by Mel Todd
It didn't matter really, all that mattered was getting to McKenna and the kids. Following where the GPS sent them, they ended up on something that could barely be called a road, but the clouds of dust in the distance let him know others had gotten there first.
"Hang on," he ordered Toni and stepped on it. At that moment he didn't give a damn how bumpy the ride was, he needed to get there.
This is why I have this blasted gas hog in the first place.
He came to a dirt-throwing stop and all but flew out of the car. The scene took him less than a second to take in, and he broke into a run as his heart damn near burst in happiness.
A cougar sat over a body, blood on the lips and whiskers, sheriff's cars surrounding her, the deputies out pointing guns at her as she sat and looked at them.
She's alive. She's okay and that means the kids are, too.
Without a thought to the idiots with the guns, he ran towards her and knelt in front of her, his world clicking back into normality. Trusting McKenna had been the best thing he'd ever done.
6
Ashes
They have delayed the official press release for the return of the kidnapped people. Officers Largo and Davidson have been seen, as has the NFL player Perc Alexander. They were spotted at the airport with the other two women. Rumors have leaked saying they were used as a hit squad for a drug lord in Colombia. Is that what will happen to shifters now? Being used to kill people as they don't need weapons, coming with an arsenal built into their bodies. This is a scary thought to know that they must have succeeded in their mission. Who sanctioned it, and why aren't charges being pressed? Are shifters immune to due process? ~Harvey Klein talk show.
After all the bombs dropped at dinner the after they returned from the jungle, it felt unreal to JD to be standing in front of his house. Damaged yes, but not irreparable. And did it matter? The words of Wefor rang in his head. The Elentrin were coming. They'd been here soon. Between the aliens, trying to figure out how to get people to believe them, and their friends taking AIs and nanobots in stride, this whole burned-house issue somehow seemed anti-climatic.
JD walked through the fire, smoke, and water damage and sighed.
How did they manage to do this? Those kids will be impossible as teenagers. If we live that long.
That sobered him. He wanted to see them as teenagers, as adults. They were his as much as McKenna, Perc, Toni, and Cass were his.
Cass.
A smile curved his face as he thought of her.
"Something funny, Mr. Davidson?" The voice of the insurance inspector asked, looking at him suspiciously.
"No. Sorry. Mind wandering. Did you have the damage total?"
"Yes. You will have the check tomorrow. It should be more than enough to repair the damage." The man looked over his glasses up at JD. "Next time don't let kids that young cook unsupervised."
That almost started JD laughing but he managed to nod gravely. "I'll make sure of it, thanks." The man nodded and headed out. With a sigh, JD got some clothes, toiletries, uniform, and a few other personal items. Until the place was thoroughly cleaned it really wasn't livable.
He gave his recliner a morose look. It hadn't survived the water damage.
I liked that recliner, dang it.
Shaking his head he locked the door and headed to the truck, bags in hand. He had a sneaking suspicion he'd never be home again, not for good. So much had happened in the last few months, between shifting, new people, an AI, getting kidnapped, and now aliens, he didn't recognize his life. But JD couldn't wait to get back to his people. All of them, more important than his birth family had ever tried to be.
Getting his bags in the Hummer, he headed to the station. He had paperwork to fill out, stuff to turn in for McKenna and wanted to give Kirk and Anne an update about the eventful meeting at Homeland. And what they had accomplished.
On the drive he couldn't help but think of Cass. And the fact she actually seemed to like him.
~Are you thinking of me?~ Her voice pinged on his conscious like a breath of spring air, and he smiled.
Kenna forging those links to remove distance was the best thing ever. It makes this easier, not as stressful being away from them.
~Did I ping you accidentally?~ JD asked, glad he didn't have to speak. His voice might catch if he did, and he kept his joy at the links working over such a distance tamped down.
He could almost hear her thoughtful silence, was that even possible? But after the days in the jungle talking mind to mind, he had learned to read the silences in between, for all of them. But Cass, she was special and it mattered more.
~Yes? No? More like your connection had a strange flavor. And really how can my mind tell me a thought tastes like strawberry? But does that mean you were?~ A bit of hope filtered down the line and his face split in a grin.
~Mostly thinking of all the weirdness in the last few months. And how much all of you matter to me. It is kinda odd. For so long Kenna was the only family I had, now I have all of you.~ He deflected a bit, not willing to risk his daydreams slipping down the line. That would be embarrassing.
~Yes. I feel the same way. Almost closer than Helena, definitely closer than my mother. ~ Cass laughed, the sound having a taste of pink bubbles. ~So with all of us in a wait-and-see mode after the Homeland Security thing, what now?~
~I don't know. I'm headed to work. Need to talk to the people there, deal with real life stuff, but it seems so unreal.~
~Oh, I know. I'm back at work and I swear Chuck acts like I took a week of vacation without permission rather than being taken to another country against my will. I swear if he makes one more snide remark, I'm going to shift and growl at him.~
JD didn't know if he wanted to go and let this Chuck know that mistreating Cass would be a bad idea or see her cow the man herself.
~Well, let me know if you need backup.~
Warmth filled her tones. ~No, I can handle him, but yes, I miss all of you, too. It feels odd to not have you sleeping next to me. To know you're there.~ An odd tone at the end of that thought.
~Yeah. But hey, this is better than nothing, right.~
~Oh, yes. I'm not sure I would've been able to stand it otherwise.~ A mental sigh filtered through. ~Need to go. Meeting and a new assignment for me. They had to hand off my fungus when I disappeared. Oh, joy.~ Her lack of enthusiasm filtered through, and he wanted to pull her into a hug.
~Not a problem. I'm pulling into the station now. Talk to you later.~ A pulse of a warm soft emotion, then her connection closed.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness he pulled into a parking slot and headed into the station.
Walking in, he was greeted with smiles and waves, a few people grabbing him as he headed deeper in to find out how much they heard was truth versus rumor. It took him almost forty-five minutes to get to Anne's office.
She looked up at him, and her face had a certain graveness. "How you guys doing?"
He shrugged. "Figured I'd give you and Kirk an update so you know what's going down."
She nodded, slipping out from behind her desk. "Let's go talk to him. He'll make time to see us."
JD didn't know if he should feel honored or worried at Anne's knowledge Kirk would drop other things to talk to them. He decided pretty quickly it was worried.
Anne stepped into the doorway first, and Kirk looked up, his face paling as he saw JD. "Marchant, I have to go. I'll talk to you later." He hung up before the chief of police on the other end could say anything. "Come in, shut the door."
JD entered and closed it behind them as requested and leaned against the wall. Anne took a seat while Kirk seemed to lean back bracing himself. "Spill. Where are we at?"
JD shrugged. "I don't really know for sure. We went to Homeland and were about to have our butts kicked out on the street, when Wefor asked why we didn't call the Secretary of State and rattled off the phone number. McKenna dialed it from Homeland and it went through. We gave him everything we could. But whether he think
s we need to be arrested for our own protection or that there's any truth to what we said, we have no idea. McKenna wants to give it a week. So if we don't hear something by Sunday," JD twitched his kilt, trying to stay calm. "Then, well, it might get scary."
Kirk leaned forward, body tense. "Which means what exactly?"
JD took a deep breath, his own stress bubbling up. As much as he tried hard to portray easy-going, his need to do something crawled up and down him almost as much as it did to McKenna. "That she'll go on YouTube and expose everything. Warrior form, aliens, the AI, everything." Both Kirk and Anne paled, and he could almost see them thinking about contingency plans. "We can't think of anything else to do. We don't have any contacts that high up in government. SETI has thousands of messages to go through to get to ours." He shrugged, trying to keep up the act, but the panic that would cause would be extreme, and they all hated that idea.
Kirk sighed. "I've tried to talk to Marchant. But it looks like I'm going to have to go hard core with aliens are coming and convince him to not lock me up. Any other proof you can give?"
JD shrugged. "I can give you the same proof as we gave the Secretary of State. But without a huge telescope and the ability to translate coordinates I don't know if it would do any good."
"Damn. I was afraid that might be the answer." Kirk bowed his head then lifted it, eyes bleak. "They are still coming?"
"As far as we know. Maybe Wefor is wrong, lying to us, and this is all a huge joke." JD said, a half-twist to his lips.
Not that we would be anywhere near that lucky.
Kirk sighed. "I can but hope. I'll tell Marchant and see if I can give the Governor a heads-up. But not like we can do much. Let us know if anything changes, okay?"
"Will do." JD nodded and left them, determined to finish paperwork and get back to McKenna's. The impact to his body and the oof of escaping air brought him sharply back to awareness of the world around him.
Raul Hernandez stood glaring at him, coffee dripping down his front.
Coffee abuse, I swear.
"What is it with you, Davidson? You really are the brawn, and without McKenna you can't even think, much less not bump into people in the hall? Damn, too bad people can't manage to do what they promised to. Failing twice is annoying." With a muttered curse, Raul turned and headed towards the lockers.
JD pivoted slowly watching him, his head tilted slightly.
~Kenna?~
~Yeah?~ She sounded distracted and worried. Normal for her lately.
~You talked to Internal Affairs about Raul right?~
He could feel her attention sharpen to what he said. ~Yeah, I talked to Amanda Bohn. But she didn't seem impressed. Why?~
~I just ran into him, and he said something that struck me as extremely odd. Think I'm going to go drop by and talk to her.~ He sent the message even as he redirected his path towards the IA office.
~Good luck with that. That woman doesn't believe anything that isn't in black and white. Okay, I'm going back to getting this place organized. Really, why did I bring so much crap with me?~
JD just laughed at that and wove through the station to the small office. The Germanic woman sat at a desk, her white blond hair reflecting the overhead fluorescent lights.
"Sergeant Bohn? You have a minute?"
"Depends. Do you have anything to actually talk to me about or are you wasting my time?" She barely glanced at him before going to back what she'd been looking at on the computer.
For a moment JD wondered if he should tell her about the aliens but figured that might not go over well.
"I understand McKenna Largo talked you about some concerns she had about Raul Hernandez."
Amanda lifted her gaze and leaned back, her eyes cold on his. "She did, but all she had was her word against his. We talked to him, and he said she's out of control, all the fame has gone to her head, and is grandstanding. At this point all we have is conjecture and I don't have enough evidence to start a full investigation on either of them."
JD crossed his arms, and she glowered at him. "Do not try to intimidate me, Detective Davidson. I don't do intimidation."
"What?" JD looked down and took in his body language and sighed. "I'm not trying to, just more comfortable. My kilt doesn't have pockets to shove my hands into."
She didn't look like she believed him, but she relaxed a bit watching him. "If you have nothing else? I have work to do. Some of us haven't been gallivanting around South America."
JD almost choked at that but decided to let it slide. "Did she happen to tell you there was video evidence of him verbally attacking both of us?"
Her body lost any pretense of relaxed contempt, and she all but sprang to her feet. "No, she did not. Why did I not know of this?"
"I'm not sure if she was fully aware or even remembered the filming by the time she talked to you. Waris should have the video tape of the test of our noses. He ranted at us and I'm pretty damn sure we were still live on tape. So it should be at the very end of that video. Might want to take a look at it."
"I see. I'll look into it. We done?" Her fingers twitched a bit, and JD shook his head.
That woman is the most cold, hard person I've ever met. Is that good or bad for this job?
"From my point of view, yes." He didn't bother to say good-bye, he had the distinct feeling she wouldn't care one way or the other.
He spent another two hours filling out paperwork, pinging McKenna occasionally so he could fill out her parts properly. Even if he wasn't supposed to log in with her ID and password. It made it go much faster and ensured everything matched up. Neither of them really cared about departmental procedures at this moment, and he had the sneaking suspicion they'd never come back to work again. Part of him mourned that loss. The other? He didn't know. Something waited on the horizon.
Stopping here is becoming an all-day thing. If McKenna wasn't busy trying to be Julia Child to distract herself, I'd call and see what she wanted for dinner. What will Toni cook tonight?
Food had become difficult to eat so the more savory the better. And while he and Cass had a love of sweets, the rest of the predator shifters didn't as much. The animal natures coming out, he supposed. His thoughts still bouncing as he headed back to his vehicle. It was Tuesday and they had days before they had to decide their course of action. And then a week or two before the Elentrin showed up and everything ended. Once again he reminded himself to trust McKenna. And Wefor this time.
He climbed into his Hummer, thinking of grabbing a case of beer on the way home. Not like he'd get drunk, and a cold beer sounded like it might help. He settled in and glanced at the passenger seat, his gaze arrested by the bag laying on it.
Oh yeah. One more stop. But this is important.
7
Favors
Chatter is still high about the SETI competition, though just as many are betting on it being I Love Lucy transcripts. Though the furor has sparked new discussions about how aliens would be received. The recent appearance of Shifters has given some people hope that maybe we would handle it better than we thought, but some areas of the country are still torn about Shifters. While the Middle East seems to have grabbed onto it as another reason to kill people, in the US for the most part, people are treating it like sexual preference. Don't ask if you don't want to know. ~TNN News.
He backed out of the station lot and headed to Sacramento. They weren't a huge police force, which meant they used the state's technicians for some things. Anything IT related got outsourced to the state techies. It made life easier, though he'd have to beg a bit more to keep this under the radar.
Parking his big vehicle in the parking garage proved its normal challenge. He headed inside. At the security check he showed his ID to get in with his weapon, no way was he not being armed anymore. Too many people were coming after them.
A few nods at people he knew, more in passing than anyone that would even qualify as an acquaintance, he headed towards the basement. It seemed liked governments always put the IT dep
artment in the basement. He'd never figured out why, but most people didn't come down here. Which suited him, and most geeks, just fine.
He opened the door into a big lab with some desks at the back. Only two were occupied. One by a young Hispanic woman, the other by Joey Tran. The person he needed.
"Hey, Joey. How goes it?"
The small man looked up, bright black eyes that crinkled around the edges as he smiled. His straight black hair in a short crew cut.
"JD, hey! It goes." He sprang up, having more energy than most two-year-olds. Standing up, he was actually shorter than Cass, barely coming up to JD's sternum, with a slight frame typical to the Hmong. "I heard about your adventure." He cast a sharp eye up and down JD. "Yeah, you did lose weight. You'll have to spend weeks in the gym to make up that bulk. So what brings you to my lair?" He talked in quick rapid English, his hands moving as fast as his words.
JD grinned and leaned on the desk, lowering himself a bit so he didn't feel quite as much like a giant.
"Wanted to see if you could do me a favor and keep it quiet."
Joey tilted his head. "Anything I'm going to get in trouble for?"
That's a good question. But I don't think so. Since it crossed country lines we never mentioned this hard drive, and everyone assumed we left the computer there.
"Doubt it. More a personal favor."
"Ah, no worries, though swear some day people will stop asking me to fix their computers." Joey smirked, but the humor didn't reach his eyes.
"I'm afraid this isn't that boring." JD reached into the bag, a generic reusable grocery bag, and pulled out the SSD. It was a bit worse for wear with its being dragged across rough country and then back into the US.
Joey had his hand out to grab it, turning it over and over. "What did you do to this? Drag it across your lawn? Is this grass?" He picked out a strand of green and looked at JD with an incredulous look.
"You could say that. Dragged it across half of Colombia."