You've got to stop doing that, Anna scolded herself. Thinking of him as a child.

  Using her Nassai to keep an eye on the other two, she went to him. She checked his wounds and tried to ignore the worry gnawing at her insides. Concern for a man she barely knew?

  His face was fine with the exception of a bit of blood that dripped from his nose. If Tyler had harmed it, the bruises were likely concealed by his clothes. “You're going to be all right,” Anna whispered. “I'll get you to a hospital.”

  The harsh wail of a siren filled the air. Even as an outsider among these people, she knew that was a sign the authorities would show up soon. If she stayed, there was a good chance someone would connect the story of a tiny blonde woman who had beat up a pair of thugs with the story of a tiny blonde woman who had beat up a trio of guards. I can't just leave him!

  She lifted Jack's shirt to reveal an ugly purple bruise over his rib-cage, but no major cuts or injuries. No sign of blood on his pants. There was no real chance he'd bleed to death. Time to go, Lenai. Fortune favours the prudent.

  Jack's breathing was slow and steady.

  She stood.

  Anna frowned and tilted her head to one side, a lock of blonde hair clinging to her cheek. “I'm sorry to leave you,” she said softly, “but some things are bigger than any one man…no matter how brave he may be.”

  She turned and ran.

  The narrow alley behind the building was just large enough for three men to walk abreast, surrounded by the store's back wall on one side and a wooden fence on the other. Tyler and Dave were already hobbling away, the fair-skinned man limping with his arm around his companion's shoulders. Neither one saw her. Anna decided to let them go; if fortune was kind, the local authorities would find them.

  She called on her Nassai and used its power to lessen the pull of gravity. That came without too much difficulty for the symbiont. With over twice the strength of an average human being – symbiosis had its advantages – she wouldn't need much assistance.

  Let's go.

  Bending her knees, Anna jumped. She somersaulted over the fence, then uncurled to drop to the ground on the other side. She fell into a crouch, releasing her Nassai's hold on local space-time.

  Anna stood and listened to the sound of automobiles pulling into the parking lot. A moment later, voices started barking orders and footsteps hit the pavement. Half a dozen of them if her
instincts were right.

  Pressing her back to the fence, Anna shut her eyes. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. He'll be alright, she thought, nodding to herself. The police will take Jack to a hospital, and they will see to his wounds.

  But would they?

  Anxiety clawed at her chest when she considered the question. On her world, Jack would be guaranteed medical treatment, but she had to remember she could not take anything for granted. If these people were willing to allow their own citizens to starve on the streets, there was no reason why they would feel compelled to treat any young man who came through the door – and unless she was very much mistaken, Jack did not have much in the way of currency. There was only one conclusion.

  She had to follow.

  Chapter 4

  “What do you have for me, Jeannie?”

  The forensics lab was a narrow room with a long steel table in the middle, green tiles on all four walls and fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Jean Simmons sat at a counter along the wall, staring into her computer monitor.

  Tall and skinny as a post, she wore a white lab coat over her pantsuit, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail. “Oh, I've got plenty,” she said, nodding to him. “But I can't say you're gonna believe any of it, Detective.”

  Harry Carlson strode into the room.

  A tall man in a black suit and white shirt, he slipped hands into the pockets of his jacket. His square-jawed, dark-skinned face was marked by a small scar on the cheek, and his black hair was cut short. “Go on.”

  Jean sniffed.

  She wrinkled her nose as she stared into the computer screen, white light reflected on her face. “We've been going over the haul from the Penworth building,” she explained. “Some of it…well, I'd have to show you.”

  Half the department had been going over that building with a fine-toothed comb for the last three days. The explosion that had gone off on the front steps had left a very large scorch mark, and one of the pillars along the front walkway had a three-inch hole through the centre.

  At this point, it would be a miracle to avoid finding anything without tripping over half a dozen Mounties and CSIS agents. The media was positively abuzz with all sorts of theories. Harry had been forced to turn over most of the evidence, but he wanted some answers. When bombs went off in his city, he took it rather personally.

  Harry smiled, tilting his head to one side. He studied her for a long moment. “You sound frightened, Jeannie,” he said, brow furrowing. “Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it.”

  She swivelled around in her chair.

  Standing up, Jean went to the steel table and stood there, gripping its edge with two hands. Only then did Harry notice the charred fragments of what had once been a sphere that could fit into your pocket. At least that was what the lab techs claimed. The casing was distinctly round.

  “This thing is composed of a material that I've never seen before.” Jean said. “It's some type of complex polymer, but there are no records of this compound.”

  “No records?”

  Crossing his arms in a huff, Harry frowned down at the floor. “You're saying that you don't know what it is?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Can't you send it off to a lab for further analy-”

  “No, you don't understand.”

  The look of worry on Jean's face gave him pause. She stared blankly at the wall as if a ghost had materialized right in front of her. “I have sent it off to a lab,” she added. “The entire chemistry department down at Carlton is buzzing. They don't know what it is either, and according to Dr. Farah, the compound is light, durable and unlike anything we've seen before.”

  Harry frowned and looked up to fix his gaze on her. He felt sweat bead over his forehead. “You're saying…” The words came out in a rasp, “you're saying this thing is composed of material we've never seen?”

  “Yes, Detective,” she replied. “That is precisely what I'm saying.”

  Worry found its way into the pit of Harry's stomach. This case had been setting his teeth on edge for the last seventy-two hours, and every time he thought he had something pinned down, another layer to the onion made him want to cry.

  The explosion had been simple enough – any homemade bomb could explain away the damage to the concrete steps outside the Penworth building – but how exactly did one account for the hole through the pillar? Harry knew of no weapon that could do that kind of damage.

  Then, when you factored in the stories about “giant orange lasers,” it began to seem more and more like he was living in an episode of the X-Files. He stifled a chuckle. All I need is a pack of Morley's.

  With a heavy sigh, he tried to put that out of his mind and focus on the task before him. “All right,” Harry said under his breath, “so, where does all of this leave us in terms of leads?”

  Jean wore a frightened expression as she studied him, blinking like a deer caught in the headlights. “You haven't seen everything,” she said, shaking her head. “Trust me, it gets even stranger.”

  She used a pair of tongs to lift a small nub of metal from a tray. For a moment, she just held it there so that Harry could get a good look at the thing. It seemed to have been flattened, almost as if…“Good Lord, is that a bullet?”

  Jean smiled, bowing her head to stare down at the floor. She offered a half-hearted shrug of her shoulders. “That was quicker than I expected,” she said. “Yes, that is a bullet but not one for any gun I've ever seen.”

  Harry bit his lower lip. He closed his eyes and gave his head a shake. “A slug from an unknown firearm.” This kept getting worse and worse. “Well, Jeannie, there's just no getting around it now.”

  “Sir?”

  “We're dealing with advanced technology.” Sweat broke out on his forehead as he said that, juxtaposed by a sudden chill that raced down his spine. “So, that means either the government is holding out on us…”

  “No, I can't accept that,” Jean said, shaking her head with enough force to send strands of dark hair flying. “The government cannot be withholding this kind of information.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…Because…”

  Pinching his chin with thumb and forefinger, Harry narrowed his eyes. “You claim the bomb is composed of an unknown material,” he said, nodding as he thought it over. “The slug comes from an unknown weapon.”

  He could see the wheels turning in Jean's head. Her eyes flicked from side to side as she considered the question. Eventually, she would come to the very same conclusion he had; there were only two explanations.

  “Keep working on it, Jean,” he told her, clapping a hand on her shoulder. The poor thing shuddered as he did so. “This case is no different from any other. I want you to give me as much information as you can.”

  “Yes, sir…”

  Harry left her to her work. Knowing Jean as he did, he was well aware that the best way to get through her anxiety was to just keep busy. I'll have to check in on her at least once a day, he noted. The poor thing might just have a breakdown.

  Outside the lab, he found a long gray corridor with doors spaced at even intervals and bright lights that shone down on the floor tiles. One uniformed officer came shuffling toward him with his head down. “Detective.”

  “Yes?”

  As the man passed Harry, he spun around to walk backwards. His thick face was lined by wrinkles over the cheeks and forehead. “Your wife's up in your office, sir,” he said quickly. “Asked to see you with some rather…colourful language.”

  A flush burned through Harry's cheeks. Closing his eyes, he shook his head with exasperation. “Thank you, Simmons,” he replied. “I'll try not to keep her waiting any longer than I have to.”

  “Your funeral, sir.”

  A well-lit stairwell led up to the third floor, and when he arrived, Harry felt a wave of mixed emotions settle into his chest. Nearly six weeks of cold silence had passed and now Della wanted to talk. The terms of their separation did not preclude contact, but t
here was something of an unspoken truce between them.

  He had planned on speaking to the lieutenant before forcing himself to endure his wife's latest tantrum – if they acted quickly, they'd be able to keep stories of aliens from getting out of hand – but as Simmons had said, it was his funeral. If Della chose to kick up a fuss, she might just earn him a reprimand.

  A long hallway stretched on from the stairwell to his office in the corner with a line of doors on the wall to his left. Some were open, allowing Harry to overhear the sound of his colleagues speaking on the phone.

  He started up the corridor.

  Harry frowned, looking down at the floor. Well, this cannot be good, he told himself. If she came all the way down here, it means she's ready to spit bullets.

  His office was a simple room with white walls and a rectangular desk that faced the door. Sunlight came in through the window, filtered into thin bands by blinds that he kept half-closed.

  He found his wife sitting in the chair across from his own. Dressed in a black skirt over dark stockings and a green blouse, she looked up to glare at him as he entered the room. Her face was a perfect oval, framed by golden hair that fell over her shoulders. “So good to see you, Harry,” she said with a curt nod. “You're such a kind man to make time for the mother of your children. Such a kind man to try to prevent me from seeing my own daughters.”

  Tossing his head back, Harry shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don't want to force you out of their lives,” he said. “But I think we both agree there have been problems.”

  “Problems?”

  Crossing her arms with a sigh, Della craned her neck to stare at him. “And what problems would those be?” she inquired. “I do hope you'll enlighten me.”

  “Well, there's the drinking.” He felt his face contort, then rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “I'm sorry, Della, but a DUI is kind of pushing the limits of my ability to turn a blind eye.”