Symbiosis

by R S Penney

  A jolt of elation shot through her when she realized the Nassai was here. A tank that might have been used to house fish was sitting on the counter to her right, but instead of aquatic life, it was home to a thin purple gas that flickered as if an electrical storm was brewing inside. She hadn't failed! After all that effort, she had come here in time to save the symbiont! At first it shocked her that the lab was empty, but, of course, Mr. Pennfield would want to keep this place sealed off from anyone but his most trusted researchers, and it was still quite early in the morning.

  She practically ran across the room.

  Pushing a chair out of the way – the sound of its wheels rolling across the floor almost made her jump – she examined the equipment. On closer inspection, she noticed that the containment unit Denario had used to transport the Nassai was still attached to the tank by a long clear tube. A small saucer-shaped device about twice the size of her palm, it sat on the counter with a red LED that blinked over and over.

  Anna shut her eyes tight, shaking her head in disgust. “I'm going to get you out of here,” she said, dropping to one knee in front of the tank. “I know you can't hear me but just hold on. Help is here.”

  The controls were in Leyrian! That made her job easier, but it also indicated a rather unsettling reality: whoever operated this device could read her language. There was more going on here than a simple case of kidnapping.

  Anna licked her lips, then looked down at the floor. She tried to ignore the sweat beading on her brow. “This is getting uglier and uglier,” she muttered. “After we get you home, I might have to come back here with a full task force.”

  She tapped the glowing screen at the base of the tank to bring up the main menu. The system asked for a password. Bleakness take her! To have come so close and then be foiled by the most basic of security measures. There had to be a way! Perhaps she could guess the phrase.

  Take it easy, Lenai, she told herself. Let's play 'what do we know?' Well, most people were terrible at remembering passwords, and they tended to choose something of personal significance. In this case, however, there was another factor to consider.

  Whoever operated this tank could read Leyrian, but without a Nassai's assistance, the task of learning her language would be slow and arduous. That meant the password was probably something simple. Possibly even the default. After all, using the default password would not be much of a security risk in this case because any employee who managed to bypass the scanners on the doors would not even be able to read the text on the screen. She typed in password.

  Access granted!

  “Am I good or am I good?” Anna mumbled as she keyed in a series of commands that would transfer the Nassai back to its portable containment unit. There was a strange hissing sound as purple gas began to flow through the plastic tube. Slowly, the gas inside the tank grew thinner and thinner until it was gone. Only a vacuum would remain.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Anna pressed her lips together. She nodded once in approval. “Easier than expected,” she said, eyebrows rising. “We'll get you out of this building and then you'll be safe and sound.”

  The LED on the portable containment unit flipped from a blinking red to a steady green, indicating the Nassai had been sealed inside. It was time to go. Anna retrieved her multi-tool.

  She pushed a few buttons with her thumb, and three little prongs emerged from the top of the disk, each one magnetized. She clipped the tool onto her belt and fastened the containment unit to the prongs. That would leave her hands free.

  She turned back the way she had come.

  The door behind her opened.

  Tilting her head back, Anna squeezed her eyes shut. She let out a quiet little squeal of frustration. “Of course,” she muttered under her breath. “Why should I have expected things to go my way?”

  She spun around to find a man in a guards uniform standing in the open doorway. A tall fellow with a bit of stubble on his pudgy face, he looked her up and down. “So, I was reviewing the sign-in logs,” he said, placing a hand on his holstered pistol, “when I came across an anomaly.”

  The man frowned at her, his face contorted into that ubiquitous expression security guards got when they found something amiss. “Seems Mr. Hamilton's key card was used to access this room,” he went on. “But he's scheduled to be out of the office until late this afternoon. You wanna tell me who you are?”

  Pressing her lips into a thin line, Anna looked up to blink at him. “I mean no harm to you or to anyone else,” she said, shaking her head. “The people you work for have taken a sentient being into captivity.”

  He drew his gun.

  “Of course, this wouldn't be easy,” Anna said, backing away. “I would prefer to avoid the use of violence.”

  The enhanced spatial awareness offered by her Nassai alerted her that if she kept backing up, she would trip over the chair she had rolled into the middle of the floor. How to use that to her advantage?

  The guard thrust his hand out, pointing the gun at her chest. His face was twisted into a snarl. “You just stay where you are,” he growled. “You think I don't know who I'm dealing with? You put three of my colleagues in the hospital.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I'm truly sorry for that.”

  With his free hand, the guard squeezed the radio in his shirt pocket. “This is Olsen,” he began in a low muffled voice. “Send back up to Science Lab A. Looks like we have a thief on our hands.”

  “You don't have to do this.”

  “Don't I?”

  Anna lifted her chin to stare him down for a long moment. She raised a thin red eyebrow. “Do you really want to kill me, sir?” she asked. “Have you ever even fired that weapon before today?”

  His expression softened, and he looked down at himself. It seemed as though she'd gotten through to him. “I've never shot anyone,” he conceded. “But you are a dangerous woman. Stay where you are.”

  He pointed the gun at her knee. Of course, the fellow would opt for a non-lethal solution. Even knowing she had disarmed three men twice her size, he probably thought she was helpless against firearms. Anna felt a sudden queasiness when she realized she would have to disabuse him of that.

  “I don't want to fight you.”

  “Stay still.”

  “But you're leaving me no-”

  The man showed his teeth and let out a growl. A vein began to throb in his forehead. Oh no…Anna thought. He's going to shoot.

  Bending her knees, Anna jumped. She back-flipped through the air just as his gun went off with a CRACK, his bullet striking the floor and tossing up chunks of linoleum. She flipped upright to land behind the chair.

  Anna kicked it.

  The chair went flying across the room as the guard tried to adjust his aim. It hit him square in the face before he could point his gun at her, the pistol tumbling out of his hand. He dropped to his knees.

  Now!

  She turned and ran.

  The door to the hallway was maybe five paces away, and she would be able to exit the room without her multi-tool. Before she got near it, however, the damn thing swung open and she was confronted with another pair of guards.

  The one in front drew a pistol from his belt. He thrust a hand out, pointing the gun at her and squinting as he took aim.

  Anna threw up a Bending. The air before her rippled, the guard now a blurry image as he pulled the trigger. CRACK! CRACK! Bullets appeared several inches in front of her face, veered off to her right and spiralled toward the wall.

  Anna let the Bending drop, pain flaring in her temples.

  The guard was staring at her with his mouth agape, blinking as though he wasn't all that sure his eyesight was in working order. In that moment of confusion, she closed the distance between them.

  Anna kicked the gun out of his hand. She spun and back-kicked, driving a foot into his chest. The impact sent him tumbling backward and he collided with the guard behind him. Both fell backward through the door.

  Two bodies i
n the hallway and the man underneath struggled, flailing about as he tried to push his companion off him. The guard she had kicked was winded, gasping and unable to move.

  She ran up the corridor.

  Clenching her teeth, Anna winced. She tossed her head about, strands of blonde hair flying across her face. “Keep it together, Lenai,” she panted. “You only have to make it to the bloody corner.”

  She rounded it.

  At the end of this hallway, she saw a door that led to a stairwell. Escape was only a few seconds away, but there was a problem. Another guard was standing in the middle of the corridor.

  He drew his pistol and raised it in a shaky arm, terror evident on his face. “You just stay back,” he stammered, backing away from her. “I don't want to shoot you, but so help me God, I'll do what I-”

  Anna kept on running.

  She dropped to her knees and slid across the slick floor tiles just before a deafening roar filled the air. Bullets whizzed past overhead, cutting the air with a sharp whine. She slid right up to him.

  Reaching up with both hands, Anna seized his arm and pushed it upward so that his gun was now pointed at the ceiling. A few more shots – each one like a gong in her head – then plaster rained down on her.

  Anna slammed a palm into his chest.

  The man went flying backward, landing hard on his ass and sliding across the floor tiles. He let out a groan, his arm flopping down to let the pistol fall out of his grip. Right beside him.

  Anna somersaulted across his body. Snatching up the gun as she passed, she came up in a crouch. Just a few feet to the door, but she needed to make sure nobody was able to follow her.

  Pressing her lips together, Anna looked down at the floor. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. You're acting in self-defence, she told herself. These people will not hesitate to put a slug in you.

  She turned, swinging her arm out behind herself, and fired. Her gun went off with a flash of its barrel, and bullet holes appeared in the wall of the intersecting hallway. Anna had a brief glimpse of one of the other guards ducking back around the corner.

  No time to lose.

  In a heartbeat, she was on her feet again and charging through the stairwell door. She raced across the landing, leaped and sailed over the railing. For one perfect moment, adrenaline was enough to overpower the fear.

  She landed crouched on the stairs. Come on, Lenai. Let's go.

  “What do you mean 'she slipped past you?' ”

  Vincent felt sweat coating his face. “There were four of you!” he bellowed. “How could one little girl get past four armed guards, all twice her size?”

  His faint reflection in a blank security monitor stared back at him. His cheeks were flushed, and his double chin seemed more pronounced. Sweat drenched his coarse black hair. “This isn't happening!”

  The Security Office – a tiny cubbyhole on the first floor – was completely empty except for himself and a young man named Sean Collins. Just out of high school, the kid seemed frantic as he watched the monitors.

  “She's…quick!”

  Vincent groaned. Mr. Pennfield would have his job for this! “Where is she now?” he said, scanning the active monitors. “Collins?”

  “Southeast stairwell.”

  Calling up the appropriate video feed, Vincent found a black-and-white image of a set of stairs under the light of the morning sun. There was no sign of the young woman, but she had a tendency to slip past cameras before he could get a good look. How had she gotten her hands on a janitor's uniform?

  “She made it to the thirteenth floor,” Collins shouted.

  “Watch the cameras,” Vincent barked. “I want to know the instant that she decides to change her route.”

  He only had twelve guards on the day shift. The woman had already slipped past the three who had been close enough to answer Lewis's call for backup, and that left only eight warm bodies to intercept this…she-devil – six, if you excluded Collins and himself. Someone had to coordinate this whole thing.

  It was unlikely she would use an elevator – that would leave her at their mercy – and so she would have to take one of the four stairwells down to the ground floor. Of course, she could switch stairwells at any floor, and tracking her was proving to be quite a bit harder than he would have liked.

  That being the case, Vincent did the only thing he could: he divided his men among all four stairwells and hoped against hope that it would be enough. “Lewis!” he growled into his radio. “Have your men take an elevator down to the fifth. Divide up and rejoin the others. One to each stairwell.”

  “But-”

  “No excuses! Just do it!”

  “She's cutting across the eleventh floor!” Collins shouted. “Heading to southwest stairwell!” The monitors displayed a young woman running through a narrow corridor of cubicles while men and women in suits and skirts jumped out of her way. None dared to block her path. “Wilhelm is on six and Terrance is coming up to join him. Police cruisers have been dispatched: ETA ten minutes.”

  Not soon enough.

  Anna was crouched on the landing of a stairwell with her pistol raised up beside her head. The pain that came with using her Nassai's more advanced abilities had dwindled to a mild tingle in her skin. So far, she had managed to avoid bloodshed and, with any luck, she would be able to get out of there without further violence.

  Unfortunately, the sound of footsteps on the stairs below meant that her good fortune had come to an end. She had made it to the ninth floor, but if her guess was correct, there were two or possibly three men coming up to meet her.

  Red-cheeked and gasping, Anna closed her eyes. She tilted her head back, taking a deep breath. You've already slipped past four, she reassured herself. This will be a whole lot easier with the element of surprise.

  The footsteps drew nearer.

  In moments like these, it was difficult to ignore the beating of her own heart as it tried to punch through her chest. The thought of dying didn't scare her nearly as much as the thought of taking a life.

  She spun around to stand at the head of the stairs.

  Two big men in black-and-white uniforms stood dumbfounded on the steps below, their mouths gaping as they stared up at her. Surprise lasted only a moment before they reacted. One already had his weapon drawn.

  Raising her pistol in both hands, Anna squinted at them, then shook her head in warning. “Your weapons,” she said in a harsh, grating voice, “keep them pointed at the floor and eject the clips.”

  The nearest guard frowned at her, his dark face twisting in an expression of distaste. He complied with her order, ejecting the magazine from his pistol and letting it fall to the floor with a soft click-clack.

  His companion did so as well.

  “Toss the empty guns away,” Anna ordered. She watched as they obeyed, both men throwing their weapons down to the landing they had just crossed. That done, she felt an immediate sense of relief. “Now, you're going to walk past me and you're going to keep going upstairs. Understood?”

  They nodded.

  “Go.”

  Anna stepped out of the way to let them cross the landing. The brain picked up all sorts of insignificant details in tense situations; she couldn't help but notice the way sweat plastered the fabric of those white shirts to their backs.

  In a moment, they were gone. Another situation resolved without lethal force, thank the Holy Companion. If she could get down to an exit without any further incidents, this mission might just be a success.

  Anna ran.

  She stopped for a brief moment on the stairs, pausing just long enough to collect the discarded ammunition. She wasn't stupid; those men would turn around and chase her the instant they thought she had gone far enough, and she wasn't about to leave them with anything they might use against her.

  After that, it was a mad dash to the ground floor. Anna hopped over the railing to land on the next staircase over. She dropped to a crouch, ignoring the slight burst of pain in her knees. />
  She ran down a few steps, then hopped over the railing again. This pattern went on while she counted the floors. The seventh…the sixth…the fifth and fourth. So far as she could tell, there were no more guards in her path.

  Her ears picked up the sound of footsteps up above – a whole lot of them. It seemed the pair of guards had rendezvoused with several of their colleagues. That meant they were likely to be armed again. Hurry up.

  She paused on the landing between the first and second floors, staring through the window at a lush green lawn that stretched on for several dozen feet before stopping at the sidewalk. Beyond that, she saw several cars parked on the curb. Was Jack's one of them? No time for worrying. She had done her part; now, she had to trust him to do his.

  I'm sorry, my friend, Anna told her Nassai. But I'm going to have to call upon your aid one more time.

  She fired at the window, filling the stairwell with a thunderous roar. These Earth weapons were so damn loud! The pane shattered into a thousand little shards that rained down upon the ground below. Companion, have mercy on anyone who might have been standing there. The thought occurred to her too late.

  Calling on her Nassai, Anna bent gravity, reducing its pull to less than half of what would be considered normal on this planet. Pain flared behind her eyes, but she ignored it with some effort.

  Anna leaped.

  She flipped through the open window, then uncurled to drop to the grass outside the building. She landed in a crouch, raising her pistol on instinct and allowing her Bending to die. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and racing through the grass.

  Jack's car was waiting on the roadside, just behind a parking meter. Through the passenger-side window, she could make out the silhouette of his head as he waited for her.

  Anna dashed across the sidewalk.

  She pulled the door open and dove into the back seat, landing face down upon the cushions. “Go!” she shouted before she could even get the door closed. “Hurry! They'll be on us any second!”