by Susan Grant
Jana found the remote control Evie kept in the kitchen and turned on a small TV mounted under the counter. She gave the remote to Cavin, who peered at it, turning the remote over and over in his hands with curiosity. His first lesson on blending in as an Earth man, she thought.
But he held it upside down. She smiled, spinning her finger until he caught on. She pointed to the down arrow, nodding, and then he was off and running.
The channel changed from a cooking show to ESPN. It was a college basketball game. Here he lingered before flipping through more channels to a SpongeBob cartoon. He squinted, his mouth set in a funny expression. One thing for certain, this man hadn’t spent a childhood watching Saturday-morning cartoons. But when he got to the news, Jana tugged on his sleeve to stop him. That’s my father, she mouthed.
Cavin observed Congressman Jasper with interest as Jana returned her attention to the call.
“I’ve got to go, Jana,” Dad was saying. “You keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Doing?” Jana gulped. Jana glanced at Cavin and bit her lip. Beleaguered Congressman’s Woes Go Galactic.
“Yes, upholding the Jasper name, being a model legislator. I know there’s extraordinary pressure on you right now, public and private, but you’ve risen to the occasion. You make me proud, Jana.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she said weakly.
After they hung up, she let out a breath and sagged back against the counter. “So far no one’s been able to come up with any evidence of wrongdoing on my father’s part, which is no surprise. He seemed in good spirits about it.” And confident in her ability to stay out of trouble, which was exactly what she wasn’t doing.
She busied her hands putting leftovers from lunch in the microwave so she didn’t burst into tears.
“You don’t appear as happy as I thought you’d be upon hearing this promising news,” Cavin observed.
She handed him a plate of cold leftovers to bring to the table. “Because there’s a tremendous amount of pressure not to do anything that will put the family under more scrutiny. These people who went after my father, they’re hiding like cockroaches, waiting for another chance. I’ve seen these things happen before, but never to us. Never to the Jaspers. Maybe our days of being untouchable are over. I have to watch my step.” She gave a tense shrug and massaged the back of her neck.
Cavin removed her hand from her neck and took over, massaging her neck and shoulders. His thumbs pressed and rotated, working out the kinks in her muscles. She sighed. “It’s a heavy weight you carry on your shoulders as a member of your family,” he said low in her ear.
“It is, sometimes…” Of all the men she’d been with, Cavin was the first to acknowledge the driving force in her life, yet, he’d made the observation seemingly without effort. He got it. He got her.
She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. So many emotions tumbled through her: the pressure of being under attack, of having someone to open up to about it, the relief of knowing she didn’t have to walk alone anymore, that she had someone now, like her father had her mother. “‘We Jaspers are public servants first and foremost. Our duty to others comes before our own interests and ambition.’ I was born, weaned, and raised on that rule. Back when I was nine, when we met, I almost didn’t come outside to see you that last night because my grandfather told me it wasn’t responsible to be out after dark and Jaspers needed to be responsible.”
“But you came,” he said, rubbing her back before releasing her.
“Of course, I did.”
“So, you can and do rebel when necessary.”
Jana was about to argue but stopped. He was right. No one had ever pointed it out before. She glared at him as she took a seat at the table. “What is this, a job interview for a save-the-world sidekick?”
“I’ve already made my selection. And not for a sidekick. For an equal partner.”
“I’m not the girl you knew, Cavin.” The girl who used to giggle and pirouette for no other reason than to taste the joy of it; the girl whose love of life was so contagious it infected both a small boy from a faraway planet who hadn’t yet spread his wings and an old man who’d lived five lifetimes in the space of one. Jana had spent the past twenty-three years eradicating that girl from her personality. I don’t want to be trouble. I don’t want to be different. “I’ve changed.”
“I don’t know about that.” Cavin seemed to be holding back a smile as he sat across from her, the feast between them. Hungrily, he heaped food on his plate. “I’ve seen that girl surface several times already.”
“Look, I’m not a rebel. I’ve spent more of my life conforming than rebelling.”
“Like me, you choose your battles. What’s important for you to fight, you do.”
As long as it was the right fight, the socially acceptable fight. When was the last time you took a great personal risk for something you believed in? Her last true act of defiance with potential negative consequences was the night she slipped out her bedroom to meet Cavin despite her grandfather’s orders to stay inside. At the time she’d believed it was the right thing to do, and that was all that mattered. But that was decades ago. Since then, she could be proud of her accomplishments, but every single one of them was achieved with acute awareness of her public image, how others saw her. With a rush of insight, Jana saw what she’d become. And wasn’t sure she liked it.
They ate their meal with the television. “Is it spring fever?” asked a local news anchor. “Strange happenings continue to occur in the Roseville, Granite Bay area.”
Jana dropped her fork. She picked up the remote and upped the volume.
“Last night, an SUV torn in half. Now today, what appears to have been an electromagnetic pulse disrupted a Roseville subdivision. Residents of Granite Canyon Drive remain puzzled by the unexplained phenomenon—and so do local utility companies.”
Great going, Jana. Her grandfather’s metaphorically smelly kitchen hadn’t gotten the barest chance to air out before she’d managed to stink it up all over again.
REEF DECIDED to pass the night in the comfortable shelter of an inn. Cold warehouses were hard on his healing body. Perhaps a real bed would speed the maddeningly slow process. The room was dark except for the illumination given off by the entertainment box. All day, he’d watched the news, relentlessly viewing the summaries to find hints as to what happened to his target. With his internal systems damaged and his armor intermittent, he’d resorted to more conventional means of gathering information, his only option until the nanobots in his physical body finished repairs.
But, his biological components were warm, rested and sated, thanks to the ease with which he could help himself to local paper currency via the boxes called ATMs. Several meals’ worth of empty take-out boxes covered the bedside table. He’d developed a taste for the cuisine called Italian. He’d never tasted anything like it in the galaxy. The rat still chilled in his armored freezer pocket, but Reef was glad to see that it was unlikely he’d have to consume it to keep up his strength.
“Is it spring fever?” the newsreader asked. “Strange happenings continue to occur in the Roseville, Granite Bay area. Last night, an SUV torn in half. And today, what appears to have been an electromagnetic pulse disrupted a Roseville subdivision.”
Reef sharpened his focus. What was this?
“Residents of Granite Canyon Drive remain puzzled by the unexplained phenomenon, and so do local utility companies.”
An electromagnetic pulse. “Greetings, Far Star,” he murmured, sitting up. He’d found his target. Based on Earth data collected thus far, an electromagnetic pulse equaled a 98.3 percent probability Far Star was nearby. The man had created a security array for self-protection, apparently, but he’d caught someone or something else in his net, not Reef, and the mistake could very well be his last.
Reef smiled a true smile for the first time since arriving on this gods-forsaken world. He swung his feet off the bed and pulled up a sleeve of the thick shirt he’d obtained from one of
the men. The necklaces around his neck tinkled as he accessed his wrist computer. First he tried to call up the target’s gauntlet computer, but the man remained off-line. No matter; now Reef knew where he was.
Next, Reef accessed data on the location mentioned in the news: Roseville: 35.62 square miles. Location: eastern edge of the Sacramento Valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Elevation: 165 feet above sea level. Population: 103,783.
He powered up his internal map and zoomed in on the area. Granite Canyon Drive. He saved the data and prepared to leave the inn.
Working quickly, he stripped, donned his body armor, and dressed all over again in his new clothing as a disguise. Since his invisibility was intermittent, the Earth clothing would make him invisible in a different but just as effective way.
With his assassin’s special armor set to the smallest thickness, making it virtually undetectable under his clothing, he readied his weapons and explosives and stored them in various places around his body. With his tongue, he checked for the proper position of the self-destruct cap fitted in a recessed compartment hidden behind his rear left molar in case he was apprehended by Earth authorities and could not escape. An unlikely possibility, but he had orders not to let Coalition technology get into Earthling hands. Should that happen, one brief flash of plasma, and there’d be nothing left of him to pick through.
Ignoring a sudden and unexplained chill, Reef slipped out the door and into the anonymity of the night.
Chapter Thirteen
CAVIN PUSHED BACK from the table. “Jana, pack your things. We’re leaving.”
“Now?” Jana looked positively frazzled. He’d hoped to give her a night to recover, but it was not to be. “What’s wrong with staying here in Evie’s house until the morning?”
“The moment the REEF arrives, a lot will be wrong.”
Jana’s chair moved back with a sharp scrape. “I’ll start packing if you start explaining.”
“The security array I fashioned set off an electromagnetic pulse. It was nothing I ever dreamed would be of public mention. The EMP was a terrible inconvenience for the locals, I admit, but a danger only to a bioengineered combatant like the assassin hunting me. And now it’s news, our location announced for all to hear. Compromising our security!” Irritably, he shoved a hand through his hair. “Don’t you have any privacy on this planet?”
“No.” She shoved belongings in her suitcase. “Don’t even get me started on that subject.”
“The REEF could very well have been watching the same program. That’s why we must leave this dwelling and find new shelter before he comes in search of me.”
“Got it. We’re out of here.” She secured what food they hadn’t devoured in their hunger in cold storage. Then she donned a hat and pulled it low over her face. It hid her expression. She was afraid, and he’d caused that fear.
Cavin fisted his hands at his sides, ignored the twinge in his side from his healing wound. Nothing, simply nothing he’d expected upon landing here had gone as planned. Only his love for Jana, and that was not enough to bring this mission to its conclusion. Act as if you expect the unexpected, and perhaps you’ll hold on to the shred of trust she’s given you. A fragile string he hoped not to snap.
Jana pulled a small container from the freezer. “I’m bringing this. The Phish Food.”
“But we have no fish. Do we?” With all the creatures living in this dwelling, he would not be surprised if one of them came along.
“Phish Food. P-h-i-s-h. It’s an ice-cream flavor. It’s what I was hunting for last night when you found me in Safeway, and didn’t get to eat due to circumstances beyond my control. By God, I won’t go another night without it.” She clutched the container to her breasts, her expression intense, defiant, radiating everything about her that he loved, everything he’d come back to Earth to find. Jana Jasper was alive, vividly so. When he was with her, he felt as if he were alive, too, once again the boy who loved mischief, who loved to laugh. The boy who’d become a stranger to him over the years. “If I don’t have some soon, I might lose my mind,” she said.
“Bring it, then. You’re more use to me sane, Earthling.”
He walked by her startled face and said low in her ear, “Kidding.”
“Alien monster. Creature! Maybe I should demand you take me to your leader. How’d you like that?”
That would not, he thought, be a very good idea. He gathered the pieces of his armor to carry with him. Jana stopped him from donning his boots. “No.”
“What?”
“Not the Buzz Lightyear shoes.”
“I need footwear.”
“I made out all right last night without any. It’s hard on the soles, but you’ll live. Besides, those are slippers. I was practically barefoot in torn stockings.”
“Don’t make this difficult, Jana. I may need to run.”
“And I may need to keep you alive. I don’t want my people finding out about you before we’re ready for them to find out about you. We Earthlings sometimes have a shoot-the-messenger mentality—especially when it comes to aliens arriving with invasion warnings. Trust me on this.”
“Fine.” He knew how to choose his battles, as well. He took her hand and pulled her out to the garage.
“Yarp, Yarp!”
Jana tugged back. “Sadie.”
The little dog had followed them out and waited expectantly at the car door. “Ah, Sadie.” Cavin crouched down and lifted her little body off the ground. Skinny black-clawed feet dangled from his hands. Her rib cage was so small, but her heartbeats were ferocious and strong. “You can’t come. You must stay here and guard this dwelling. As for me, I have to take care of Jana. Granted, my methods could use some improvement, but protecting her, keeping her safe was my only reason for coming here. But to do that, I have to take her away from here. We’ll be back. I promise you.”
He carried the dog to the door and deposited her inside the house. When he turned, Jana was watching him with moist eyes. Tears, he realized with a start. But quickly she turned away to hide her emotion and threw her suitcase in the other vehicle parked in the garage. It was small and blue, and sported a few sizable dents. The peeling paint revealed another color underneath. Brown, perhaps, it was hard to tell. He couldn’t see into the interior, but guessed comfort wouldn’t be part of the accommodations. “I thought we’d switch cars,” she said. “In case the REEF knows what I drive. This is Evie’s spare car. She almost never uses it. She’s saving it for the kids.”
He loaded his gear in the rear cargo compartment. There was no room left over, and it took a few tries to close the hatch. He slid into the passenger seat as she dug in her purse. “I had the keys somewhere…”
He thrust his arm at the ignition. The automobile started. “You don’t need your keys.”
“It’s tough keeping track of all your special features. Do you have a user’s manual?”
“No. I’d prefer to instruct you, hands-on and in person.”
He loved the way her cheeks flushed with the sexual heat simmering between them. “Cavin,” she warned. “That’s not helping—”
“You to resist me, I know.” He folded his arms over his chest. “It is not helping me, either. I will behave.”
“Snow, snow, snow,” she muttered and backed the automobile out of the garage. “Where to?”
“Not your apartment. I doubt that the REEF was the one to break in, but your dwelling was compromised nonetheless. Too risky.”
“We can stay at a motel. We’ll have no problem finding a room. But first we’re getting you new clothes.”
“Secure shelter for the night first.”
“No arguments, soldier. This is a deal breaker. I’m taking you shopping before the stores close. We’re getting you out of that black suit before the men wearing a different kind of black suit figure out what you are.”
Cavin folded his arms over his chest and frowned at the road ahead. In the past day, Jana had warned him about her fellow Earthlings
so frequently that he’d begun to wonder if they would ultimately pose more of a threat to him and his mission than the REEF.
PROTECT CAVIN, CHECK. Protect her family, check. Preserve her reputation, check—well, sort of. Save the world, status pending.
A short hour later, loaded down with shopping bags, Jana brought Cavin to the registration desk of the motel. A baseball cap covered her hair and eyes, the best disguise she could muster on short notice. Checking into a motel with a man late at night, she was desperate for anonymity. With the family still under fire, she didn’t dare risk generating gossip that could be twisted into further tarnishing the Jasper name.
But the female desk clerk didn’t spare Jana a glance; she was too busy giving Cavin an admiring once-over. More like a twice-over. Jana relaxed a fraction as relief filtered through her. She hadn’t been willing to leave the store until Cavin, dressed in hiking boots and outdoorsy gear, looked no different than any other good-looking, thirtyish, Northern California male. No one would guess his jacket hid a futuristic wrist computer that covered half his forearm or a gun deadly enough to have sent Darth Vader into a fit of envy—and she didn’t plan on anyone finding out.
“Do you have a reservation?” the clerk asked Cavin, her fingers poised over the keyboard.
Jana answered for him. “No. We need a room, please.”
The woman shifted her attention to her. “How many nights?”
“One.”
“Name?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Snow,” Jana said, just as she’d rehearsed mentally on the drive over.
Cavin’s hand brushed over her back. “So we are mates?” His voice was low and hot in her ear.
She whispered back, “Only for tonight,” and studiously avoided meeting his eyes.
