Relativity

by R S Penney

  “I'm sure,” Ben said. “I did what I did to help people who were suffering. But it doesn't matter how good your reasons are, when you do something wrong, you have to pay the price for it. It's time I stopped running from that.”

  Chapter 17

  This time, there was no cruise ship to carry them through the long empty lightyears of Dead Space. No arboretums full of lush plants or grand windows that looked out upon breathtaking stellar vistas. No night club where they could soothe their boredom with a good drink and some tolerable music.

  Jack didn't want any of Slade's agents getting close to the professor. A cruise ship was open to just about anyone with a valid passport, and not every assassin would be as obvious in his methods as their dear friend Vetrid Col. A poisoned drink would kill just as quickly as a bullet to the head.

  This time, Jack had booked passage back to Earth on a military ship. That didn't make him feel any safer – Slade had agents everywhere – but it did limit the number of potential threats to a crew of roughly one hundred fifty. Much more manageable.

  Of course, the scenery redefined the word “drab” for him.

  Gray carpets stretched through a corridor with gray walls and bright lights in the ceiling. Doors at even intervals – each a slightly darker shade of gray – were shut tight and secure. Nothing to see here. But he had it on good authority the place was modeled on that level in the deepest pits of Hell where Satan sent souls who needed a time out.

  Jack wore a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt the exact shade of turquoise you saw in tropical waters. It was a conscious act of rebellion. If he was going to be surrounded by drabness, then damn it, he'd find a way to insert a little colour.

  He stopped at the professor's quarters and rang the chime.

  The door slid open to reveal a small room with a glass table in the corner and a cot propped up against the far wall. Half a second later, Professor Nareo stepped into view, wearing a scowl that could set ice on fire. “There you are,” he spat. “I've been trapped in this, this coffin since last night. I resent this entire trip.”

  Closing his eyes, Jack took a deep breath and then let it out. “Nice to see you too, Doc,” he said with a curt nod. “And really, it's not that bad! By tomorrow night, we'll be back on Station Twelve where you can spend your days staring at an entirely different set of drab gray walls.”

  He entered the room.

  Jack strode to the far wall with his arms hanging stiffly, then paused and let out a sigh. “I know it's been hard,” he said without turning. “But you really are making a good choice. Both for yourself and for Leyria.”

  In his mind's eye, the other man stood with arms crossed just in front of the door that was now sliding shut. “Yes, so I've been told,” Nareo muttered. “I've gone through my notes, but I find nothing that might correspond to this Key.”

  “That doesn't surprise me.”

  “No?”

  Jack crumpled his face into a painful expression, then shook his head with enough force to make himself dizzy. “Everything you know about the Overseers comes from the records they left behind.”

  He spun around.

  Aldin Nareo stood with one shoulder pressed to the wall, watching him with a guarded expression. “Those records were meant to be found,” Jack went on. “This Key almost certainly isn't.”

  “Then why bring me along?”

  Biting his lower lip, Jack let his head hang. “For kicks?” he offered, deep creases forming in his brow. “You study the remnants of an alien civilization; I'm a rogue agent who doesn't play by the rules. Throw in some Nazis, and we've got a thirty-three million dollar opening weekend.”

  The other man shut his eyes, resting the back of his head against the wall. “You're a strange man, Agent Hunter,” he muttered. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “It's the first sentence in my online dating profile.”

  “I see.”

  “Listen, Doc,” Jack began. “You want to know why you're here? Because we need a fresh set of eyes to look at the data.”

  Nareo winced, turning his head so that Jack saw him in profile. “You're hoping that a lifetime spent studying the Overseers will grant me some insight,” he muttered. “I'll see something you missed.”

  “Got it in one.”

  Heaving out a sigh, the man shuffled past Jack to stand over his small bed. A brief moment passed before he spoke again. “I suppose we won't know if it will work until we try,” he said. “And helping you is better than dying.”

  “That's the spirit!”

  Jack left the other man to muse on his own thoughts. He had other matters to attend to anyway, and being cooped up on this ship was going to drive him stir-crazy faster than a Transformers movie marathon. This ship… The damn thing was built for efficiency, not for comfort. Which was a good thing in some ways. Still…

  No arboretum, no night club…No Ben either. The man's arrest had left Jack feeling baffled, and his superiors had been unwilling to say more than two words about it. What could Ben have possibly done to get himself in that kind of trouble? Over the years, Jack had deduced that his friend had made a few questionable mods to his multi-tool, but still. That sort of thing should have been a slap on the wrist in his opinion.

  For the last two days, he and Gabi had taken turns trying to soothe the professor's anxieties, keeping the man company to prevent him from bouncing off the walls. Jack could tell that his girlfriend was getting fed up with it.

  The mess hall was a large room with square-shaped tables spread out in a grid-like pattern, most of which were occupied by men and women in the sleek black uniforms of the Space Corps. He found Gabi sitting in the corner.

  She wore black pants and a maroon shirt with a round neck, and for some reason, she had put her hair up in a ponytail. The expression on her face as she studied the tablet in her hand made him think that he was about to hear some bad news.

  Jack sat down across from her.

  Covering his eyes with both hands, he let out a groan. “Tell me you have something good to report,” he muttered, surprised at the strain in his voice. “Did you learn anything about Ben's situation?”

  She studied him with an expression as smooth as ice. “I'm afraid not,” she said. “I check my e-mail every time we drop out of warp for a communications update, but so far, no one has told me anything.”

  “Not even a scrap?”

  Gabi winced, shaking her head in dismay. “Usually, I can find out what I need to know with a little needling.” She slid her chair closer to the table and spoke at a lower volume. “But this time…LIS doesn't make it a policy to hide things from its agents. The fact that I don't know…”

  She didn't have to finish that sentence. Something was very wrong here; either Ben had committed a major offense, or… Or what? Could Slade be in on this somehow? Jack put a stop to that line of reasoning.

  If he saw Slade's fingertips on everything that didn't go his way, he'd turn into the same kind of conspiracy buff who had insisted that Barack Obama wasn't an American citizen. There was only one shooter; 9-11 was an outside job, and Grecken Slade did not have agents in every single branch of the Leyrian government.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “I'm surviving.”

  Jack grinned, then lowered his eyes to stare into his lap. “I've been thinking,” he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “When we get back to Earth and this crisis is over, maybe we can go on a date.”

  His girlfriend wore a smile that could have melted snow, and she laughed softly. “That sounds nice,” she said, taking both of his hands in hers. She gave a squeeze, and for a moment, he felt a little better.

  It didn't last.

  The bubble jerked to a halt, and through its shimmering surface, Jack saw a box-like room of gray walls. The control console was right in front of him, but the image was too blurry for him to make out the person pushing buttons.

  The bubble popped.

  Jack stood with Gabi on
his left and Professor Nareo on his right in the middle of the Gate Room on Station Twelve. A soft humming from behind him slowly faded as the SlipGate powered down.

  Anna stood behind the control console, scowling down at its surface as she locked the Gate to prevent anyone else from coming aboard. That look…He'd seen it many times over the last few years. Something was wrong.

  At his side, Nareo closed his eyes and let out a hiss. “I suppose that we should get settled in,” he said, taking a few steps forward. “I assume that you've arranged quarters for me while I'm here.”

  “We ha-”

  Anna strode across the room with her arms swinging, her face a mask of anguish. “I need to speak to Jack,” she said, stopping right in front of him. “Gabi, why don't you help the professor settle in?”

  Gabi wore a tight frown, but aside from that, her face betrayed not the tiniest hint of emotions. Spies…Always with the perfect composure. “Of course,” she said, nodding to Anna. “Follow me, Professor.”

  She flowed across the room with an elegant grace, pausing at the door that led to the hallway. A moment later, Nareo joined her, carrying a suitcase full of clothing in one hand. The man was muttering to himself. More complaints, unless Jack missed his guess.

  When they were gone, Anna slammed into him at full force, wrapping him up in the fiercest hug he'd experienced since…the last time she hugged him. There was no doubt in his mind now; something was wrong. It was almost like she was trying to protect him.

  “Anna?” he whispered.

  She looked up at him with those big blue eyes, tears glistening on her flushed face. “It's your father,” she squeaked. “Pennfield…He's back, Jack. He went to your house and shot your father in the leg.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Your dad's alive,” she assured him.

  Baring his teeth, Jack winced and felt his face burn. He tossed his head about with a hiss. “As if we don't have enough problems! Now Agent Smith's third-string understudy thinks he's gonna take another crack at us?”

  Anna buried her nose in his chest, sniffling. By instinct, he rested a hand on the top of her head and gently stroked her hair. “What are you gonna do?” she asked.

  “I'm gonna check on my father,” Jack said. “And then I'm gonna find Pennfield and make him sorry he ever dragged his skinny ass out of hiding.”

  He should have been devastated. Why wasn't he devastated? Those were the only thoughts that kept running through Jack's mind as he made his way through a hospital corridor with light blue walls and doors that looked into rooms where sunlight came in through the windows.

  A nurse in blue scrubs wheeled an empty gurney through the corridor, and behind him two more walked side by side, scanning the contents of some poor patient's chart. Hospitals were busy at all hours of the day.

  Jack marched through the corridor in gray cargo pants and a bright green t-shirt, heaving out a frustrated sigh. It's always something, he thought to himself. Would you look at me? He's got me quoting Rick Springfield.

  A door on his right looked into a room where the bed was propped up at an angle, bathed in warm afternoon sunlight. His father sat with a remote in one hand, frowning at the TV screen.

  Jack stepped into the room.

  Arthur turned his head to study him with a thin-lipped grimace, his blue eyes as hard as diamonds. “You made it,” he said in a gruff voice. “I was wondering when you'd show up.”

  Jack crossed his arms, then looked down at himself. “Already we start in with the disapproval,” he said, moving closer to the bed. “Hello, Dad. What's that you say? Oh, you're all right, and I shouldn't worry? Well thank God for that!”

  “I've had worse.”

  “Really doubt that.”

  The other man kept his eyes glued to the TV screen and did his best to maintain that trademark Hunter composure Jack had never learned. “Just a shot in the leg,” he said. “It didn't hit any major arteries. People have shot at me before.”

  Jack tossed his head back, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Yeah, but they never hit you.” he replied in the gentlest tone he could manage. “They never put you in the hospital. It's okay if you're a little freaked out.”

  “I'm wondering what you're gonna do about this man.”

  Dropping into a chair with his hands gripping the armrests, Jack hunched over and let out a soft sigh. “Well, the guy's tolerable but not nearly handsome enough to tempt me,” he replied. “A gentle rebuke by post should suffice.”

  “Jack…”

  A flush burned through Jack's face, one that he quickly hid behind the palm of his hand. “I'm gonna track him down, Dad,” he muttered. “I'm gonna put him in a pair of handcuffs and lock him in the deepest, darkest cell I can find.”

  When he looked up, his father was watching him over one shoulder, wearing an expression that he couldn't read. “Good,” Arthur said with a curt nod. “The sooner that man is off the streets, the better.”

  “Can we talk about you now?”

  “I already told you about me.”

  Jack figured he would leave it at that. One thing he had learned after twenty years of living with his father: sometimes the best thing they could share was silence. Arthur didn't want to talk, and he didn't want to force the issue.

  He'd come straight here after meeting Anna in the Gate Room, and throughout the whole cab ride to the hospital, he had been unable to get his mind off Wesley Pennfield. Why had the man come back now, after four years? Where had he been? And if he was working with Slade, as Jack suspected, then why draw attention to himself by attacking Jack's father?

  Slade was an evil son of a bitch, but he wasn't petty. If Pennfield was out pursuing vendettas, he was likely doing so against orders. Unless, of course, they weren't actually working together. Or maybe Pennfield was in charge? Jack wasn't exactly sure how the dynamics of their little cabal worked.

  “You have that look.”

  A glance to the side revealed Arthur lying against the mattress and directing a scowl up at the ceiling. “That look you get when you're putting the pieces of a puzzle together,” he went on. “Something you want to share?”

  Jack closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before he spoke. “I don't know,” he said. “I've got a few vague ideas, but I haven't had a chance to sit down and go over it…The plate.”

  “What plate?”

  Jack sat forward, setting his elbows on his thighs and resting his chin on the heels of his hands. “Pennfield's license plate,” he mumbled. “Did you get a good look at it before he drove away?”

  Arthur's face contorted as if the question brought him as much pain as the shot to his leg. “I caught the digits,” he said. “Had a friend down at the station run it for me. The plate's not registered to anyone.”

  “A fake?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Well, that's just grand.” It seemed as though Dear Old Wesley had come prepared. There were a few things Jack could do to find the man; he could monitor security camera footage from the SlipGate terminals, check sensor logs to see if any shuttles had touched down near Winnipeg. But if Pennfield had taken off in a car, things would be much, much harder. Worst of all, he could feel his father watching him.

  This would be one of those moments where if Jack Hunter failed to produce results, it would be even more proof that he was a horrible son. And that made him angry. Damn it, why was everything in this universe on his shoulders?

  He waited silently, reviewing the crime scene report on his multi-tool while his dad watched TV. When his mother arrived, Jack quietly excused himself. The sooner he got to work on this case, the more likely he was to find Pennfield.

  And taking out his frustrations on that bastard's face was exactly what he needed.

  Chapter 18

  Their small booth on the second-floor balcony of a trendy bar in Vancouver was lit by a Tiffany lamp that cast colourful light on the brick wall and wooden tabletop. Up here, the music was quiet enough to allow for pleasant
conversation.

  Jena sat on one bench with hands on her knees, hunched over and frowning at a menu. “You're sure about this?” she said, arching a thin eyebrow. “Because I like a little protein in my diet.”

  Across from her, young Anna had her back pressed against the seat cushion, her eyes shut tight. “Yeah, I know,” the girl said. “I didn't realize it when I first came here, but these people actually kill animals for their meat.”

  “So you're a vegetarian until you go back home?”

  “Essentially.”

  Jena crossed her arms, then turned her head to direct a tight frown at the wall “You gotta be careful, kid,” she murmured. “These people do a lot of things wrong, but we're not exactly saints either.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a waitress in a white shirt and black vest who carried a tray of drinks. She set one down in front of Anna – a simple glass of wine – and for Jena, it was whiskey.

  The waitress straightened and paused for a moment to show them a bright smile that could melt butter. “Anything else?” she asked in a voice with just a little too much sugar. Earthers had strange expectations of the people they made servants, and…Damn it! Now she was doing it too. She could lecture Anna all day and all night about not judging other cultures, but she was just as guilty.

  Planting her elbow on the table, Jena leaned her cheek against the knuckles of her fist. “Just drinks for now,” she said softly. “And you don't have to worry about us. If we want anything, we'll come down to the bar.”

  “Thank you.”

  The waitress turned to go.

  Anna lifted her glass as if in a toast, but her expression was quizzical. “You're sure about this?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “Because Seth will be very cranky if I make him feel sick.”

  Jena smiled down at the table with a burst of laughter. “You named your Nassai,” she said, shaking her head. “Over four hundred years of humans bonding symbionts, and you're the first one who has to give yours a personality.”