by R S Penney
Wesley was a whirlwind, slicing and cutting, forcing her to rely on every precious millisecond her enhanced reflexes could give her. A storm of metal flashed through the hallway, blade ringing against blade, and each riposte came closer and closer to opening Anna's veins. She couldn't keep this up. He's forcing you to play his game, she realized. Don't let him. Don't play by his rules.
Anna jumped and kicked out, planting a foot in the man's chest. She pushed off and back-flipped through the air, uncurling to land poised in the middle of the hallway. That little stunt left Wesley off balance.
He was doubled over, wheezing.
Anna rushed forward, trying to stab him through the chest, but his blade came up and casually flicked hers aside. Her sword went into the wall; so she let it go rather than wasting seconds trying to pull it free.
Using her momentum, Anna spun for a hook-kick, her foot whirling around to strike Wesley across the cheek. The man went stumbling sideways, slamming his shoulder into the wall and groaning on impact.
Anna dropped to a crouch.
She punched him in the gut with one fist then the other, then laced her fingers and brought them up to strike the underside of Pennfield's chin. Her opponent threw his head back with a painful shriek.
Growling under her breath, Anna dug her sword out the wall. She thrust it forward, sliding the blade home through Wesley's chest with enough force to pierce his rib-cage, all the way through his heart.
Pennfield's eyes widened behind his glasses.
He doubled over, revealing a length of red blade sticking out of his back, then sank to his knees. “It's not possible,” he croaked, “You…You…You…don't have the stomach to do what is…” His words cut off with one final, pitiful gasp.
Anna stood over him with arms folded, frowning down at his corpse. “I think you'll find,” she began, “that you don't know the first damn thing about me, Wesley Pennfield. Give the Bleakness my regards.”
Chapter 27
On the second floor, they found a door that led out to a balcony with a wide stone railing that overlooked a sandy beach. The crystal blue waters of a vast ocean – Anna wasn't sure which one, but it was clear they were someplace tropical – lapped at the shoreline with a soft, sighing sound.
Jack was sitting with his back pressed against the railing, legs stretched out before him as he tried to recover his strength. “Lovely vacation spot,” he said, lifting a bottle of water that he'd pilfered from Wesley's fridge. “Just perfect for romantic moonlit strolls, sun-bathing and, oh yeah, murder!”
Anna closed her eyes, hanging her head. “We'll be all right,” she said, sitting on the railing across from him. “After all, we've been through a lot worse than this. Remember those damn battle drones?”
Jack smiled, his face flushed and glistening with sweat. “Yeah, that was pretty bad,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “But it's got nothing on the horrors of a Hunter family Christmas dinner.”
“Ugh! Don't remind me!”
“So, what now?”
Anna got up and paced across the balcony with her arms folded, pausing to stare out at the horizon. “I've been trying to find whatever Pennfield used to jam our multi-tools,” she said. “No luck.”
The beach stretched on as far as she could see, and to the best of her knowledge, this was the only house within half a kilometer. No one would have heard the gunfire; there was little chance of the local police showing up. On the plus side, the fridge and pantry were both full of food, and there were cars in the garage.
Anna knelt down before him with hands folded over her belly, staring into her lap. “When you feel better, we'll go for a drive,” she said. “I figure once we get far enough from this house, we can call Jena.”
Jack replied with a small smile, and then his head sank until his chin touched his chest. “Always positive, An,” he muttered, lifting the water bottle as if in a toast. “That's what I love about you.”
“How are you feeling?”
“My skin's not on fire anymore.”
Closing her eyes, Anna turned her face up to the warm sunlight. “Good,” she said with a curt nod. “That means you're recovering. If you're not in pain, then you're not in any danger.”
A grin blossomed that she could not smother, and she hid it behind her fingertips. “Listen to me,” she murmured. “Still talking to you like this is all new to you. I think you proved yourself in there.”
Jack looked up at her with eyes that were narrowed to slits, pausing for a moment before he spoke. “You're kidding, right?” he asked in a rasping voice. “Just look at me! I don't see you on the verge of passing out.”
“I didn't have to rely on Bendings to keep me alive,” she countered. “If we had switched opponents, I'd be where you are now.” Or worse, she realized. Some of the best Keepers she knew would have been overwhelmed by that monstrosity Jack fought. After checking the house to ensure there were no further surprises, she'd gone back down to the hallway to scan that thing with her multi-tool.
Its blood was some kind of technorganic compound, filled with microscopic semi-organic nanobots that could repair damaged tissue. Its brain was half flesh, half circuitry, and whatever they had done it had increased both strength and durability.
As usual, Jack failed to give himself enough credit. The very fact that he was still breathing after fighting that thing was an accomplishment in and of itself. “We'll need to get a forensics team down here.”
When she looked up, Jack was watching her with those gorgeous blue eyes of his. Somehow, he could always see past her defenses. “How are you doing?” he asked. “After Pennfield, I mean…Do you feel…”
Anna sucked on her lower lip, a lock of red hair falling over her face. She brushed it away with one hand. “That's the crazy thing,” she said softly. “I'm strangely okay with what happened.”
Why was she so calm?
Shouldn't there be an ache in her chest that no amount of comforting words could soothe? Was she in shock? The only thing she felt right then was physical exhaustion, and, Companion have mercy, was she actually proud of what she'd done?
After a moment of reflection, she realized that it wasn't exactly pride, per se, but rather a certainty that she had done the right thing. Pennfield would have overwhelmed her if she didn't put him down permanently, and then he would have gone for Jack. Even if they somehow managed to dump him back into a cell, he had demonstrated the ability to escape before. His final words had signed his death warrant.
Pennfield was right; he wasn't Leo. This trap was well thought-out, meticulously planned and absolutely deadly. Even with most of his assets seized, his resources severely diminished, the man was still a threat. Anna refused to accept any line of reasoning that insisted someone was too dangerous to be left alive – once you start down that road, it becomes far too easy to justify murder – but if an enemy threw himself against you with no remorse, insisted that it was you or him with no possibility of compromise, if he made it clear that it wasn't just your life he intended to take but those of hundreds of innocents as well… “I feel unreasonably good about it.”
Jack heaved out a breath, doubling over and burying his face in his hands. “Good,” he replied in a breathy rasp. “I'm glad. Because, Anna, you are the most moral person I know, and you did the right thing.”
Anna shut her eyes tight, a single tear rolling over her cheek. “Here I am blathering on about myself,” she whispered, “when you had to take a life as well. I'm so sorry, Jack. But it wasn't your fault.”
He looked up, and for a moment, there was something dangerous in his eyes; then his expression softened. “You killed a monster,” Jack said. “I killed a man. Karmically speaking, your soul is better off than mine.”
Anna crawled over to him.
The next thing she knew, her cheek was pressed to his shoulder, her eyes shut tight as she let her guard down. Every muscle in her body relaxed. Jack's hand cupped the back of her head, holding her close.
And that wa
s when she let herself really contemplate it. For a while there, she had held out some hope that she would go through her whole career without ever having to take a life. A shame, but she didn't hate herself for it. That was something. And Jack still thought she was wonderful.
She would always protect him, but it surprised her to realize how safe she felt in his arms, how comforting it was to know that he would always protect her as well. As equals, fighting side by side. She let herself melt into the embrace…
…For a few blessed moments.
Then reality reasserted itself, and she pulled away from him. This, this was a little more intimacy than two friends out to have, and she had commitments to keep, promises she had made to another. It was time to stop indulging childish fantasies.
Anna looked up, strands of hair falling over her face. She blinked several times. “Come on,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I think it's time that we got out of here, don't you?”
A metal railing overlooked the concourse on Station Twelve, a bustling area where dozens of people marched across the black floor tiles, some stopping in at the restaurants or fabrication stations on either wall, others making their way to the set of stairs that led up to the monorail platform. Automated restaurants, automated fabrication stations that required no money: the Leyrians offered a new way of life. She had to admit that scared her more than she would like.
Gripping the railing in both hands, Aamani leaned over to peer down at the people below. She still wore her blue pantsuit, but she was tired and the long black hair that she usually wore pulled back in a clip was slightly messed.
What exactly was she doing here? Her instincts told her that coming here had been a mistake – the Leyrians couldn't be trusted – but everything Jack had said back in that warehouse made perfect sense. Her rational brain told her that the young man had been spot on on every point, and when confronted with logic vs emotion, Aamani Patel took pride in choosing logic every time. But she rarely had such difficulty reconciling the two. So why was this time different? Perhaps she should return to-
“Excuse me.”
Aamani stiffened.
Hunching up her shoulders with a soft hiss, she trembled as a shiver went through her body. “My apologies,” she said, turning around. “Usually, I'm not so easily startled. It's been a stressful day.”
The young boy from the Science Lab – Raynar? – stood before her in a pair of beige khaki pants and a blue button-up shirt that he left untucked. His short blonde hair was parted in the middle, falling to the nape of his neck.
Raynar closed his eyes and bowed his head, breathing deeply through his nose. “I'm sorry to disturb you,” he said, approaching cautiously. “But we need to speak before you return to the surface.”
Aamani leaned against the railing with her arms crossed, watching him for a very long moment. “All right,” she said. “You've got my attention. So, what would you like to discuss with me?”
The boy heaved out a sigh, refusing to look up at her. He gripped a handful of his own hair. “When I touched your mind to show you the data from the Overseer device…I sensed something.”
Aamani felt her mouth tighten despite her best efforts. “If you've read my thoughts without permission…”
“No, not that!”
“Then what?”
The boy had large gray eyes, and he blinked slowly as he studied her. “I cannot be certain without a deep scan,” he said, stepping forward. “But your emotions have been influenced by a telepath.”
“What?”
“Someone is manipulating you, ma'am.”
She felt cold inside, as if she'd been stabbed through the heart with an icicle. How? What little she knew of the galaxy beyond this solar system said that telepaths were only found in Antauran Space. A genetic quirk of some kind in their evolution. She had never imagined that one might be here.
But of course, that was their greatest weapon, wasn't it? The vision unfolded before her with chilling clarity. Conquering Earth by military might would be impossible so long as the Leyrians remained in this system, but a full-scale military strike was often the last resort of a good tactician. How much easier would it be to simply “nudge” events in the right direction, and if you had access to agents who could perform mind control…
Aamani winced, shaking her head in disgust. “Perform the scan,” she said, stepping up to the boy. “Do whatever you need to do, and do it quickly, before I change my mind. If you are correct…”
Raynar touched her forehead.
It was not nearly as painful as she would have expected, merely a sense of another presence. As if she had been alone all her life only to discover for the first time at the age of forty-three that someone else existed in her universe. She understood Raynar in a way that she had understood few other people. It was…
…Over. As quickly as he had come into her thoughts, he vanished from them and the profound understanding went with him. As if she had forgotten most of what she'd learned in those few seconds.
Blushing hard, the young man squeezed his eyes shut. He turned his head so that she could only see him in profile. “It's true,” he said softly. “You've been influenced by a telepath. Many times.”
“How can you tell?”
“It's not something that is easily expressed in words,” he said. “Human emotions are smooth; they blend together naturally. When someone tweaks them, influences them against their natural inclination, they become jagged. The stronger the tweak, the more noticeable the change.
“What they did to you was subtle: just a few nudges here and there, but…” Raynar turned, gesturing with his hands to show two paths diverging from a single point. “When an object is in space, and you nudge it just a centimetre, thirty thousand years from now, it ends up lightyears away from where it would have been if you'd left it alone. A small nudge, and the choice you might have made one time out of a hundred suddenly becomes the most probable outcome.”
Aamani bent over with a hand pressed to her stomach, hissing air through clenched teeth. “And this was done to me?” she asked in a rasping whisper. “When? How? Most importantly, who did this to me?”
“There's no way to know.”
Raynar strode past her, folding his arms on the railing and leaning over it to watch the people below. “Telepaths develop a…a style, I guess you could say.” He seemed to be having trouble with the language. Perhaps English lacked the words to express what he was feeling. “Whoever did this to you, I've never seen their work before.”
The anxiety that had tied her stomach in knots intensified. It could be anyone, and that meant guarding against it was going to be exceedingly difficult. Aamani sighed. She needed allies…and that meant she would have to do something she would rather avoid.
But first…
“I'll pay you well for an hour of your time, Raynar,” she said. “I want you to teach me how to guard against it.”
Dressed in black slacks and a gray sweater with a round neck, Jena strode across the room like a meteor on course for some miserable little planet, making her way toward a table where three senior Justice Keeper sat by side, watching her. The same three who had pronounced judgment on Anna just yesterday. Jena had a few choice words of her own for the girl, but in the end, she understood. What else could Anna do? You didn't leave a loved one to suffer at the hands of a psychopath. Now, if only those two could finally admit what they really felt for each other.
Glin Karon wore a sad expression as he looked up to meet her eyes. Next to him, Tiassa Navram was leaning over the table, scanning through something on her tablet. And then there was Kaydie Cadanzar. Cold, implacable Kaydie Cadanzar. Getting a read on her was next to impossible.
Jena refused to slow down.
Harry and Anna walked side by side behind her, flanked by Jack and Melissa, with Raynar and Gabi bringing up the rear. They had dragged in every last one of her people, even the ones who didn't actually work for her. That left her feeling anxious, but Jena had a
few good tricks up her sleeve.
Tiassa stood up, her statuesque face framed by long blonde hair that fell over her shoulders. “Now then,” she said, running her gaze over the lot of them. “We can finally get started. The question of your competence has been raised more than once, Director Morane. Your people seem to have a knack for causing trouble.”
Kaydie sat with her hands folded in her lap, frowning down at the table's surface. “What's more,” she added. “After being removed from active duty, one of your officers decided that she would ignore her suspension and pursue a dangerous criminal.”
Jena forced a small smile, hanging her head in frustration. “That's all you got?” she asked, her eyebrows climbing. “Lenai acted to save the life of one of her fellow officers, and you're upset because, on paper, she didn't have authority to do so?”
“This is no laughing matter,” Glin cut in.
“This latest incident shows a trend of insubordination.” Leaning forward with her hands braced on the table, Tiassa bared her teeth. “The very first officer you recruited was suspended from duty at the time.”
“By order of a traitor.”
The other woman carried on as if Jena hadn't spoken, shaking her head in disgust the whole time. “Half of your so-called team consists of people who don't even carry a symbiont. You openly consort with enemies of the state.” Raynar stiffened at that. “And you've even brought a child into your council.”
In her mind's eye, Jena watched the silhouette of Melissa flinch and back away as if she'd been slapped. The poor girl. Not the best way to start her relationship with the her future bosses. “A child who will one day be an incredible Justice Keeper,” Jena insisted. “And if you have a problem with me building bridges, then I humbly suggest that you don't know how to do your jobs.”
A flush set Jena's cheeks on fire, but she ignored it, hissing softly with every breath. “We need to establish trust with the people of Earth,” she went on. “That means working side by side with them.”