Evolution

by R S Penney

  Anna shut her eyes, hissing softly as she tried to fight off her anxiety. “You haven't been here,” she said, shaking her head. “You haven't seen the kind of damage that Slade's monstrosities can do.”

  “I sense this is personal.”

  “It is.”

  From the moment she had set foot in this city, it had been one thing after another. A food crisis, meetings, hit-and-run attacks – some by her side, some by Slade's people: all of these things kept her busy almost every waking second. She hadn't had time to think, and in those few moments where she could actually stop and breathe, her personal issues rose to the forefront of her mind.

  But last night – in an effort to avoid thinking about what moving back to Leyria would mean for her – she had focused her thoughts on Slade and what they could do to put an end to all this. It came to her then that the sense of restless unease she had been living with and not thinking about went back to that day on Station One. That day when she had let Slade walk away instead of shooting him.

  Blushing hard, Anna closed her eyes and let her head hang. A soft sigh escaped her. “Do you remember coming to see me when I was pummeling that punching bag? Telling me I made the right call when I let Slade escape?”

  “I recall that if you'd done otherwise, he would have disabled the life support on Station One and killed three thousand people.”

  Anna lifted the binoculars to her eyes, growling as she peered through them. “And I asked you what would happen if he did something awful?” she muttered. “What if he set off a bomb that killed a million people.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack look up with tension visible on his face, his brow lined with deep wrinkles. “Not sure I like where this is going, An. Even I would not blame myself for what happened here.”

  “I don't, but…”

  “You wonder if you made the right choice?”

  Clenching her teeth so hard they made a grinding noise, Anna shook her head in disgust. “Jena told me I had to make the hard choices,” she growled. “Well, I followed my conscience that day, and look what it got us.”

  Jack scooched closer, gently patting her back with one hand. The warmth of his touch took some of her anger away. “I like the Anna who follows her conscience,” he said. “Don't ever change.”

  She smiled.

  “Look alive, people,” Aamani said through the speaker.

  When she lifted her binoculars to her eyes, Anna saw a black car rolling down a street lined with short, squat buildings and strip malls. A car, not a van. The driver was about as ordinary as any man could be – late thirties with stubble on his jaw – but there was something here that didn't feel right.

  With the city crushed beneath its own fear, people had fled as far away from the kill-zone as they could get. Queens had been relatively safe until recently – most of the fighting had taken place in and around Manhattan Island – but that was changing. It was incredibly unlikely that anyone would just drive through the city for anything less than a medical emergency.

  Even people who needed food were now sitting tight and waiting for the National Guard to deliver supplies to designated shelter areas. With communications restored, the city authorities could coordinate such activities. “Raynar,” Anna said into her multi-tool. “What do you sense from them?”

  “They're intently focused,” the boy answered. “And apprehensive. But that could mean anything. I can't tell you anything specific without probing deeply into their minds, and they would feel it if I tried.”

  “Nix that,” she said. “We'll use visual cues.”

  Suddenly, the car threw itself into a U-turn, tires squealing as it looped around to head back in the direction it had come from. All she saw was a pair of red taillights receding into the distance. “I think we've been made,” Jack mumbled.

  “Impossible,” Aamani replied.

  Anna winced, shaking her head. “I'm not taking the risk,” she said, crawling closer to the ledge. “Aamani, take out their back tires. Ben, get ready to cover us. Jack and I will converge on the vehicle.”

  “Girl, your judgment on this matter is hardly-”

  “We don't have time to argue this!”

  There was a slight popping noise, and then a screech as the van wobbled off course and then drove up onto the curb in front of a strip mall. One of its tires was flat, but the shot hadn't come from across the street.

  She looked up to find Jack crouched beside her with a pistol in both hands, his eyes focused on the car. “You got 'em on the hook,” he said. “Time to reel 'em in.”

  “Nice shot,” Anna said. “Stay close to me. We do this nice and slow and precise.”

  He nodded without a single word of protest, and Anna had to admit she felt a little stunned. She had grown so used to people assuming that she was incapable of doing her job that she had come to expect it from everyone. In fact, Jack trusted her so completely, he leaped at the chance to see that her orders were carried out when Aamani refused.

  And this was Jack bloody Hunter: the man who questioned authority as easily as a fish swam through water. Not with her, it seemed. It was quite the gesture from a person like him. He didn't just respect her; he trusted her.

  Together, they approached the ledge. A three-story drop…On her own, it would be doable, but she would have to time her Bending perfectly, reversing gravity's pull at the exact midpoint of her fall. With Jack's help, however, things would be much easier. Seth and Summer could work together to ease them down to the ground.

  She took Jack's hand and felt warmth blossom in her heart. No time for that now. He was already crafting a Bending that would weaken Gravity's pull. Anna closed her eyes and had Seth as his strength to Summer's.

  They stepped over the edge…

  And fell.

  Slowly but surely, the ground came up to meet them, and when they made contact, it felt like they had jumped from a ledge maybe five feet up. Hardly even a jolt. “Come on!” she growled.

  Drawing her pistol from its holster, Anna gripped the weapon in both hands and ran into the street. She dropped to one knee in the middle of the road, raising the gun to point at the car.

  No more than twenty paces away, the car's passenger-side door swung open and a slender man with flecks of gray in his dark hair got out. “Justice Keepers,” he said when his gaze fell upon her.

  Anna narrowed her eyes to a squint, then nodded once in confirmation. “We were just wondering what brought a guy like you all the way out here,” she said. “Care to sit down and have a little chat?”

  On the other side of the vehicle, the driver slowly emerged to stand with his back turned, staring off into the distance. “You know our orders,” he said. “Lord Slade made his wishes clear.”

  The man with salt-and-pepper hair frowned as he studied Anna; then he bit down on something and spasmed. His body collapsed to land sprawled out on the pavement with feet twitching. “What in Bleakness…”

  The other one dropped half a second later.

  Jack watched the whole thing with his mouth hanging open, his face so bone-white he looked ill. “Suicide capsules,” he whispered. “They'd rather die than risk giving us any useful information.”

  Anna ran to them.

  She fell to her knees as she drew near, practically sliding the last few inches on the rough pavement. With trembling hands, she turned the body over to find a pale face with dead eyes staring up at the sky.

  Anna wrinkled her nose, then shook her head in frustration. “Damn it!” she hissed, getting to her feet. “All right, Slade will almost certainly have some protocol in place for when these two fail to check in.”

  She turned to Jack.

  “Call Jena,” she said. “Tell her we should expect company soon.”

  Chapter 18

  The call came in later that afternoon; surveillance drones in orbit had spotted three vans driving in single file on the Union Turnpike, making their way toward the school. It was very likely that these were Slade's forces. />
  As she got into one of the many police cruisers that had been mobilized to intercept these people, Anna breathed a sigh of relief at the knowledge that the neighbourhood had been evacuated of all civilians. From the moment she had reported the two men who had taken suicide pills – less than four hours ago, but it felt like days had passed – getting all non-combatants out of the kill-zone had been their first priority.

  Fortunately, even a few hours warning meant plenty of opportunity to put a plan in motion. Pedro had made a few calls to his associates at various precincts, and now they had over six dozen police cruisers on the move along with several SWAT teams equipped with Leyrian weapons and armour.

  It was hard to see through the windshield while she was stuck in the back seat, but she caught a glimpse of the turnpike. Other cruisers were already in place on both sides of the concrete median that bisected the road, forming a barricade.

  Her car swerved to the right, settling to a stop.

  Then Officer Tedesco's round face filled her window as he leaned in close to open the door. “Hurry!” he growled, gesturing frantically. “We just had an update. They'll be here in less than five minutes.”

  Anna got out of the car.

  She closed her eyes as the wind sent strands of her hair flying. “You can do this,” she said, nodding to the man. “You've got the best armour, the best tech, and the NYPD is legendary when it comes to bringing down criminals.”

  He smiled. “Yes, ma'am.”

  There was no exaggeration in what she told him; the guy was decked out in full tactical gear – a thick black vest that would absorb the shock of EMP rounds and slowly repair itself with nanotechnology, a helmet with a visor that would sync with his gun and allow him to target enemies with precision accuracy and allow them to better coordinate their fire.

  Anna was dressed in similar apparel, though – like most Keepers – she had opted to wear light armour and forego a helmet to make better use of her spatial awareness. “Go to it, Officer,” she said. “You're gonna kick some ass today.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  On the south side of the road, adjoined homes with balconies on their front walls stood three stories tall. She could already see Aamani in one of the third floor windows. The woman was focused as she peered through the scope of her sniper rifle.

  The north side of the road was comprised of several shops, including a laundromat, a Chinese restaurant and a grocery store, that took up almost the entirety of a city block. Plenty of places to duck for cover if you didn't mind crashing through a window.

  Four cruisers made one side of a barricade. The goal was to herd Slade's minions down the turnpike – with cop cars positioned at the intersection of every side street to prevent them from getting any bright ideas – and then, once the first barricade forced them to stop, more cruisers would form a second barricade behind them, boxing them in. A simple but elegant plan.

  Simple but elegant and doomed to fall apart the way all plans fell apart the instant bullets started flying. Something would go wrong. Something always went wrong. Slade had a knack for disrupting just about every single strategy they employed.

  Dressed in a full suit of black armour with his eyes hidden behind that glossy red visor, Ben was down on one knee by the median. He looked very imposing in that get-up. She almost shivered at the sight.

  It was only her, Ben and maybe two dozen armoured cops on this side, but Jack and Harry would take position behind the second barricade once it was in place. Two “super humans” on each side of the battlefield: that was how Pedro had put it. Jena had been all kinds of livid when the rest of the group insisted that she hang back and call strategy, but that was the role of a general.

  Raynar was hiding in one of the townhouses, ready to dazzle Slade's goons with a tempest of illusions the instant the shooting started. Anna wanted him out of the way. He was a lousy shot, and there was no sense putting him in unnecessary danger.

  She dropped to a crouch beside Ben.

  “You know, it occurs to me,” she began. “There has to be some way to resolve this without violence. So, hear me out. What if I were to just stand on top of the barricade and overwhelm them with my adorable disposition? You know, when I graduated high school, I was voted least likely to be shot by a terrorist.”

  He turned his head, and she saw herself reflected in that crimson visor. “I'm afraid your charms would be wasted,” he said. “These are people who signed up to work with Slade. If they're willing to follow someone with that little fashion sense, I'm afraid they have no sense of aesthetics.”

  “But…My impish smile!”

  “Even so.”

  Standing behind the spot where the bumper of one police car met that of another, Sargent Michael Evans of the NYPD suddenly stiffened. “Heads up, people!” he barked. “We've got incoming!”

  Anna and Ben scooted into a space behind one of the cruisers on the south side of the road, and then she ventured a glance over the hood. A large black van was barreling down the road toward them, trailed by two others – one blue, one green. In the distance the wail of a police siren rang through the air. “Positions!” Anna yelled.

  Officers in full tactical gear popped up to aim Leyrian assault rifles over the hood and the trunk of each car. They waited with a cat-like readiness, every muscle taut. Anna heard a few nervous murmurs.

  The vans just kept coming.

  “They're gonna ram us,” Ben whispered.

  Clenching her teeth with a hiss, Anna shook her head. “That tells you everything you need to know,” she growled, aiming her pistol over the hood of the car. “Tire shots! Let's give ourselves some breathing room!”

  Bullets zipped through the air, piercing the gray van's tires with a loud POP! The vehicle swerved sideways, t-boning with the blue van that was coming up from behind in the other lane. Both slid to a stop perhaps a hundred feet from the barricade.

  She caught sight of the police cars that followed in hot pursuit stopping to form a second barricade on the far side of the block. Boxed in with nowhere to go. Even if these men had ziarogati with them, chances were they wouldn't put up much of a fight.

  “Agent Lenai!” one of the officers cried out. “Look at the van!”

  She looked and saw nothing to merit such alarm. The gray van's front end had been crumpled by the impact, and there were thin tendrils of smoke rising from the metal. She couldn't see the damage to the blue van, but it had to be just as bad. What could be so damn frightening about-

  Anna noticed it when she looked through the driver's side window. There was no driver! These vehicles had been drones, sent here on auto-pilot. Something was wrong! Bile churned in the pit of her stomach.

  Something always went wrong.

  The van's back doors swung open, allowing ziarogati to spill out onto the median that divided the road. She counted ten of them – some men, some women – in every skin tone imaginable. Every single one was bald, and then they looked at you, those lifeless silver eyes seemed to peer into your soul.

  She was about to give the order to open fire – even ziarogati would go down if you pummeled them with enough ammunition – but Aamani distracted her by chattering on the radio. “No! No! No! Not again!”

  What?

  The other vans…

  Anna tapped her ear-piece to activate her microphone. “Raynar,” she said into the radio. “What do you see?”

  Down on her knees by the third-story window of a townhouse, Aamani watched the whole scene unfold through the scope of her sniper rifle. The gray van had deposited its passengers onto the median, but it was the other two that got her attention.

  The blue and green vans were parked side by side – though the former had been wrecked by the collision – and they shook as their back doors swung open. A hulking metal monstrosity emerged from each vehicle.

  Smooth and sleek with sunlight glinting off its metal body, the robot stood over eight feet tall and moved with the cold inevitability of a guillotine blade. The ca
mera it had in place of a head swiveled to point its lens at her.

  Aamani hoisted up her rifle, switching to EMP rounds.

  She fired.

  A white tracer slammed into the robot's head, causing the camera to explode in a shower of sparks. The battle drone stumbled sideways toward the median, but it wasn't finished yet. These things had secondary systems.

  It spun to face her, raising one metallic arm to point at her window. The closed fist split apart to reveal a cannon underneath. It shot something. Not a bullet but a missile of some kind.

  Aamani threw herself backward, landing face-up on the bedroom floor. Something came through the window, punched through the ceiling and then exploded in the attic. Chunks of plaster and dust rained down upon her.

  The house where Aamani had been positioned now had a smoking hole in its roof. There was a good chance the woman was dead. Panic seized Anna as she watched her enemies assemble. Four huge robots – two spinning to face her, and two turning to the secondary barricade where Jack and Harry were leading another team of officer.

  The ziarogati divided up as well, five of the creatures joining each pair of robots. Just five, but it may as well have been an army.

  Anna felt the blood drain out of her face, her eyes slowly widening. “Companion have mercy,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Battle drones! EMP rounds. Hit those things with everything you have!”

  A flurry of white tracers converged on the inhuman beasts like snowflakes in a blizzards. The ziarogati raised forearms to shield themselves, and force-fields appeared. Most of the EMP rounds phased right through them and caused the creatures to stumble, but that did nothing to slow their approach.

  The ziarogati began a fierce sprint forward like orcs charging the battlements in one of those fantasy movies Jack liked. They moved with a smooth, fluid grace. Behind them, the robots lifted their arms to take aim.

  “Get back!” Anna screamed.

  Her people began to move away from the cars, men and women in tactical gear shuffling backward but still loosing a storm of ammunition. White tracers attacked the ziarogati like a swarm of angry hornets.