Symbiosis

by R S Penney

  Maintaining a professional composure was going to be difficult. He would prefer to set an example for the TAC Team – some of them might one day climb the ranks – but at the moment, he just wanted to throttle Hutchinson. “Get on the floor, David,” he ordered. “Hands behind your head.”

  The other man dropped to his knees, lacing fingers over the back of his skull. He flinched and let out a groan. “What are you gonna do, Harry?” he asked. “You arrest me, and it will mean exposing all this stuff you want to keep secret.”

  “I'll deal with it. Cuff 'em.”

  A third TAC officer – this one a tall man in a black helmet that hid his face – went over to Hutchinson and dropped to one knee behind him. He seized Hutchinson's wrists, placing a cuff on each.

  “Get him out of here,” Harry spat. “Is the car ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Harry replied. “Let's get him to the airport.”

  He couldn't wait to usher the other man into a nice, comfortable interrogation room where they could learn everything he knew about Wesley Pennfield. They would need a confession from Hutchinson if they wanted to put that bastard in prison. If they could get Hutchinson to admit that Pennfield told him to shoot Jack…well, that was Murder One. That would stick.

  Harry felt very much like a cat hankering to sharpen his claws on a juicy, tender piece of fresh meat.

  Chapter 25

  The first thing Anna saw when she woke was the distant highrise behind the blinds of her bedroom window. A few puffy clouds were floating through the clear blue sky. Just enough for picturesque scenery.

  Anna sat up, pressing fists to her eye sockets. She rubbed them and let out a groan. “I hate late nights,” she muttered to herself. “If criminals could confine themselves to the afternoons, I'd be very appreciative.”

  Gritting her teeth, Anna winced. She tossed her head about to shake out the early morning fog. “Very appreciative,” she whispered. “I might even let a couple go just to prove my point.”

  The flight back from Halifax had been taxing, and though she had been seated the entire time, her muscles ached worse than they would after a long workout. It was a miracle that she didn't throw up. She had been making a point to keep complaints to herself, but how these people survived with such primitive technology was beyond her. Next she'd be traveling by horseback!

  A few moments later, she was pacing down the hallway in beige khaki pants and a gray t-shirt with laces over its deep V-neck. Her hair was tied back, but she could feel a few flyaway strands.

  At the end of the hall, she found the small kitchen on her right with a pot of coffee already brewing on the counter. Odd. Jack usually slept later than she did. She hadn't expected to see him for another half hour.

  Anna found him standing in the living room with a mug of hot chocolate in hand, staring out the window behind the small television. “Morning!” she said in a chipper tone. “Thanks for making coffee.”

  Jack just stood there with the mug raised halfway to his mouth, still as a statue with his back turned. What exactly was passing through his head just then? Concern dampened her otherwise good mood. “Jack?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Is everything alright?” she asked, brushing hair out of her face. “You look like that bald space-ship captain just before he launches into a speech about the burdens of command.”

  He took a sip of his hot chocolate, then lowered the mug again, staring straight out the window. “Just thinking,” he said. “I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. Too many thoughts racing through my mind.”

  “Wanna tell me about them?”

  Anna moved up beside him, resting a hand on his back. The gesture felt so natural, she didn't even consider the implications until he stirred. Snatching her hand away, she gave herself a silent reprimand. She was his mentor; these feelings were not appropriate. When he turned, she almost cringed in embarrassment.

  Jack stared at her with a blank expression, blinking as he chose his words. “Just a mix of feelings,” he murmured. “At first, I was thrilled – I faced down men with pistols, and I survived – but then…”

  “But then?”

  “Well, I woke up feeling like I could take on the world, but then it occurred to me that I was celebrating that I just beat up three guys. How can I possibly feel proud of that?”

  “Those feelings sound perfectly natural to me,” she said. “You should be proud, and you should be scared.”

  Bending over with a hand on his stomach, Jack shook his head. “I know I need to keep this under control,” he said. “I know these feelings get in the way of doing our job.”

  Anna frowned, then lowered her eyes to the floor. How exactly was she supposed to explain this? “You've got it all wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “Emotions don't get in the way of doing our job. They make it possible for us to do our job.”

  “But if we hesitate,” he said, “it could get us killed.”

  “But you didn't hesitate, Jack,” she replied. “You did what was necessary when it was necessary. That you feel remorse for doing harm to another human being is a sign that you understand the burden of the power you've been given. You care about people; so you will use that power wisely.”

  “And mope like a toddler?” He turned away from her, marching over to the wall, and stood there for a very long while. “Hell, I actually teared up this morning. Everyone always told me I was soft.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Anna scowled down at the floor. She hunched up her shoulders in a shrug. “I'm not saying it will be easy,” she began. “But you'll learn how to manage these feelings once you stop lying to yourself.”

  “And what lie am I telling myself?”

  Anger welled up when she considered her words, white-hot magma that burned in her veins. How could someone as noble as Jack not see the truth for what it was? “The lie that strength is the absence of emotion,” Anna said, surprised by the gentleness in her voice. Her anger was not with him, she realized, but with the people who had taught him to equate empathy with weakness. “You have a right to your tears, Jack; we all do, men and women alike.

  He shuddered, huddling in on himself and moving closer to the wall. The poor guy was really quite upset. “Turn around,” Anna said softly. “You don't have to hide what you feel from me.”

  He whirled around to face her.

  Jack closed his eyes tight, tears glistening on his cheeks. He shook his head with a shuddering breath. I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I don't mean to dump all this on you; I just don't know what to make-”

  Anna stepped forward, slipping her arms around his waist. She buried her head in his chest. “You don't have to be sorry,” she said. “Having emotions is a good thing, and I want you to share them with me.”

  Face tight with anxiety, Jack went red. “So how do you do it?” he asked, squeezing her tight. A surge of affection made her return the embrace. Those damned feelings were popping up again. “How do you live with the knowledge that you've done violence?”

  Anna looked up at him with wide eyes, blinking as she chose her words. “It takes time,” she said, nodding. “But eventually you accept that it was necessary and that your actions protected the lives of innocents.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Jack, believe me,” she whispered. “The fact that you're upset says volumes about the quality of your character. Which is top-notch in my opinion.”

  He shuddered, wiping tears off his face with the back of his hand. “Has anybody ever told you you're a wonderful mentor?” he asked. “It's going to take a little while for me to learn to be as open with my emotions as you are.”

  His words hit her like a slap to the face.

  Closing her eyes, Anna let her head hang. She reached up to brush a lock of hair out of her face. “Physician heal thyself,” she mumbled. “Jack, there's something I have to tell you…and it won't be easy.”

  Every instinct told her to clamp her mouth shut or come u
p with something else that might follow her last statement – something that did not involve expressing her romantic feelings – but she had insisted on openness. If they were on her world, Jack would have a more experienced teacher, and she would be free to snuggle him up into a big warm blanket and fall asleep in his arms. But there were only two Keepers on this world. Perhaps that meant it was time to rethink the rules. “I think I'm falling in love with you.”

  Sniffling, Jack smiled at her. Had anyone ever told him he had such beautiful blue eyes. “Yeah, I kind of figured,” he said softly. “And I feel the same way. So, what do you want to do about it?”

  She turned away from him, pacing across the room with arms folded. “Well, that is a tough one,” she said, stopping in front of the couch. “I'm your mentor. Indulging these feelings could create a conflict of interest.”

  “Normally, I would agree,” he began. “But I think this case is different. Anna, you sometimes have to struggle just to be tactful. I have a hard time believing that you would ever lie to spare my feelings.”

  “A fair point.”

  “So…”

  “So it seems to me there's only one logical thing to do.”

  In her mind's eye, she saw him standing behind her with hands clasped behind his back, his eyes glued to the floor. “Oh, really,” he said through soft laughter. “Well, as long as we're being logical. How do you want to syllogism our way out of this one?”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Anna flashed a wicked grin. “How 'bout you meet me downtown tonight?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Say, at the corner of Bank and Queen around eight-thirty?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But-”

  “No, no,” she cut in. “No questions. It'll spoil the surprise.”

  Hunching over, Harry slammed his hands down on the metal table and snarled at his prisoner. “Let's go over this one more time,” he grumbled. “What do you know about Pennfield's plans?”

  David Hutchinson sat across from him, frowning into his lap. Sweat glistened on the other man's face. “I already told you, Harry,” he whispered. “Pennfield never shared his deepest secrets with me.”

  Harry trembled, shaking his head in contempt. “The guy was paying you to take care of his dirty work,” he said, straightening. “I have a hard time believing you never made a few educated guesses.”

  The interrogation room in the CSIS office was very much like the one down at the station: bland and devoid of furnishings of any kind. A rectangular mirror on the wall to his left was actually a window that Patel could use to keep an eye on things. Someone had to keep Harry from throttling the other man.

  Hunter and Lenai had been excluded from these proceedings. In his opinion, that was for the best. Though this alliance had served them all well, Lenai was an unknown element, and Hunter had made it clear that his first loyalty was to her. It was no good trying to reason with him. No young man of that age would see sense when he was in love. Harry hadn't.

  “What's your answer?”

  Hutchinson placed an elbow on the table's metal surface, then planted his face in his hand. “I already told you, Harry,” he mumbled. “He ordered me to kill Hunter and bring that device to him. You've got my confession. That's enough to go after him.”

  “I want more.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Hutchinson folded his arms. He looked up to fix a dark-eyed gaze on Harry. “What are you gonna do?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Torture it out of me?”

  Harry closed his eyes, tilting his head back. He took a deep, calming breath. “This is getting us nowhere,” he said. “Look, Dave, we both know that Pennfield is dangerous. If you give me some useful information-”

  “Pennfield will kill me!”

  Resting both elbows on the table's surface, Hutchinson grabbed clumps of his own hair. “I can't help you!” he said, his voice muffled by his own arms. “Pennfield wouldn't tell me something if he thought it might harm him.”

  A knock at the door came before Harry could reply, and a good thing too. He had been on the verge of screaming at the other man. An officer of the law took an oath to protect the innocent. Only the worst kind of scum would betray that oath for cash, debts or no debts. Perhaps that was why Lenai was so volatile. The young woman had an oath of her own to keep.

  When he stepped out into the hallway, he found Aamani Patel leaning against the wall with arms folded, scowling down at herself. “You need to ease off,” she said. “Look at that man. He's afraid for his life.”

  “He should be.”

  Patel frowned, her face twisting in disgust. “I understand your frustration, Detective,” she began. “But terrorizing that man won't get us anywhere.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “If you listen carefully, you'll realize that we've already learned much of what we need to know,” she said. “Hutchinson is afraid that Pennfield will kill him even while he serves his time in prison. That suggests connections to the underworld.”

  “It suggests a lot more than that,” Harry said. “But we already knew as much. He's been in contact with aliens, Aamani. We know the SlipGate is his means of doing so. It's a variable that we need to remove from the equation.”

  With a heavy sigh, Patel studied the floor. She nodded, though the gesture came with some reluctance. “My superiors agree,” she said. “I'll contact Hunter and Lenai. We should include them in this.”

  Bill let the body drop.

  Elora Sempressa's corpse landed face-down on the floor, her hair dishevelled, her black dress rumpled. The poor woman hadn't even expected him to come up behind her and snap her neck with a quick twist.

  “I can't say I like this, Boss,” Bill muttered. “Mom always told me never to hit a woman, and now I killed one.”

  Lights flickered in the ceiling of the cramped underground bunker, shining down on wooden crates that were spaced out on the concrete floor. Wesley Pennfield stood there in jeans and a leather jacket, smiling down at the body. “She thought she could dictate terms to me,” he said.

  “You are a ruthless man, Pennfield.”

  A portly man in jeans and a sweatshirt stood across from Bill's boss, his beard so scraggly that Bill half expected to see flies buzzing around his head. “I will not miss Elora,” Raolan Carso went on. “But I had not expected her to die quite so violently.”

  Wesley Pennfield showed teeth in the most vicious smile Bill had ever seen, bright light reflected in his glasses. “The woman is dead,” he said. “That's all that matters. Now show me the drones.”

  Hooking thumbs into the waistband of his pants, Raolan waddled over to the nearest crate. Its side had already been pried open and now leaned against the box to hide what was inside.

  Raolan pulled it down.

  It fell to the floor like a tree that had been chopped down, exposing two metallic creatures inside. Robots? They were shaped like people with arms and legs, but made of something that might have been steel. In place of a head, each had a device that looked a bit like a TV camera.

  Bill felt his jaw drop. He blinked a few times, then looked away from the bloody monstrosities. “You really gonna buy those, Boss?” he asked. “Seems like it'd be pretty damn obvious you're up to something.”

  “Be quiet, William.”

  Pennfield stepped forward with a greedy smile that grew larger and larger the closer he got. “Yes,” he said, nodding once. “These will do nicely. How much do you want for them, Raolan?”

  “Ten…twelve million?”

  “Done.”

  Rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, Bill closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. The Boss gets what the Boss wants, he reminded himself. But maybe now's a good time for a vacation.

  Pennfield stood there with his chin pinched in one hand, squinting at the dormant robots. “I suspect even a Justice Keeper will find it hard to destroy these,” he mused. “Is there any new information?”

  The question was directed to the other aide that Pennfield had brought with him
on this trip to Europe. James Phillips, a slim man in a black suit, stood off to the side with a tablet PC. “We just had a report from our contact at CSIS,” he answered. “Aamani Patel has ordered several of her deep-cover agents to keep an eye on Hunter's family.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I think they're expecting you to take a shot at them,” Phillips replied with a wry grin on his face. “A bit of revenge for the theft of the Nassai.”

  Crossing his arms with a sigh, Pennfield shook his head. “They really expect me to be so petty?” he asked, turning away from Bill. “I suppose that we should be grateful. Small-minded enemies are easily defeated.”

  Raolan threw his head back and roared with laughter, his thick face flushed to a fierce red. “They do not know you, my friend!” he exclaimed. “This is most unfortunate for them, no?”

  It was most unfortunate for whoever stood in Pennfield's way. The man kept Bill well paid for his services as a low-profile enforcer, but it was not money that bought his silence. Bill knew damn well that if he ever crossed Pennfield for any reason, he would never hear the shot that killed him.

  “You're planning to use those?” Phillips said, eyeing the side of the crate. “Weren't we instructed to keep Earth isolated from the rest of the galaxy at all costs?”

  “It's too late for that now,” Pennfield replied. “My contacts on Leyria have assured me that a rescue ship has been dispatched to recover Anna Lenai. Even if they do not find this system, CSIS has been made aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life, which means the government knows as well. Their next move will most likely be an attempt to access the SlipGate.”

  “Then we should move it,” Phillips insisted.

  “No!” Pennfield barked. “I want them to come for the Gate. When they do so, we will activate these drones.”

  “Two drones?” Phillips said. “Against a team of CSIS operatives?”