by R S Penney
A flush painted Anna's face red, but she grinned and laughed just the same. “Why, Jack, it's like you know me,” she teased. “No…Nothing there either. Which means Isara had access to a third SlipGate that she has since taken off the Network.”
“How did she get so many SlipGates?”
“She works for the Overseers, Jack.”
“Fair point.”
He turned his attention back to the Gate, transfixed by the gleam of sunlight upon metal, by the way those sinuous grooves seemed to hypnotize. “You ever think maybe these things aren't as innocent as they seem?” he murmured. “I mean we're up against the Overseers here, and yet we use their technology.”
Anna came up to stand beside him, leaning against the table with her arms folded. The expression on her face as she studied the SlipGate… “What do you mean?” she asked in cautious tones.
Tossing his head back, Jack felt wrinkles lining his brow. “Why did the Overseers give us this marvelous technology?” he whispered. “Maybe to get us used to it. To make us think SlipGates are harmless.”
“Thanks, Jack, for that uplifting mental image.”
“From what everyone tells me, these things went nuts when Slade used the Key to open the SuperGates. Don't tell me SlipGates are harmless.”
“Point taken.”
Chewing on his lip, Jack looked down at the floor. A shiver went through his body, right up the length of his spine. “So…” he said after a moment of silence. “You feel like getting some lunch?”
Pulling a t-shirt over himself, Ben squeezed his eyes shut as his head poked through the hole. His hair, though short, was a mess. “Just a minute!” he shouted. “Hold on! Hold on! I'll be right there!”
He walked to his front door and pulled it open to reveal Dex Velori standing on his porch. The man was just spectacularly beautiful with that strong chin of his and that dark goatee. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry to bother you.”
Ben stood there with a hand on the door-frame, smiling down at his own shoes. “No bother,” he said, shaking his head. “Though I do wonder what brings you all the way out to this tiny neighbourhood.”
“I was in the area.”
“Really?”
A wry smile on Dex's face put the lie to his words, and the man went red soon after. “No, not really,” he admitted. “I saw that you had submitted a few code updates about an hour ago, and I figured you were working from home.”
“Did you want me to come into the office?”
“No, it's not that,” Dex explained. “The Tareli Information Security Panel reviewed our code today, and they think some of it is…Well, the word they used was 'sublime.' I've been asked to send someone to speak at a conference they're hosting.”
Crossing his arms with a grunt, Ben leaned one shoulder against the door-frame. His face twisted as he considered the implications. “And you want to send me,” he said. “Dex, I'm a convicted felon.”
The other man studied him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow. “You're a man who has saved lives,” he began. “And who has turned his own life around. Ben, this is what you were meant to do.”
“I'll think about it.”
With a heavy sigh, Dex took a step back. A moment later, he nodded. “Think quickly, would you?” he pleaded. “The conference is in a few days. You would be a last-minute replacement for someone who dropped out. They're gonna want an answer by the end of the day.”
A blue sky where the sun was at its zenith stretched over a road that curved slightly to Jack's right. Trees along each sidewalk with bright green leaves provided some shade from the glare. But it was hot, and it was sticky, and it was probably a bad idea to bring Harry out here. Not that the other man would take no for an answer.
Harry was hunched over with his weight supported by a cane, his face contorted in obvious discomfort. “Just a little further,” he grunted out. “Then we can go back and have a nice lunch.”
Blowing out a deep breath, Jack closed his eyes. His head sank as he tried to find a little patience. “You're gonna get yourself hurt,” he muttered. “Harry, this is not the path to a speedy recovery.”
“I need to do this.”
“Why?”
The other man got a few steps ahead and wheezed as he pressed the cane to the sidewalk. “I'm tired of sitting around all day,” he said. “There's so much I could be doing, and it's driving me crazy.”
Of course, the source of the problem was obvious. At least, to Jack it was. Telling Harry about Leo's escape had put the other man into action-hero mode, complete with a clichéd subplot about protecting his family. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but Harry had already gotten himself hurt.
Jack strode past his friend.
He whirled around to face the other man, backing away with both hands raised in a forestalling gesture. “Here's a thought, and just hear me out,” he began. “Maybe you don't have to be the one who fixes every problem.”
“I'm the one who decided to bring my girls here.”
“And that's a problem because…”
“Leyria was supposed to be safer,” Harry added. “That was the whole point of this major upheaval, remember? But here we are with me recovering from a gunshot wound and a killer on the loose.”
Well, that confirmed it; telling him about Leo had been a bad idea. Though keeping it from him felt dishonest as all bloody hell. He noted this catch-22 as another example of the universe's general hostility. Oh, who was he kidding? The world was a beautiful place where everything worked out in the end. Geez…That hug from Anna really did a number on his cynicism.
Jack squinted at the other man, then shook his head slowly. “It's not your job to be Protector-Guy,” he said in exasperated tones. “You've got friends who love you, who will stand by you through this.”
Harry shut his eyes, trembling as he inhaled through his nose. “I just…” His words had the slight rasp of a man fighting off fatigue. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't been the one investigating that strange attack on Wesley Pennfield's office building. I think we can presume that the Leyrians would have still found their way to Earth. So what would that mean for me?”
“You'd be the crotchety old man who shook his cane at the spaceships for not being sufficiently saucer-like.”
“Funny.”
Their conversation was cut off by the sound of heavy footsteps and sobbing. Spatial awareness allowed Jack to perceive a teenage girl in shorts and a tank-top running on the sidewalk across the street.
Chewing on his lip, Jack turned his head to look at her. He blinked. “Well, this can't be good,” he muttered under his breath. “Hey, kid! What's wrong?”
The girl skidded to a stop and then rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Her makeup was ruined, her hair a mess. “Companion have mercy,” she spluttered. “There's been a murder.”
“A murder?” Jack exclaimed. “All right, miss, I'm gonna ask you to stay calm. I'm a Justice Keeper; so take me through it step by step.”
She turned to face them, then bent over and puked all over the sidewalk. Not a good sign; up until that moment, Jack had been hoping that maybe she just didn't have her facts straight, but a reaction like that usually meant that someone had seen a body. “The supply depot half a block that way.” She pointed up the street. “There's a body…Someone killed a man…Oh, Mercy.”
“It was supposed to be safe here,” Harry whispered. “God damn it, we should have just stayed in Ottawa.”
Jack shut his eyes tight, breathing deeply to calm himself. “It's going to be all right, miss,” he said, nodding to the girl. “I'd like you to give me your contact information so I can follow up with you.”
“And then?”
“Then you go home.”
The simple exchange of information took longer than he would have liked, but he reminded himself that this was part of his job. Of course, a teenager wasn't going to react to the sight of a dead body with the same stoicism as an adult who had b
een shot at. Hell, the poor kid didn't even ask for his badge before blurting out her address and multi-tool contact code. That was a sign of how trusting Leyrians were. Jack hoped that Harry was paying attention.
He got a few key details out of the kid; the supply depot had shut down when its automated security systems detected an intruder. The front window was smashed. She could see a body inside.
A few minutes later, the girl was walking away and shivering with every step, the odd sob coming out as a squeak. But she got control of herself. Mostly. Poor kid. No one should have to go through something like that.
“Can you get home by yourself?” Jack asked.
At his side, Harry was putting his weight on the cane, staring down at the ground with teeth bared. “Screw that,” he said. “I'm coming with you.”
“Harry…”
“No buts, Jack; you've got a crime scene to investigate, which means that you don't have time to take me home. And I won't go anyway.”
“Fine. Come with me.”
The supply depot was just a few minutes away on foot: a long rectangular building with a large front window. Leyrians had basic necessities like groceries, pharmaceuticals and hygiene products delivered by mail bots, but there was always a chance you might run out of something a little sooner than you had expected.
These supply depots were scattered throughout residential neighbourhoods for that reason. You showed up, presented ID with your multi-tool, and took what you needed, no questions asked. That was the beauty of abundance; there was more than enough of pretty much every commodity.
Half a dozen police officers in gray uniforms stood in a small cluster just outside the front entrance. There were security drones as well, these ones human shaped. Almost like the serving bot Harry kept in his kitchen but larger, sleeker and painted black.
“Excuse me!” Jack called out.
One of the officers turned around: a young woman with tanned skin and big brown eyes who wore her cap low. “I'm sorry; this is a crime scene,” she said. “You will have to come back at another-”
She cut off when Jack's multi-tool projected a hologram of his badge complete with picture and mini-dossier. Through the transparent image, Jack saw her shut her eyes and take a deep breath. “Go on in, sir.”
“You're doing a good job, Constable,” Jack said. “My associate will be joining me if that's all right.”
She made no protest – Leyrians had a habit of acquiescing to almost anything that a Justice Keeper asked of them; quite the opposite of Earth, really – and when the group of them parted, Jack led Harry to the entrance.
The front window was indeed shattered, and he could see shelves inside under the glare of bright lights. One of the security drones stood next to the opening and turned its camera-like head to look at him. It did nothing, however.
They went in through the sliding front door, noting the state of their surroundings. The aisles were all neat and clean and freshly stocked with canned goods, cereals, hair-care products and other necessities, almost as if they had been left completely untouched by whatever had happened here.
At the back of the room, a line of freezers contained various frozen desserts and ready-made meals, and one of those was shattered as well. Bits of glass were strewn all over the floor.
The corpse of a man was lying against that freezer with his legs stretched out, his head tilted to the side to stare blankly at nothing at all. He might have been handsome once, but his skin had that sickly gray pallor.
Two gray-uniformed officers who were scanning the corpse with their mulit-tools abruptly stopped and turned away from the body. “We'll let you take a look, sir,” one said as they strode past him.
As he approached the body, Jack wondered what would possess someone to kill a man over merchandise that could essentially be taken free of charge. There was just no reason to fight over this stuff. Something was wrong here.
Jack dropped to one knee.
He winced so hard that he trembled, his head drooping like a leaf weighed down by too much rain. “This is all wrong,” he muttered. “Harry, is any of this feeling just a little familiar to you?”
Behind him, the other man stood with both hands on his cane, inspecting the scene with that cop stare of his. “I don't know what you're getting at,” he replied. “I've seen my fair share of murders; this one reminds me of several.”
In a flash of inspiration, Jack lifted his left forearm and tapped commands into his multi-tool's screen, initiating a scan for a residual electrostatic charge. He waved his hand about to let the tool get a reading. When it beeped in confirmation, he knew exactly what he would find.
Covering his mouth with one hand, Jack shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “Just as I feared,” he said, nodding. “This freezer door was shattered by a projected force-field. But there's no blood…”
In fact, the floor was strangely dry. Glass all over the place, but no blood. What the hell was up with that? And why was the rest of the place in pristine condition? Shouldn't there be signs of a struggle? Merchandise knocked off shelves? “Officers?” Jack called out. “Someone come in here!”
One of the men who had been scanning the body came scurrying up behind him. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Have you checked the security camera logs?”
“We only just arrived before you did, sir,” the young officer explained. “We were in the process of downloading them.”
Tossing his head back with a grunt, Jack squinted. He nodded slowly as he took in that information. “Let me tell you what you'll find,” he said. “This poor guy wasn't killed here. Look for footage of someone carrying this body into the depot. The perpetrator will be male, tall with a lean build.”
“Quite the theory, Jack,” Harry said. “Care to explain?”
“Think back, Harry; where have you seen this before?”
“Like I said, I've seen a lot of-”
Jack stood up slowly, shaking his head in frustration. “Back in Ottawa,” he said. “We saw a crime scene just like this one. A gas station clerk murdered with a force-field generator.”
“God in Heaven…”
When he turned around, Harry was staring numbly with his mouth open, a sheen of sweat on the man's forehead. “It can't be,” Harry mumbled. “He wouldn't…Not just to get our attention. Not-”
“That's exactly what he'd do, and you know it,” Jack cut in. “This is a near perfect reconstruction of Leo's first murder. Except I don't think this man was killed with a force-field. Or if he was, it didn't happen here. Leo dragged the corpse in here, then blasted the freezer so we'd recognize the pattern. He chose a depot near your home because he knew that would get our attention. Which means he knows where you live, Harry.”
Jack took a moment to calm himself. There was a way out of this; they just had to improvise a solution. “Harry, is anyone at your house?”
“No. Claire's at school, and Melissa has classes this afternoon.”
“Call them both,” Jack said. “Make sure neither one comes home. Leo went to a lot of trouble to get our attention, and that can only mean that he's planning something truly nasty.”
Chapter 9
“You're sure it's Leo?”
Bathed in the glow of sunlight through her office window, Larani reclined in her chair with arms folded. Her face was stern as she observed the lot of them. “I can't deny the similarities between the two crime scenes, but why would Leo come here?”
Jack closed his eyes, nodding to her. “I know it can be hard to accept.” He strode forward until he was right in front of her desk, then leaned over with hands braced on its surface. “But the security camera footage confirms my hypothesis.”
Craning her neck to study him, Larani narrowed her eyes. “The perpetrator killed his victim elsewhere and brought him to the supply depot,” she said. “I admit that it looks like an attempt to get attention.”
It made Jack's flesh crawl.
Somewhere out there, Leo was starting yet anoth
er rampage. He had barely stopped the mayhem last time, and now Leo was back, killing for fun and terrorizing a city that was already reeling from shit Isara stirred up less than two months ago. A little voice in the back of his mind told him to blame himself for this.
He'd had Leo at his mercy, knocked out and helpless on a concrete floor; he could have ended it right there, but instead, Jack Hunter had chosen to show mercy. And now, others were paying the price for his compassion. Yes, there was a part of him that wanted to wallow in guilt and self-loathing, but that part of him no longer ruled him.
Showing mercy had been the right choice. Keepers preserved life; they didn't kill unless it was absolutely necessary. Blaming himself for the crimes of another man was the kind of self-indulgence on a privileged man could afford. Fortunately, he had friends to help him stuff Leo back into the deep dark hole he had crawled out of.
In her shorts and tank-top, Anna stood at his side with hands folded behind herself, biting her lip as she stared through the window. “So, he's out,” she said. “We'll just have to put him back in.”
Next to her, Harry was back in his wheelchair, his hands gripping the armrests as he shook his head. “That might be easier said than done,” he said. “The last time that he was loose, Leo outwitted our every attempt to capture him.”
Jack stiffened, then shut his eyes and huffed out a breath. “I don't care how hard it is,” he insisted. “We're putting him back on ice. Anna, I want you to look over the camera footage. See if you can-”
“Agent Hunter.”
Larani's voice cut him off.
When he looked up, she was watching him with one raised eyebrow. “Do you think it might be wise to let me make those decisions?” she said. “I am, after all, Chief Director of the Justice Keepers.”
His embarrassment was hard to contain, and for some reason, Summer was amused by his sudden display of authority, and Jack couldn't say that he blamed her. Who in their right mind would take direction from him? The Nassai's amusement turned to anger, but he stifled those emotions.
Jack went red, then touched two fingers to his forehead, hiding his face behind his hand. “You're right, Larani,” he said. “Sorry.”