by R S Penney
“I…I want to serve.”
“Good.”
The woman strode forward, flipping her cloak back over her shoulder to reveal her gorgeous black dress. In the palm of her hand, she carried something, the disk of a multi-tool. “Then I will tell you how to begin.”
She tapped one button on the disk, causing a hologram to appear over her upturned palm. The transparent image of a leggy young woman with smooth, mocha skin and long, black hair rotated slowly. Brinton recognized her instantly.
The Justice Keeper cadet who had exposed him.
“Your task is simple,” the hooded woman said. “I want you to kill her.”
Chapter 15
Stirring a bowl of oatmeal for Claire, Harry threw in a few berries – his youngest always wanted fruit in her cereal – and then set it down on the kitchen counter. The damn robot was right next to him, watching him like some poor diva who had just been forced to let her understudy take centre stage.
“Michael” had long metal arms with hands of duroplastic and long metal legs that ended in plodding feet. Its all too human face was frozen in a blank expression, and that just made the damn thing even creepier.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, grunting his disapproval. “Do you have to stand right there?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “Aren't you things programmed with some level of tact?”
Michael took a step back.
Its head came up, and the glowing eyes seemed to brighten. “This unit was trying to be of assistance,” it said in pleasant tones. “Apologies, Mr. Carlson. This unit will remain at a more comfortable distance in the future.”
“Looks like you made a friend, Dad.”
He turned to find Claire sitting at the kitchen table with a big grin on her face, her hair done up in twin braids. The glass of orange juice he had given her was now only half full.
Harry grimaced, rubbing his forehead with the back of his fist. “I just find the damn thing creepy,” he said, marching over to the table. “I've never needed a robot to make my girls' breakfast before.”
He set the bowl down in front of Claire.
She looked up at him with those big brown eyes and blinked a few times. “So, are you gonna tell me about your adventure the other night?” she asked. “I tried to get details out of Melissa, but-”
“Your sister needs rest.”
Plunking both elbows down on the table, Claire set her chin on her fists. “But you went and fought those terrorist guys,” she said. “I want to hear about it. How did you beat them? Did you use that thing?”
What was going on here?
In the last few years, he had been in more than his fair share of scrapes, and Claire had always reacted with mild disinterest whenever he tried to share those stories. In truth, he always felt like some old grandpa trying to talk about how much better things were in his day while his grandkids played on cell phones.
Was it because they had moved to Leyria? Keepers were a bigger deal here, and Claire had always been the sort of girl to pick up on all the latest trends. Unlike Melissa, who enjoyed getting new clothes but was content to wait until she had earned enough to buy them herself, Claire had to have the latest fad now.
“It was pretty dangerous,” Harry said.
“Did you almost die?”
He looked up to fix his gaze on his daughter, then narrowed his eyes to slits. “Why would you say something like that?” he asked, shaking his head. “Claire, I will always be here to take care of you.”
The girl rolled her eyes and looked away, breathing out a soft sigh. “Whatever you say, Dad,” she muttered. “I wasn't worried about you dying! But none of my other friends have Keepers in their families.”
Harry sat down across from her with arms folded, his mouth twisting at the thought of his own mortality. “So, that's what this is about, huh?” he said. “I am not going to die, Claire. So, put that out of your head. Maybe you should focus more on school.”
“It's hobby week.”
“Hobby week.”
Lifting a spoonful of oatmeal to her lips, Claire shut her eyes as she swallowed it. “School is different here,” she said. “We're supposed to apply the things we've learned to our own projects this week.”
“And that's a problem for you?”
He understood when his daughter gave him that glare that every kid unleashed at least once in their lifetime – the one that said: “my parents are so damn out of touch its embarrassing.” Claire didn't have many hobbies.
Throughout her high school years, Melissa had shown an interest in baseball, in clothing design, in piano, but Claire had always been the kind of girl who just wanted to spend time with her friends; it didn't really matter what they were doing.
“Tell you what,” Harry said. “I'll help you.”
At that moment, Melissa came into the kitchen in black pants and a red t-shirt with a square neck. Her long hair was done up in a bun. You would never have suspected that she had pushed her symbiont to its limit just thirty-six hours earlier. “Morning, Dad,” she said. “Just a bowl of cereal this morning, Michael.”
“Certainly, Melissa.”
The robot sprang into action, joints whirring as he marched over to the pantry and took out something that looked so very much like a large plastic container marked with a sticker that read “bran flakes.” Leyrians believed in reusing packaging if possible. When that container was empty, it would be retrieved by the delivery bots and taken back to a food processing plant to be sterilized and refilled, and possibly delivered to someone else. Harry had never tracked individual packages.
Michael took the cereal over to the counter where he retrieved a bowl and promptly filled it. Damn it! Now, Harry was thinking of the robot as he. It wasn't alive, god damn it! Could he convince the department of housing to take the thing back? Melissa wouldn't like that, but they did not need a robot.
When his eldest sat down at the table, she took out her lipstick and began applying it with a pocket mirror. “So,” Harry said after a moment. “You're going to class today? I thought they gave you a few days to recover.”
His daughter glanced in his direction and arched a thin black eyebrow. “A few days that I don't really need,” she said. “It doesn't take that long to recover from overworking your symbiont.”
“If you say so.”
“Tell me about fighting the terrorists!” Claire said with a big, bright grin. Her eyes were glued to Melissa. “Were you scared?”
Michael came over to set a bowl of cereal down in front of Melissa with something that looked like a bow, and then it straightened and backed away to stand in the corner. The girls barely noticed.
“Of course, it was scary,” Melissa answered. “Who wouldn't be scared?”
“Did you use your powers?”
“That's enough for now,” Harry cut in.
Two sets of eyes fell upon him, and it was clear that both of his girls were feeling no small amount of exasperation, but he remained adamant. “Your sister is tired, and she doesn't need the stress of reliving the event,” he told Claire. “You just finish your oatmeal and get to school. I'll help you with your project later.”
Claire sighed. “Fine.”
When she walked into the classroom to find desks in a semicircle – all bathed in the light that came in through the windows – she wasn't expecting every head to turn. How did celebrities learn to put up with this kind of attention? She felt like she was giving a speech in her underwear.
Wil Asten spun to face her with a lazy grin on his face. “Cadet. Carlson,” he said, taking a few steps toward her. “We were wondering if you were going to come in today. Your exploits have been on everyone's mind.”
Melissa stood in the doorway with both hands gripping the hem of her shirt, unable to look up and accept the praise. “Thank you,” she mumbled halfheartedly. “But it's really not a big deal.”
“On the contrary,” Wil said. “Few cadets have done what you did.”
Blushing hard, Me
lissa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Thank you, sir,” she said with a nod. “But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather just focus on today's lesson. I'm sorry if I'm late.”
Chuckling softly, Wil bowed his head to her. “You're not late, Cadet,” he said. “It turns out that when one of your students goes and makes herself into a hero, everybody else shows up early to catch a glimpse of her.”
Making her way to her desk was incredibly difficult. People were tactful enough to not stare, but she still felt as if every eye was focused on her. Melissa had never been the sort of person who wanted to be the centre of attention; that was her sister. Strange that it had never occurred to her when she was putting her life on the line that doing so would thrust her into the spotlight.
Aiden flashed his winning smile as he leaned in close to whisper, “You were great! All the Keepers are talking about it.”
“Really?”
“Wil showed us the security camera footage yesterday. Where in Bleakness did you learn to move like that?”
Well then…Maybe all this extra attention wasn't that bad. She remembered meeting Anna for the first time and being blown away by what her friend could do. For years after that, every time she had a crush on some guy, she would fantasize about saving him from bullies with Keeper powers of her own.
Of course, that wasn't what had made her want to join the Keepers – Ilia would not have chosen her if fame was the only thing on her mind – but she had to admit that seeing Aiden smile at her was pretty awesome.
Today's lesson was about the ethics of government authority – specifically, what the limits of a government's power ought to be – but Melissa was having a hard time paying attention. Her mind kept drifting back to the other night. She'd spent most of yesterday sleeping and recovering her strength; she hadn't really taken the time to reflect on it.
Her life had almost ended two nights ago. If she hadn't been clever enough to come up with a plan to get rid of the bomb, she would be a pile of ash right now, and so would her father for that matter. She really shouldn't have let her father come along.
“What do you think, Ms. Carlson?”
Melissa froze.
Wil was standing at the front of the room with his hands folded over his stomach, poised like a statue next to a hologram. The transparent image of a country floated beside him. Melissa wasn't exactly well versed in Leyrian geography, but she was fairly certain that was Adune. It looked kind of but not quite like an upside-down version of Brazil.
Shutting her eyes tight, Melissa touched two fingers to her forehead. “I'm sorry, but could you repeat the question?” Damn it! She was blushing again. “I'm a little distracted this morning.”
Wil smiled, shaking his head. “I'll forgive you,” he said, stepping forward. “This one time. The question was about Adune's legalization of digital surveillance measures in the early 440s, something that became a problem in 462, when the Adunian parliament used those same measures to justify leaking private information collected from a gay and lesbian dating site, effectively outing thousands of their own citizens.”
A young woman with blonde hair that fell to the small of her back rose from her chair and faced their teacher with a stern expression. “I don't understand,” she said. “So what if people find out you're gay?”
Melissa understood.
The privilege of growing up on a world that had overcome homophobia could blind you to the severity of such bigotry, but she recalled a time, when she was very young, when the question of whether to tell your parents you were gay was a big deal.
“The government needs to have some degree of power,” Melissa said, answering Wil's question, “but if surveillance becomes normalized, it becomes incredibly hard to make the government give up that power.”
“Exactly.”
Wil turned on his heel and paced a line to the window with his hands in his pockets. “In the wake of the recent attacks, some of you have questioned why we don't use more invasive forms of surveillance. Why don't we identify everyone who hails an automated cab and track their trips, for instance.”
Melissa stood up, though it made her nervous to be the centre of attention again. She really couldn't figure out why; it wasn't like her words would be more audible than they would have been if she remained seated. “Because that kind of data in the hands of law enforcement can be used to cyber-stalk individual citizens,” she said. “Perhaps one day, a man with authoritarian inclinations becomes the Prime Council, and now he has a tool that he can use to determine if his detractors have been meeting each other.”
“Precisely, Cadet Carlson.”
Wil looked over his shoulder to study his students. “The benefit of any potential security measure,” he began, “must be measured against the potential harm if that measure is misused.”
The clock chimed.
“And that's it for today,” Wil said. “Read chapters twenty-three through twenty-five for next week's lecture, and we'll see you soon.”
After a brief lunch at the Student Centre – her courses were held on the campus of the University of Denabria – Melissa was ready to meet up with Jon Andalon. No doubt he would have spent the last two days putting together leads on these Sons of Savard, and he would want all the help he could get.
Double doors slid apart, allowing her to see a field of concrete where benches were positioned between tall, black lampposts. Beyond that, green grass stretched on to the Computer Sciences Lab, a square building with a cylindrical facade and windows lining all five stories.
She stepped out into the open.
Melissa closed her eyes, a cool breeze caressing her face. If only every day could be this beautiful, she thought, tilting her head back to feel the sun on her skin. But I suppose you need winter to appreciate spring.
“There's the girl of the hour.”
Melissa turned.
To her delight, Jack was leaning against the brick wall of the Student Centre in gray pants and a black t-shirt. His eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses of sunglasses, and his hair was in its usual messy state.
Grinning sheepishly, Melissa bowed her head to him. “Good to see you too,” she said, approaching him. “Don't tell me you came by just to tell me how good a job I did. Because I don't think I could handle it.”
Jack took hold of the frame of his sunglasses and pulled them down to expose his bright blue eyes. “Perish the thought,” he said. “Back in my day, we didn't slack off. No poorly armed terrorists for us; it was all Battle Drones and Death Spheres.”
“I'm pretty sure Anna took out the Battle Drones.”
“Quiet, you whippersnapper.”
Melissa slammed into him, squeezing him tight, and when Jack patted her on the back, she couldn't help but laugh. “So, why did you come all the way down here?” she asked, stepping out of his embrace.
He tossed his head back to stare up at the sky, sunlight glinting off of those dark lenses. “Oh, no reason…” he mumbled. “It might have had something to do with wanting to say that was a very brave thing you did.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“It was more than that.”
Melissa crossed her arms and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, refusing to look up at him. “It's no different than what you did,” she said. “If I keep getting praise, I think I'm going to explode.”
“There you go, stealing my bit again.”
“Well, I-”
A shriek from some nearby girl cut her off, and she focused on the awareness that came from her symbiont. The misty silhouettes of about a dozen students were backing away toward the lampposts at the edge of the grass.
“The roof,” she whispered.
Jack whirled around to stand beside her, and together they backed up until they were a good distance from the building. That was when she noticed it – a figure in black standing on the rooftop.
The woman wore simple black pants and a matching t-shirt under a dark cloak that billowed in the wind. Her
hood was pulled up to hide her face, but if she was walking around in that, she would draw attention. She must have come here in civilian clothing and then put on the cloak for effect.
“Two meddlers,” the woman purred. “Excellent.”
Craning his neck with a growl, Jack stared up at her. “And the lady who took last place in a ringwraith cosplay,” he said, his eyebrows rising. “What is it with you villains and tacky bullshit?”
“Have you learned nothing about the power of theatricality?” the hooded woman mocked. “You of all people should know better, Jack Hunter.”
Isara, Melissa realized. This is the woman that Anna fought in Tennessee.
Quick as a striking snake, Isara drew a pistol from the holster on her belt and thrust her arm out to point it at one of the students behind Melissa. There was a soft buzz as she fired, and then bullets ripped through a young man's chest with a spray of blood. Seconds later, he dropped to the ground. The other kids started running, turning their backs and sprinting through the grass.
Melissa reacted without thinking.
She ran for the Student Centre and then called upon Ilia's power. “No, wait!” Jack called out, but she wasn't listening. With a single thought, she Bent gravity and propelled herself upward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Melissa crested the edge of the rooftop and then landed, raising fists into a fighting stance. “Do you wanna kill helpless kids?” she asked, striding forward. “Or do you want to fight someone who can-”
Isara struck in mere fractions of a second.
A pale hand lashed out to seize Melissa's jaw, fingertips digging into her cheek. For a moment, she could see into that dark hood, and she thought she might have recognized the other woman's face. But it was all over before she could think.
“Not interested,” Isara spat.
Melissa was yanked backward as if someone had thrown a lasso around her waist and tied the other end to a galloping horse. She went over the edge of the roof and then dropped to the ground, landing hard on her ass with a jolt that sent shock waves of pain up her spine.