They’d both been busy of late, him flying special forces teams to the Badlands, her with a time-sensitive chiral experiment. The moment he’d been cut loose, he’d pinged Sam to see if she could get away for the evening. She’d eagerly accepted.
A small street vendor cart filled with shawarma caught his eye, the meat’s juices making quiet sizzling sounds as spatters of the liquid dripped onto the searing hot plate below.
Reaching for Sam’s elbow, he pulled her to a stop. “Come on.”
He nudged her toward the street vendor and extended a token, silently pointing to one of the skewers of meat.
“We’re on our way to dinner. You’ll ruin your appetite,” she scolded.
The vendor smiled and handed it over, despite Sam’s protest.
Micah lifted one eyebrow as he regarded her. “Woman, have you seen me eat? Besides, our reservations aren’t for another hour, and you know that place is always jam-packed. We’ll be lucky if I survive that long.”
Sam rolled her eyes, but didn’t refuse the skewer of meat he held out to her, pulling the topmost piece off and popping it past her lips.
Mouth full, she switched to a more private method of communication. {Sometimes, I find myself forgetting that none of this food will sustain your chiral body.}
Micah shot her a sardonic look. {I don’t. Can’t afford to.}
When he saw her stricken expression, he saluted her with his skewer and sent a reassuring smile. {It does come with a few perks, you know. I can’t get sick… and I can eat all I want and not have to worry about packing on the pounds.} To illustrate his point, he tossed a piece of the spicy meat into his mouth.
The smells hadn’t done it justice; the savory flavor that coated his tongue was sheer heaven. Sam agreed, if her moan of pleasure was any indication.
He inclined his head toward the nearby park. “Come on. Let’s get out of the crowd and go enjoy these in peace.”
The park incorporated the same tasteful architectural lines as The Hill. Surrounded by a colonnade, its entrance was a graceful, arched trellis, tumbling with a waterfall of colorful flowers. A park bench sat just inside, and he angled toward it, their entry briefly interrupting the birdsong.
“How’s work coming along?” he asked, sparing Sam a glance once they’d settled onto the bench.
She popped another piece of meat into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, waggling a flattened palm back and forth before letting it drop.
{Eh. We’re taking it slow, trying different methodologies as we work our way up from simple organisms. Creating quantum-entangled chiral clones of complex, multi-celled organisms like a Trichoplax is much more involved than when I was working with molecular compounds.}
{A trick-o-what?} Micah slid the last chunk of meat off his skewer with some regret, wishing he’d purchased more than one.
Sam sent him an image of something that looked a bit like a disk-shaped blob with fuzzy tendrils as she licked the juices from her fingers. {A simple sea animal. It only has six cell types, which is why we chose it.} She brushed her hair from her face with the back of her hand as a light breeze stirred her short, blonde locks. {By comparison, your basic fruit fly has fifty cell types. Humans have hundreds.}
Micah grunted as he processed her words. He wadded up the napkin he’d used to wipe his fingers, and then looked around for a recycling receptacle. “Someone needs to uninvent those things.”
{What? Chiral clones?}
“No. Fruit Flies.”
That earned him a laugh. She dropped her napkin-wrapped skewer into his waiting hand, and rose to follow as he walked toward the exit.
{Sometimes the quantum entanglement between the two chirally-paired mirror organisms is complete,} she continued. {But sometimes, it’s not there at all.}
The puzzlement in her tone had him glancing sharply at her as they reentered the flow of the crowd.
He considered his words carefully before responding, keeping their conversation a mental one, more for security reasons than efficiency, now that they’d finished their snack.
{It’s… difficult to wrap my head around how slowly you’re progressing when I think about—}
She cut in, her words scathing.
{About what that sorry excuse for a chief scientist did to you back on deGrasse? I suppose you could say he ‘got lucky’ when he chirally cloned Jonathan and brought you into this universe. But the fact remains he experimented on you without permission.}
She turned to face him, heedless of the press of the crowd, her eyes snapping.
{That was more than unethical. It broke every rule in the book. There’s no possible way to precisely duplicate the methods he used. We may have his research notes, but his lab perished when deGrasse blew up, and we lost a lot in that explosion.}
She turned and resumed walking. {I won’t pretend the mental connection you and Jonathan share due to your quantum entanglement isn’t unique and worth studying. But we sure as hell aren’t going to skip the important interim steps to get there, like he did. And as a reminder, we’re doing it so we can better understand and assist you, not so we can make more of you.}
He pulled her to a stop, laid his hands on her shoulders, and turned her to face him. “I know that, Sam. I’d never think otherwise.”
She stared back for a beat, and then her gaze softened. She tucked her hand through his arm, and they resumed walking. “Thanks. What he did was horrid,” she added in a soft voice, “but I can’t say I’m sorry, when it brought me you.”
They walked in silence for a while.
A small cluster of swantail flitters erupted from a nearby bush as they passed, catching his attention. The colorful butterflies were native to his home planet of Beryl; they brought back warm memories of family picnics from when he was a child.
“I didn’t know you had these on Ceriba,” he said, craning his neck to follow their flight.
“What, the flitters?” Sam followed his gaze. “I remember a newsnet cast about it several years back. They migrate in large swarms, don’t they?”
“Yeah, it’s called a kaleidoscope, I think. The southern migration’s a pretty big deal back home.”
Sam made a noise of agreement. “Well, if I remember correctly, they were having some trouble with the pollinators here on Ceriba, so the conservatory decided to introduce them into the ecosystem to help balance it a bit better.”
The flitters disappeared behind one of the buildings, and Micah turned his attention back to the street. “Reminds me of home.”
He saw Sam slide a glance his way. “You don’t talk about your homeworld much.”
Micah hesitated, and then lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “Jonathan and I don’t go back as much as we used to prior to Luyten’s Star. Kind of awkward, not being able to tell them there are two of us now.”
“Understandable,” she murmured after a moment.
Micah’s mouth tipped up into a wry grin. “When Mom complains about us not visiting, we blame your uncle. Since the… incident… at Luyten’s Star coincided with the creation of Task Force Blue, he makes a convenient scapegoat.”
Sam laughed. “Fair enough.”
The clink of glass and the murmur of patrons reached Micah’s ears as they passed by an open-air café. The chatter reminded him of the two people who would be joining them at their destination.
“Hey, you sure you’re okay with Thad and Ell joining us for dinner?” he asked Sam. “He kind of invited himself along tonight.”
Thaddeus Severance was the commander of Task Force Blue, and an imposing man. A former active-duty Marine turned special forces soldier, Thad could make hardened veterans quail in their boots.
Despite his foreboding aura, the warrior had a quick wit and a ready smile that flashed white against his ebony face for those he counted as friend, and that included Micah. He trusted Thad to have his six, no matter what, when, or where.
Ell—Elodie Cyr—was a bit harder to read, but no less trustworthy despite that fact. She�
��d been a sniper on Thad’s team for many years, until an injury forced her down a different career path. Now a special agent for the Navy’s Criminal Investigation Command, Ell had been instrumental in the takedown of the Akkadian terrorists that had targeted the Defense Summit on Hawking eighteen months ago.
A dimple formed in Sam’s cheek at Micah’s mention of Thad and Ell.
“I think Mister Tall, Dark, and Dangerous might have a thing for….” Sam’s voice trailed off as she sought the words to describe the woman Thad was bringing along with him.
“Small, silent, and deadly?”
Micah’s comment earned him another ripple of laughter.
“Accurate.” She lifted a finger, one eye narrowing in contemplation. “Elodie Cyr is one scary lady when she wants to be.”
“Never known a sniper who wasn’t a bit scary. Boone’s the same way,” he reminded her.
Sam dropped her finger, tilting her head at his mention of the task force’s sniper. She shot him an appraising look. “True. I’m sure you’ve known your share of them, too. You flew recon on missions for how many years before the task force was commissioned?”
Micah smiled, but didn’t comment.
After a beat, she let it go, and he silently thanked her for it. Some things he was cleared to discuss with her; others, he was not.
As the white dwarf gave up its last light and sank behind a mountain range in the distance, Micah drew Sam closer, noticing her shivering in the breeze.
After a few more steps, she came to a stop, pointing across the busy street. “There it is.”
Micah spotted a marquee hanging above an establishment’s entrance and read the name off the tasteful, holographically-extruded sign. “The Rieger. Never heard of it.”
“It’s fairly new. I hear they have some pretty good handmade pastas. Someone back at the CID told me we needed to try their signature Hanna cocktails, too.”
“Cocktails? You mean, like, sweet drinks with tiny umbrellas?” He shook his head. “Nah. Think I’ll leave those fancy things to you ladies.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Got news for you, Micah Case. A Hanna cocktail’s what they used to call a ‘man’s drink,’ made from liquors the Reiger’s owners distill themselves.”
He didn’t miss the heavy sarcasm she laid on the phrase ‘man’s drink,’ and a grin tugged at his lips. “Oh yeah? Now you’re talking.”
Sam ignored him as she began to tick them off. “There’s the Sage Advice, the Smokin’ Choke, the Settle Down, and my favorite, Cortez the Killer. Mezcal, tequila, mango, a healthy dose of habanero, and a little bit of lime.” She shot him a look he knew better than to cross. “That sound like a girly drink to you?”
He held up his hands. “Ma’am, no, ma’am.”
They waited with the crowd for traffic to clear and then crossed the street. Just as they stepped up onto the sidewalk, Micah heard someone shout his name.
“Captain Case!”
Micah turned, and the crowd parted just enough for him to see a man rapidly approaching. He tensed, reaching out instinctively to his mirror twin.
Brother….
Trouble? The response came instantly, the connection as clear as if his other self were standing beside him instead of at his post, up at the base.
Don’t know. Do we know who this is?
He sent Jonathan a mental image of the man as he jolted to a stop before them. The stranger was young, of average height and looked vaguely familiar. He seemed unusually anxious, his eyes shifting left and right as if seeking danger in those milling about.
“Captain Case,” the man repeated, stepping close and lowering his voice. “Doctor Travis. You have to help. Please, you’re the only ones who can.”
Sam’s eyes widened, and she inhaled sharply at the stranger’s use of her name. {How does he know who we—}
Her words cut off abruptly as a bloody trail grazed the man’s forehead.
The stranger’s body jerked in reaction, and he staggered back a step, bumping into the people nearest him. A woman turned, her irritation over being jostled morphing into horror as two more holes silently appeared, one in his abdomen, the final one near his heart.
She screamed and quickly backed away as he fell to the ground. “He’s been shot! Somebody help!”
Cries of “Shooter!” and “Run!” mingled with the press of bodies as people nearby panicked, stampeding to get away from the unseen threat.
Micah grabbed Sam and shoved her against the recessed alcove of the restaurant’s entrance, urging her into a crouch.
“Stay down!” he yelled over the shouts of the crowd. At the same time, he initiated a combat net, the mental connection snapping into place. {Shots fired, downtown Montpelier!}
His words were sent simultaneously to all the members of Task Force Blue.
{We’re two blocks out. Ell’s going high.} Thad’s mental voice sliced through Micah’s mind.
{I need a visual,} the former sniper’s voice cut in, slightly breathless. {Can you give me access to your optics?}
In lieu of response, Micah patched Ell into his wire.
{Good. Let me see the vic.}
Micah set his eyes on the young man bleeding out, three meters away. {He was facing us. It was odd, not the standard two to the chest, one to the head.} He added, {If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was done by an amateur, but from some distance away.}
{Reverse angle of street,} Ell instructed. {Just a quick look, and then get back under cover.}
Based on the placement of the shots, Micah had a good idea of the shooter’s location. From where he crouched over Sam, he let his gaze sweep the street, his eyes darting from rooftop to rooftop, looking for the shooter—but he saw nothing.
{Got it. Thanks.}
Thad’s voice returned, barking out a quick, {Sitrep!}
Sam tried to rise to get to the fallen stranger, but Micah pulled her back, forcing her to remain still.
“Don’t move,” he ground out, when she resisted his hand.
“Micah, I don’t think there’s a shooter. Not one here locally, at least.”
“Holes don’t just mysteriously drill themselves into a person’s head and chest,” he countered.
“They could, under certain conditions.”
Her words made no sense, but in the heat of the moment, Micah didn’t try to parse their meaning.
He continued to cover Sam with his own body as he relayed what he could see of the street in staccato bursts of information. Something about what she’d said snagged his attention, though, and he found his gaze returning to the downed man.
She’s right. We didn’t hear any gunshots.
The fallen man was, surprisingly, still alive, though Micah could see the life draining from him by the second. So could Sam, and she redoubled her efforts to get free, her doctor’s instincts and medical training demanding she go to him and treat his wounds.
When the man met Micah’s eyes, he gasped a word that speared Micah with a cold terror.
“Chiral.” Then his gaze sought Sam’s with a pleading intensity. “Prisoner.” He took a shuddering breath, blood bubbling from between his lips. “Stop them….”
The man’s eyes glazed over, fixed in the distance.
“Dammit, Micah, let me go.” Sam elbowed him in the solar plexus, attempting once more to get to the fatally wounded man. “Micah, I’m telling you, the only danger is to that poor man!”
“Want to elaborate on that a bit, cher?”
Sam jerked as a deep bass rumble sounded above them.
Thad had arrived.
An ebony hand reached down; Sam grasped it, and the Marine pulled her to her feet. Micah saw an icon flash over his wire and realized Thad had added Sam to the team’s combat channel.
{Ell doesn’t think anyone’s out there. She’s checked out the most likely spots, but the single microdrone we had between us isn’t showing any residual IR heat signature.}
Sam shot Micah an impatient look and moved toward th
e man lying on the sidewalk, three meters away. {Told you so. I need to get to him before someone tries to steal his body or alter the evidence.}
{She has a point.} Thad slanted a meaningful look at the once-empty street. After several minutes had passed without additional bullets fired, a few brave souls were beginning to stir, morbid curiosity overcoming their fear. Some were on an intercept with the body.
If they wanted to keep a lid on this incident, they’d have to move fast.
One look at Sam’s expression suggested she was on her own communications network. If Micah had to guess, it was with people back at the CID.
Thad moved to follow Sam. “We need to keep everyone back. Damn, I hate that we’re out here with no gear.”
Micah felt much the same. This was supposed to be a night off; no one had kitted up for that.
Ell showed up, and something unspoken passed between her and Thad. The former sniper nodded and then stepped forward to flash her NCIC special agent’s badge at those in the restaurant, assuring them that things were under control.
{Local LEOs are going to be all over this, and that’s pissin’ me off, hoss,} the Marine admitted as he lifted a hand and shot a warning look at an especially bold bystander. {You say he mentioned you by name?}
“Yeah,” Micah replied. “Me and Sam both.”
Sam looked up from her cursory exam. Her eyes slid to the people standing in a loose semicircle around them before returning to him and Thad. “I need to get the body into stasis. I’ve contacted Admiral Toland, and she’s dispatched a critical care team; they’re on their way.”
He nodded. “Copy that.”
Admiral Amara Toland was the officer in charge of the Navy’s chiral project, based at the CID’s main offices here in Montpelier.
It wasn’t long before Micah heard a shuttle coming in on a fast intercept. As it came to a stop, medical personnel spilled out, two of them pushing a stasis pod between them.
Seconds later, the strobe of flashing lights signaled the arrival of two police cruisers converging on the street. Thad waved Ell toward them.
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 2
