Dirty Mirror

by R S Penney

  Anna turned around.

  Jack grinned, then shook his head. “Wasn't expecting to find you here,” he said, stopping right in front of her. “Do you want first crack at her? Or should we try to do this together?”

  Anna looked up at him, blinking slowly as if she had never seen him before. “Isara was involved with the Sons of Savard,” she said. “Jon wants to know everything that she knows; so, here I am.”

  “Like old times then.”

  “Let's just get this done, okay?”

  Biting his lower lip, Jack felt his face burn, but he nodded to her just the same. “All right,” he said. “Should be all kinds of fun.”

  Inside the cell, they found Isara facing the door with arms folded, lost in the kind of intense focus you would expect from one of those British guards who weren't supposed to move or speak. Because, you know, she wasn't creepy enough already. Looking at her and seeing Jena's face…It didn't matter what Melissa said. It was still unnerving.

  Jack stepped in first, clasping hands together behind his back and striding toward her with his head down. “Good to see you're settling in,” he began. “Hope you like the place; you're gonna be seeing a lot more just like it.”

  Isara didn't react.

  Pressing his lips into a thin frown, Jack studied her for a long moment. “So, that's the way you wanna play it, huh?” he asked. “You refuse to eat, you refuse to answer any questions.”

  “She refuses to eat?” Anna broke in.

  His partner – for lack of a better term – stepped forward with her scowl that would shatter mirrors. “I suppose that solves one problem,” Anna said. “I figure she'll last a few weeks, tops, and then we get our cell back.”

  I guess that makes me the good cop, Jack noted. His talent for snark urged him to make a joke about how much he liked it when Anna was the bad cop, but that would not go over well under the current circumstances. Damn it! The world was tilted off its axis when Anna wasn't in his life.

  Isara said nothing.

  Still as a statue, she watched the wall with such intensity you might have thought someone had scrawled a best-seller on white duroplastic. What the hell was that woman thinking? She might not be Jena, but she had Jena's talent for controlling a room. Were they sisters? Summer was tense. “This isn't working,” he said. “So how about-”

  “When did you two turn against each other?”

  “Excuse me?”

  The victorious grin on Isara's face hit him like a knife to the gut. “Not so long ago, you two were professing your undying loyalty to each other,” she said. “Now it's all icy stares and awkward silences. What happened?”

  “That's not your business.”

  “Oh, if Slade could see this.”

  “Is Slade alive?”

  Turning her back on both of them, Isara faced the wall. “Mmm…Wouldn't you like to know?” she mocked. “Come on, Jack; I trained you better than this. So, use that keen mind of yours and put the pieces together.”

  Jack strode toward her, shaking his head in disgust. “It's not gonna work,” he said, stopping before he got within arm's reach. “I know that you're not Jena. Melissa carries Jena's symbiont.”

  Isara stiffened at that.

  So, she didn't know. Which only served to confirm the fact that this woman as not the person who had mentored him over the past year. The relief he felt at that was beyond description. Now, they just had to figure out why someone else was walking around with Jena's face.

  Anna stepped forward and looked the other woman up and down. “The question we should be asking is 'Who are you?' ” she said. “More importantly, why would Slade need to clone Jena?”

  Isara's cruel laughter was so sudden, so vicious, Jack nearly jumped backward in response. Jesus, he really was afraid of this woman. “Foolish children,” Isara said. “You still haven't figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  When Isara turned and looked over her shoulder, her eyes cut like daggers. “Jena was the clone!” she spat. “One of my worst decisions. I never imagined that she would give me such trouble when I squeezed her through my loins.”

  “You're her mother?”

  “Her biological mother.”

  Grabbing one of the plastic chairs, Isara turned it around and sat down backwards, hugging the thing as she spoke. “Slade was operating in Ragnosian Space back then,” she said. “So, I came here.

  “I was the only one of his lieutenants who could even come close to challenging him, but even I wasn't a match for his power. But what if there were two of me? Together, we could throw him down and take his place.

  “I had a geneticist engineer a clone and impregnate me with the embryo. He offered to accelerate the clone's growth so that Jena would be an adult in a matter of months. But such accelerated growth rates tend to produce an unstable cellular structure. No, I wanted a daughter, and for a brief time, I had one.

  “My intention was to raise her as my own, teach her everything I knew. I hid on the Fringe, on the colony worlds that had largely gone unnoticed by the major powers in this part of the galaxy. But Slade began to suspect, and when he learned of what I'd done, he ordered me to destroy the child.”

  Isara winced, tears streaming over her cheeks in glistening trails. God in Heaven, was she actually being sincere? “I arranged for Jena to find a home with two engineers who worked on orbital space stations,” she whispered. “They never told her of her true parentage; she grew up thinking she was theirs.”

  Jack sat on the edge of the wooden table with his hands on his knees, smiling into his own lap. “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “You and your ego decided that it was time to take your relationship to the next level; so, you brought home a little bundle of joy, and then you gave her up because…parenting fail!”

  “Slade would have killed her.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” Jack muttered. “All's fair in narcissism and war.”

  Next to him, Anna still had her arms crossed, and her gaze was locked on the other woman. “Here's what I don't understand,” she said. “Why are you telling us all this? Why give us the answers?”

  Good question.

  It occurred to Jack that this could all be lies, but…Why? The most Isara could gain from this little performance was to keep them distracted for a day or two while they tried to find some record of Jena's adoption. Usually, when someone lied, they did for a reason. Isara seemed to just be sharing like this was some kind of therapy session.

  All you needed was one glance at Isara to see that she was strung out. The woman was slumped over with her arms wrapped around the back of the chair, exhaustion plain on her face. “Because you took her from me,” she said. “You made her small. You made her one of you.”

  “Jena saved lives.”

  “Meaningless lives.”

  Jack grimaced, touching two fingers to his forehead. “Don't you see what's going on here, An?” he asked. “She's about to launch into one of those patented 'I am evil, hear me roar,' speeches.”

  Anna moved forward until she was right in front of the other woman. “Let's stick to the basics,” she said. “I want to know how you mimicked Jena's biometric ID.”

  “They have the same DNA,” Jack said.

  His former best friend shot a glance in his direction, and the ferocity in Anna's stare made him flinch. “But not the same fingerprints,” she snapped. “Those are shaped by life experiences, not DNA.”

  That was a good point. Sometimes Anna had a better head for the logistics of how something might work. How one might bypass a security system, for instance.

  Isara lifted both hands, palms out, and wiggled her fingers playfully. “Actually, we do have the same fingerprints,” she said. “Which shouldn't surprise you. The Inzari sculpt flesh to serve their will, remember?”

  “So, they gave you Jena's fingerprints?”

  “Oh, it went well beyond that,” Isara replied with disdain in her voice. “When Jena was twenty-three, she lost a too
th in a fight with a particularly nasty arms dealer. She had it replaced shortly afterward.”

  Isara narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “The Inzari pulled my tooth out and replaced it with one of your primitive synthetics.” She stood up and spread her arms wide, bowing to them. “These clothes, this hair, the way I carry myself. They made me a perfect match for her in every way.”

  Jack shivered.

  “Ironic, isn't it?” Isara went on. “I created a copy of myself, and as penance, they turned me into a copy of the copy. It was Slade's idea. He enjoyed the…symmetry.”

  “Okay, Izzy,” Jack said. “That'll be enough for now.”

  He had already learned more than he would have liked to, and he could see that Anna was getting flustered as well. Better to end this now before they lost control of the situation. By the look on her face, he could see that Isara had guessed his intentions.

  And that made him very uneasy.

  Anna sat on Jack's desk with one leg crossed over the other, her hands folded on her knee. She looked down into her lap and tried to calm herself. “So, what do you think? Is there any chance she's telling the truth?”

  Jack was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, smiling up at the ceiling. “Well, that's the thing about subjects like her,” he muttered. “Nuggets of truth are buried under layer after layer of lies. Lady makes Elim Garak look honest.”

  “Who?”

  “Deep Space Nine.”

  “Oh.”

  The reference brought up painful memories. Sitting on Jack's couch and watching Star Trek with a bowl of popcorn. Noticing the way he smiled at her when he thought she wasn't looking. They should have been happy memories, but grief had a way of twisting everything.

  Setting her elbow on her knee, Anna rested her chin on the knuckles of her fist. “I was about to lose it in there,” she mumbled. “I don't know what I would have said if you didn't pull me out when you did.”

  When she let her hand fall, Jack was still standing by the wall, but he was blushing and looking down at himself. “Don't be so hard on yourself,” he said. “I lost it in there a few times as well.”

  Anna hopped off the desk, pressing a hand to her stomach, and grunted as she made her way to the door. “Well…I'm sure you can take it from here,” she said. “I need to write out a report for Director Andalon.”

  “Wait.”

  She turned.

  Jack came toward her slowly. “I could really use a fresh perspective,” he said. “Someone to bounce ideas off of, and you were always really good with that.”

  Anna shut her eyes tight, drawing in a deep breath. “I'm sure you'll be fine,” she said, turning away from him. “You're the brainstorming king, Jack. I think you can figure out Isara's evil plan.”

  In her mind's eye, he was a silhouette that stared over his left shoulder at the wall. “Maybe that's true,” he countered. “But you were the practical one, the one who could synthesize all those ideas into a cohesive picture. I need you, An.”

  “No, you don't.”

  “Yeah, I do!”

  Anna crossed her arms with a heavy sigh, hunching up her shoulders in some lame attempt to make herself as small as possible. “I haven't been much use to anyone lately, Jack,” she mumbled. “So wrapped up in myself.”

  “You're strong, you're capable,” Jack said. “I wish I understood what it is that's got you so down, but whatever it is, I know you'll face it with your usual brand of courage and practical wisdom.”

  Tears welled up when she heard those words. It was so sweet…and it made her feel so very, very guilty inside. The emotion was there in an intense flash and smothered by anger before she could really analyze it. Why she felt so guilty was secondary. She could deal with that later.

  Anna whirled around to face him.

  “Will you stop it?” she shouted. “In case you haven't realized, Jack, I'm trying to make a polite exit here. I don't need you to put me back together or…find the words that will take all the pain away!”

  He stared at her with a gaping mouth, then shook his head to clear his thoughts. “I didn't mean to…” The words came out so fast they were almost incoherent. “I know that you can sort out your own problems; that's what I was-”

  “Then let me sort out my own problems!”

  Jack raised both hands defensively and backed away from her as if he thought she might pounce and go for the throat. “Anna, I'm not trying to solve your problems,” he said. “But I've always been there for you in the past, and it seemed like the right-”

  “The past, Jack,” she said. “Times change.”

  Why was she doing this? Bleakness take her, she was insulting someone who was just trying to love her and that…infuriated her. It was a rush of anger that came on before she could really analyze it. She had a glimpse of it, of a grounded logical explanation for her fury, but it vanished before she could put it into words.

  Seth was panicking in the back of her mind. The Nassai clearly didn't want her to go down this path, but it was her life, damn it! Sure, okay, Jack was only trying to love her, but she didn't ask for his love. She didn't want him to love her.

  Because she didn't deserve it.

  After what she had done, the pain she had caused, the look in Bradley's eyes when she told him that she didn't love him. Her ex-boyfriend had known all along. He had seen what was going on between her and Jack. And she had let it continue!

  She had carried on an emotional affair with her best friend for months without even realizing what she was doing, and now she was supposed to what…Jump into Jack's arms and let him kiss the pain away?

  Maybe she deserved a little pain.

  Any relationship she might have with Jack was going to be tainted by the memory of what she had done, and…No! If there was ever a time for the two of them, it certainly wasn't now.

  First Harry pesters her to sort this shit out, and then Jack starts in with his “Help me solve this case” routine. She needed out.

  “Leave me be,” she said.

  Before he could open his mouth, she was whirling around and walking out the door. Was her impulsiveness getting the better of her? Maybe. At some point, she would have to deal with the fallout from this argument. But right now…

  Right now, she just needed out.

  Chapter 21

  Sparring was not one of Melissa's favourite activities. Some Keepers developed a craving for the thrill of besting an opponent, but she was not one of them. However, even a Justice Keeper had to develop muscle memory, and this was really the only way to do that. The Nassai could help accelerate the process – and Ilia seemed to be doing just that – but they could not simply “beam” knowledge into your mind.

  Most matches were tame compared to the pounding she had taken from Isara; you might endure the odd punch to the face, but nothing too serious. That didn't mean she was eager to participate.

  The matches were held in the basement of the Justice Keeper HQ, in a large box-like gym with a ring in the middle and young people in sweat pants who milled about, waiting for their turn. She would be fighting people a little older than herself. Because she carried a symbiont, she was prohibited from fighting cadets who had not yet Bonded a Nassai.

  That meant she was fighting young agents.

  Jack might have been one of her opponents if not for the fact that his experiences had forced him to learn at an accelerated rate. She was nervous. And she desperately hoped that no one would notice.

  It was your standard square-shaped arena with ropes along each side. Right now, Tavis Arveri was bouncing on the balls of his feet in the middle of the ring. Tall and fit, with skin as dark as her father's, the man was gorgeous.

  Melissa wore gray sweat pants and a white tank-top as she stood in the corner with hands folded over her stomach. Her eyes were glued to the floor. Please, don't call me, she thought at the referee.

  Operative Sarl Venson was leading this session. A tall and pale man with blonde hair that he wore in spike
s, he paced a line in front of the ring. “First match,” he shouted. “Akiri Tenabra and Tavis Arveri.”

  A young woman climbed into the ring with Tavis.

  Melissa shut her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to remain calm. It's just a sparring session, she reminded. Nothing to get upset about. You've been through like twenty of these by now.

  Of course, she had lost most of them.

  Melissa had a bad habit of hesitating when it came time to throw a punch. Deep down, she wished she had natural instincts for this like Jack or Anna. She had become a Keeper to help people, but…

  Ilia wanted her attention.

  It was a strange feeling to be summoned by her symbiont, but the Nassai was quite content to let her live her life unless she had something important to share. Here? Melissa thought. In front of everyone?

  The emotional pressure became more insistent; so she calmed herself and put her mind into a relaxed state. Luckily, she could manage this without very much effort. Some Keepers had trouble communing with their Nassai.

  The world slipped away, and Melissa was floating in a void full of stars, descending slowly to a city street below. An Earth street at night; she recognized the architecture of the houses. In fact, she knew this street well.

  It was the street she had grown up on.

  Melissa landed on the front lawn of her father's old back-split house with its bright yellow porch light. It was a warm summer night, and she could feel the humidity, the warm air on her skin.

  “Hey, kid.”

  Melissa turned around.

  Jena was standing in the grass with hands shoved into the pockets of her blue jeans, looking very much like her old self in a black t-shirt with a bright yellow happy face on it. Her hair was cut short and parted in the middle. “Thought you could use a good talk. So, I tapped you on the shoulder.”