by R S Penney
Aaron dropped a pill into her palm.
She popped it in her mouth.
Bright lights in the ceiling illuminated a large kitchen where an island sat in the middle of a white-tiled floor. Wooden cupboards formed a ring around the room, each one crowned with granite countertops.
Harry sat at the island in jeans and a gray sweater, frowning as he stared down at his plate of ravioli. “I think she's lost it,” he muttered. “She just crashed my meeting to present that outlandish plan.”
He looked up.
His host was a man in his late forties with deep creases in his forehead and thinning gray hair. “Aamani has been growing restless lately,” John Clark said. “If you ask me, I think she's feeling less and less relevant.”
Ten years ago, John had been an inspector with the RCMP, a position that brought him into regular contact with one of Ottawa's youngest detectives. As the years passed, the two of them had maintained their friendship, and Harry had never been more grateful to have an ally than he was right now.
Not long ago, he would have said that being a city cop was one of the most political jobs imaginable. The amount of cajoling, coercing and convincing necessary to make the Mounties willing to share even the tiniest speck of information was enough to leave him with the urge to pull his hair out. But as hard as that was, acting as the liaison to an alien police force was even worse. John was now a superintendent in the Ontario Division, a position that kept him well informed of the latest government nonsense.
Harry shut his eyes tight, pressing a fist to his forehead. “I think it goes pretty far beyond that,” he said, massaging away an ache. “I worked with Aamani back when the Leyrians made first contact.”
“I remember.”
Crossing his arms with a sigh, Harry turned his head. “She was always slow to trust,” he said with a shrug. “But now it's gotten even worse. I think she honestly expects the Leyrians to pull off their human masks to reveal lizards underneath.”
Lifting his wine glass by the stem, John took a moment to peer into the dark liquid. “I don't think it's as bad as all that,” he muttered. “But, Harry, have you ever considered the possibility that she might be right?”
“Of course I have.”
“Considered and dismissed it?”
Harry looked up at the ceiling, blinking slowly as he phrased his response, “Listen, we both know the Leyrians could pulverize us with very little effort,” he said. “If that was what they wanted, they would have done it.”
He stabbed a piece of ravioli with a fork and popped it in his mouth. One thing he could say about John: the man was an excellent cook. About five years back, he'd brought his family here for dinner and marveled at Della's praise of the chicken parmesan that John had served. His ex-wife was an incredibly picky eater.
Missy had spent most of that night mooning over John's eldest son, a boy four years her senior who barely noticed the eleven-year-old with the great big crush. Simpler times. Sometimes, Harry tried to remember what it was like back when Earth was the centre of the universe.
A scowl twisted John's face into something unrecognizable. The man shook his head with a soft sigh. “I lean toward your point of view on this,” he said. “But you have to understand, people are going to raise eyebrows at your willingness to jump into bed with the Leyrians so quickly.”
“What I do in my personal life-”
“I'm sorry,” John cut him off. “That wasn't what I meant.”
The man dabbed his mouth with a napkin, then heaved out a sigh of frustration. “It was just a figure of speech,” he went on. “But I guess that does answer my next question. You're really dating a Leyrian woman?”
“Yeah.”
“What's that like?”
Grinning with a burst of wheezing laughter, Harry closed his eyes. “It's quite the unique experience,” he admitted. “Jena's not like any woman I've ever met before. She's got a…a fire in her belly.”
Harry poured more wine into his glass, watching as the dark liquid swished about before finally settling. “She's got no tolerance for politics,” he said, grabbing the stem of his glass with two fingers. “But she prides herself on being able to play the game.”
“She sounds like my kind of woman,” Jon said, eyebrows rising. “And is it true that Justice Keepers in their forties still look like college students?”
“No comment.”
He was about to change the subject back to relations between the Mounties and the Keepers – for all his protests that he hated politics, Harry was all too willing to seize an opportunity – but his multi-tool chirped.
Rolling up his sleeve, Harry exposed the small rectangular screen attached to his gauntlet. The words “incoming call” kept flashing in bright green letters. He swiped a finger across the screen to answer.
A moment later, he was confronted with the image of a nurse in green scrubs who sat behind a desk. “Mr. Carlson?” Her brows drew together as she studied him. “Have I reached Harry Carlson?”
“You have.”
The nurse appraised him for a moment, then nodded when she was satisfied. “I'm calling about your daughter, sir,” she began. “One Melissa Carlson? She ingested some Leyrian medication. Her friends called 9-1-1 when she collapsed.”
Harry practically jumped out of his seat.
“She's on her way to the SlipGate terminal,” the nurse went on. “Protocol dictates that whenever we receive a patient who ingested Leyrian pharmaceuticals we turn them over to Leyrian physicians.”
“I'm on my way!” Harry shouted, ending the call.
Long, wide corridors with gray walls ran on for what felt like miles, following the slight curve of the station's ring. Down here in the medical wing, he saw nurses in white scrubs along with medical bots rolling through the hallways on treads.
Harry marched through the corridor in a big heavy coat, scowling down at himself. “I'm gonna kill her,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Dear Jesus, let her survive so I can kill her.”
He came to the doors to the med-bay.
They slid apart to reveal scuffed gray floor tiles stretching across a huge room with beds positioned up against the walls. The head doctor's office was marked by a door off to his left. For the most part, the place was empty.
He saw a couple of male nurses in white scrubs, standing side by side with their backs turned, both looking over something on a tablet. An older man was asleep in one of the beds along the wall to his right. No sign of his daughter.
Harry squinted, shaking his head. “Melissa,” he said, striding into the room. “Hello. Excuse me, I'm Detective…I'm Harry Carlson. I was told that my daughter was taken here after she ingested a-”
“Dad…”
The voice came from a bed to his right.
Melissa was lying still with the covers pulled up to her chest, her hair in a state of disarray as she pressed her cheek into the pillow. “I'm over here,” she groaned. “Sorry I ruined your dinner with John.”
A grimace was his only response to that. “We'll talk about it later,” he said, striding over to her bed. “For now, I just want to know if you're all right. What did you take, and who gave it to you?”
“Mr. Carlson.”
He turned to find himself face to face with a tall man in a white lab-coat, a man who wore his graying hair cut short. “I'm Doctor Nes Vaylin,” he said. “Your daughter took a rather powerful antidepressant.”
“An antidepressant?”
Dr. Vaylon frowned, turning his head to avoid eye contact. “We've been sharing our pharmaceuticals with Earth hospitals,” he said. “We suspect that it was taken from one.”
“I see.”
“Based on a chemical analysis of her blood, we were able to determine that Melissa ingested a compound called trexalarine,” he went on. “It's designed to inhibit the reuptake of serotonin and noradrenaline. A common side-effect is headaches.”
Melissa squeezed her eyes shut, turning over so that her nose was press
ed firmly to the pillow. Clearly, she did not want to see the bright light. “It feels like a thousand little knives in my brain.”
Harry crossed his arm, backing up until he was almost pressed to the wall. A shiver went through him. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said. “If she's not in any immediate danger, I would like to take her back home.”
“The headaches will pass,” Vaylin said. “They generally fade after a patient has been taking the drug for several weeks. In all likelihood, Melissa would have been fine if she had simply avoided taking other illicit drugs. Still, the pain can be quite a surprise. She did the right thing by calling for help. We'd like to keep her for observation for twenty-four hours. Just to make sure there are no other side effects. I can have a med-bot bring her to a private recovery room.
“Okay.”
The doctor left abruptly, pacing across the room to the set of double doors that led to his office. Now that he was alone with his daughter – relatively speaking – Harry had to wonder if she should begin the standard “how could you do something so stupid” lecture. They were going to have that talk at some point in the next few days.
A glance in Melissa's direction proved that this was not the time. She was turned over on her side with her back to him, groaning in discomfort. Harry pulled the blanket up over her shoulder.
He breathed out a sigh of relief.
A moment later, the med-bay doors slid open, and Jena came marching in, dressed in black pants and a red long-sleeved top. “There you are,” she said without even looking in his direction. “I heard about what happened.”
She made her way over to him with her arms folded, her eyes downcast as though she were afraid to look at him. “Is Melissa all right?” she asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Harry closed his eyes, drawing in a shuddering breath. “It's going to be a very long night,” he replied in a breathy whisper. “You can get me a room on the station? I want to stay here with her.”
“What about Claire?”
“She's with her mom.”
Slipping hands into his back pockets, Harry walked past her to stand in the middle of the open floor. “They never quite prepare you for it,” he said. “Parenthood. You know the day when your kid does something stupid is coming, but…”
He felt Jena's hand on his shoulder.
Wincing hard, Harry was unable to stop hot tears from rolling over his cheek. “I'm just glad she's okay,” he whispered. “When she gets out of here, the two of us are going to have a long talk about peer pressure.”
“I don't envy her.”
A red medical bot with two long grasping arms and a swiveling head came rolling through the door on two treads. It paused in front of Harry and Jena, a large green lens in its head blinking at them.
They stepped aside.
The robot grabbed the end of Melissa's bed and began wheeling it through the med-bay, pulling her toward the door. She turned over on the mattress to study him, no doubt wondering if he would follow. Had she been able to walk, they would have escorted her to a recovery room, but Melissa was very dizzy. It was simpler to just move the bed.
When she was gone, Harry felt his emotional restraint falter. Anger that he didn't even know was there suddenly bubbled to the surface. “I'm gonna kill her,” he snapped. “That or lock her in her room.”
Jena stood next to him with her arms crossed, staring down at the floor. “Melissa's just a kid, Harry,” she muttered. “Kids make stupid mistakes. I did a lot worse when I was her age.”
With his mouth agape, Harry turned his face up to the ceiling. He rolled his eyes, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Spoken like someone who's never even thought about being a parent.”
“That's a little harsh.”
“No, I don't think it is. Look, Jen, I love you. But leave the parenthood thing to me, okay?”
“Okay.”
Chapter 11
Jena strode through the long, gray corridor with anger bubbling in her chest. Maybe she shouldn't have been angry with Harry – he had a point; she wasn't a parent – but she wasn't accustomed to being so easily dismissed. Regardless, she had much larger concerns at the moment.
Her minions had been working tirelessly on the problem of how to raid the base on Ganymede and rescue the poor telepath. A text message from Jack that she had received just after leaving the med-bay claimed they had a solution.
She reached a set of double doors.
They slid open to reveal a spacious science lab where Ben sat at a console with his back to the door. Beyond that, Jack stood side by side with a transparent doppelganger, a hologram that matched his every move.
The boy wore a gray zip-up sweater and kept his gaze fixed on the wall next to the door. “Okay,” he mumbled, stepping forward. His holographic twin followed half a second later. “The motion capture seems to be working correctly.”
Jena strode into the lab, a yawn stretching her mouth until her jaw hurt. “Report,” she said, tossing her head about to clear away the cobwebs. “What have you come up with?”
Ben swiveled around to face her.
The young man wore a pleased grin as he stared up at her. “We've got a plan,” he said, eyebrows rising. “The simplest approach would be to get inside their base through a SlipGate, but we can't do that unless they allow their Gate to receive incoming travelers.”
“So you're going to manufacture that authorization?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Ben said, spinning around to lean over the console. His hands danced over the touchscreen interface, bringing up menus and executing commands. “Check this out.”
The hologram of Jack vanished to be replaced by one of Slade in a long crimson coat with gold embroidery. Her transparent boss just stood there, blinking at her. “Very creepy,” she said. “How does it work?”
Jack raised a hand.
Half a moment later, Slade mirrored the gesture, duplicating his posture in every small detail. “The motion capture follows me,” Jack said, “But creates a hologram of our esteemed Senior Director.”
“We intend to rewrite the shuttle's communication protocols to project an image of Slade,” Ben added. “With any luck, the people in that base will think they're talking to the real thing. Then it's just up to Jack to be convincing.”
“Won't they have safeguards in place?” Jena inquired. “Surely we aren't the first people to come up with this idea.”
Ben got out of his chair and stood with hands clasped behind his back, watching the hologram. “If Slade is a regular visitor to that base, he'll have some kind of authorization code. Now, it's not very likely that he'll tell us what it is.”
The young man turned around with an expression that she could only assume Jack would call a poker face. “Almost all hacking involves exploiting human gullibility. This is no different; Jack will just have to be convincing.”
“Mmhmm.”
Ben frowned, hanging his head like a ten-year-old who had just failed a math test. “There is one other thing,” he said. “We won't be able to modify the shuttle's computer on our own. Access to root command structures requires Axelonai Clearance or higher.”
Closing her eyes, Jena took a deep breath through her nose. “My command codes will work,” she said. “I'll get you in, but I'm going to have to explain this on a report.”
Jack turned his head to direct a frown at the wall. “We find hard evidence against Slade,” he began, “and that report will write itself. Let's just hope Anna's friend didn't go all Inception on her.”
“How soon can you be ready?”
A look of concentration passed over Ben's face, and he blinked a few times as he considered the question. “If we begin work on the shuttle now?” he mumbled. “I'd say in about three hours.”
“Modify the shuttle,” she said. “Then get some sleep. I want you both well rested. We set course for Ganymede at nine sharp.”
From her position at the back of the shuttle's cockpit, Anna watched her friends get
ready for their raid on the Ganymede Base. Moments like these always left her feeling a little odd, excitement mingling with fear in her chest. They were about to right a very serious wrong, and that left her feeling revved up and ready to go. On the other hand – like any other mission – this might be the day when she took a life for the first time.
Jena sat at the main control console under the canopy window, turned so that Anna could only see the back of her chair. “Status report,” she ordered in that brusque tone of hers. “How are we doing?”
Just in front of her, Ben sat at the port-side station, tapping away at the controls. He wore a pair of black pants and an armoured vest over a black shirt. “The updated communication protocols have integrated seamlessly,” he said. “We're good to go.”
“Excellent.”
Anna shut her eyes, breathing deeply to calm herself. Now we find out if all the effort was for nothing, she thought, spinning around. If they see through your deception, this is going to be one short mission.
The doors to the cabin slid open.
Beyond them, a set of stairs led down to an area about the size of her living room with a large square table in the middle. On the far side of the room, the SlipGate stood solemn and solitary, light glinting off its metal surface.
Jack was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, dressed in the same black pants, t-shirt and vest that Ben wore. “It's show time, Synergy,” he muttered. “Between you and me, I don't like being the linchpin of any operation.”
Crossing her arms with a heavy sigh, Anna smiled down at herself. “I'm sure you'll do fine,” she said, descending the steps. “If I recall correctly, you did a pretty good job fooling the staff in the Penworth Building.”
Jack winced, trembling as sweat broke out on his forehead. “Yeah, but they didn't have plasma cannons,” he whispered. “If I screw this up, it means a poor woman is forced to spend the rest of her life as a lab rat.”
“Dude…”
He let out a grunt as he stepped away from the wall, pacing over to the table and bracing his hands on it as he leaned over. “Yeah, you're right…” he said. “This isn't the time for my gnawing self-doubt. I have it under control.”
