Severed Bonds

by R S Penney

  Anna stepped aside and let the bubble vanish.

  The bullet flew past her right shoulder, struck the wall behind her with a spark and bounced off to land on the floor. It was an object lesson; using guns against someone with the ability to Bend space-time was rarely a good idea. Still, she was surprised that he had learned so much so quickly.

  The blue smudge resolved back into Leo, who stood with his hand outstretched, a satisfied smile on his face. “Now, that was cruel,” he said. “I was in the middle of saying something important…I take it you're ready to fight?”

  Anna slid her gun back into its holster, stepped forward and held his gaze for a very long while. “Yeah,” she said, nodding to him. “Let's fight.”

  Leo kicked high.

  Anna ducked and felt the man's foot pass over her head. She watched as Leo spun for a back-kick that would drive the wind from her lungs.

  With a yelp, Anna caught the man's ankle before his boot made contact with her stomach. She tugged on his extended leg and forced Leo down onto his knees, bent over with his back turned. She stepped forward and slammed a fist into the back of his head.

  Leo reached behind himself, grabbing her vest with one hand, and then she felt the slight warping sensation of Bent Gravity. The man flung Anna over his head. She turned upside-down in midair and flew across the room until she collided with the wall. Then she fell to the floor.

  In her mind's eye, she saw Leo striding forward to finish her off. The effort to force her aching body into motion was considerable, but she managed to get back on her feet just before he was looming over her.

  Leo seized her vest, pulling her close.

  Anna brought her knee up, right into the man's belly. The impact made him stumble backward with a grunt. She scooted forward, then delivered a hard back-hand strike that took him across the cheek.

  Leo staggered.

  Anna jumped, spinning in mid-air and kicking out behind herself. Her foot went right into that bastard's chest, forcing him to double over and wheeze as he tried to catch his breath.

  Anna rounded on him.

  She threw a punch.

  Leo's hand came up, striking her wrist and deflecting the blow. A closed fist hit her right between the eyes, and then darkness consumed her vision. Another punch to the face. Too much pain. She couldn't focus.

  Two hands gripped her sides and lifted her right off the ground with strength that only someone with a symbiont could manage. Then she was being flung sideways, hurled to the floor. She rolled onto her back.

  She felt as if her head had been stuffed with cotton, but somewhere deep inside, she knew that she had to regain her wits and quickly. Leo was striding toward her. Thank the Companion for Seth's efforts to heal her body. She managed to sit up just as her opponent got within range of her.

  Leo spun for a hook-kick.

  Anna fell backward in time to watch a leg pass over her in a sweeping, horizontal arc. She brought her foot up between his legs. Hard. The desperate squeal that followed was simultaneously the sweetest and most gut-wrenching sound she had ever heard.

  Her opponent danced backward, wobbling with every step and clutching his pelvis with one hand. “You bitch!” he screamed. “You whore!”

  Curling her legs against her chest, Anna sprang off the floor to land upright with her fists in a fighting stance. “Men…” she said. “Any time a girl beats you at something, you start in with the misogyny.”

  She charged at him.

  At the last second, Leo stepped out of the way. He grabbed the back of her collar as she passed and shoved her face-first into the wall. Anna slammed her palms against the bricks to catch herself.

  Groggily, she turned.

  Leo was towering over her, his teeth bared in the kind of snarl you might expect to find on a rabid dog. The man drew back his arm and threw a punch. Hardened instincts made Anna duck.

  The man's fist went over her head and struck the wall hard enough to put cracks in the bricks. Pressing both hands to Leo's unguarded chest, she gave a shove and drove him back to put some distance between them.

  The pain was receding, her mind becoming clearer by the second. She moved in to finish this.

  Leo recovered quickly, shaking his head to clear away the haze of pain. The man stiffened and then strode toward her, closing the distance between them in less than half a second. He threw a hard punch.

  Bending her knees, Anna reached up with both hands to grab his wrist. She did a quick twirl under his extended arm, turning her back on him, and then she bent over. Leo was flipped over her shoulder.

  He landed hard on his ass right in front of her, shrieking in pain and frustration. The man pulled free of her grip and tried to scuttle away from her, bending his legs to scooch across the floor.

  Anna kicked the back of his head.

  “Stay down!” she shouted.

  The blow forced Leo down onto his side, and then he rolled over to lie flat on his stomach. “Bitch…” he whispered, pushing himself up on extended arms. “This isn't over! When I get through with you…”

  Her first instinct was to offer a witty retort, but Leo's empty threats were just a cover to distract her while the man rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. He pressed a button on his multi-tool, and suddenly, the room seemed to wobble.

  Anna lost her balance, crossing her arms in front of her face to shield herself as she crashed into the wall. The high-pitched whine in her ears was all too familiar. Somehow, Leo had programmed his multi-tool with a hypersonic pulse.

  The man was clearly suffering as well, covering his ears as he struggled to get to his feet. After a few failed attempts, he got up, tapped that same button on his multi-tool and then scrambled out of the room.

  Anna chased him.

  Her opponent was sprinting up the gloomy corridor, nearly falling over with every step. Even someone with a symbiont could only take so much punishment, and she had been Bleakness itself on him.

  Leo blurred into a streak of colour that rushed up the corridor and then became an ordinary man. In the blink of an eye, he was a blur again. Time Bubbles. He was putting them up for a few seconds to speed through the corridor.

  When he reached the nearest intersection, Leo ducked around the corner. Though she was tempted, Anna didn't replicate his feat of using compressed time to move at a faster rate. This was his territory; the man might have traps waiting for her. Pushing Seth to his limit might leave her vulnerable at a critical moment.

  She rounded the corner into a corridor that was somewhat brighter than the last one. Leo was about thirty paces ahead of her, slipping through a door in the wall to her left. A thought occurred to her, and she tapped her earpiece to activate the microphone. “Cassi? Jack? Can anyone hear me?”

  No answer.

  When she looked inside, she saw a small room with a table, a chair and a SlipGate in the back. The grooves along the metal triangle were already glowing as Leo stood in front of it with one hand on his aching shoulder.

  He turned his head to sneer at her.

  A bubble formed around his body before she could even think about drawing her gun, transforming him into a blurry figure and cutting him off from her sense of spatial awareness. To Seth, that bubble was just a nothingness, a gap in the fabric of reality. It was too late now. If she did try to shoot it, her bullet would only slide along the bubble's surface. Leo was in his own mini-universe.

  The bubble moved forward half an inch and then vanished.

  Shutting her eyes tight, Anna touched two fingers to her forehead. “Just my luck,” she muttered under her breath. “Come on, Seth. Let's see if we can pull anything useful off that computer.”

  Chapter 28

  Pushing open a wooden door on the third floor of the tower, Anna found what must have been Valeth's sitting room. A big blue chair was positioned in front of the fireplace, oriented to face the door. That fit with what little she knew about this Valeth. Melissa had said that she was cautious. Someone like that wouldn't like the
thought of an unwelcome guest sneaking up on them.

  In sharp contrast to the centuries-old décor, half a dozen Keepers in modern body armour stood in a haphazard ring around the room. One was Operative Chas Ilori, a bald man with a stubbly black beard who stood in the corner. Anna was relieved to see him. He had been assigned to Shuttle Two.

  “For the first few minutes after we went down,” he said, “we were just trying to get comms working. We were afraid that those men on the walls would pick us off if we tried to leave the shuttle.”

  The man grimaced and looked down at the floor, heaving out a breath. “Then they sent a small squad of goons to attack us,” he went on. “By the time we mopped them up, Lenai and her team had secured the castle.”

  “Thank you, Operative,” Larani said.

  She didn't sit in Valeth's chair – because that would be super creepy – but she stood next to it with a very pleased expression. “It seems we've done well,” she said. “Not one fatality on our side; I consider that a blessing.”

  The small woman who stood by the fireplace with hands clasped in front of herself was Miral Tyani, the lead officer on Shuttle Three. With smooth olive skin and dark hair that she wore in a short braid, she was quite lovely. “It took us about fifteen minutes to bring down the enemy fighter,” she said. “He led us on a chase all over the valley before we finally forced him to the ground.”

  “You have him in custody?” Larani asked.

  “We do.”

  With a bright, beautiful smile, Larani turned her attention to Anna and nodded. “Do we have any more good news, Agent Lenai?” she inquired. “Something you managed to pull off their mainframe?”

  Anna stood with fists on her hips, exhaling as she shook her head. “Not much, I'm afraid,” she answered. “Most of the data on their hard drives has been deleted. I was able to complete the process before the managed a complete wipe.”

  “That's a shame,” Larani said. “But we might get something.”

  “Anything we find will almost certainly be encrypted.”

  Bringing her hands together in a clap that made everyone in the room jump, Larani stepped forward. “I say we look on this as a victory,” she said. “We didn't get Leo, but we destabilized what seems to be one of Slade's larger operations, and the intel we'll get from the prisoners and whatever data we recover will be invaluable.”

  Anna was quite satisfied with that. Oh, there were certain brooding hero types who might blame themselves for not being fast enough to prevent Leo's escape – she wasn't going to name names, but her boyfriend might be among them – but she had done all that she could, and this mission actually went petty well, all things considered.

  “Salvage teams will recover shuttles one and two,” Larani said. “The rest of us can head home through the SlipGate. Let's go.”

  The next day, Anna was in a very good mood as she walked through the hallways of the Keeper building in jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. True, they hadn't captured Leo, but they had taken down his support network. Causing the kind of mayhem that Leo liked to incite came with a lot of logistical questions. You couldn't just hop on the subway when you had been identified by every news agency as one of the most wanted criminals on the planet. There as too much risk of being recognized.

  Getting around wouldn't be easy. Leo would need cars that were not registered with the Public Transit Service, SlipGates that were not connected to the planet-wide network. Not impossible to acquire, but certainly not easy. With any luck, this setback would mean that he wouldn't be showing his face anytime soon.

  Yes, she was in a good mood.

  She had just been notified that Jon Andalon would be returning from leave today, and though Anna hadn't had time to really bond with her knew supervising officer, it was a relief to know that he would be all right.

  All of that would have left her feeling pretty damn good, but the special night that she had planned for Jack really put a bounce in her step. Of course, thinking about it was very distracting; so she tried to put it out of her mind.

  For now.

  Halfway up the corridor, she noticed the silhouette of Rajel behind her, approaching her with a bowed head. “Anna,” he said with obvious hesitation in his voice. “Could we talk for a moment?”

  Anna turned to face him with a warm smile. “What's up?” she asked, her eyebrows climbing upward.

  His face was flushed as he let out a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize for the way I've spoken to you over the last few days,” he said. “You did a damn good job leading the team yesterday.”

  She stood on her toes to give him a peck on the cheek. “And you saved all of our lives,” she said. “You should put in for a transfer. We could use someone like you on the anti-Slade task force.”

  “Anti-Slade task force?”

  “Yeah, it's a thing.”

  A brilliant smile stretched across his face, and he nodded to show his approval. “Sounds like something I might want to be part of,” he said softly. “I guess I better go have a chat with Larani.”

  Her next pleasant surprise came when she stepped into Director Andalon's office. The man was standing behind the desk, turned so that she saw him in profile and smiling at something he read on a tablet. “Anna! Come in, come in!” he said. “I heard you did a remarkable job yesterday.”

  Blushing like the sun, Anna smiled and shook her head. “I just did what I had to,” she said, striding across the room. “The rest of the team deserves the credit. They were perfectly in sync.”

  “You're too modest.”

  Anna took the chair in front of the desk and tried to fight past her chagrin. “I was impressed,” she said, nodding to him. “We wouldn't have gotten out of there if everyone didn't do their part.”

  With a soft sigh, Jon sat down across from her, laced his fingers on the desk and leaned forward. “The reason they all worked together,” he began, “the reason they were so perfectly in sync is you.”

  “I only did-”

  “Anna,” he said, cutting her off before she could make another protest. Well, in her defense, taking praise wasn't easy. She could make jokes about how she was always right, but she seldom felt that way inside. “The best leaders are the ones who just do whatever needs to be done.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  He reclined in his chair, frowning thoughtfully at the ceiling. “You know, Anna, I took this job because Jena asked me to,” he said. “Somehow, she knew that she might not be here to see things through.”

  “You're doing a fine job.”

  “Thank you,” he replied. “And I'm sure that's true, but no one could replace Jena. She was…one of a kind. It was a difficult transition for me. Throughout my career, I've always worked with other Justice Keepers, and Justice Keepers have a very specific way of doing things, a very specific way of thinking.

  “Telepaths, ex-LIS agents with criminal records, half-trained cadets: Jena built a very unconventional team. For the first few months, I felt completely out of place. 'How can anyone lead this group?' I kept asking myself.”

  Pressing a fist to her mouth, Anna shut her eyes and cleared her throat. “It couldn't have been easy for you,” she said. “And maybe you're not Jena, but you bring us together. And that's what matters.”

  The warm smile on his face told her that there was more to this story. “Jena kept files on all of you,” he explained, “tracking your development as officers. She believed that with a few years of experience, you would be ready to step into her shoes.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Anna. You,” Jon replied. “She was very impressed with the way you handled yourself in New York. You were calm under pressure, collected. Focused. You provided a sense of stability for the rest of the team. Jena wanted you to be her successor. She didn't think you were quite ready, being as young as you are, but if you are willing, I'd like to begin preparing you for that role.”

  She was floored. Just…floored. All this time, Anna had simply taken on whatever role th
e team had needed her to perform. When you had ziarogati, battle drones, and the Companion alone knew what else coming at you, people tended to panic. Somebody had to make them feel like they would get through this crisis in one piece. When people were scared, they often didn't know what to do next. Someone had to give them direction. She had done that because that was what they needed from her. “I…I don't know what to say,” Anna mumbled.

  “Say 'yes.' ”

  Grinning, she nodded once. “Yes.”

  “Excellent,” he said, standing up behind the desk and practically beaming at her. “I see you've booked a few days off to recover from this latest mission. I think that's a wise idea. We'll begin your training next week. Congratulations…Operative Lenai.”

  For what must have been the hundredth time since she woke up this morning, Keli breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't used to combat. Torture, yes. Endless captivity with no hope of ever seeing daylight, sure. She could handle those things, but actually putting herself in a position where bullets flew at her…That was something else.

  She had taken Jack's advice; she had the others' trust. But if holding onto that trust meant putting herself quite literally in the line of fire, she wasn't sure if it was worth it. Still, she had nowhere else to go.

  For now.

  Sunlight from the window on the second floor fell upon a round metal table where Keli sat with her hands around a cup of tea. She was drained, exhausted. All she wanted to do was sit.

  This cafeteria in the Keeper building was nearly empty now that the lunch crowd had departed, but she still felt the pressure of maybe half a dozen human minds and just as many Nassai. So many two-souls in one place. She shuddered. The worst part was that aside from their presence, she couldn't sense much of what they were thinking.

  “Keli?”

  She jumped at the sound of her own name – she would have sensed the approach of anyone without a Nassai – and turned to find Anna at the foot of the steps that led up to her dais. The other woman wore blue jeans and a dark t-shirt, her peroxide-white hair up in its customary ponytail. “I wanted to say thank you,” Anna said, trotting up the steps.