by R S Penney
He closed his eyes, bowing his head to her. “We're on the same team here,” he said with a bit too much strain in his voice. “I was scheduled to meet with the professor this morning. I heard about the break in, and I just want some information.”
The woman spun around, marching back to the door with a soft sigh. “I'd be happy to give you that information,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Just as soon as I get authorization to do so.”
“Mind if I ask your name?”
“Telena Blathe,” she said. “Operative Telena Blathe.”
Ben had never heard of her, but then the Service was a very large organization. There were tens of thousands of intelligence agents spread throughout Leyrian Space. It was ludicrous to think he would know all or even most of them. “I'm putting a call into Director Sloan's office,” the woman said.“We'll get this sorted out.”
She went back inside the house without another word, leaving him to chew on his anxieties. Ben waited. There was nothing else he could do. Coming here had been a bad idea – he saw that now – but there was no way he could have anticipated the presence of another agent.
Well, no. Even that was a little self-indulgent. A break-in like this was guaranteed to draw in Keepers and intelligence officers, but he'd been trying to keep up appearances. So far as he had known, they weren't directly tracking his movements, and telling Jack that he'd prefer to avoid visiting the crime scene would only lead to questions that he would rather not answer.
Ben watched the young police officers gathered together on the front lawn, huddled up so that he could only see the backs of their shirts. They were bored out of their skulls; he could tell. Someone from their department had to liaise with LIS, but these poor cops wouldn't get a crack at the crime scene until the higher ups were finished. That being the case, there was nothing for them to do but wait and gossip.
When the door swung open, the person who stepped out was not Telena Blathe but a shorter woman in green pants and a gray t-shirt. Raven-black hair framed a face of pale skin with cheekbones so sharp you might have cut yourself on them, and her eyes were a fierce emerald green. “Agent Loranai,” she said.
“That's right.”
She planted fists on her hips and stood there like a statue of Lenara, Goddess of Justice. “I'm Operative Calissa Narin,” she said. “I've been instructed to bring you to the nearest Justice Keeper office.”
“For what purpose?”
She winced, tossing her head about in frustration. “Agent, we can do this one of two ways,” she said, stepping forward. “You can come with me now and spare yourself a great deal of embarrassment. Or I can formally arrest you, put you in handcuffs and drag you to the office myself.”
Ben looked up to meet her gaze, struggling to keep his face smooth. “That's a nice tough girl act,” he said, nodding slowly. “But it really doesn't change anything. You want me to come with you? You're gonna tell me why.”
The woman sniffed. There was something about her… It took a moment for him to put it together, but Calissa Narin moved and spoke with too much authority for someone with such youthful features. She was a Justice Keeper.
Brilliant! Just what he needed! Not only did he have the Service monitoring him, but now the bloody Keepers were getting in on it.
Behind the other woman, Telena Blathe stepped into the front door and watched the whole scene with a wary expression. This wasn't going well at all. Clearly they'd received orders to apprehend him. If he forced a conflict with a Keeper, an intelligence agent and half a dozen cops…
Calissa studied him with nostrils flaring, contempt blazing in those hard green eyes. “I'm waiting, Agent,” she said with enough volume to make the cops stop talking. “If you don't agree to come with me, I will arrest you.”
“Sorry. I still-”
Calissa drew her gun from its holster, thrusting her arm out to point the barrel right in his face. Instinct kicked in before he could even think. Ben tapped a button on his belt, triggering a force-field generator.
A wall of flickering energy appeared before him just in time to intercept a slug that would have splattered his brains all over the yard. The smoking bullet fell to the ground. What in Bleakness was this? No Keeper would be so quick to use lethal force.
He tapped the button again.
The force-field jerked forward, but Calissa blurred into a streak of colour, moving a few steps to the left. Out of the way. Instead, the force-field zipped right past her and sent Telena Blake flying back into the house.
The woman was right there!
Ben rounded on her.
He kicked the gun out of her hand, then moved in for a vicious palm strike. Calissa bent over backwards, moving with languid grace.
Her hand came up to seize his wrist, and the next thing Ben knew, there was a fist slamming into his nose. Everything went blurry for half a moment, tears welling up to fill his vision.
Two hands slammed into his chest, pushing him away with Keeper strength. Ben went flying backward, then landed hard on his ass in the middle of the front lawn. Pain made it difficult to breathe.
As his vision cleared, he saw the woman striding toward him, her face twisted into the kind of snarl you would only expect to find on a wounded animal. She intended to kill him with her bare hands!
Ben raised his right arm up in front of his face. “Multi-tool active!” he bellowed. “Execute Program Four.” The screen on his gauntlet began to flash with brilliant white light in a strobing pattern.
Calissa stumbled for a moment.
It was all he needed.
Ben rolled to the side, then reached into his pocket to retrieve a disk about half the size of his palm. He threw it, and watched as adhesive on the back side allowed it to stick to the wall of the house.
Calissa was staggering backward with both hands raised up to shield her face. That strobe light would give anyone who looked directly at it quite a headache. “What are you waiting for?” she hissed at the cops. “Kill him!”
The uniformed officers just stood there, unsure of what to do. Some shared glances with one another, but no one moved to follow that order. They knew how it was supposed to work. Keepers went out of their way to preserve life; if Calissa was so eager to employ deadly force, she was probably on the wrong side of this conflict.
Ben thrust a fist toward her. “Target acquisition!”
His multi-tool spat a swarm of nanobots that converged upon Calissa and then dug into the fabric of her shirt. The woman stumbled backward in surprise, furiously trying to brush them away. “Execute Program Seven!” Ben ordered.
The disk that he had attached to the house suddenly came to life, unfolding like the petals of a blossoming flower to reveal a thin, tube-like protrusion underneath. That tube reoriented itself to point at Calissa.
It fired an orange particle beam.
Calissa blurred into a streak of colour, moving just a few steps closer to the house before solidifying again. The particle beam hit the ground where she had been standing, leaving a scorch mark in the grass.
His drone began to recharge its emitters. It would only fire at the nanobots he had released from his multi-tool. The police officers were safe so long as they didn't get too close to Calissa. This gave Ben a moment.
He got to his feet with some effort, drawing a pistol from his belt-holster. “Stun-rounds!” The LEDs on his weapon turned blue, indicating that it had switched to non-lethal ammunition.
He fired.
Calissa thrust a hand out toward him, and the air before her seemed to ripple just before a charged slug slowed to a stop in mid-flight. The bullet looped around in a tight arcing turn, then sped off across the front lawn.
It hit one of the cops square in the chest and caused the man to spasm before he fell to the ground in a pain. Damn it! If Ben didn't put a stop to this soon, there would be a lot more than smuggled weapons weighing on his conscience.
His drone finished recharging.
It took aim once again.
Calissa jumped, flipping through the air and then uncurling to land just a few feet away. “You're a clever one,” she said as the orange particle beam hit the ground where she had been just a few seconds earlier.
Ben hesitated before firing – he didn't want to give this bitch a chance to redirect his bullets toward the police officers – but that only provided her with an opportunity to turn her back on him and run toward the house.
She stooped low near the front entrance, snatching up her pistol before standing up straight again. In a heartbeat, she had the gun pointed up at the house. “EMP!”
A glowing bullet struck the drone that Ben had loosed, causing sparks to flash over its body. Half a moment later, the disk exploded in a bright flash that left a scorch mark on the wall of the house. The thing wasn't as powerful as a Death Sphere, but still very dangerous when destroyed.
Calissa spun around.
Ben watched as half a dozen people in gray uniforms ran past him, lifting pistols in both hands and pointing them at the raging Justice Keepers. “Freeze!” one of the women shouted. “Stay down or we'll put you down.”
Licking his lips, Ben closed his eyes. “Even you can't evade that many bullets,” he said, taking a cautious step forward. “My suggestion is to just stand down before we have to do something drastic.”
The muzzle of a gun touched his back.
“The same goes for you.”
He'd been unaware of the woman standing behind him – there were days when he would give up a lung for a Keeper's ability to watch all directions at the same time – but now she had him at point-blank range.
Ben hung his head, groaning in dismay. “I'm on your side here,” he said, raising both hands defensively. “I was trying to keep you people alive! Bleakness take me, you must see that!”
“Doesn't matter,” the cop said. “You're carrying all sorts of illegal goodies on your person. As far as I'm concerned, the two of you can have adjoining cells.”
The windows in this twelfth-floor office looked out on a field of skyscrapers that pierced a blue sky with just a few thin clouds, sunlight streaming in to illuminate a desk of polished glass in the shape of a horseshoe. Two large gray couches faced each other on either side of a small wooden table.
Professor Nareo sat on one of those couches, hunched over with his face buried in his hands. The man looked exhausted, and what else would you expect? When your own home wasn't safe, it was hard to maintain a cheerful disposition.
Jack stood in the middle of the carpeted floor with a hand clamped onto the back of his neck, massaging away an ache. “We'll get you some place safe,” he assured the other man. “Just give me a few minutes to smooth things over.”
The door swung open.
A woman in a blue dress with short-sleeves came striding through, a woman with a dark complexion and long hair that she wore in a bun. “Jack Hunter,” Larani Tal said with a touch of exasperation. “Why is it that when I heard about a potentially lethal altercation at a university, I was not the least bit surprised to learn you were involved.”
Jack closed his eyes, tilting his head back. “I appreciate your frustration, ma'am,” he said, trying to keep his composure. “But it was absolutely vital that we kept Professor Nareo safe from harm.”
“Is that a fact?” Larani cast a glance over her shoulder, scowling when she saw the man sitting on her couch. “And outside of the fact that it's absolutely vital that we keep every single one of our citizens alive, what makes this man so special?”
“Slade wants him dead.”
“Come again?”
Crossing his arms, Jack frowned down at the floor. “The professor's an expert on the Overseers.” He spun around, turning his back on her, and paced over to the window. “We have cause to believe that Slade is trying to get his hands on Overseer tech.”
In his mind's eye, he saw the blurry image of Larani standing near the couch with her chin clasped in one hand. “And how did you reach this conclusion, Agent Hunter?” she asked. “More importantly, why am I not aware of it?”
Jack watched his own faint reflection in the window pane, noting the visible tension in his face. “Do you remember the young telepath named Raynar?” he began. “He shared a glimpse of what he learned when probed Slade's mind.
“We've kept the information out of our reports because we know Slade has people on the inside. The very fact that he was able to deduce my plan and send an assassin to kill the professor is proof of that.”
Nareo stood up with a groan, pressing the heels of his hands to his eye-sockets. “Is it entirely rude for me to point out the fact that I want no part of this?” The man spun on his heel, marching past Larani toward Jack.
His posture was stiff, his face contorted to the point where even spatial awareness was enough for Jack to note his expression. “I'm just an academic. I don't know anything about infighting between the Keepers, and I don't want to.”
Jack whirled around, pressing his back to the window pane. He doubled over with his arms crossed and let out a sigh. “I can appreciate how difficult this must be for you, but understand that we're talking about the lives of millions of people.”
The other man lifted his chin to study him, a slight flush painting his cheeks with a rosy hue. “You're the one who got me into this,” Nareo said. “Frankly, I wish you'd never reached out to me.”
Larani sat down on the couch arm with hands clasped in her lap, sucking in a deep breath. “That's beside the point right now,” she said. “Jack, I think you should start at the beginning. What is Slade looking for?”
“Something called the Key. We don't know what it is.”
“And you?” Larani asked the professor. “Any guesses.”
“Not one.”
Jack winced, then rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Whatever this thing is,” he began, “we can safely assume that Slade isn't planning to do anything good with it. That being the case, it's in our best interest to find it first.”
When he looked up, Larani was still on the couch arm, but her expression was hard enough to crack walnuts. “Once again, I marvel at your failure to inform me,” she said. “I suppose I should take that up with Director Morane.”
Grinding his teeth audibly, Jack shook his head. “The more people who know, the more likely it is that Slade will figure out what we're up to.” Come to think of it, he may have been a little too forthright in this conversation. He trusted Larani to a point; she had always been willing to call Slade on his bullshit.
Nevertheless, they were in a full-on X-Files situation here. “Trust no one” was the new company policy. It wouldn't surprise him to learn that Slade had ordered one of his minions to show outward animosity toward him.
Still, it wasn't as if he had much choice in the matter. A showdown with an assassin bearing military-grade hardware was a major incident, not something he could just sweep under the rug. He had to tell Larani something; his only choice at this point was in how much he wanted to reveal.
Larani stood up with one hand on her hip as if she intended to lecture him. A scowl contorted her face. “I can understand the need for discretion, but I want to be informed of such matters in the future.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Now, let's get down to business.” Lifting her forearm to tap furiously on the screen of her multi-tool, Larani activated the room's holographic projectors. The image of a man on hospital bed rippled into existence over her desk.
The assassin.
“We've identified the man who attacked you as Vetrid Col,” Larani explained. “He was a suspect in a high-profile murder case roughly four years ago, but we couldn't pin anything solid on him until now. At the moment, he's unconscious – he lost a lot of blood when you shot him – but once he wakes up, we'll get some answers.”
Biting his lip, Jack looked up to study the image. He squinted. “So, that's the guy, eh?” He strode across the room, toward Larani. “We need to get the professor off world as soon
as possible.”
“Off world?” Nareo shouted.
“It'll be easier to protect you on Earth.”
Nareo heaved out a deep breath, then lowered his eyes to the floor. “All right,” he said with obvious reluctance. “But just so that we're clear, I'm angry, and I resent the fact that you decided to involve me in your-”
A beep from Jack's multi-tool cut him off. When he checked the screen, he found Gabi staring back at him from what appeared to be a table in her mother's house. “Jack, we've got another problem,” she said. “It's Ben.”
Chapter 15
Through the passenger-side window, Anna watched as the car Harry had rented settled to a stop in front of an unfinished house that was little more than a two-story wooden box with holes where the windows should be. The front lawn was actually just a field of mud and dirt, and the driveway was made of gravel.
Anna closed her eyes, sinking into the passenger's seat. She pressed a palm to her forehead and massaged away a throbbing pain. “Okay, let's play this smart. No sudden, aggressive movements. Nothing that might scare the boy.”
Harry sat with his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead with a pensive expression. “You want me to come with you?” he asked. “The kid trusts you. He may not feel the same way about me.”
“I think it's wise. He has to know you.”
She got out of the car.
This dust-covered street lined with dozens of similar unfinished houses on either side was all but deserted despite the fact that the sun was still high. In the distance, she saw construction workers in orange vests digging the foundation of yet another home.
Clenching her teeth, Anna shielded her eyes from the sun. “He can't stay here very long,” she muttered under her breath. “Sooner or later, they're going to resume work on this house, and I'm guessing it'll be sooner.”
Harry stood on the other side of the car with a hand resting on the roof, staring off into the distance. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I'm surprised they haven't found him already. Most crews are pretty big on security. Liability and all that.”