Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “Come on in. Need to sit?”

  She shut the door for privacy. “I don’t think I’ll be in here that long. I have something to confess and you’re going to be very angry. You’re entitled to be angry with me. I have accepted that. So here I am.”

  “Okay, way to be vague,” he remarked, curling forty pounds in hand weights, alternating arms. “Something involving me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had to do a lot of things, Ty. No biggie.”

  “This one is a biggie. In my timeline, I told you I’d never steal from you.”

  “Yeah, you said that here too. And?”

  “Jerome, please. This is hard enough without you caring more about a workout you don’t even need.”

  A statement that brought him to stillness. He put the hand weights down and came to sit on the near corner of his desk.

  “Okay, my undivided attention,” he said suspiciously serious.

  “You’re going to be furious, but I had to do this or you’d have been in way the wrong place mentally while fighting Adamantine,” she said.

  “I will keep that in mind. What did you steal from me?”

  She held up the envelope. Small, white, containing just a small piece of paper folded in half. She held it out at full arm’s length, address side up. He saw the handwriting, took it, flipped it between his fingers. Still sealed. Not read.

  “This came the day before the battle?” he asked.

  “Yes. I knew it was coming and had been watching for it. In other timelines, you always got this letter and went for a really long run the next morning. It put you twenty miles away from where you needed to be. Physically, that is. Emotionally and psychologically, you were a million miles away. Divided and distracted.”

  “I would not have gone for the run this time. We knew he was coming and where,” he pointed out.

  “True. But you would still have been of two minds and that would have been just as bad. You had to be 100% focused on the battle or you would have lost. We both know it. I did not expect to be injured or I would have given this to you the next day. Hell, I’d have given it to you last night but Landra knocked me out. I cannot say I’m sorry I took it because I’m not. I can only hope you understand and forgive me for doing what had to be done.”

  He put the envelope on the computer keyboard and reached out his hand for her. “Come here.”

  Tone so soft she almost didn’t recognize it as his voice. She stepped forward, leaning more heavily on the cane than she wanted. He put his arms around her, gentle and loose.

  “You did exactly what I would always want you to do, babe. You did what had to be done to ensure our victory and I have to respect that. I’m not going to be mad about it.”

  “Are you saying that because you think I’ll leave if you’re mad?”

  “No. I mean it. You know how I feel about my sister. We’ve talked about it enough. I trust you. You were right not to let me see it at the time. Thank you for giving it to me now.”

  Her smile was relieved, causing a ripple in the energy between them.

  “Thank you. I’m going out. I’ll be back in a few days. I have my phone,” Tyler said.

  “Hold on. Wait a minute. Where you goin’?”

  “I have business to take care of. It’s mine. It’s private.”

  He’d just said he trusted her. “Okay. See you in a few days.”

  She teleported out of the warehouse, arriving in the hallway outside her father’s apartment door. He answered the knock, confused and unsettled to see her so early in the day.

  “This is a security building. How did you get in?”

  “You’ve never believed me any other time I’ve told you. Why would you believe me this time?” she asked. “Just give me the checks and I’ll go.”

  “But…I’d really like to understand you, Tyler. Please give me the chance,” he said, letting her in. “Do you drink coffee? I just brewed a pot.”

  Reluctantly, she sat in the chair held out by him. A mental scan and she knew there was no one listening. No cameras, no bugs. He brought the pot to the table with milk and sugar and went to the desk to retrieve two envelopes for her.

  “They were able to remake the second check in your name,” he said before sitting. “It’s only quarter of a million dollars. Not enough to set you up for life; but certainly enough for a good start.” He paused, glancing her over. “You look so different.”

  “I am different,” she replied, adding one moderate spoonful of sugar to her cup.

  “Are you well? Is everything okay for you? Do you need anything?”

  He was actually trying this time. That was a nice change. Maybe he really was different in this timeline.

  “I’m fine. I know you didn’t father me, so we may as well get that off the table now.”

  “Okay. I’m glad you know. I never held that against your mother, I promise you. We were going through a rough patch and I wasn’t as available to her as I should have been. It’s entirely my fault, not hers.”

  “She never told me anything. I figured it out on my own,” Tyler said.

  “You’re walking with a cane,” he pointed to the stick. “What happened?”

  “I took a hard hit from an enemy foot soldier right after Jerome killed Adamantine on February eighteenth.”

  “You were down there?”

  “More than that. I coordinated the entire resistance. I made sure people were where they needed to be that morning so we could meet the invasion head on. Kathy is about to call you and ask if you’re ready to go. Remember, you were going to investigate that Hawley street drug house today.”

  The phone rang. He reached up to the wall to answer it with a “yes?”

  “Umm…No. I have a personal issue going on at the moment. I’ll be in later…Yes, I remember. It can wait. It’s not like they’re going to stop selling drugs.” He hung up and blinked at her over the table. “I’m listening.”

  Progress. Impressive progress. For once she was more important than his job. Maybe he was someone who changed from one timeline to the next, and in a positive way.

  Cup in hand, she used telekinesis to lift the milk and pour it into her cup. The spoon lifted to stir and returned to her napkin. Two kids with their mother came out of the apartment next door. The kids were loud, yelling a song.

  “Be silent,” Tyler whispered.

  They were.

  “Apologize to the neighbor.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Brooks!” one of them said, passing the door.

  She sipped her cup and eyeballed him to gauge his reaction. Uncustomarily calm.

  “On February 15th, 16th, and 17th, I made thousands of people leave the East Side and take a drive in all directions,” she said. “A nice, orderly drive West, East, or South until they felt they were safe.”

  “You told them to go?” he asked.

  “In a manner of speaking. I’d been planting seeds for months. On their assigned day, they took their families for a drive. They then passed that same thought on to their neighbors whenever one of them said ‘Hello’ in passing. I didn’t want the highways to be too chaotic and I didn’t want it to look overly freakish”

  “You know it’s hard to believe,” he said.

  “I know. But think about it. How many times have you watched that tape, Dad? You thought she looked like me, but last you knew I was blonde.”

  “You’re the redhead who put her hand through a man’s throat?”

  “He called himself Doctor Dominion. He was from a planet in Gamma quadrant. He controlled the flying machines and coordinated much of the humanoid force. Killing him brought all those flying machines down to self-destruct.”

  “You killed another one,” he said.

  “He was the son of the man Jerome killed. If we had not been there, this entire world would now be in their hands. They were going to turn the Jeep factory into a facility for making more of those flying machines out of our people. Life would not be as it is today if we’d not been prep
ared for them.”

  “I believe you, Tyler. Really I do. It’s just so fantastic.”

  “I know. The investigation must stop where we are concerned. You have to tell them all to leave us be. Study the dead machines and what’s left of the foot soldiers and the spacecrafts we brought down. Be content with that and leave us alone. We’ve earned that.”

  “I agree. You have. But I don’t have that kind of authority. You should already know that. There are a lot of questions.”

  “I will speak to the President himself if they want; but I am the only one any of you will ever talk to,” she decided. “I will know if anyone comes sniffing around and I think you know the repercussions.”

  She realized what was happening. He was turning CIA agent on her again.

  “See! Now, dammit! This is where we always go bad over this,” she spat, and was on her feet to stalk over to the balcony door. “We do fine until it comes to your employers and I have to make you forget our conversation all over again. I can’t keep doing this!”

  “How many times?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter how many times. If it doesn’t work this time, Dad, you’ll never hear from me again. I cannot keep doing this. I will have to cut you loose just like I did Mom.”

  “How is that fair to me? To be left wondering why I never hear from you?”

  “You’d remember I was here to get the checks and that we had a fight,” she said offhand.

  A pause.

  “There has to be a way we can work this out. Certainly we owe you all a tremendous debt of gratitude. Can we try to stay on that common ground? Let me make a phone call. I can be your advocate, perhaps. Be your liaison instead of your enemy? Would that be okay?”

  She was stilled. He’d never once made that offer before. He’d never once tried to compromise or indicated any interest in supporting her.

  “Not from your phone. Use my cell,” she said, getting it out of her back pocket. “They cannot trace it.”

  “Triangulation can pinpoint us,” he pointed out.

  “It’s scrambled in such a way that it is untraceable by Earth technology.”

  He dialed from memory. “Lucy, it’s David. Is Mr. Darice in?”

  Pause.

  “Tell him I have the redhead from the video in front of me right now and she’s willing to talk with him and answer a few questions.”

  Tyler heard the voice on the other end change. Male, excited, energy and thoughts behind it not at all deceptive.

  “Brooks, where are you? Can we meet?”

  David startled physically when his home turned into his boss’ office. Tyler took back the phone and ended the call, calm while Mr. Darice gaped at her with the receiver to his ear. He was about fifty, slightly graying. His hand lowered slowly to hang up the phone.

  “Yes, we can meet,” she said. “If you press any call button, I will disappear and you will never find any of us. My information comes at a price. Complete amnesty for every person in our group and every member of the Ballpeen Brigade. All investigations into those who saved your asses will stop, and you will let us all live in peace. I’m not concerned with future crimes. Only what happened on February 18th.”

  “I accept your terms. Please, let’s sit and be comfortable,” he indicated the sofa and chair at the other end of the office.

  She took the chair.

  “First, let me thank you. On behalf of the government of the United States of America, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the lives you saved.”

  She said nothing. They hadn’t done it for gratitude.

  “Are there extraterrestrial beings on Earth?” he got right to it.

  “There have been for over five thousand years. You have that same alien blood inside you. Nearly everyone on the planet does at this point. So let’s just remove that from our concerns,” she replied with a fine point.

  “Who was the man on the roof? The one who won the fight?” he tried again.

  “His name is unimportant,” she said, removing Jerome’s name from her father’s memory as well.

  “What was the power he used? Where did it come from?”

  “It came from a crystal that is part of the remains of the Big Bang. There are hundreds of them scattered around the galaxy. Other than that, there’s really nothing to tell. You simply have to trust that it won’t be used to hurt people or rob banks.”

  “How many planets have life on them?” he asked, taking a different angle.

  “Many hundreds of them in this galaxy alone. Many thousands across many other galaxies.”

  “How do we make contact with them? Are they the aliens people claim abduct them?”

  “There are no abductions. Earth has been left largely to its own fate for nearly two thousand years. How do you make contact? You don’t.”

  “Why not?” he asked, sincere in the question.

  “Do you honestly think this crapper of a planet with no unified government or society, constantly making war on itself, has any place in a stable galactic society? That would be a big, fat no. There’s no discussing it. Earth is under quarantine and is ignored except to gather information from all the noise coming from it.”

  “Gathered by whom?”

  “All sorts. Earth broadcasts the loudest of any planet because it is so ignorant of what it does,” she said.

  “You sound like you know this galactic society.”

  “I do. Very well. I will go back to it as soon as possible.”

  “Why didn’t you come to us and tell us what was going on? We could have been prepared,” Mr. Darice said.

  “Be real. You would not have believed a word and my group would still have been on its own.”

  “What kind of technology do you have?” he asked.

  “That’s not up for discussion.”

  “What kind of weaponry do you have? There were energy bolts being fired in both directions.”

  “Not your concern because you will not ever have access to it. This conversation is beginning to take turns that lead to confrontations. We’re done for today. Think of better questions.”

  “How do I reach you?”

  “When it is necessary, my father knows how to contact me,” she said with a nod to David.

  His eyes went to David and back to her, not quite believing.

  “David is your father?”

  “In name only,” David put in.

  “My biological father is from another place in the galaxy. David knew nothing about it and neither did my mother. Of course, you cannot question her.”

  “Yes, I know. I am sorry for your loss. Truly. I do have one last question. We’ve compared serial numbers on machine guns and rocket launchers left behind. There are several numbers repeated a hundred or more times. How is that possible without counterfeiting the weapons?”

  She smiled refusing to answer. “I will hold you to your promise of amnesty.”

  She teleported to her old apartment in Los Angeles. At this early hour, barely past 7am, Rox was crashed, totally passed out. Tyler found her checkbooks and left the way she came, arriving in the parking lot next to her covered Porsche.

  “Hey, baby. Miss me?” she asked, using psychokinesis to pull the tarp off and get it folded and into the trunk.

  She drove to a diner around the corner from her bank sitting to have breakfast until the bank opened. She didn’t want to put such large checks in through the ATM. Checks deposited and cash withdrawn for the trip back, she drove up into the hills. She dialed a number from memory.

  “Hello?” a male voice mumbled.

  “Are you free?” she asked.

  Silence.

  “Tyler?”

  “Thomas.”

  “Where the hell have you been?!” he demanded.

  “We’ll talk when I get there. I’m thirty seconds from your gate.”

  A gate that was open when she reached it. He met her on the drive in front of the steps, opened the door for her. Taken aback by her slowness in getting
out, he hugged her before she was away from the door.

  “God, I’ve been so worried about you,” he said.

  She suspected that was a lie. He likely knew exactly where she’d been and her condition. “I’m fine.”

  “He held her hand as they went inside.

  “Walking with a cane is not fine. Landra Ahr told me you had taken a hit but wouldn’t say anything else. Nails wouldn’t tell me either. I heard your mother died. I’m sorry.”

  He sat her at the small table in the library.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “I talked with the head of the local CIA office in Northwest Ohio this morning. He’s promised we’ll be left alone.”

  “I’ll have my people monitor them to be sure they do,” he said, pouring her a cup of coffee from the service tray. “Your money is making a tidy profit already.”

  “Good. I just added insurance money to my private bank account. When the cleanup is done, I want you to turn the plot of land my house was on into a memorial habitat.”

  “What kind of habitat?” he asked.

  “Butterflies and hummingbirds. They feed off the same plants. I want at least one pond that will not freeze in winter. Benches. A figure eight path for walking. Other than that, do what you want. Make sure it’s tended and cared for until the end of Earth.”

  “You own the land?”

  “It was willed specifically to me,” she nodded.

  “Okay. I have a Power of Attorney already prepared, unless you want Nails to retain his.”

  “No. He has the PA for Mother and David. I should have a separate source to avoid conflict of interest.”

  He called for his assistant to bring the file, sending her away again as soon as it was signed. He saw Tyler adjust in her seat, the slow wincing blink of her eyes.

  “I know that expression. You are not well.”

  “It’s been a long day already. Driving the clutch ain’t easy and I’m going cross country when I leave here.”

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “I have to go.”

  “Not this very hour. Or even today. Stay the night and rest. Go tomorrow. I won’t try to have you because you’re with someone else. I will feel better about letting you go if you wait a day.”

  She hesitated, knowing she was taking a risk just in being here.