Evolution

by R S Penney

  Jena was dead.

  He still didn't quite believe it. Shouldn't he be in tears? He remembered seeing his grandfather's open casket at the age of fifteen and wondering why it didn't reduce him to a blubbering mess. He had always been very open with his emotions, but death just did not bring that out in him. Not at first anyway. It just left him numb at first. There would be tears when the shock wore off, when something reminded him that he would never again be able to ask Jena for advice or listen to one of her trademark quips. The world had changed today and not for the better.

  Worst of all, no one really understood exactly what the Key had done aside from dumping a bunch of navigational data into their computers and making the SlipGates go all wonky for a few minutes. Some weapon! Of course, he was grateful that there hadn't been any damage, but it seemed as though Jena's valiant attempt to stop Slade before he did–whatever it was he was going to do– had been pointless in the end. His mentor had died for nothing. That pissed Jack off to no end.

  He leaned against the corridor wall with his arms folded, staring down at himself. “Nothing's the same anymore, Summer,” he whispered. “All the pillars that held up my world are crumbling.”

  “Jack!”

  A quick glance over his shoulder revealed Melissa striding through the hallway in the same black clothes she had been wearing earlier. “I'm glad I found you,” she went on. “I need to tell you something.”

  Jack winced, groaning in frustration. “Hey, kid,” he said, stepping away from the wall. “I'm sorry; I've been wrapped up in my own anxieties. This must all be pretty new and scary for you, huh?”

  Melissa stopped in front of him, bowing her head to stare down at the floor. “You have no idea,” she said. “But that's not why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “What's on your mind?”

  The girl looked up at him with big dark eyes, and for a moment he was startled by the intensity in her gaze. “When Jena passed her symbiont to me,” she said, “our minds touched for a few seconds. She asked me to give you a message.”

  “What message is that?”

  Pressing a fist to her mouth, Melissa cleared her throat audibly. “Jena asked me to speak these exact words to you. She said that you'd know what they mean. 'Everything dies, baby, that's a fact.' ”

  Jack closed his eyes, hot tears running over his cheeks. “ 'But maybe everything that dies someday comes back,' ” he whispered. “I think she was trying to tell us that death is not the end.”

  “I thought Jena was an atheist.”

  “She was,” Jack said. “But maybe it wasn't about her.” He gave Melissa a hug, a tight squeeze that seemed to ease some of her pain. The girl shuddered, and just once, a squeak came through her lips as she sobbed. “It's gonna be okay,” Jack whispered. “It's gonna be okay.”

  After making sure that she was all right, he left her to sort through her own pain. It wasn't as though he was in any place to be offering advice on that topic. Tomorrow was going to be hard, and the next day harder. And then, one day, it would be easier. He didn't want it to be. Easy felt like a betrayal. It was supposed to hurt.

  On his way to the SlipGate room, he found Anna walking alone through one of the drab gray corridors, ten steps ahead of him. Her back was turned when he came around the corner, but she must have seen him; Keepers had eyes in the backs of their heads.

  Jack hurried to catch up with her, stretching one hand out toward her. “An,” he said. “I…You must be hurting just as much as-”

  She spun around to face him with tears glistening on her cheeks, her red hair in a state of disarray. “I can't really talk right now,” she said, shaking her head. “I'm sorry. It's just…things between us are way too complicated, and I can't deal with that and with Jena's death at the same time.”

  Biting his lower lip, Jack looked down at the floor. “I get that,” he said, nodding to her. “But…I mean, is there any chance we can put the soap opera on hiatus while we deal with bigger problems?”

  “That's not a good idea.”

  He was genuinely surprised by that, so surprised that Summer echoed his shock. “But we always deal with tragedy together,” he mumbled, barely aware of what he was saying. “It's kind of our thing.”

  Pressing her lips together, Anna looked up to stare into his eyes. She blinked a few times. “And I'm afraid that's going to have to change.” Those words stung worse than a punch to the face. “At least for now.”

  He let her go without any further protest. There was no point in putting up a fight; when someone decided that they wanted to leave, nothing you could say would change their mind. It was just…Having his worst fears confirmed, knowing that things between him and Anna would never be the same, intensified the pain.

  Oh God, where was the numbness? He could deal with the numbness, but this felt like his chest was about to implode. The shock was over then. This was worse than when his grandfather had died. Thomas Hunter had been a man in his late seventies with a heart condition. It was sad, but blah, blah, blah, the circle of life and all that crap.

  Jena…

  Jena still had many good years left. Most Keepers who managed to survive long enough to reach retirement died in their mid-fifties. Jena was only just past forty. There was still so much for her to do.

  He waited a long time before making his way to the SlipGate. In part because he needed to focus on his grief, and in part because he wanted to make sure Anna was gone. He really didn't need yet another dash of awkward to enhance the flavour of this already shitty day.

  The hallway outside her apartment had green carpets and lamps along the cream-coloured walls that flickered. It almost smelled like lemon-scented cleanser, and the lack of natural light made it seem kind of dingy. Just the same, she was going to miss it. This had been her home for the better part of a year.

  Anna stood just outside the door, hunched over with her arms folded. “You can do this,” she whispered, shaking her head. “If you keep stringing him along, it's going to be that much worse.”

  She slid the key into the lock.

  When she pushed the door open, she found Bradley standing in the cozy little living room with his back turned, folding one of her shirts and putting it on a pile of laundry he had finished. “You're alive!” he exclaimed.

  Anna smiled down at herself. “I am,” she said, closing the door behind her. “But…” The dull ache of grief in her chest suddenly became a furious black hole, and it was only going to get that much worse. “Jena didn't make it.”

  Her boyfriend turned around.

  The blank expression on his face as he stood silhouetted by the light that came in through the window told her that he was at a loss for words. Not that she blamed him for that; there were no words. “Anna, I'm so sorry.”

  Pressing the heels of her hands to her eye-sockets, Anna spasmed as a sob ripped through her. “I can't,” she squeaked. “She was like a force of nature, you know? The one person who would outlive all of us.”

  He came over to her.

  Slipping his arms around her, Bradley pulled her close, and she leaned her cheek against his chest. Right then, she wanted nothing more than to accept his comfort and try to forget her misery for a little while. But she couldn't. She knew that.

  Anna pulled away, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “Listen,” she said. “We have to talk.”

  His expression darkened for a half a second, but he smothered the sudden flash of emotion. “That sentence never means anything good,” he said, shaking his head. “So…Is this the part where you break my heart?”

  She started crying.

  The sobs just ripped their way out of her no matter how hard she tried to suppress them, and the only source of solace she found came from Seth offering sympathy and encouragement. “I'm sorry,” Anna whimpered.

  There were moments when having a Keeper's ability to see everything around her without having to look was a curse. Turning away from Bradley did no good. He was still there in her mi
nd, watching her like a wounded animal.

  She went to the island in her kitchen.

  Plunking her elbows down on its surface, Anna rested her chin on the heels of both hands, fingers curled over her cheeks. “I love you, Bradley,” she said after a moment. “I really do. You're sweet and kind and wonderful.”

  Anna winced, shaking her head. “But I don't love you in a way that will make me want to spend my life with you.” Forcing those words out was so hard. “You can't come with me to Leyria.”

  He stood there with his arm hanging limp at his sides, his eyes fixed on the floor. “So, what are you saying?” he whispered. “All this time, and what? You're trying to tell me that you love me as a friend?”

  “No.”

  As she searched for the words to answer him, it dawned on her that her father was wrong. Yes, relationships took work and effort; true, no two people got along perfectly. But it wasn't perfect compatibility that made a relationship endure. There was something else, some missing piece that completed the puzzle. And she knew what that piece was because she felt it every day.

  Every time Jack suffered, her heart broke for him. Every time he threw out one of his snarky comments, she felt like he was performing just for her, shining a ray of light into the gloom of whatever crisis had stressed her out. For three years, she had wanted to come back to Earth. Not because she loved this planet, not because she wanted the most high-profile assignment. Because Jack was here.

  The part of her that believed in being selfless insisted that her job was to put aside those feelings and honour her commitments, but she realized now that doing so would be so much worse. Bradley deserved better than to have a partner who was always thinking about someone else. He deserved someone who pursued their relationship with conviction, not someone who did it out of a sense of duty.

  She had to let him go.

  “It's not that simple,” she said. “It's more complex than just platonic love versus romantic love. There are degrees of the latter-”

  Bradley raised both hands up with palms out, stumbling backward as if she'd just punched him. “Stop!” he growled, cutting her off. “I really don't need to hear this. You don't want to be with me?”

  “It's not that simp-”

  “Fine!” he barked. “Message received.”

  He paced to the front door, grabbed the knob and paused there for a moment. Then he yanked the door open and stepped out into the hallway. Grief hit her like a tidal wave the instant he was gone.

  She hated herself.

  Ben was back in the concrete jungle.

  On Leyria, the buildings had a certain elegance; they weren't all narrow rectangles that stretched for the for the sky. In fact many were short, longer buildings that curved as they traced part of the circumference of a circular street, Most were designed to include a spacious interior with ergonomic work-spaces and beautiful indoor gardens.

  Here, everything was a glass spire that reached for the heavens where the only real variance was in who stood taller than whom. The skyscrapers of Albert Street rose up on either side of him, blocking the sun's light.

  Dressed in black pants and a gray t-shirt, Ben moved up the sidewalk with his head hanging. “You can do this,” he whispered to himself for the three hundredth time. “He'll understand what you've been through.”

  He came to a street-side cafe where round glass tables were spaced out on a patio of red bricks. Most were occupied by men and women in shorts and t-shirts and maybe the odd sundress. But he knew what he would find.

  Darrel sat at one table in the corner with a newspaper in one hand, a mug of coffee next to him sending steam wafting up into the atmosphere. The man was as handsome as ever with a face that belonged on a statue and short black hair. If he noticed Ben, he didn't show it. “Darrel?”

  The man stiffened.

  Ben closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “You haven't returned my calls,” he said, approaching the small fence that bordered the patio. “I wanted to tell you why I've been away for so long.”

  Darrel remained in his chair, turned so that Ben saw him in profile, and he kept his attention focused on the paper. “I don't care why you've been away so long, Tanaben,” he said. “You said you'd come back, and you didn't. That tells me all I need to know.”

  “I was arrested-”

  “For smuggling weapons,” Darrel cut in. “I've heard it. One of your friends finally found a few minutes to give me an explanation for why my boyfriend was never coming home. But thank you for coming all the way down here.”

  Ben swallowed, trying to ignore the heat in his face. “So you know.” He grabbed the fence and leaned forward. “Darrel, I would have called or written, but I was forbidden from making any off-world comm-”

  The other man looked over his shoulder, squinting at Ben. “You still don't get it, do you?” he asked, shaking his head. “I don't care. For almost four months, I had nothing but my father to tell me what a degenerate you are.”

  “Your father is-”

  “I needed you to be here and prove him wrong,” Darrel went on. “And you weren't. But the important question is why weren't you here?” Silence stretched on for maybe ten seconds. Ten seconds in which Ben was painfully aware of the other customers looking at him. “You weren't here because you broke the law. And not even for some noble purpose. You gave weapons to people who were intent on fighting a guerrilla war for no god damn reason. You are a degenerate, Ben.”

  It wasn't that simple.

  The Colonists on the Fringe Worlds were suffering constant raids from Antauran ships. Leyria's solution had been to just bring everyone home and stave off the conflict a little longer. Sooner or later, the Antaurans would try to expand again. But many of those colonists had lived on Palisa and Alios for several generations. They had a right to defend their homes

  Not that he would have any luck explaining that to Darrel. You couldn't argue with someone who didn't care enough to hear your point of view. “I'm sorry,” Ben whispered. “I'll leave you alone then.”

  “Thank you,” Darrel said. “But just so we understand each other, let me be clear. I never want to see you again.”

  Ben said nothing else.

  He just walked away with a knife in his heart.

  Chapter 29

  A glowing blue tunnel stretched on for maybe fifty feet before its walls went dark. Beyond that, there was nothing but ash and scarred tissue. Men in women in bright red hazmat suits with clear helmets knelt in the ruins of what had once been the Nexus of the Key, all scanning the area with various pieces of equipment.

  Dressed in a hazmat suit of his own, Jack stood in the tunnel with his arms folded and looked through the clear mask. “What can you tell me?” he asked through the radio. “Is there any indication of what Slade did?”

  One of the men just inside the chamber stood up and spun around to face Jack. “No, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “Any neural networks that might give our scientists some clue as to how this place works were torched in the explosion.”

  “I'm sorry,” Jack said. “What was your name again?”

  “Marc Alenar, sir,” the man replied. He shuffled through the large hole in the wall that had once been the entrance to the Nexus, nearly falling flat on his face. “We have collected many samples of organic tissue, however,” he added. “Most of it is identical to other samples of Overseer technology that we've acquired over the years, but there was human DNA in the mix.”

  “Whose DNA?” Jack inquired.

  The other man shut his eyes behind his mask and heaved out a soft sigh. “A genetic analysis indicates that both Jena Morane's and Grecken Slade's remains are present in the wreckage. They're both dead, sir.”

  Jack let out a deep breath.

  Well, that confirmed it then. Not that he was holding out very much hope for some kind of miracle, but there was always a small part of him that never wanted to give up no matter how slim the odds were. Jena was dead. This time, admitting that brought only a small
pang of grief.

  At least she had taken Slade with her. Both physically and intellectually, the man was a devastating adversary. Now he was gone for good. One tiny bit of joy in a tempest of pain. “What about the Overseer?” Jack inquired. “Have you seen any indication that it might still be kicking around.”

  “Unknown, sir,” Alenar replied. “Our first team came here in full space suits with oxygen tanks. We've been here almost every day for the past week, and we have seen no indication that the Overseer is still active. Perhaps its consciousness was destroyed in the explosion that destroyed the Nexus. Or perhaps it fled somehow.”

  And that was quite possibly the thing that bothered him most. They really had no idea what could kill an Overseer. He would have to find out. “Keep up the good work,” Jack said, turning away from the other man. “Report anything you find directly to me. No one else. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Melissa felt out of place at this meeting. The e-mail from Larani Tal requesting her presence wasn't something she could ignore – when the head of the Justice Keepers came calling, even the greenest initiate knew to jump to her feet – but she was surrounded by people who had been working against Slade for months, and she wasn't sure exactly what it was she brought to the table.

  It had been different with Jena; deep down, Melissa knew that she had always had Jena's ear. Her symbiont grew solemn and she tried to comfort it. You need a name, she told the Nassai. What would you prefer?

  Larani Tal's office was a modestly decorated room where a desk of SmartGlass sat in front of a window that looked out upon the stars. The head of the Justice Keepers sat primly behind that desk, one leg crossed over the other as she gripped the armrests of her chair. “Report,” she said.

  Jack stood behind Melissa with his arms folded, his face grim as he studied Larani. “The Key seems to be inactive,” he replied. “We still have no idea what the damn thing did, but at least it isn't doing anything else.”

  At the corner of the desk, Anna sat with her elbow on its surface, her cheek leaned against the palm of her hand. “Well, at least there's that,” she muttered. “Engineers have been examining the SlipGates for the better part of a week; they seemed to have returned to normal.”