Evolution

by R S Penney

  “Slade is the weak link,” Harry explained. “The Key was designed for humans. It needs a human mind to activate its primary function. Kill Slade, and the Overseer will be unable to use it.”

  “All right. Let's go.”

  “It's not that simple!” Harry shouted, stepping in front of her with his arms spread wide. Right then, his heart was pounding so hard he thought it might explode in his chest. “With Slade in control of the Nexus, the Overseer will have access to the environmental systems. Now, it will probably take him a few minutes to figure out what he's doing, but once he does, we're right back to suffocating in a sealed off tunnel.”

  True, Slade had promised to let him and Melissa flee, but Harry had no faith in that man's ability to keep his word. “And let's not forget,” he went on. “The instant we walk through that door, the Overseer is going to call up more of those horned creatures.”

  “You're saying we shouldn't try?” Jena shouted.

  Harry stepped around the dead alien's carcass, moving closer to his girlfriend. “I'm saying we don't have time for a long, drawn-out fight,” he growled. “It has to be a quick, decisive strike that kills Slade before the Overseer has a chance to react.”

  For one very long moment, Jena just looked into his eyes. That expression on her face…He knew she was planning something, and he knew he wasn't going to like it. “All right,” she said. “Take Melissa, get back to the SlipGate.”

  “What?”

  “Do it, Harry!”

  At the mention of her name, Melissa – who had been hanging on the periphery of this conversation – stepped forward and shook her head. “No way,” she insisted. “I'm not going to do nothing while Slade just-”

  Jena grabbed them both by the shirt and pulled them close so she could whisper. “I don't know what kind of sensors this place has,” she explained. “But I am not willing to speak my plan out loud. Trust me, it'll work.”

  “But-”

  “Go!”

  Jena started up the tunnel, toward the Nexus, pausing after taking two steps. She let out a deep breath but kept her back turned. “Melissa,” she said after a moment. “I need to tell you something.”

  Melissa went jogging after her, awkwardly moving around the dead alien's corpse. Harry wasn't sure he liked where this was going, but he knew that voicing an objection was definitely a bad idea. Besides, if Jena was about to do something insanely suicidal and stupid, then she probably wanted to give some inspiring words to her protege. Who was he to object to that?

  Jena spun around. “You're gonna be an amazing Keeper.”

  She seized Melissa's face in both hands, and suddenly, Jena's skin began to glow, a white halo that seemed to radiate from every pore. It was as if the sun had come down to wrap itself around his girlfriend. What could…No, Harry thought. No, she wouldn't!

  The halo transferred to Melissa and sank into her skin, pulsing and surging. Harry watched as his daughter stumbled backward to hit the tunnel wall. She sank to her knees, head hanging with exhaustion.

  Jena was reeling with a hand on the wall to steady herself, wincing in pain. “Get her out of here,” she whispered hoarsely. “The Bonding will have exhausted her. You're going to have to carry her.”

  “You gave her your symbiont?”

  “Go, Harry!”

  He stumbled forward, stretching a hand out to his girlfriend, nearly tripping over the dead alien. “We can save you,” he pleaded. “Please, Jen, whatever it is you're gonna do, don't do it!”

  Jena stood up straight.

  A grimace twisted her features, and she shook her head. “I'm already dead, Harry,” she said, her voice shaking with every syllable. “Without a symbiont, I've got maybe five minutes before my heart stops. She can't give it back to me, and there's no way to get me back to Station Twelve in time to Bond another.”

  “But…”

  “Go, Harry,” she said. “Get out of here.”

  Numbly, he watched his girlfriend turn away and shuffle up the tunnel as if she had a ball and chain strapped to each ankle. She hobbled around the corner, and then she was gone. I knew I should have said something.

  Melissa was on her knees next to the wall, bracing herself with one hand pressed to the floor. “Everything dies, baby, that's a fact,” she whispered. What the hell? Now was not the time to be quoting the Boss.

  Harry went to her.

  Dropping to a crouch, he slipped his daughter's arm around his shoulders and then pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he said, starting up the tunnel, away from the Nexus. “We have to get back to the SlipGate chamber.”

  There was no doubt about it now.

  His daughter was a Justice Keeper.

  Shoving a blasting cap into the brick of plastic explosive she had pulled from her pocket, Jena shuffled through the tunnel, feet dragging with every step. Her skin tingled, and soon it would be burning. Worse yet, she had no sense of spatial awareness. She had not realized how much she had come to rely on it.

  Up ahead, a circular opening looked into a chamber where Slade was hooked into some weird matrix of fleshy tubes that pierced his body. Clearly he hadn't yet learned to control the Nexus, or he would have shut the door to keep her out.

  She shuffled through the doorway.

  Closing her eyes, Jena felt hot tears on her cheeks. “There are worse ways to go,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Did you really want to die in some hospital bed with everybody blubbering about how much they love you?”

  In the middle of the room, a tube of glowing blue flesh covered Slade to his waist with smaller tentacles piercing his chest and his arms. Clearly he was naked under there. She could see his clothes discarded on the floor.

  His eyes were open, but they seemed to be unfocused, staring dead ahead at nothing at all. “You're too late,” he said in a distant voice. “Maybe you're wondering why I didn't take control of the environmental systems.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “There wasn't time,” Slade whispered. “I did what I came here to do. I began the End of Days. Prepare yourself, Jena.”

  Jeffery had been working at the Toronto SlipGate terminal for some time now, and if his bosses asked, he would swear up and down that he loved his job. But the truth was that most of the time, he was bored out of his mind.

  Stifling a yawn with his fist, Jeffery shut his eyes tight. “Move along, ma'am,” he said, waving to the woman who passed through his security checkpoint. “Keep moving. Let's keep the line moving.”

  “What the hell?”

  That woke him up.

  He spun around to find the three SlipGates standing side by side on the white tiled floor humming. The sinuous grooves that ran along each triangle's metal surface began to glow with brilliant white light. Three incoming travelers at the same time? That couldn't be right. “Get everyone back!” Jeffery called out. “Back away from the Gates!”

  As she climbed the steps from the subway platform, Linara heaved out a sigh of frustration. A tall woman with long blonde hair, she wore a thin black skirt and a white blouse with the top button undone. A sense of style was something of a necessity in her profession. Being the aide to one of the most prominent politicians on Leyria required a certain amount of decorum.

  She rounded the corner, into the Denabrian SlipGate terminal.

  And she froze.

  The four Gates on the far side of the room were all humming, and the grooves that ran along each triangle were glowing ferociously. But how could that be? Gates only lit up when a traveler was coming through. Everyone knew that.

  “Confirmed,” Halina Taros said, tapping away at her control console. The CIC on Station Twelve was a flurry of activity as uniformed technicians scurried about, trying to figure out exactly what was going on while Justice Keepers stood by the door with wary expressions. “The other stations are reporting strange SlipGate activity. As are Moscow, London and Beijing. Further reports coming in.”

  “What's the cause?” Administrator
Sorez demanded.

  “Unknown,” Halina replied. “Every Gate on the planet seems to be active.”

  Wahkali scrambled up the mucky hillside with a bow in hand, arrows rattling in his quiver. The tattered pants and tunic he wore had seen better days, and his shoes slipped in the mud. He would come back with a stag, though; he had promised his father that much.

  Tall and dark of skin, Wahkali perched on the hilltop, waiting for the opportunity to take his shot. His long, black hair was a mess, tangles clinging to the back of his shirt. If the hunt went well, he would cut it.

  Down in the valley below, pine trees rose up to caress the sky with their needles, and beyond that, a stone pyramid rose even higher. The temple of the Sky Spirits. It was said that hunting in sight of the gods would bring misfortune. Wahkali did not know if he believed such tales. Still…

  His ancestors had believed that the Sky Spirits brought them to this world for their protection, to save them from certain disasters. No one had seen a Sky Spirit in over ten generations. What the elders believed was-

  He froze.

  Off in the distance, he could see the strange metal triangle standing at the base of the pyramid. The Symbol of the Covenant, some called it. He had seen it many times – even touched it on one occasion – but today, there was something different.

  The grooves on the triangle were glowing.

  Had the Sky Spirits returned?

  In the depths of space, roughly seventeen lightyears from the Belos Star System, a lone SlipGate floated through the inky blackness. It had once been part of a Wyvern-class troop carrier, but the Overseers had destroyed that ship in an attempt to kill Jena Morane.

  The Gate, of course, had survived.

  Sinuous grooves on its surface began to glow.

  “We're receiving a data burst!” Halina called out, trying to speak over a multitude of voices. Her console began to flicker, accessing star-charts without her consent. A map of the galaxy appeared on the screen, spiral arms swirling around a bright central core.

  Tiny red dots appeared on the map, thousands of them scattered across the galactic disk. Some were more concentrated in certain areas. There were plenty here in the Sol System, and even more back home on Leyria. SlipGates? That would make sense in light of the recent activity.

  “Disconnect from the network,” Administrator Sorez shouted.

  “I can't!” someone replied behind her.

  Halina was transfixed by the screen. The tiny red dots just kept appearing until it seemed as if someone had scattered crumbs across the galactic disk.

  Then something happened that she didn't expect.

  A huge red about the size of her thumb appeared on the galaxy map. Then another and another. “What are those?” someone shouted from behind her. Halina was too baffled to answer. More large dots appeared.

  And then lines.

  Lines that connected the big dots, forming a complex star pattern. Instinct kicked in, and Halina began analyzing the star charts. The closest of those big dots was roughly one thousand lightyears from the Sol System, a journey of six days at high warp. There was another one between Leyrian and Antauran space.

  And more on the other side of the galaxy! She counted three large dots scattered throughout the Ragnos Confederacy. What could these be?

  “Can we get a message to Leyria?” Sorez asked.

  “No, sir; long-range communications are out. Several ships within the system are reporting trouble with their onboard SlipGates. Their consoles seem to be displaying the same navigational data we're seeing here.”

  What could those big dots be? Halina wondered.

  “Of course!” she whispered.

  Jena's heart sank when she heard Slade's cruel laughter. The man just hung there, strapped into the tube of flesh, tentacles piercing his skin. He didn't seem to notice the pain. “It's too late,” he whispered. “Too late. The end has begun. The first domino falls, and soon the rest will follow.”

  Jena felt her face crumple, then tossed her head about to clear away the fog. “You could be right,” she growled, hobbling closer to Slade. “But I can promise you one thing, Grecken: you won't be here to see it.”

  She triggered the blasting cap.

  Her world ended in fire.

  Chapter 28

  The Med-Lab on Station Twelve was a crowded room where doctors in white lab coats scurried about. One young man with a vacant stare sat on the edge of a bed while a nurse in blue scrubs scanned him with some medical device.

  Melissa sat on another bed with her hands in her lap, her shoulders hunched up as she tried to make herself as small as possible. “Why did you do it, Jen?” she whispered, trembling as a shiver went through her.

  Everything was different now.

  In some ways, she was more aware of her environment, aware of everything in this room without having to look. She knew – somehow – that a doctor was coming up behind her, and that in precisely three seconds, he would be close enough for her to turn and grab his collar if she wanted to.

  The Nassai that she now carried filled her mind with knowledge. Knowledge of her surroundings, knowledge of her new abilities, and knowledge of pain that wasn't her own. She had cried any number of tears over Raynar, and now she would cry again. Jena had been more than a teacher. She was more than Melissa's father's girlfriend. Over these last nine months, Jena had started to feel like part of the family.

  So, Melissa would cry, and this time it would be worse. Because this time, she was crying for two. She could feel her symbiont's pain. It was devastated. It tried to hide that reality from Melissa, but strong emotions flowed freely through their Bond.

  A doctor in a white lab coat approached her bed, clearing his throat. He was short but handsome with thick black hair that he wore combed back. “Ms. Carlson,” he said. “My name is Doctor Staas. I was sent to look in on you.”

  Melissa nodded.

  The doctor lifted some device that looked very much like a tablet, frowning as he checked the readout. “Your vitals are stable,” he said. “There seems to have been no ill-effects from the Bonding.”

  Shutting her eyes tight, Melissa sniffled. “That's good,” she whispered, nodding to the man. “I feel different…Less tired, more…Is it normal to feel like I want to run around the track twenty times?”

  He smiled, bowing his head to her. “From what I've been told,” he said, eyebrows rising. “You'll get used to the extra energy, the balance, the coordination. What we should really talk about is counseling.”

  Melissa crossed her arms, doubling over until she was almost bent in half. “I'm not looking for counseling,” she hissed, shaking her head. “I just want to work through this on my own.”

  The man bit his lip as he studied her, nodding slowly. “I understand that,” he said, taking a step back. “But, Ms. Carlson, you need to understand that this isn't the first time a Nassai has been passed from one Keeper to another.”

  “It isn't?”

  “No,” he replied. “It's happened several times throughout the last four centuries, and each time, the new host must cope with the symbiont's emotions in addition to her own. It can be quite difficult.”

  “It feels like a piece of me has been ripped away! It makes no sense, but-”

  “Those would be the Nassai's emotions.”

  “I thought…I mean I was told that the Nassai's emotions wouldn't overwhelm the host. From everything I've read…”

  Dr. Staaz sat on the next bed over, resting his tablet in his lap. He looked down at himself and sighed softly. “Under normal circumstances, that's true,” he said. “A Nassai's mind is incredibly disciplined, but they develop a very strong connection with their hosts, and a loss such as this can be traumatic.”

  “So, counseling?”

  “It would be my recommendation.”

  Melissa winced but nodded once in confirmation. “Okay,” she said, getting to her feet. “Counseling it is. Can you bring me to my father? He's probably made a trench in the f
loor with all the pacing he's doing.”

  She found Harry standing in the drab gray hallway outside the Med-Lab, staring blankly at his own two palms. Of course, her father was still in the black clothing he had worn on their mission, but he had removed his vest, his sidearm and the rest of his gear. And thankfully, the N'Jal was gone too. “So, you're all right,” he murmured when he saw her. “No complications from the Bonding.”

  Complications? Were there complications? Where did she even begin? How about having someone else's emotions in your head? That was new. Or the fact that she carried the symbiont of a woman she had looked up to? Melissa had wanted to be a Keeper for some time now, but she had always assumed that Jena would be there to help her through those first few years at least.

  What's more, she wasn't even technically a Justice Keeper. She had a Nassai, yes, but the rank and the authority only came after years of training. And it was possible for her to fail. A Nassai would never Bond a host that it deemed unworthy. It would perish before allowing its power to be misused; however, most potential Justice Keepers were allowed to Bond a symbiont after their first year of training.

  Some were rejected for one reason or another, and they usually went on to pursue other careers. Sometimes, however, a Nassai would Bond with a worthy host who hadn't received any official training; Jack and Anna had both received their symbionts under such circumstances. But worthy in the eyes of a Nassai was not the same as worthy in the eyes of other Justice Keepers. It was possible for her to fail her training and then live out her life with Jena's symbiont doing something else.

  Complications?

  There were so many complications!

  “Come on,” Melissa said. “Let's find the others.”

  Jack felt numb inside. Summer, however, was beside herself with white-hot rage that flowed into his mind like water cascading over Niagara Falls. It was hard to provide her with any comfort. Right then, he just wanted to throw himself into his bed with his face in the pillows and shut out the light.