Evolution

by R S Penney

  Her Nassai echoed the sentiment.

  The anchorwoman was on screen once again, but her head was turned to look at something off to her right. When she realized she was on camera, she flinched. “Citizens are urged to remain in their homes and avoid the use of public transit or major roadways until further notice.”

  Someone killed the broadcast and replaced it with an overhead map of Manhattan with thirteen red dots spread out across the island, each one flashing. On first glance, she couldn't see a pattern.

  Tiassa stood so that Jena saw her in profile, frowning at the back of a young man's head. “Keep the shuttles on standby,” she ordered. “Prep TAC teams. I want to be ready to leave on a moment's notice.”

  “That's it?” Jena asked.

  Tiassa shot a glance over her shoulder, her face crumpling into an expression of disgust. “We don't move until local authorities give us clearance to move!” she barked. “The last thing we need is to set off a panic.”

  “Earth cops can't handle Slade.”

  “Your objection is noted, Director Morane.” Tiassa intoned. “Let me be clear that I will not be sending a team until I receive a direct request for aid from Mayor Lynch, and neither will you.”

  Bile started to churn in Jena's stomach. So the planned response was a fun game of “wait and see?” Jena wasn't the sort of person who wanted to go into any situation half-cocked, but the simple truth was that they needed people on the ground to deliver a full assessment of the danger. Keepers were made for this sort of thing! Half a dozen could slip into the city in plain clothes and then report on exactly what kind of firepower Slade had at his disposal. Because anyone with half a brain knew that bastard had something up his sleeve.

  The Earth-Leyria Accord gave them jurisdiction over every city in every country on the planet; there was no need to wait for Mayor Lynch's approval – not for simple recon, anyway – but in the absence of Glin and Larani, Tiassa was the senior-most Keeper in this sector of space. It was just a shame that her loyalties were questionable. The woman was almost certainly another Cal Breslan.

  Planting one elbow on the metal railing, Jena rested her chin in the palm of her hand. Choose your battles, she told herself. You confront her now, and they'll only think you've fallen into your standard pattern of defiance.

  If only she could groom Jack into embracing that concept.

  Moves and counter moves, she thought. Tiassa wants to stall? Okay, we'll stall.

  Double doors slid apart, granting her access to a long hallway of drab gray walls and floor tiles that were in need of a good polishing. The maintenance bots must not have been through this section lately.

  Once she was far enough to avoid anyone accidentally tripping over, Jena tapped at her multi-tool and called Anna. The girl's face appeared on the screen, all pinched with concern. “Hey! What's up?”

  Jena shut her eyes tight, a soft shudder making her tremble. “Have everyone meet in my office in ten minutes,” she said softly. “I'm sick of being on the defensive. We're going to take the fight to Slade.”

  She had asked for a meeting in ten minutes, but it took the better part of twenty to make her way back to Station Twelve and then to her office. SlipGate traffic was murder with all the commotion surrounding New York.

  Once inside, she found a ring of people standing in the middle of the room, people who, by all rights, had no business being anywhere near this room. She had expected to see Harry, Anna and Jack, but the others…

  Gabrina stood in the corner with her arms folded and a haunted expression on her face, watching Jack and trying her best to look like she wasn't watching Jack. What had gone on there? No time to worry about that now.

  Raynar was in front of her desk with hands in his pockets, his blonde hair a mess as he stared down at his own shoes. The telepath? Why in the Verse would Anna invite him to this meeting? Clicking her tongue in frustration, Jena reminded herself to put aside her prejudice. Raynar had proven himself to be a valued ally.

  Aamani Patel sat in a chair with her hands folded in her lap, talking amicably with Professor Nareo and the hologram of Ven. The AI had chosen to project itself as a woman this time, a woman composed of silvery light.

  Worst of all, Melissa was standing next to her father and smiling as she discussed her recent admission to the Keeper training program. A teenager? Jena thought. Really? You're gonna let the untrained teenager be part of this?

  “Why are you people here?” she demanded.

  Anna stepped forward, then bowed her head sheepishly. “You said everyone,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Besides, every single person in this room has been a help to us at one time.”

  Jena wrinkled her nose, then shook her head in frustration. “You're going to have to learn to be a bit less literal,” she said, stepping past the younger woman. “All right, we've got a lot to do and not much time.”

  That brought the conversation to an abrupt halt as eight people and one hologram spun to face her. A misty silhouette that her mind recognized as Anna stood behind her with its head cocked, and just like that, she was suddenly very much aware of how much she detested public speaking.

  Not that she minded being the centre of attention – that, she could do if the need arose – but whenever she was at a podium, she always felt the urge to perform. And Jena Morane was not a performer. She could create a public spectacle if doing so advanced her goals, but she wasn't an actress. Not in her own mind, anyway.

  Gritting her teeth audibly, Jena winced and sucked in a deep breath. “By now, you all know about New York.” Her voice grated in her own ears. “Tiassa wants to wait for a formal request of aid, I'm done waiting. Jack, I've pulled a few strings and convinced the higher-ups that I need to hold on to you until this crisis is over.”

  The silhouette of Anna shivered, then tossed her head about as if to clear her mind. “So, what's the plan then?” she asked. “If we use SlipGates to enter the city, Tiassa will find out about it.”

  Jack looked up to study her with cold blue eyes that glittered under the harsh lights in the ceiling. “This needs to be our first priority,” he insisted. “Any minute now, Slade could set off a bomb or a biological weapon.”

  “Agreed,” Harry broke in. “Our search for the Key can wait.”

  “That's exactly what Slade wants,” Jena countered. Once again, silence fell over the room, and she was dimly aware of Raynar shuffling his weight from one foot to the other and trying not to look conspicuous. Couldn't her friends see what was happening? Earlier this morning, Jack and Harry had returned with data recovered from a piece of Overseer technology and one of Slade's lieutenants as a captive. So now the man felt it was time to up his game.

  It was all moves and counter-moves. She'd been sparring with this man for almost five years now; she knew a thing or two about how his devious mind worked. For a while there, it had looked like she might have had him after Breslan slipped up, but she hadn't anticipated his little stunt with Station One's main computer. “Tiassa's got us all playing a fun game of 'Let's Be Patient.' The truth is, Slade doesn't care what the Keepers do, but he knows we're closing in on his prize.”

  “Okay,” Anna said. “Then what's the game?”

  Jena spun to face Nareo and found the man sitting in a chair at the side of the room with his knees together and his hands anxiously clawing at his pant legs. The man wore a scowl that made her wonder if he'd swallowed a microscopic black hole. “What have we learned about whatever Harry brought back?”

  “Somehow, Mr. Carlson managed to store the data in the memory cells of the small, hand-held device,” he explained. “I've analyzed the data with Ven. We believe it's some kind of access code.”

  Harry turned to her with arms crossed, his lips peeling back from clenched teeth. “There are two others,” he said testily. “Don't ask me how I know; I just do! Whoever has all three gets the Key.”

  “That's our next goal then.”

  The others were all clustered together, wa
tching her with wary expressions. Gabi took two steps forward, reaching out as though she meant to rest a hand on Jack's arm. Then she thought better of it and pulled away. So those two were done, were they? Jena couldn't say she was very upset about it; the boy belonged with Anna. “Harry,” she said. “Since you're the one who can interface with these…things…I figure this should be your mission. I want one Keeper supporting him at all times.”

  Jack stepped forward with his hands shoved into his pockets, closing his eyes and bowing his head to her. “I guess that should be me,” he said. “I can handle anything Slade might throw at us.”

  Biting her lip, Jena nodded her satisfaction. “Good,” she said, spinning to face the others. “Gabrina, since you're here, I'm going to assume you're willing to be a part of this op. I want you and Anna to meet me on Station Fifteen in an hour. We're going to take a cargo shuttle down to Atlantic City. From there, we'll-”

  “Excuse me,” Raynar cut in.

  He was behind her, but she could sense his silhouette standing with one hand raised like a kid trying to ask his teacher a question. “I know you'll probably object to this,” he added in a shaky voice. “But I would like to go too.”

  Tossing her head back, Jena squinted up at the ceiling. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said, making no effort to stifle her irritation. “Why in the Verse would I take an untrained kid into life-threatening danger.”

  She turned around.

  The boy regarded her with gray eyes that held surprising serenity for one so young. “A telepath would be useful to you,” he replied. “I can sense the presence of other minds even before your Nassai can detect them. I can warn you if I pick up the tiniest whiff of hostile intentions. And I'm not exactly useless in a fight.”

  “He did manage to incapacitate several guards on the Ganymede station,” Anna put in. “The way Ben tells it, he never would have gotten out of there alive if not for Raynar and Keli.”

  Objections rose to mind, and Jena found herself standing there with an open mouth, ready to give voice to all of them. They all died before she formed even one syllable. She had to admit that telepaths made her uneasy – on the Fringe, they had been the one thing the Antaurans could produce to cause real trouble for a Justice Keeper – but this kid had been an asset to her team before. A Justice Keeper should be above prejudice. Raynar was a human being first, a telepath second. “All right,” she said. “Anna, get him prepped; see to it that he can at least pick up a gun without shooting himself.”

  Aamani rose gracefully from her chair and started forward at a brisk pace. “Let me guess,” Jena said. “You want to come too?”

  “I have agents in New York.”

  Jena arched an eyebrow.

  The other woman blushed, clearly uncomfortable divulging this, and turned her head to stare off at nothing. “They can provide you with some of the intel you need,” she murmured. “If we make contact, we may be able to mount an offensive against Slade.”

  “Good enough.”

  Jena rounded on the girl to find Melissa staring down at herself with a small smile on her face. The girl looked entirely too satisfied with her situation. “And you,” Jena said. “There is no way I'm taking you along on-”

  Melissa silenced her with a frosty glare that actually made her shiver. “I will be boarding one of the relief shuttles as a volunteer assisting the first-response teams. An excellent place for a Keeper-in-training, wouldn't you say?”

  A grin split Harry's face in two as he trembled with soft laughter. “Face it, Jen,” he said. “If I can't make her choose a nice safe career, there's not a whole lot you can do to keep her out of trouble.”

  Well…That settled it then. If Harry was all right with this – and she had to marvel at his maturity there – there wasn't a whole lot she could say to protest. “All right then,” she said. “But let me make one thing clear, Cadet Carlson. As of today, you are an official part of this team, which means that – no matter who else you may be working with – you still take orders from me, and I order you to stay with the rescue shuttles at all times. You are not to go adventuring in the city.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She realized that everyone else had clustered together in something that loosely resembled a circle. Her people. Justice Keeper or not, they were hers, and she would get them through this. A slight pang of regret hit her when she realized that Ben should have been here as well, but this would have to do. “Let's do it,” Jena said.

  She thrust her hand into the circle. Jack's hand came down on top of hers and then Anna's on top of his. Harry, Aamani, Gabi and Melissa. Raynar and Professor Nareo as well. Finally, the spectral digits of Ven's hologram joined them. “One last thing,” Jena said. “Every last one of you is coming back from this. That's an order.”

  This suburban street in Queens was lined with older houses with black shingles on their gabled roofs and front lawns of dead yellow grass. The road stretched on stretched on for what seemed like miles with the Union Turnpike barely visible in the distance, but he wouldn't be going that far.

  What little he knew about suburban life – he had been far away from Earth during the quaint era that people now called the '50s – said that there should be children playing on the street, enjoying the cool breezes of a summer evening. Instead, the place was all but deserted.

  An old man in shorts and a white tank top sat with hands on his knees on the porch of a two-story house with large windows in its front wall. He stared outward with eyes scrunched into a fierce squint, his head swiveling to track Slade as he passed. Everyone else was too cowardly to bother poking their heads out of their cozy little houses. In truth, he didn't blame them. People were predictable creatures; expose the average man to even the smallest danger, and he would bury his head in the dirt and wait with desperate hope that it would pass without noticing him.

  Slade walked up the sidewalk in jeans and a black t-shirt, his face shielded by the bill of a Mets baseball cap. Local fashion. He would have shunned it under any other circumstances, but it was important to blend in.

  Not far ahead, at the corner of an intersecting street, two police officers in dark blue uniforms stood on the driver's side of their parked cruiser, conversing with one another. Yes, those two would do.

  Slade felt his face crumple, sweat beading on his forehead. The things a man does in the service of his gods, he thought, slipping hands into his pockets. The endless tedium of managing these benighted little insects.

  He had no desire to be their Emperor again; the man who had wanted such things had died when he walked among the stars for the first time, when the Inzari taught him the extent of his insignificance. To rule over a pack of hairless apes on a small planet in the far reaches of an empty galaxy? As well to rule over a pile of dust! Still…the Inzari had need of him a little while longer.

  He made his way toward the officers.

  One – a tall man with broad shoulders and short blonde hair – stood with his back turned, gesturing to the other man. Unobservant fools. They thought his attacks would be confined to Manhattan, to Wall Street or Time's Square. It was a perfect testament to the limited mind of the average human being; destroying a monument had an effect, true, but if you wanted real fear, you needed to attack a man where he felt safest. You had to burn him alive in the cozy little home he mistakenly believed to be impregnable.

  The cops spun to face him as he approached, standing side by side and directing identical frowns at him. Up close, he could see that the other officer had dark skin and hollow cheeks. “Head home, sir,” Mr. Blond said.

  “I think not.”

  “The streets aren't safe at the-”

  Crossing his arms with a soft sigh, Slade smiled down at himself. “Idiots,” he said, stepping closer. “Completely unaware of your circumstances. It's not my safety that you should be worried about.”

  Mr. Blond put one hand on his holstered pistol, a growl rumbling in his throat. His face was scrunched up like a pug dog's. �
��Threatening a cop is a felony,” he said. “Get on the ground now.”

  Officer Gaunt-Cheeks was pacing a circle around Slade, positioning himself in the middle of the road so that they could come at him from both sides if they needed to. It would have been a good strategy if he wasn't who he was.

  Slade reached up to seize the bill of his cap with thumb and forefinger, then gently lifted it from his head. “Looking for me?” he asked, allowing the man to get a good look at his face.

  Mr. Blond's mouth dropped open, his eyes expanding until it seemed as though he'd seen the apparition of a dead loved one. “You!” he hissed. “Get on the ground now! One move, and you're a dead man!”

  Behind Slade, Gaunt-Cheeks drew the pistol from its holster and stood with the weapon clutched in both hands, pointing it at Slade's back. “On the ground!” he shouted, echoing his partner.

  Blond drew his weapon as well, backing up until his body was pressed to the side of the police cruiser. “I'm not going to tell you a second time,” he said, raising one hand to point his gun at Slade's face. “On the-”

  Slade closed his eyes.

  Forcing the Drethen he carried into submission, he threw up a time bubble that expanded until the edge was mere inches away from the tip of Mr. Blond's gun. “GROOOOOOOOOOOOUND!” It sounded like the wail of a man who had been thrown into the very depths of Hell.

  Slade ducked low, dropping the baseball cap and then reaching into his pocket to retrieve some loose change. He flung one hand out behind himself and augmented each coin with a touch of Bent Gravity.

  The bubble popped.

  Coins slammed into Gaunt-Cheeks like hail from an angry winter storm, causing the man to flail about and raise both hands to shield his face. Mr. Blond fired with a loud CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

  Slade turned his body, reaching up with his right hand to seize the man's wrist and twist it so that the gun dropped to the ground. He spun and used his left arm to deliver an elbow to Mr. Blond's face, cracking bone on impact.