The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1)

by J. S. McClelland

  Most likely this was where the helicar would set down.

  Shouting erupted from the top of the stairs and I pictured the two men enduring a reprimand, distracted from their task.

  The engine noise abruptly increased and a gust of wind blew through the gap between the stairs and the wall.

  The helicar was landing.

  “Can we make it?” I asked.

  Flick stood up and pulled me to my feet. “Easily.”

  The engine changed pitch overhead as the helicar hovered for a moment, then eased toward the stage.

  “No matter what happens,” he said. “Stay in front of me.”

  I didn’t have time to ask why.

  He yanked me from beneath the stairs, shoved me ahead at a run, and shielded me from behind.

  As we came within three meters of the stage, both hatches flew open as the helicar touched down.

  A smoker fired behind us but seemed to have missed since my legs and arms continued to function, so I kept running.

  We reached the stage and I scrambled up.

  Flick spun around and returned fire, managing to do so while leaping to the platform. One of the officers collapsed.

  I dove into the passenger seat.

  Flick shouted takeoff commands as he jumped in.

  The helicar responded to his voice, slammed the hatches closed, revved the engine and increased the rotor speed.

  We blasted off the stage and my eyes flashed stars from the force of acceleration.

  As the helicar gained altitude I managed to strap on my harness, and remain conscious while doing so, but just barely.

  “Let’s hope your pet Grey is scrubbing surveillance,” Flick said, clutching the stick with white knuckles. “Otherwise I think I just initiated my constructive dismissal from service.”

  My arm was sore from being hauled along at a dead run. I rubbed it and checked his expression.

  Livid/excited.

  I thought better of asking any questions and wisely remained silent as he flew us alarmingly close to the ocean waves, pushing the engine as hard as he dared.

  For two hours he didn’t say a single word.

  As New Dublin came into view, then faded slowly into the distance behind us, it became clear he was returning to the bunker.

  When we landed, at last, Flick headed inside the cabin and I followed cautiously.

  I found him studying his screenboard, scanning the feeds, and pacing.

  After a few moments, he set the screenboard aside, peeled the skinner from his left wrist and locked it inside a tiny wooden box that sat on the table. He reached for a small blue bowl of cloudy water beside it, scooped another skinner from inside, and slapped it on his wrist in place of the other.

  He tapped the new skinner once and cleared his throat. “Francis November, Alpha-One-One,” he said.

  A human voice responded.

  “Receiving.”

  “I’m going off mission for awhile. Log it at eighteen hundred.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  He peeled the skinner off and tossed it back in the bowl of water.

  It seemed the bowl acted as a surrogate for his body while he was off doing things he didn’t want his superiors to know about. Probably it gave the false impression that he was at the bunker doing his job, and not gallivanting around hundreds of kilometers away shooting enforcement officers.

  I started to remove my own skinner.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Leave it on.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not connected to anything but the helicar and I’ll be damned if I’m going to risk losing track of you again.”

  I relented. “I’ll keep it on until you instruct me otherwise.”

  I sat down in one of the carved wooden chairs at the table and waited. Eventually, he would calm down enough to have a conversation.

  He alternated between glaring and pacing, which accomplished nothing useful, and I watched quietly while he prowled around the room like a caged animal.

  Why were men so emotional?

  Finally, he ceased pacing and stood stoically before the tall bedroom windows, looking out at the trees.

  “Flick,” I said quietly.

  He turned toward me fiercely. “Nobody is this hot. Nobody. What are you not telling me?”

  His unstable tendencies were emerging and I suppressed a sigh. Stomping around yelling wouldn’t do us any good at this point. We needed to be logical and examine the situation with the goal of finding a solution, not reprimand each other.

  I slowly got to my feet and stood beside him. “I am as upset and perplexed as you.”

  He gripped my shoulders. “Please tell me there isn’t something you are hiding from me.”

  Please.

  I searched his face. His pupils dilated noticeably. His hands shook and his breath seemed rapid.

  Oh.

  Of course.

  He wasn’t angry.

  He was worried.

  I stepped into his arms and gently put my head on his shoulder.

  He dropped his hands to his sides and didn’t touch me, but he didn’t withdraw either.

  I pressed my body against him fully and touched the back of his neck with my hand.

  “Keeley, don’t,” he said. But it was a threadbare protest at best.

  His body communicated everything I needed to know. The shifting of his feet from side to side, the dip of his shoulder and his overly warm skin betrayed his thoughts.

  Flick was not a savage, take-no-prisoners lover. He was a romantic.

  Instead of sliding my hand down the front of his pants, as I would have done with another man, I moved my fingertips down his arm slowly and entwined his fingers with my own.

  He was the one gulping air now.

  I pressed his hand against my cheek, leaned against him, and closed my eyes.

  His resolve broke like a tsunami.

  He took me in his arms and kissed me ferociously, tearing at my dress before we even reached the bed.

  Half our clothing hit the floor and the other half needed to be wrenched from our entwined bodies after we’d tumbled together on the swinging bed.

  I focused on touching his face, his chest, and at every opportunity, I stared into his eyes.

  He kissed me feverishly, ravenously, and the less I reached for him the more he advanced until I’d coaxed him between my thighs.

  We joined together and the sensation momentarily forced me to forget about what I was doing and carried me on an electric wave of selfish pleasure.

  As I climaxed he said my name again and again, and when I felt his own release I whispered his name in his ear, receiving a reward of utter self-abandon from him as he collapsed on top of me at last.

  His arms shook as he propped his heavy frame up just enough to keep from crushing me, and I placed both my hands on his neck reassuringly.

  He wasn’t bewildered, simply spent.

  Now we could have a productive conversation.

  As he slipped an arm underneath my shoulders and pulled me close, I pressed my cheek to his chest.

  “Flick, I don’t know what to do.”

  His heavy sigh seemed encouraging. At least he wasn’t chastising himself for what he’d just done with me.

  He rested his palm on my shoulder and stroked my skin gently. “We will figure something out.”

  We.

  Progress at last.

  The rest of the evening degenerated into several more intense sessions of sex, devoid of any verbal communication, and as the usual deep darkness forced me into my unnatural sleep cycle, Flick wrapped me up in a tight cocoon of arms and blankets.

  I blacked out in his embrace, feeling a mixture of comfort and concern, having no idea what to expect the next morning.

  ∆

  I found myself still cocooned in a wad of blankets after sunrise.

  Flick fed me breakfast in bed, engaging in an unconscious primal bonding behavior by bringing me food.

  The ges
ture was possessive, and I thought it spoke well of my performance.

  He couldn’t resist the urge to engage in sex again after eating, and after we finally showered, dressed and made our way to the outside deck to sit in the sunshine, I felt a little exhausted, but he looked positively refreshed.

  After a short time of quiet reflection, he took my hand and kissed it. “I worked while you were asleep.”

  “What did you discover?”

  “Your Grey guardian was busy. The feeds have all been scrubbed and I didn’t need to do much cleaning up.”

  I recalled that he had indicated the small screenboard here was not sufficient to actively scrub information, and that meant he had flown out at some point during the night.

  “You left?” I asked.

  “I needed to make an appearance at my primary facility. Don’t worry. I set the alarm on your skinner. If anything had happened, I would have come running.”

  Earnest/serious.

  “You hadn’t moved at all by the time I got back,” he said. “It really is like you are in a coma.”

  “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Only eleven hours this time. That’s an improvement.”

  Good news, no matter how insignificant it seemed, was most welcome.

  “There’s something else,” he said. “I’ve received a summons from the governor.”

  I thought about the implications of that for a moment. “Is a summons from the governor normal?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  “When?”

  “This morning. It was waiting for me when I checked in at my primary.”

  He handed me a cream-colored envelope.

  “Paper?” I asked.

  “Read it.”

  The hand written letters on the envelope looked elegant.

  Francis November Alpha 11

  “My name and designation number,” he said.

  I slipped a heavy white card from inside the envelope.

  Area Governor Broyce Farber requires you to appear for an audience immediately.

  There was no signature, no stamp. Nothing else. Just the sentence.

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “Go in. It’s the governor. You don’t say no to that.”

  “Are you at all suspicious of the timing for this?”

  He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Absolutely.”

  “What if they detain you?”

  He took the card from my other hand and tossed it aside. “They won’t. I’m being verbally chastised for my abuse of the scrubbers. That or they want me to answer some questions about what I’ve been doing off mission so much lately.”

  Or the governor wanted to know why he was currently housing a fugitive.

  “When will you go in?”

  “As soon as I get enough of you.”

  Flick pulled me out of my chair and led me back to the bed. We ravished one another for over an hour, then lazily lingered, tied up in the sheets, for a few minutes more before finally rising again.

  He seemed less apprehensive than the night before and languidly dressed while I did the same.

  “You seem less worried,” I remarked.

  “My primary facility visit reassured me that you are not as hot as I previously thought. No one seems to be searching for you at the moment. I probably overreacted last night. I got shot at, and that makes me irate.”

  “Where will you take me while you see the governor? Would you prefer it if I stayed behind?”

  He looked straight at me. “No. I wouldn’t. You are coming with me into the city.”

  My mind was already evaluating the innumerable possibilities for disaster. “That doesn’t seem wise. What if those two men find me again?”

  Flick shook his head. “The guys who tried to snatch you at the archive? One of them is not going to walk for another six weeks, and the other will be lucky if he doesn’t lose an eye. They won’t be coming after you.”

  I peered outside, and a flicker of concern tingled inside my brain. “Are we leaving now?”

  He ran his fingers through his thick hair to smooth it down. “I should have gone in hours ago, but I hate it when leadership barks at us.”

  His emotional state was different today. He seemed less…conflicted. As if a decision he had put off was now resolved.

  I focused all of my attention on his behavior, trying to determine what had changed, but his guard was up and he was not displaying visible physical cues.

  There was some plan being put into action that I was not privy to.

  Since Flick’s plans seemed to involve a great deal of running, physical confrontation, and shooting, I braced myself for departure.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I took his offered arm. “I’d like to make it back before dark.”

  He smiled. “This won’t take very long.”

  We walked quickly down to the helicar and I climbed inside. He reached over and snapped on my harness, giving me a wink as he did so.

  The tingle in my mind intensified.

  As we lifted off the platform I turned my attention toward analysis.

  The facts as I knew them did not suggest that I wasn’t as “hot” anymore. The summons from the area governor indicated otherwise.

  This was no coincidence.

  There were two possibilities.

  Flick might be on his way to a private audience with the governor so that he could receive his orders to kill me.

  Or, the governor and his agents were responsible for providing me protection and were requesting that Flick bring me in to facilitate that end.

  The odds that this meeting would end in my assassination effectively stood at 50/50.

  As we flew toward the city I tried to formulate a plan for improving my chances. For the duration, I kept one hand touching Flick at all times. I found it reassuring, but more to the point, I wanted him to know physical contact with him was something I desired.

  It could mean the difference between him snapping my neck instantly, or hesitating for three minutes due to an emotional conflict.

  It wasn’t much, but I wanted to live for the three minutes.

  We circled the city once, and then landed on the top of a building I didn’t recognize. It was a tall, angular, charcoal-colored structure that looked out of place amid the round, pastel architecture surrounding it.

  We landed on an enormous helicar platform capable of accommodating a vehicle three times as large as ours, and Flick set a series of commands on the control panel that I had not seen him use before. He unbuckled his harness, but when I tried to do the same, mine seemed to malfunction.

  I tugged at the buckle but it refused to release. “There is something wrong with this.”

  He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Nope. It’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. See you in a little while.”

  The helicar hatch closed behind him, the lights dimmed, and the rotor whined as it retracted.

  He was locking me in!

  The last thing I saw before the outside lights completely faded away was Flick strolling toward a stairwell at the end of the roof. Then, everything went completely dark.

  I allowed myself a moment of self-deprecation. “Stupid.”

  This was something I should have anticipated.

  For several seconds the cabin interior seemed devoid of any and all activity. Then the control panel hummed faintly to life and a soft blue glow slowly began to illuminate the interior.

  Annoying, repetitive, inane music began to play over the internal speakers.

  “So. Torture before death.”

  I stretched my right hand out as far as possible, but it was pointless. I couldn’t reach the controls. If I’d been paying attention back at the cabin I’d have noticed Flick had adjusted the seat to put the panel out of my reach.

  “Deactivate music.”

  The music continued, uninterrupted.

  “Activate external visual system.”

  Bright light
suddenly gleamed from the windscreen and a panoramic view of the outside came into focus.

  So he would allow me to use some of the systems, but not all of them.

  “Activate verbal flight controls.”

  Nothing.

  I studied the image of the roof. A windsock flapped from a pole several meters away, but otherwise, the place looked deserted.

  I looked more closely at the windsock.

  It was green.

  Surely he hadn’t landed on the top of the city’s primary enforcement facility?

  I sighed.

  Of course he had.

  At least nobody could see me sitting inside the cab. As long as no one came sniffing around I was probably positioned in the most secure location in the entire city.

  And escape would be very, very difficult.

  Flick was not as gullible as I’d hoped.

  “Decrease internal temperature.”

  A hum preceded a gentle dip in the warmth inside the cab.

  “Deactivate harness buckle.”

  The helicar responded to my request verbally. A metallic voice, female, purred from the panel.

  “Override required.”

  Override? That suggested I might be able to coerce this machine if I found the correct words.

  “Activate skinner. Keeley Dorn.”

  An image of the interior of the helicar replaced the rooftop on the windscreen display. I could see myself sitting in the cab, hear my own breathing over the speaker, and as I held up my wrist and waved it around, the image compensated to maintain visual continuity.

  “Activate skinner. Francis November.”

  A flight of stairs appeared on the windscreen. Flick strolled from the building to a ground level walkway that emptied out onto the street. For whatever reason, the helicar permitted me visual images but no audio.

  I followed his progress as he moved easily along the city and seemingly meandered in a circuitous route with no clear objective.

  He was determining if anyone followed.

  Eventually, he entered another building. It was ghostly white and slender, shaped like a dried reed. But the remarkable thing about the building was that it stood nearly forty stories tall, and yet, didn’t have a single window.

  He casually walked by a series of desks situated inside the entrance, seemingly oblivious to the interested stares and sudden attention from the professionals seated there.