by R S Penney
The uniformed cop let out a wheezing laugh, his face twisting as he trembled with mirth. “You gotta be kidding, boy,” he said, shaking his head. “You're gonna pull out science fiction to justify harbouring a fugitive.”
The thing about acting was that sometimes, even when you were speaking the truth, you still had to sell it. Too much conviction would make him seem desperate. “I wouldn't expect you to believe me,” Jack began. “Hell, on most days I'm the president of the Dana Scully fan club, but I've seen a few things that make me want to believe.”
“Such as?” Carlson inquired.
Thrusting his chin out, Jack squinted at the other man. “I've seen Anna deflect bullets with her mind,” he said. “I've seen energy fields used as weapons.”
Carlson was frowning into his lap, sweat glistening on his brow. Could it be that he was starting to believe? “That would explain the strange trajectories,” he mumbled. “The bullets in the wall and the pavement.”
Clenching his teeth, the uniformed cop went beet red. He shot a glance toward his superior. “You can't honestly believe this!” he snapped. “The kid is making up this crap because he knows about the crime scenes.”
“And how would he know?” Carlson replied. “We kept the details out of the press. He wasn't there, Hutchinson.”
Only then did Jack see that Lauren had turned around. She was watching him with an expression of confusion, her face as pale as fresh-fallen snow. At least he was getting through to his sister.
“Even still!” Hutchinson protested. “How would Pennfield kidnap an alien?”
“The alien was brought here by a man named Denario Tarse,” Jack said before the other man could speak. “There are humans elsewhere in the galaxy. As I understand it, they were taken from Earth over ten thousand years ago and scattered on other habitable worlds. So far as we know, Pennfield wanted to study the Nassai.”
Carlson got up off the couch and started pacing, passing in front of Hutchinson as he marched to the wall. “There are too many unanswered questions,” he said, staring at the plaster. “Can you offer proof, Jack?”
Wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, Jack shut his eyes. “I can offer evidence,” he replied. “But after that, you're going to have to decide for yourself.”
“Show me this evidence.”
The multi-tool was clipped to Jack's belt with the Nassai's containment unit held in place by those three magnetic prongs. He pulled it free of those prongs with some effort, causing them to retract into the tool's surface.
“This is a containment unit,” Jack explained, setting it down on the small wooden table next to the front door. “It provides a habitable environment for the Nassai so that we can return it to its people.”
Jack lifted the tool in the palm of his hand.
He pushed a button with his thumb, and a hologram rippled into existence: a blue rectangle with Leyrian script and large pictures that looked like the icons on his smartphone's home screen. “Have you ever seen a holographic generator this small?” he asked. “What about all the other technologies that we've never seen before? Tell me, what could burn a hole through solid concrete?”
Carlson looked nervous.
“You've seen my friend on the security footage,” Jack went on. “You've seen how she goes out of her way to avoid the use of lethal force, how she does her best to inflict minimal harm on Pennfield's guards.”
Carlson bit his lip, then bowed his head to stare down at the floor. He took a deep breath and let it out again. “So, she's not a killer,” he muttered. “That doesn't prove that she isn't a thief.”
“A thief with a conscience?” Jack offered.
Behind Carlson, the uniformed cop was grumbling to himself, pulling his pants up by the belt loops as he stepped into the living room. That one would be trouble. For some reason, he had it in for Jack.
Carlson was stroking his jaw, squinting as he studied the hologram. Jack saw him through a field of transparent blue light. “You make a good point,” the detective said. “I might be inclined to believe you.”
Jack pushed a button on the multi-tool.
The hologram winked out, allowing him to see the other man's face more clearly. That look of contemplation was unmistakable; the detective was assembling the pieces, building a case in his mind. Jack could already see the implications. If Anna was not the villain here, then what did that say about Wesley Pennfield? Should he push? Try to slam his point home with one final strike?
No.
He and the detective had one thing in common, and that was a vehement dislike for anyone who tried to tell them what to think. The man would be more amenable if Jack let him reach his own conclusions.
“Okay,” Carlson said with a curt nod. “I'm not going to arrest you, but that offer is contingent on you and this…Anna…coming in to my office to answer some questions. I promise to be discreet for the-”
“Carlson, duck!”
Before the man could react, Hutchinson came up behind him and swung his baton into the side of Carlson's head. The detective staggered, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
Then he dropped to the floor.
Hutchinson stood behind him with his eyes downcast, holding the baton at his side. “I didn't want to do that,” he said, shaking his head. “But you can't trust this boy and his little alien bitch!”
He dropped the baton, then drew a pistol from the holster on his belt. He raised the gun in both hands, aiming for Jack. “Now, Mr. Pennfield wants that little round thing you have there.”
Vincent stood with arms folded in the middle of the room, frowning at her through the hole in his mask. “You won't see reason,” he said, stepping forward. “I would have preferred to make you an ally.”
Anna grinned down at the floor. She shook her head, trying not to laugh. “So, you want to test yourself against a Keeper,” she said, eyebrows rising. “Well, sweetie, if we're gonna get rough, I'll have to insist on a safety word.”
“You mock me to hide your fear.”
Tapping her lips with a single finger, Anna squinted at the man. “How do you feel about 'expurgations?' ” she said with a shrug. “I always liked the way that one rolled off the tongue.”
She was stalling, and the bloody man knew it. No one in her right mind challenged a Justice Keeper unless she had an edge. She had to determine the nature of that edge if she wanted to walk out of here. On instinct, she focused on spatial awareness.
Five steps backward would see her standing on top of the windowpane that had fallen to the floor when she had pushed her way in here. There were only two ways out of here: the door behind her opponent and a long drop to the sidewalk below. Besides, if she ran, Vincent would only come after her. That meant surprise was her ally.
Anna charged at him.
She punched with one hand but Vincent caught her fist. She punched with the other but the man caught that too. He pulled her close with a growl.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Vincent delivered a fierce headbutt to her face. Her vision blurred and a sense of queasiness nearly overpowered her. Anna found herself backing up until she felt glass crunch beneath her shoes.
As her vision resolved, she saw Vincent coming forward with fluid predatory grace. The man chuckled to himself, shaking his head ever so slowly. “The sweet young Justice Keeper meets her match.”
He threw a punch.
Anna ducked.
She sent a pair of jabs into his belly, then rose and backhanded him hard across the cheek. The blow was enough to turn his head aside. Vincent went stumbling backward on wobbly legs.
Anna ran forward.
She leaped and turned sideways in midair, rolling like a log over his head. Calling on her Nassai, she used heightened spatial awareness to land on one foot with the grace of a ballerina.
In a heartbeat, she was facing him, watching the man recover and round on her. He brought up his fists in a guarded stance. So, he doesn't underestimate me quite so quickly anymore.
Anna kicked him in the belly. She spun and hook-kicked, her foot whirling around to hit…nothing at all.
When she came around, she saw that Vincent had crouched. The man stood up and seized her shirt in both hands. “You begin to aggravate me,” he said, pulling her in close enough for her to feel his breath.
He gave a shove.
Bent gravity sent her flying backward across the room. Anna went right through the door, then collided with the wall of the hallway outside. She landed on her feet, hot pain racing through her body.
Baring her teeth, Anna squeezed her eyes shut. She tossed her head about, trying to clear her head. Stay calm, she thought, recalling her training. Your symbiont will heal your body, but you can't-
When she opened her eyes, she found Vincent standing in the middle of the room, drawing a pistol from the holster on his belt. He thrust a hand out to point that gun right at her.
Anna dove.
She somersaulted through the door, then uncurled to lie flat on her back. She kicked up to strike the underside of his forearm, knocking the gun askew just before the man had it pointed at her. CRACK!
Curling her legs against her chest, Anna growled. She kicked out with both feet to strike him hard in the chest. A Keeper's strength was over twice that of a normal human being's. Vincent went flying backward, the gun falling out of his hand.
His legs hit the windowsill, and his upper body fell backward through the opening. Just like that, he was gone. With a pounding heart, Anna waited for the sound of a scream that never came. Had he fallen to the ground below? Broken his neck? Had she just taken a life for the first time?
The thought left her numb inside. She had become a Keeper to preserve life, not to destroy it. Of course, she had known that this might be required of her – and Vincent had left her with no recourse – but that didn't make it any easier.
She sat up.
Hissing through clenched teeth, Anna shut her eyes. She tried to ignore the sweat that matted hair to her forehead. “Have to get to Jack,” she said in a rasp. “Come on, legs. Don't quit on me now!”
She stood up with some effort and nearly fell over again. This little sparring match had left her weak and aching all over. Thankfully, her symbiont would help with that, but it left her with another unsettling question. How had Vincent been able to bend gravity like a Justice Keeper? It should have-
She saw the man's masked head pop up over the ledge of the window. With a harsh grunt, he crawled through the opening and dropped onto the shattered pane, screaming as he rolled across the floor.
He stood up before her, tall and imposing, seemingly unconcerned by whatever bits of glass had stabbed into his back. “You're far more clever than I gave you credit for,” he whispered. “Join me.”
Thrusting her chin out, Anna felt her cheeks burn. She narrowed her eyes to slits. “I don't think so,” she said, shaking her head. “Somehow, I think high treason doesn't look very good on a resume.”
“I am trying to save humankind.”
Red-faced with rage, Anna lowered her eyes to the floor. She drew in a shuddering breath. “By killing people!” she snapped. “And kidnapping innocent life forms? Exactly how will that save humankind?”
Crossing his arms with a sigh, the man studied her for a long moment. He nodded to himself. “As I thought,” he said, backing away. “Too stubborn. Too indoctrinated with the outdated values of a dead society.”
“Oh sure,” Anna replied. “ 'Thou shalt not kill' is really obsolete. Just when are the rest of us going to join the revolution?”
They paced a circle around the room, sizing each other up. Despite her bravado, Anna felt anything but brave. What this man did should have been impossible without a symbiont, and yet there had been no reports of missing Nassai. Suddenly, an unpleasant thought occurred to her. Just what had Pennfield been planning to do with the symbiont he had captured?
“You leave me no alternative,” Vincent said, drawing a knife from a sheath on his belt. He pointed the razor-sharp blade at her chest. “I would rather have you on my side, but you cannot see the truth.”
“Bleakness take you!” Anna shouted. “Stop gabbing already.”
Vincent ran across the room.
He slashed at her throat – missing by inches – then spun like a twister. His knife came around in a tight arc.
Anna ducked.
She felt the blade pass over her head, then waited for him to round on her. When he did so – in that brief second while he was off balance – she rose and delivered an uppercut to his chin.
Anna fell over backward.
Slapping hands down on the floor, she brought her feet up to rest both heels on his shoulders. She squeezed his neck in a vise-grip, then flung him sideways. And they told me acrobatics was a waste of time. Vincent hit the floor to lay sprawled out on his side, groaning in pain.
Flipping upright, she kicked him in the belly. The impact sent Vincent rolling across the floor like a fallen tree down a hill. He went all the way to the opposite wall, slamming hard into the plaster and flopping onto his belly.
Slapping a palm over her face, Anna let out a groan. She looked up, blinking tears away. “Now, my friend,” she began. “You're going to tell me who you really are and how you got your hands on a Nassai.”
“Not a Nassai,” Vincent said, rolling onto his side. “The symbiont I carry is called a Drethen.”
“A Drethen?”
The Nassai within her recoiled at the sound of the word. Whatever it was, it must have been something profane, something bordering on blasphemy, for her symbiont to express such emotion.
“It is the future, Anna Lenai,” Vincent said, staring at her through the holes in his mask. He seemed completely unconcerned by the fact that he was lying on the floor with bruises all over his body. “I'm sorry you can't be a part of it.”
The gun that had fallen out of his hand was resting on the floor next to his shoulder. In her zeal to discover the source of the man's Keeper-like abilities, she had failed to notice it. Vincent snatched it up.
He pointed the weapon at her.
Anna tried to react, tried to summon a Bending, but the aches and pains in her body and the strain that she had already put on her Nassai today were too much for her. Anna clawed at space-time with her mind, but it just wouldn't bend.
CRACK!
Hot stinging pain ripped through her body as blood sprayed from a wound in her chest. She folded in on herself, dropping to her knees on the carpet. What was going on? Everything seemed so muddled.
It took a moment for her to identify the ear-piercing scream as the sound of her own voice. She clamped her mouth shut but the scream persisted. No…that was not her. This was a different scream.
The symbiont.
It wailed in her mind.
Through fuzzy vision, she saw Vincent stand up and march toward her. He pointed the gun at her head. “You've caused my boss all sorts of trouble,” he rasped. “At least he will be free of one more nuisance.”
Her frantic mind was unable to find enough lucidity, but on some level, she knew she was supposed to panic. She, Anna Lenai, was going to die here, unremarked in some room on some uncharted planet. She, Anna Lenai, had done violence, had inflicted pain on innocent men, and now she was going to have to account for her sins.
Would the Bleakness take her?
Panic held Jack's guts in an iron grip. He had to focus, had to think his way through this. You could find a solution to just about any problem if you just used your brain, but…dear god, was this what it was like to have a gun pointed at him?
Hutchinson stood with the pistol held in both hands, his teeth showing like a growling dog. “The circular device,” he said with a jerk of his head. “Step aside, son. Give me that device and this ends.”
Dimly, Jack was aware of his sister gasping with her back pressed to the wall on the other side of the living room. She looked haggard, strung out. This is your fault, a small voice whispered. You shouldn
't have gotten involved. Why can't you ever just keep your mouth shut like every-
No.
That kind of thinking would get him nowhere.
Closing his eyes, Jack took a deep breath. He bowed his head to the other man. “I can't do that,” he said, stepping forward. “That's a person in there. It may not look like us or even think like us, but it's alive.”
Hutchinson bit his lip, then lowered his eyes to the floor. He seemed to be wrestling with the decision. “Listen, kid,” he began, “I don't wanna shoot you. But you don't know who you're dealing with.”
“Pennfield?”
“Guy has connections everywhere.” Hutchinson shook his head in dismay. “I cross him and it's the end for me, for my family. Now, I'm sorry, but I gotta look out for me and mine.”
Jack pressed his lips together as he studied the other man. It took effort to keep his expression blank, but he managed it. “Isn't that what everyone does?” he replied. “Look out for themselves first? Isn't that why the world sucks?”
Hutchinson shuddered.
No, Jack didn't regret helping Anna. He refused to be just another schmuck who let evil men go about their business without protest. It wasn't his fault that Lauren had been dragged into this; he couldn't take responsibility for the actions of other men. All he could do was try to make a difference when the opportunity presented itself. “It doesn't have to be this way, Hutchinson,” Jack began. “I have friends who can protect you, who can keep your family safe. You don't want to shoot me. Listen to your conscience.”
“I can't, kid.”
The other man looked away, staring at the wall while five kinds of anguish played across his face. “You're young; you don't get it,” he murmured. “You still believe there's justice in this world.”
Just like that, he was the picture of conviction again, raising the gun to aim at Jack's face. “Now, step aside!” Hutchinson growled. “I ain't gonna tell you again, kid. You step aside or I shoot.”
So, would he do it? His mind flashed back to that morning outside the thrift shop. Sticking his nose where it didn't belong had earned him a beating on that day; now, it would cost him his life. It pleased him to realize that his answer was the same now as it had been then. Better to die than to live in a world where the strong preyed on the weak. “Then shoot,” Jack said. “Or admit you're nothing but a ball-less sack of shit.”