by R S Penney
The grimace on Harry's face could have curdled milk. “The guy had the power of a Keeper with none of the checks a Nassai would require.” He shook his head in contempt. “The Nassai claim that all of their kind are accounted for.”
“Which means it's not a Nassai,” Anna put in.
They'd had this discussion before, pondering where and how Pennfield might have gotten his hands on a symbiont. It was likely that he had been planning to do to Summer whatever had been done to the creature he carried. The thought made Summer cringe with a fear so palpable it made Jack sweat.
Each of those prior conversations had ended with a resolution to revisit the topic at some later date. It seemed they always had some other more pressing business. Forming the alliance between Earth and Leyria, putting Leo behind bars: there was no end of work for a dedicated Justice Keeper.
Lounging in her chair with both feet propped on the table's surface, Jena folded her arms over her chest. “I think I have an answer,” she said. “I've been debating whether to say anything for months now.”
“Say anything about what?” Anna inquired.
Jena's face was as smooth as ice, her dark eyes glittering in the harsh light. “I think Slade and Pennfield work for the Overseers,” she said. “That's how they got their hands on a pair of symbionts.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Anna squinted at the other woman. “Overseers?” she asked, shaking her head. “Jena, we have holographic records left by the Overseers, but they haven't interacted with our people in at least three thousand years.”
“Yes, they have.”
Three small words delivered at just the right moment could bring silence to a room that had been bustling with conversation mere seconds earlier. They hadn't been talking over one another – it was hard to make too much noise with only four people – but every mouth was clamped shut now.
Jack found himself watching Harry.
The other man was bent over with his arms folded on the table's surface, craning his neck to study his girlfriend. So Jena hadn't shared this little tidbit with him. Somehow Jack didn't think she was the kind of woman who felt the need to trust anyone with all her juiciest secrets, but this particular lapse meant something. Either she didn't trust Harry, or she didn't feel safe telling anyone. Which means she believes it, he noted. She genuinely believes she saw an Overseer.
Jena got to her feet with a sigh.
Clasping hands together behind her back, she paced a line behind her chair, stopping when she reached the window. “You should understand,” she said softly. “The Overseers are watching us even now. Maybe not at this exact second, but I'm pretty sure they keep tabs on me. If I tell you this, it could put you in danger.”
Everyone was silent for a moment, Harry and Anna exchanging glances. From the moment he met her, Jena had been a die-hard skeptic. To hear her speak of the Overseers with such an air of mysticism was more than a little unnerving. Still, danger or no danger, he couldn't deny his curiosity.
Jack reclined in his chair with fingers laced over the back of his skull, a huge smile on his face. “What's life without a little danger?” he asked, eyebrows rising. “Go on, Jen. Hit me with your 'truth is out there' speech.”
“It happened eight months ago,” she began. “I was working out on Belos Colony on what was supposed to be an easy assignment. We picked up some strange signals from a neighbouring star system.
“I took a shuttle out to investigate and found an old troop carrier adrift on the edge of the system. The second I set foot on that ship, I knew something was wrong. I found stasis pods in the med-lab, pods that contained people who had been abducted from many different worlds, including Earth.
“When I tried to get back to my shuttle, one of the abductees confronted me. He was fast, strong and completely single-minded in his efforts to kill me. Several more got loose. I had to fool them by launching an escape pod and letting them believe that they had shot me down. Then I took a space suit and flew out into the void.
“About an hour later, I saw something destroy the troop carrier. There was a bright flash, and I saw another ship nearby. The silhouette was identical to the Overseer attack drones that guard their abandoned outposts.”
Jack shared a glance with Anna.
Those big blue eyes were as wide as he had ever seen them, and he could almost imagine that they were on a wavelength. If her emotions were in any way similar to his own, she would be struggling to contain her sense of dread. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Summer…trembled. There was no other word for it. The Nassai were pretty damn tight-lipped on this subject. They seemed to see their creators as something otherworldly. Only Jack had been with his symbiont long enough to know that to her, “the Makers” were not gods. They were devils.
Anna sat with her hands in her lap, shivering as she worked up the nerve to speak. “What do they want?” she asked softly. “If they're still watching us, they must have some kind of goal.”
“To study us,” Jack said. “We're lab rats to them, Anna. This is all one very big experiment they're running.”
Harry turned his head to study him through narrowed eyes. “But that doesn't make any sense,” he insisted. “The Overseers have interacted with every human civilization in the galaxy except ours.”
“How does that disprove my theory?”
“Well why would they ignore Earth?”
Slouching in his chair with arms crossed, Jack let out a grunt. “Isn't it obvious?” he asked with a shrug. “We're the control group, Harry. In every experiment, there is at least one subject who gets the placebo. That's us.”
A heavy sigh escaped Jena as she made her way back to the table. “We don't know anything for sure,” she said. “Speculation can be useful, but it can also be a hindrance. The point is we need to capture Slade before he does whatever he's going to do.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to stop a bullet. Slamming her hands down on the table, Jena leaned over and glanced at each of them in turn. “This needs to be our new long term goal.
“Our long term goal,” Jena repeated. “Monitor the news media and flag any story that feels like it might have Slade's fingerprints all over it. I want weekly reports from each of you on anything you've seen and any ideas you have for tracking him down. I assume I don't have to remind you that this stays between us.”
They nodded.
“Good,” Jena said. “Dismissed.”
As the meeting concluded, Jack breathed a sigh of relief only to realize that the tension in his chest wasn't going anywhere. The Overseers were watching? Well, that was just fan-bloody-tastic. He had intended to talk to Anna about her encounter with Slade – she was obviously feeling pretty flustered – but she robbed him of the opportunity.
Anna stormed out the door without as much as a second glance for anyone. Not good. There were few things that could truly set his best friend on edge but feeling like she had failed in her duties was one of them.
“Excuse me,” Jack muttered, sparing a glance for his boss. “I think I'd better go talk to her.”
Her fists slammed into the punching bag again and again, leaving a slight indent in the material with each successive blow. Anna didn't stop or even slow down. The need to hit something was fueled by more than just adrenaline. It was fueled by rage.
She bounced on the gym mat in shorts and a sports bra, her body glistening with sweat from head to toe. Her red-blonde hair was drenched, bangs clinging to her forehead. “You're not going to pull the trigger, my dear.”
She spun for a hook-kick, one foot whirling around to strike the side of the bag. It went swinging like a pendulum, straining the chain from which it hung. Imagining Slade crying out in pain did a little to soothe her rage.
Anna stood with arms dangling at her side, her head hanging. “We both know you aren't willing to end the lives of everyone on this station.” She pressed the back of her fist to her forehead, wiping sweat away. “Pull the trigger, step through this Gate and take my plac
e! You would be a worthy successor.”
Anna closed her eyes, hot tears welling up and rolling over her cheeks. They mixed with the sweat and left her skin feeling sticky. “These are the choices of a Justice Keeper. If you can't handle them, then perhaps you should slink back to Leyria.”
Behind her, the door opened.
In her mind's eye, she saw the silhouette of Jack making its way across the large, empty gym. By his posture, it was clear that he was concerned. On any other day, she would appreciate that, but right now…
Clenching her teeth, Anna covered her eyes with her forearm. “I suppose you came here to talk,” she said, spinning around to face him. “Well, you're going to have to forgive me; I'm not up to it right now.”
Jack stood on the edge of the gym mat in jeans and his brown coat, his head bowed as though he feared to look at her. “Yeah, I gathered that,” he said, approaching her. “But knowing you as I do, I thought-”
“You thought what?”
He froze.
Anna lifted her chin to stare at him, her eyes narrowed to slits. “You thought you'd come and help your friend deal with her issues?” She whirled around and punched the bag with enough force to send it flying.
The damn thing nearly ripped free of its chain before it reached the apex of its swing and came back toward her. Anna stepped aside at the last minute, heaving out a sigh. “As you can see, I have other ways of dealing with my pain.”
“It wasn't your fault.”
Turning on him with fists clenched, Anna took a quick step forward. “I know that.” Lightning quick, she faced the bag again and pounded it with her fists. “I know I made the right decision, but it seems to me that I'm always stuck in situations where I have to choose between two ideals. I took this job to protect life.”
The silhouette of Jack was right there behind her, waiting patiently with his hands folded over his waist. “You do protect life,” he said, taking one step forward. “Over three thousand people are alive right now because of you.”
“And if Slade kills a million?”
She turned.
Biting his lower lip, Jack stared down at the floor. “Do you remember the course on practical ethics?” he asked in a soft, soothing voice. “All those lectures on the difference between abstract good and concrete good?”
“I do.”
“Then you know what I'm going to say.”
Anna leaned against the punching bag with arms folded, trying to ignore the tears on her face. “I don't know,” she muttered. “I remember agreeing with Dray Adarus when he said that you cannot measure real lives against abstract numbers in some hypothetical future scenario.”
She looked up at him with sweat oozing from her pores, blinking slowly. “But this is different,” she insisted. “And I keep on wondering how I can justify my own decisions. Today, I left several dozen soldiers to suffocate on a remote space station.”
“Soldiers who were trying to kill you.”
“Should that matter?”
His face twisted into something painful to look at, and he shook his head. “It does to me,” Jack said softly. “Look, Anna, I don't think we're obligated to help people who would just as soon put a bullet through our skulls.
“The people on Station One were innocent; they had done nothing, and Slade chose to hold them hostage. The people on Ganymede were aiding and abetting experiments on other human beings, and they would have killed us if they had the chance. To me, there is a huge difference between those two scenarios. You made the right call each time.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I just needed someone else to say it.”
She slipped her arms around him, snuggling against him. The warmth of his embrace soothed away some of her frustration. She loved that he didn't hesitate. Nor did he let go before she was ready. In fact, it seemed to her that Jack was content to hold her as long as she needed.
Anna pulled back. “Oh great…” she muttered, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “Now I've got sweat all over your clean clothes. Because, you know, nothing says I love you like making someone do laundry.”
Jack smiled, his cheeks now a deep scarlet. “That just means I'm covered in sexy Anna smell,” he teased. “Which I guess will require me to spend the next few hours fending off the advances of nerdy guys.”
“It's a burden, but you'll manage.”
“I love you too, by the way.”
“Hmm?”
Though it seemed impossible, his blush deepened. He shut his eyes and turned his face away from her. “You said that nothing says I love you…” The words came out in a stammer. “I thought you were trying to…Never mind!”
Anna felt a grin she just couldn't fight. She leaned forward, touching her forehead to his chest. “Well just in case I wasn't entirely clear,” she murmured. “I love you. I love you very much.”
He gave her a squeeze.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You gonna be okay?”
Anna bowed her head, a lock of sweat-slick hair clinging to her cheek. She brushed it away with two fingers. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I'll be fine. Just need to blow off a little steam, that's all.”
“Good,” he said. “I should probably check on the telepaths.”
“I'll go with you,” she said. “What do you say? I'll take Keli, you take Raynar? I think she'd be more comfortable with me.”
“Deal.”
The long gray corridors grew monotonous after a while, and Jack found himself wanting to go back down to the city if only to take in some scenery. That would have to wait, however, until he settled a few other issues. After a moment's thought, he decided it was probably for the best. They were two days from Christmas, and the streets would be an absolute nightmare.
With all the commotion following Slade's elaborate escape, everyone seemed to have forgotten the fact that they had two telepaths on board. He almost felt as though his arrangement with Anna was unfair. Of the two telepaths, Keli was far more difficult. He would have opted to speak with her and leave Anna to handle Raynar if not for the fact that the poor woman was almost certainly wary of most men. Worst of all, if anyone pushed her to her limits…
He felt nothing but sympathy for two people who had been held against their will for years, but that didn't change the fact that they were both as dangerous as any Justice Keeper. People who were treated like animals tended to behave like animals. Sooner or later, someone would back poor Keli into a corner, and then…The only way around it was to get them out and socializing.
A set of double doors in the corridor wall led to young Raynar's quarters. He took a moment to mentally wish Anna some good luck – if telepathy was real, maybe everyone could do it to one degree or another – and then rang the door chime.
A moment later, the doors slid open to reveal Raynar in a pair of gray pants and a blue Earth-style shirt with the collar open. The lad had a thin face that was even paler than usual and blonde hair that he kept buzzed. “Agent Hunter, what are you…That is, I thought Agent Lenai would attend to us.”
Cocking his head to one side, Jack arched an eyebrow. “Hoping your tour guide would be a hot redhead?” he asked with a chuckle. “Sorry, kid, I'm afraid Anna's a little busy at the moment.”
Raynar frowned, bowing his head in deference. “I see.” He stepped aside to allow Jack into the living room. “Would you like to come in for a few moments? I'm sure there are things you want to discuss.”
Jack accepted the offer.
Slanted windows in the wall behind the couch looked out upon the great black void. There was a coffee table with a vase full of flowers, and half a dozen books strewn about the place. No doubt Anna had recommended those.
Jack squinted into the distance, shaking his head. “You must be feeling pretty out of place,” he said, turning around. “Twenty-four hours ago, you were expecting to spend the foreseeable future in a cell.”
“Yes,” Raynar said with a tremble in his voice. “I can't express t
o you how grateful we both are for your bravery in rescuing us.”
“But you don't trust us.”
The boy froze.
“Wondering how I figured that out?” Jack inquired. It dawned on him that he was putting on a show. The same kind of show that he would normally reserve for a suspect in an interrogation room. Perhaps the issue of trust went both ways. “You don't have to be a mindreader if you know how to analyze a situation.”
Jack frowned, then lowered his eyes to the floor. “You have no reason to trust us or anyone else,” he said, his brow furrowing behind thin bangs. “For all you know, we only want to exploit your talent.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“So play your trump card.”
The boy watched him like a deer in the headlights. Or maybe that expression belonged on a rabbit that had found itself face to face with a hungry she-wolf. Either way, the kid was terrified.
“Read my mind,” Jack added.
“I can't,” Raynar said softly. “I don't know how to read a two-soul. Your…other keeps me out.”
Jack looked up at the ceiling, blinking as he thought it over. “You learn something new every day,” he said, backing up until he was almost touching the couch. “Well, kid, looks like you're going to have to rely on the same skills as the rest of us.”
“Analysis?”
“Indeed.” A thought occurred to Jack as he dropped into the big comfy chair next to the coffee table. “Since we're on the subject, how is it that Keli was able to make contact with Anna if you can't read Justice Keepers?”
“Keli is much stronger than the average telepath,” Raynar answered. “Rumors say she is the product of extensive genetic manipulation. I don't know if that's true. But I've tried to use my own abilities to break her defenses and…”
The boy shut his eyes, tears glistening on his inflamed cheeks. Obviously that last question had brought up some painful memories. “I've tried to burrow past her defenses and to keep her from breaking through mine…”
