Evolution

by R S Penney

  He paused for a moment to think on that, a knot of worry forming in his chest and making it difficult to keep his breathing steady. “You want to just send her off to an alien world all by herself?” he asked. “She's a capable girl, Della, but she's not invulnerable. Besides, I'm not sure I can.”

  Della made her way through his galley-style kitchen, running her fingers along the counter. “Don't give me that,” she said after a moment. “We both know you're very well connected among the Keepers. You ask, and that girlfriend of yours will oblige.”

  “Still, I can't just send her off alone.”

  In the blink of an eye, Della rounded on him with her arms crossed, her teeth bared in a snarl. “Then go with her!” she said. “God, Harry, do I have to think of everything tonight?”

  Biting his lip, Harry let his head hang. He ran fingers through his thick black hair. “And what about Claire?” he inquired. “How's she going to get by when her father is so far away that she won't see him for months at a time?”

  “Leave Claire to me.”

  “Della…”

  “I'm serious, Harry.”

  Words found their way into his thoughts – protests that she was just dead wrong this time – but he didn't voice any of them. Because she wasn't wrong. Melissa would be safer on Leyria, and…And if there were any lasting side-effects from whatever it was the Overseers had done to him, he would get better help on Leyria.

  Of course, going meant splitting up his family, and that left him with an ache in his chest that he would rather forget. He sighed. It seemed he was going to have an awful lot to think about.

  Steel bars that ran from floor to ceiling formed the front wall of a cell that housed five men who had been stripped to their boxers and undershirts. The ringleader – a tall man with pale skin and a dark moustache that matched his short, jet-black hair – paced a line across the floor.

  His four companions sat on the bench across from him, each with head hanging. They refused to look up at him. Perhaps they felt that being captured was some kind of personal failing on their part. It didn't matter. After this afternoon's skirmish, Jena had ordered these men taken to the Fifth Precinct in Brooklyn where some of Pedro's people still operated the building with minimal staff.

  The leader stopped in the middle of the cell.

  Looking positively ridiculous in black shorts and a matching undershirt, he spread his arms wide. “You're not even gonna kill us?” he shouted. “I knew it from the day you first came here! You Leyrians are soft.”

  Jena stood outside the cell with arms folded, head hanging with exhaustion. “Keep on talking,” she muttered under her breath. “Make a big enough fuss, and you might just convince me of the necessity.”

  The man turned.

  His mouth was split into a hideous grin, his face flushed to a soft pink. “Weak and sentimental,” he said, approaching the bars. “Funny thing about all those empty threats? They're just so…empty.”

  “What's Slade's plan?” she asked for the tenth time.

  “To make America great again.”

  Well, this was getting her no where by the swiftest route possible. The ethics of this ugly little scenario had played out in her head perhaps a hundred times since they had secured these losers and their supplies. Technically, she was fighting a guerrilla war. That meant these men were her enemies, and she should do away with them immediately. But Keepers weren't meant for warfare.

  She could lecture Anna all she liked about the necessity of making hard choices, but in her heart, Jena did believe in the ideals of the Justice Keepers. Violence should always be a last resort.

  Lifting her chin to stare down her nose at him, Jena arched one thin eyebrow. “So, Slade's plan is to gain followers with empty slogans,” she said. “Does that mean you'll fight for me if I give you one of those posters that says 'Hang in there kitten, it's almost Friday?”

  “Your people are weak, and you'll make us weak too.”

  “Really?”

  The man stepped forward, gripping two bars and shoving his face into the space between them. “Just look at your decadent culture,” he hissed. “There's no challenge in anything. Everyone's just fat and happy.”

  “Is that how the rest of you feel?”

  The other men just sat with hands on their knees, staring into their own laps. One ventured a glance in her direction, but he stiffened at the sight of her and returned his attention to the floor.

  Not that she had high hopes for gaining much useful information from these men. Flunkies were rarely made privy to the finer details of a master plan. Her Nassai felt pity for the lot of them; Jena felt irritation.

  She turned.

  Officer Hanks stood halfway down a corridor with cells in one wall, still dressed in his uniform. A tall man with a dark complexion and not one hair on his head, he nodded as she approached.

  Jena closed her eyes, then covered her face with one hand. She massaged away the beginnings of a headache. “I want them monitored at all times,” she said. “If even one of them gives you trouble, put a bullet in him.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She strode past him toward a metal door at the end of the hallway that led out to the reception area. One of the bulbs in the ceiling was flickering, and it filled the air with an annoying buzzing sound.

  So, they were really in the thick of it now. All day long, she had been wondering if she would be able to stand up to one of those cybernetic killing machines the Overseers had engineered specifically to destroy Justice Keepers. At least, she thought that was their purpose. After hearing Jack's account of the creature he faced in Pennfield's mansion, she realized that she had fought a rudimentary version of those on that troop carrier. In barely one year, the Overseers had perfected their creations. It made her shiver.

  The door to the reception area could only be opened from the outside, but once Officer Spinelli buzzed her through, she found herself in a small room with white floor tiles and plastic chairs along three of its gray walls. A desk next to the door to the cell-block was operated by an older man in a blue uniform who frowned down at a stack of papers. Spinelli was a good guy, or so Pedro insisted.

  In her mind's eye, she saw that Aamani had been waiting next to the door, and the woman wasted no time chasing after her. “You're going to let them live?” she asked with disdain in her voice. “Is that wise?”

  Tossing her head back, Jena rolled her eyes. “Someone else wants to give me their opinion,” she said, whirling around to face the other woman. “Come on, Aamani. Do you really think I haven't weighed the pros and cons?”

  Aamani frowned, then looked down at the floor beneath her shoes. “I would remind you that keeping them alive means you have to feed them,” she said. “Our food supplies are thin enough as is.”

  “Noted.”

  “If they have no valuable information-”

  Jena felt a grin blossom, then shook her head with wry amusement. “You're just not gonna give up, huh?” she muttered. “What do you wanna do, Aamani? Make them kneel down in the yard, put guns to the backs of their heads and shoot?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Well, I'm glad to hear that,” Jena said. “Because I don't think anyone should take on the role of executioner lightly. I'm leaving my options open. If I decide that keeping these men alive is too dangerous or too costly, believe me, I won't hesitate.”

  Outside the cell block's reception area, a long hallway with wooden doors in both walls stretched on to an intersection where an American flag stood proudly in the corner. Anna came striding through the corridor in beige pants and a blue t-shirt, her red hair tied up in its customary ponytail. “You'll never guess who I ran into.”

  She turned, gesturing into the distance behind her.

  A young woman in gray pants and a blue shirt with the insignia of the med-corps on the breast came around the corner in a hurry. Her black hair was pulled back from a face with smooth, mocha skin, bright red lips and lovely dark eyes. How quickly th
ings could change. Just a few months ago, the girl had been a gangling teenager.

  Closing her eyes, Jena heaved out a sigh. “Melissa,” she said, nodding to the girl. “Good to see you. I hope you've been following my orders and keeping your ass out of the hot-zone.”

  Melissa smiled, then bowed her head, reaching up to brush a strand of hair off her cheek. “As much as I can,” she answered. “We go where we're needed, and it's getting pretty bad out there.”

  “You have a report for me?”

  “I do.”

  “Spill it.”

  Melissa stood in the hallway with arms folded, grunting softly as she stared down at her feet. “President Mitchell sent in the National Guard two days ago,” she said, taking a hesitant step closer. “They didn't have much trouble clearing out some of the nut-jobs who think they're playing real-life Call of Duty, but then Slade sent a few of those weird cybernetic things.”

  Jena winced, shuddering softly as she took a deep breath. “Well, we knew that was coming,” she muttered under her breath. “Someone really should have warned the locals that they aren't equipped to deal with Slade.”

  “There was a skirmish on the Upper West Side,” Melissa explained. “The American troops had tanks, but Slade's creatures set off some kind of EMP blast, and then they were just sitting ducks.”

  It made Jena sick.

  Melissa turned her head to stare at the wall, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “I never…” Her words were forced, her voice strained. “I've never seen that kind of carnage before. The people there…”

  “Try not to think too much about it.”

  A few paces down the hallway, Anna had one hand pressed to her stomach as she stared at a picture on the wall. It was a painful reminder that neither one of these women had seen the true horrors of warfare. Bleakness take her, Jena was hardly one to talk! As much as she considered herself to be made of tougher stuff than most of her colleagues, she had completed almost every assignment in her long career without having to employ deadly force. Just a few minutes ago, she was insisting that she wouldn't kill the prisoners unless they gave her a damn good reason.

  “There's some good news,” Melissa said.

  “Let's hear it.”

  “When Tiassa found out that you and Anna were missing, she was furious. It turns out you weren't the only one pushing for an immediate response, and the other Keepers saw this as the perfect excuse to take action. Tiassa ordered them to stay out of the city, but all it did was convince them that she was incompetent at best and a traitor at worst. Most of the Senior Directors disregarded those orders. By my last count, there are five other teams making their way through the city, hunting for Slade.”

  It was all Jena could do to avoid jumping and pumping her fist in the air. Finally, some results! She was quick to assume that her colleagues were a bunch of sheep who would follow any moron who could shout “Baah!” at the top of his lungs, but even the most arrogant, closed-minded Keepers had their limits. Relief flooded through her when she realized that the people she had known for years weren't too gullible to see obvious treachery when it was right in front of their faces. “Excellent!” Jena said. “Give me the names of the directors who mutinied, and we can plan a coordinated strike.”

  “Well that's just it,” Melissa mumbled. “You can't plan anything. A few hours ago, something started jamming every radio signal in this city. Communications are cut off. Multi-tools don't work; cell phones don't work.”

  Lifting her arm, Jena rolled up the sleeve of her trench coat and began tapping the screen of her multi-tool. She brought up the communications app and tried to place a call to Station Twelve. Her heart sank when she saw two small words blinking in blue text.

  No signal.

  She switched to SlipSpace frequencies and found the same result. Something had flooded the local area with so much noise that she couldn't cut through it. The factors started adding up in her head.

  From the moment they first bonded their symbionts, Keepers were taught about the importance of thinking for yourself. Authority that did not serve the needs of the people was illegitimate and should be cast down. Keepers were supposed to be a check against the abuse of power. Their ranks – while useful for coordinating operations – were really more of a formality. Herding Keepers was about as hard as herding cats.

  Slade understood this simple truth, and he had exploited it with such a deft hand, even Jena hadn't seen the con until it was too late.

  Tiassa's bogus orders were just a little too obvious. A few days ago, Jena had wondered why none of her colleagues had questioned a clear violation of their mandate, but her cynical outlook had prevented her from thinking too deeply on the matter. People were sheep! Of course they didn't question!

  When Keepers disobeyed their superiors, they very seldom did so as a coordinated effort. Five Senior Directors had grown fed up with Tiassa's flagrant incompetence, and so they led their teams into the city. Alone. Five teams of Justice Keepers were roaming the streets of New York, cut off from each other. Unable to communicate.

  Easy meat for Slade's ziarogati.

  Covering her gaping mouth with three fingers, Jena felt her eyes widen. “No,” she whispered, backing away from Melissa. “He couldn't have…There's no way…But he did! He used me like a puppet!”

  Anna rushed over with concern in her big blue eyes, her face growing paler by the second. “What is it?” she asked. “What did he do?”

  Jena shut her eyes, hot, sticky tears on her cheeks. “They're all gonna die,” she whispered. “Don't you see, Anna? Grecken Slade turned this whole city into one giant Keeper trap, and we played right into his hands!”

  Chapter 11

  No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Jena had read that once – she couldn't remember where – and she could earnestly testify that every single word of that maxim was true. Nearly twenty-four hours after their skirmish with the men who now sat half-naked in a prison cell, Slade had brought the hammer down.

  Jena was crouched on a driveway with her back pressed to the tailgate of a white pick-up truck, right behind the passenger-side wheel. Come on, she thought, shaking her head. You've faced down terrorists with high-tech plasma weapons.

  The little gray-bricked house that claimed this driveway as its own had shattered windows in its front walls and bullet holes in the big wooden door. Thankfully, no one was home. The last evacuees had departed last night.

  She peeked around the corner of the truck.

  A soldier in black tactical gear stood on the far side of the street, just in front of a house with white aluminum siding. The man lifted his AR-15, growling as he took aim.

  Jena ducked back behind the truck.

  Three bullets sped past just an inch to her left, striking the wooden gate that led to this house's backyard. A simple three round burst. These guys were getting smarter. Yesterday, they were just emptying entire clips at anything in their paths. Idiots high on rage and testosterone.

  Closing her eyes, Jena banged the back of her head against the tailgate. Come on, Raynar, she thought desperately. I could really use a distraction right about now. Just a few seconds, huh?

  The young telepath seemed to be otherwise engaged right now. Well, she wasn't entirely helpless. Keepers were trained to rely on conventional combat skills before they looked to a Nassai for help.

  Jena detached the metal disk from her gauntlet, setting it down next to her so that it would get a clear view underneath the truck. A few taps at her screen activated the multi-tool's camera.

  She saw a pair of black boots step onto the foot of the driveway. The soldier – if you could call him that – was cautiously making his way forward, trying to box her in. Jena lifted her pistol up in front of her face. The LEDs were dark, indicating that she was using standard ammunition.

  She swung her arm over the lip of the tailgate and fired.

  Bullets crashed through the truck's back window and the windshield as well. On her screen, sh
e saw the boots stagger backward as something hit her opponent hard in the chest. Most heavy body armour – even that of Earth design – would stop standard ammo, but a hit like that would hurt like the Bleakness itself.

  “Stun rounds!”

  Jena ducked around the side of the truck.

  She stood, raising the pistol in both hands and firing the very instant her spatial awareness let her sense the man's position. She didn't look; she just fired.

  One slug hit the soldier's chest, the current absorbed by his body armour. Another stung the soft skin of his neck, delivering an electric jolt that caused him to spasm and drop his weapon.

  The man fell to his knees at the end of the driveway, then landed flat on his face. A few moments of stillness, and she knew that he was out of commission.

  This quiet, suburban street lined with cute little houses looked perfectly normal if you didn't count the fact that many windows were broken, and cars along either curb had endured their share of gunfire.

  She moved to the foot of the driveway.

  To her left, a pair of men in black had their backs turned as they moved toward a house on her side of the street. A house with a big oak tree in the front yard. When last she checked, Aamani was taking refuge behind that tree.

  Jena raised her weapon and fired.

  A charged bullet hit one man in the back of his neck, causing his muscles to lock up before he sagged limply to the ground. The other man turned around, swinging his assault rifle to point at her.

  Something hit the man from behind and he stiffened for half a second. Then he fell to the ground to lie sprawled out beside his companion in the middle of the road.

  Aamani stepped out from behind the oak tree, carrying a small rifle with a scope. The woman wore simple track pants and a tank-top, and her skin glistened with sweat. “I do believe that's the last of them.”