by R S Penney
“No, no, no,” Leo purred. “First, we must decide how. Yes, yes. What can we do to really drive the point home?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Ben threw his head back to hit the other man's nose with the back of his skull. That should have stunned Leo, but the pressure against Ben's throat didn't lessen.
Leo just laughed.
Ben groaned with impotent rage. His life was going to end here, and it wouldn't have happened if they had just given him the means to defend himself. He hated them in that moment: Larani, Jack, Anna, all of them. They had put him in this position. They had left him naked in the storm. Malice grew within him, a storm of emotion perfectly symbolized by the sound of Leo's cruel laughter.
When he stepped into the Risali Tian Conference Centre, Jack found himself in a large, curving corridor with windows in the wall to his right and doors on his left that led to the various auditoriums. There were banners hanging from the high ceiling, proclaiming today's event to the world.
The tiles glistened as though freshly polished, and the potted plants along each wall looked vibrant despite the wan light of an overcast afternoon outside. None of that really held his attention, however. What got him was the silence. That could only mean that Ben was already on stage.
He broke into a sprint.
Jack shut his eyes, then shook his head violently. “Not that late yet,” he panted as he scrambled through the empty corridor. “Just gonna slip in quietly, and maybe he won't even notice…”
Up ahead, one of the doors to his left flew open, and hundreds of people flowed out of the auditorium in a quivering throng. They ran for the exits, some of them heading his way. God, did they seven see him?
Jack stopped short.
His jaw dropped, and he blinked at the oncoming crowd. “What the bloody hell?” His voice was drowned out in the din, and pretty soon, they were running past him like water flowing around a rock in a river.
Jack crossed his forearms in front of his face, stepping back by instinct. “Oh, this cannot be good,” he whispered. “Only one thing turns rational people into a stampede of rampaging animals.”
Terror.
When the last stragglers were gone, he was alone again. The banners on the ceiling were flapping in the wind they had kicked up. So, what could have spooked these folks to the point where they ran away in a blind panic? Jack had a feeling he knew, but he didn't want to entertain that thought. Not here, he told himself. The bastard wouldn't have come here…would he?
Reaching for the pistol that should have been on his belt, he found nothing there – of course, he wasn't going to bring a firearm to an IT conference; he was off duty – and then resolved to press forward anyway.
He approached the open door with caution and peeked inside. He saw exactly what he had been expecting; twelve rows of empty seats led down to a stage where Leo stood with a knife pressed to Ben's throat. The sight of it made Jack want to vomit. Once again, he had dragged someone else into this.
Ben was deathly pale, staring blankly ahead at nothing in particular. “Just do it,” he said in a breathy voice. “If you're going to kill me, why don't you just get on with it?”
“No, no,” Leo said. “Not yet.”
A grin split the man's face when his eyes fell upon Jack, and then he threw his head back and laughed. “It seems my prayers have been answered!” Leo shouted. “The Inzari have provided me with an audience!”
“Jack…” Ben mumbled.
“Stay calm; I'll get you out of this.”
“Oh, yes,” Leo purred, pressing the knife harder against Ben's throat, provoking a hiss of pain from his victim. “Good, good! That's perfect! Make the empty promises. It's sweeter when you stick to the cliches.”
Jack squinted at him, holding the other man's gaze. “You don't want Ben,” he said, starting down the aisle between seats. “This was never about him; so, let him go, and you can have me.”
Snapping his teeth together mere inches from Ben's ear – almost as if he intended to bite it – Leo offered a throaty growl in response. “Tanaben is the reason my plan to kill you failed. Do you remember?”
Jack remembered.
He could see it all in his mind: the crash of the living room window as he jumped through it, shattered glass falling to the ground. The pain of landing in the grass. Turning around to find a Death Sphere pointing its lens at him.
There was fear in his mind, and not all of it was his; Summer was aching to protect Ben from this madman. She loved him too, Jack realized. God help him, he didn't know what he would do if…
Blinking tears away, Jack shook his head to dispel the thought. “I've always been the one you wanted, Leo,” he pleaded. “Let Ben go, and you can have me. I won't even put up a fight.”
Leo stuck out his tongue, then shut his eyes tight and trembled with laughter. “The arrogance,” he said. “To assume you're the only one that I want to kill. No, old man, I'm afraid that I've been craving Tanaben's blood as much as yours.”
“Then do it!” Ben shouted.
“Shut up, Ben!”
“It won't stop here,” Leo promised. “Lenai. I have plans for her.”
“If you go near her,” Jack said. “If you so much as get within one hundred miles of her, I will end you.”
Leo's victorious grin made his blood curdle. The man looked up at the ceiling with an expression of pure rapture. “There's the Jack I wanted to see!” he exclaimed. “The real Jack, buried under all that indoctrination.”
“You can't win.”
“Oh, but I can. I already have.”
In one quick motion, Leo dragged the knife across Ben's throat. “No!” Jack shouted as he watched his friend stagger. Blood fountained from the wound, and Ben sank to his knees, clutching at his neck as though that would save him.
Jack ran down the aisle, arms pumping, breath rasping as it scraped its way out of his lungs. “No…” Everything seemed to be happening too slowly. His friend collapsed to the floor, one leg twitching.
Leo danced backward with the blood-stained knife in one hand, a gleeful smile on his boyish face. “Yes!” he exclaimed. “Oh yes! That couldn't have gone better!”
Jack leaped without the need for Bent Gravity, landing on the edge of the stage and dropping to one knee. “No…” he whispered. “No, no, no, no! Just hang on! We'll get you to a hospital!”
He rolled Ben onto his back only to find the man staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes and skin that was already turning gray. It was over. There was no consciousness in that dead gaze, no spark of life.
The knife clattered to the floor in front of him, its crimson blade dripping from the tip. When he looked up, Leo stood over him with fists on his hips, grinning triumphantly. “I'll leave you to grieve.”
The man jumped from the stage and ran up the aisle toward the open door, cackling all the way. “We'll see each other again soon, Jack!” he cried out in a booming voice that filled the auditorium. “I have big plans!”
Jack closed his eyes, tears streaming over his cheeks, dripping from his chin. He shook his head in denial. “No,” he choked out. “Oh please, God, no! You can't take him. You can't…”
Something lit a fire inside him, rage spreading from his core through every vein in his body, propelling him to his feet. “Leo!”
Summer was with him! He could sense it. Her grief was like gasoline on that fire inside of him, and without one word, they agreed that they would end this once and for all. Together. “LEO!”
Jack turned.
He jumped from the stage, Bent Gravity sending him like an arrow over the seats, toward the door at the back of the room. He landed with a grunt and rushed out into the concourse, searching for his prey.
Leo was just outside the door with his back turned, facing windows that looked out on the street. “You piece of shit!” Jack screamed. “You're that jazzed about death? Maybe it's time you met Him yourself!”
The murderous piece of gutter-trash turned around with a great big smile
, no doubt intending to say something biting. That was his way. To gloat over somebody else's pain, to revel in it.
Well, not today.
Jack punched him in the nose with a sickening crunch. He spun at full speed, one hand whirling round to clip Leo across the cheek. The other man was forced to stumble backward and catch his balance.
Jack came around to face him.
He jumped and kicked out only to have Leo reach up at the last second and catch his foot before it made contact. His opponent used Bent Gravity. Unseen hands yanked Jack backwards.
He slammed into the metal bar between the doors and doubled over with a wheeze, pain arcing through his body. He shook his head and hissed as spatial awareness alerted him to a new threat.
Leo came at him.
The other man jumped and turned his body for a flying side-kick that would flatten anyone in its path. Despite the pain, Jack threw himself out of the way.
Leo's foot hit the metal bar and ripped the damn thing off its mountings. Shrieking in impotent rage, the other man landed just inside the auditorium, behind the last row of seats. “You never learn, do you?”
“Is it quick quips you're looking for?” Jack asked in a breathy voice. “'Fraid I'm all out of those today. I'm just gonna kill you.”
Leo turned around to face him with flushed cheeks and sweat-soaked hair. “Fine by me,” he said. “If I had known that killing your friends would get your head in the game, I would have started a long time ago.”
“You tried, remember?” Jack shot back. “I put you down.”
Snarling like a feral beast, Leo strode out of the auditorium and shook his head in disgust. “It sickens me to see you.” His words were a desperate croak. “All that power, and you waste it on these sheep.”
“Shut up and fight.”
Leo spun for a hook-kick.
Bending his knees, Jack raised one fist up beside his head, intercepting the man's ankle before a boot made contact with his skull. The sudden reversal of momentum made Leo bring his leg down and stumble, turning his back reflexively.
Jack kicked him in the ass.
His opponent went sprawling through the open doorway, back into the auditorium where he slammed into the last row of seats. He slumped over like a drunken man trying to get his balance.
Jack followed him in.
Leo turned around to bare his teeth in quiet fury. The man strode forward, drew back his fist and threw a punch.
Leaning to his left, Jack brought his right hand up to strike the man's forearm and knock the blow off course. He straightened and used the other hand to deliver a quick jab to the face, one that made Leo stumble.
Jack jumped.
He spun in mid-air and kicked out behind himself, aiming for the other man's nose. When his foot hit nothing but empty air, he knew he was in trouble. Whirling around as he landed, Jack saw that Leo had crouched.
The other man popped up in front of him and threw a punch that took Jack right between the eyes, blurring his vision. As he struggled to regain his balance, he tracked his enemy with the gift of spatial awareness.
Leo jumped and planted both feet in Jack's chest, kicking with the force of an angry bull. Anyone without a symbiont would have broken ribs. As it was, Jack was thrown against the wall next to the door, wheezing on impact.
“You bastard!” Jack said, shaking his head. “Is that the best you've got?”
Leo charged forward.
With a feral scream, Jack leaped and propelled himself over the other man's head. He kicked the back of Leo's skull and sent his opponent face-first into the wall. Now, it was time to end this.
Jack landed and turned around to find Leo standing with both hands braced against the wall, gulping air into his lungs and trying to stay upright. “You can't imagine the thrill that I felt,” Leo said.
He turned to face Jack with a lazy smile, a thin trail of blood leaking from his nose. “When I cut his throat,” Leo whispered. “When I watched his broken body give one last spasm and go still.”
Rage filled Jack's mind, drowning out every other thought, urging him to action. This man…this creature… wasn't human. There was nothing good left within Leo. Only a sick desire to inflict pain and glory in the suffering of others. Men like him were garbage. Filth from the dregs of the gene pool.
They had to pay for their sins.
Before Jack realized what he was doing, he sprang into motion and seized the other man's face in both hands. He was going to end it! He was going to make certain that Leo could never hurt another living soul, and he was going to do it in the most painful way he could imagine. By ripping his enemy apart from the inside out!
He reached out to Summer and crafted a Bending…tried to craft a Bending. Panic welled up when he realized that something was wrong. He used every last scrap of his willpower, but space-time would not obey his commands.
It was Summer.
The Nassai's disgust at what Jack had planned was laid bare in his mind. Recoiling in horror, Summer had refused to help him, and now he was on his own.
Leo's grin deepened, and he trembled with laughter as Jack clutched his face. “You tried to kill me, didn't you?” His words were like icicles through Jack's heart. “You tried to torture me with a Bending, and your little friend refused.”
Leo slammed his palm into Jack's chest.
Bent Gravity pulled Jack backward, and he landed atop several empty seats. What had he done? What had he allowed himself to become? A failure. A disgrace to the Justice Keepers. What would Anna think if she knew?
Leo spread his arms wide and floated upward, tossing his head back and roaring with triumphant laughter. “I was going to kill you, Jack!” he exclaimed. “But this is so much worse. Instead, I've broken you!”y.
As Leo descended to the floor, he placed one hand over his heart and bowed low. “I won't kill you,” he said. “Why would I? Killing you would only be a mercy. Ending your life would be pointless…now that I've made you into me.”
Jack groaned.
The other man turned his back and marched to the door, pausing there with a hand on the door-frame. “We'll see you soon, Jack,” he said. “You're finally ready for what the Inzari have planned.”
The end of part 1.
Interlude
As he looked out on a crowd of people milling about – shopping, socializing and going about their daily lives – Slade felt…nothing. Not contempt, not disgust. Certainly not any sense of kinship. Normally, watching humans go about their daily routines left him with a sense of exasperation that he should have to concern himself with such plebeian affairs, but today…nothing.
The railing he had chosen as his vantage point overlooked a large open floor where tables were spread out on the green carpets. Less than a third were occupied. This wasn't a fancy restaurant or trendy night club. The citizens of this floating island came here for a quick meal and nothing more.
Kiosks were built into each wall, offering delicacies from every corner of Ragnos. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they were offering rough approximations of those delicacies.
On the far side of the floor, young men and women passed through body scanners only to have a guard in full riot gear wave a wand up and down in front of them not two seconds later. Searching for weapons, no doubt. As if they would find anything.
Any youth from the surface who managed to get a job on one of the islands would never ruin such an opportunity by violating a security protocol. Anyone with two brain cells could see that scans were not about security. Their real purpose was to remind the surface dwellers of their place.
Every citizen of this island would swear up and down that the security checks were absolutely necessary. Surface dwellers were less sophisticated, they said, more prone to acts of violence. Slade had heard it all before, and he was long past believing such things. No matter where you went, humans were humans.
And they were all scum.
“There you are.”
The Drethen s
ymbiont that Slade carried allowed him to perceive the murky and colourless image of Renos Taleri coming up behind him. The portly man stopped just a few feet away. “We have to talk.”
Shutting his eyes, Slade breathed deeply and resisted the urge to snap this man's neck. “Do we now?” he asked in a calm, collected voice. “And tell me, friend, just what do we have to talk about?”
“The attack on the anti-gravity stabilizer.”
His lips curled into a small smile, but Slade kept his back turned so that the other man would not see his satisfaction. “This again,” he said. “Renos, I have told you many times that the attack was an isolated incident.”
The other man crossed his arms, glowering at Slade's back. “You also spent many months warning me of the danger,” he said. “If only I had listened. The City Council will be meeting to discuss new security measures for critical areas.”
“Excellent.”
“Footage of the attack has even attracted the attention of the governor,” Renos went on. “I have it on good authority from a friend in Fedreen that the Systems Parliament will be looking into this situation.”
With a slow, careful grace, Slade turned around to lean against the railing with his arms folded. This time, he made no effort to hide his satisfied smile. “Then it seems you have everything well in hand.”
Renos shut his eyes, shaking as he inhaled through his nose. “You've been to that part of space, my friend,” he said. “I've arranged for you to speak with the governor after he interviews our security personnel.”
“And what would you have me tell him?”
“The same thing that you've been telling me for months,” Renos answered. “The Leyrians and their Justice Keepers, the Antaurans and their telepaths. It is vital that our officials understand the danger now that these massive SlipGates are active.”
“Very well,” Slade cooed. “I'll do what I can.”
The footage of Slade humiliating the guards that defended this island played on a monitor that was hung on the wall. He saw himself plowing into a group of men in full armour, and then the screen went dark. Of course, he had been wearing a mask on that day. So far as he could tell, no one had caught on to his ruse.