Never Submit

by Michael Anderle

  The smoke in his apartment was probably annoying her.

  He turned to watch her open his apartment door, stick her head out and then toss a ball out. Some motion pulled his attention back towards his room door, and his eyes opened.

  There was a little silver orb floating into the main room from his bedroom. He never thought about the dirty clothes he had hidden on the other side of his bed as he stared at the orb floating towards him.

  He turned to see Tabitha pull out a small tablet, “Kill em, Achronyx.” She said, and Ted heard multiple sparks, and a minute smell of ozone overpowered his cigarette smoke for a minute.

  The goggle-wearing face turned towards him. Now, the goggles color was a yellow metallic; he couldn’t see Tabitha's eyes as she looked at him. “What are you really involved with, Ted?”

  Oh, fuck! He thought as the blood drained from his face.

  Purchase, NY - USA

  “Ok,” Nathan admitted as they exited the Pepsi building, “That was kind of cool. Although, renaming it Pepsi from Brad’s drink was easily a marketing win. Brad’s Drink? That was a horrible name.”

  Ecaterina grabbed his hand. Together, they had started a small but delicious effort to sneak Pepsi back into Nathan’s life and pay Bethany Anne back for her No-Pepsi-On-My-Battle-Station edict.

  With this recipe, they would be able to make little batches and keep them in their suite. Nathan had already ordered the necessary ingredients and loaded the request to the group on the set of ships that were involved in the massive worldwide effort to grab last minute supplies. Fortunately, he would be able to run his purchases into a supply pickup just hours from now.

  No one the wiser.

  He turned to kiss Ecaterina, “Have I told you I love your devious Romanian mind?”

  “Is that all?” she asked, returning his kiss.

  “No, but you need carbs for the rest,” he told her.

  New York City, New York - USA

  Ted looked at Tabitha, “Politics.” he answered.

  She mumbled something and even though he was standing just two feet in front of her, he couldn’t understand her, but someone did.

  “Bullshit,” she told him, “You were on a normal case just forty-eight hours ago.” Her hand pointed out to areas in his apartment, “And … there were seven bugs in your home.”

  He looked around, “What?”

  She didn’t answer him. “So, you do have a girlfriend now, and what, she is missing?”

  All of the blood left his face as he stared at her. “Tabitha, these people aren’t shitting around. They grabbed Monica, told me to contact you as best I could and pray that I could get you to come here.”

  Tabitha turned to face him, and the yellow shield dropped, allowing him to see her eyes. They didn’t look kind. “Who is ‘they,' Ted?”

  “Government, I think.”

  “That’s just fan-fucking-tastic,” Tabitha huffed. “And the building out of town, a ruse?”

  He shook his head, “No, that is real. I’m supposed to get you over there.”

  “Achronyx, give me a view of the place outside of town,” her eyes were unmistakably watching something she could see, but Ted couldn’t. “Drop a set of psy-spies on that area, and see what we can find inside the building as well.” Her eyes switched from looking slightly to her left and up, to her right and down. “We have company.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Dark van, no windows, coming down the street,” she looked at him, “do I lay your ass out, or are you in?”

  “In what?” Ted asked, “Tabitha, those are bad motherfuckers out there who have a woman who is in trouble because she was interested in a guy who happened to know you and through you, TQB.”

  Tabitha ignored his comment but did clarify her question. “Are you up for saving her, or do you want me to deliver her to you when I’m done?”

  Ted stared at Tabitha for a long moment. Once again, this was the other Tabitha, not the one who played around. “What will happen to her if I stay here?”

  “I’ll do my best to grab her, and move her to a safe place,” she told him, “I’ll knock you out, giving you an alibi.”

  Ted twisted his face, “Fuck them.” He headed towards his room. He noticed the orb follow him.

  It didn’t look like Tabitha was going to trust him, and frankly, she had every right not to. He dropped to his knees beside his bed and reached under, to pull out a case that was two feet wide and four long. It was a bit tricky to get out, but when he had it, he entered the combination and opened it. Inside was a bulletproof vest and two 1911’s plus plenty of mags, holsters for his guns and a jacket specially fitted to help him try and hide the weapons. He pulled it all out and started getting it on.

  It grated on him to go against authority. This armament was the closest he ever got to doing what Tabitha had when she went vigilante here in New York in the past. He had been working on a case to uncover those who were cooking the New York Police Department computers to show falsification of data in their databases by judiciously tagging some higher level crime with lower level flags.

  Unfortunately, his case hadn’t been sanctioned by his boss. Further, it might have been his effort to do that which had attracted the attention of this group, and now Monica was involved.

  He didn’t like playing the hero, here. It had been more of a romantic notion than a real desire to play the uber-hero. But now, his half-assed approach was requiring him to go all in.

  He put on the heavy bulletproof vest and then his holsters.

  He loaded both pistols, locked their thumb safeties in place and had just slid the second one when he heard Tabitha’s voice, “Take my suitcase up to the roof, I’ll meet you there.”

  He turned to step out of his room to see her slide her coat back on. This time, she was a little bulkier.

  She had brought armor.

  “Give me two minutes before you leave. It will be safe by then.” She told him as she locked on some sort of black head gear that fit on her goggles and wrapped around her head.

  A woman had walked into his apartment. Perhaps a bad-ass woman, but still a woman.

  Ted wasn’t sure just what had just walked out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Germany

  “Now that was a large purchase,” William told his friends as they paid for the materials. Fortunately, they still had plenty of ways to pay for the things they needed, and all the money transfers were being pulled from their personal funds. Bobcat had made a very smart, very strategic hiring decision over a year before. The team had ADAM doing all of their books and money transfers.

  The A.I. charged them in gold.

  It was getting on into late afternoon as they left the sales office, “Beer?” Bobcat asked his two friends.

  Marcus shrugged and looked up and down the small street they had entered to get to the company’s sales headquarters. “What about trying a little pub, and ask them for great beer selections?”

  Bobcat slapped Marcus on the back as the three started down the sidewalk, “Now that is a capital idea!”

  A few minutes later, the trio entered a nearby pub and sat down. Within three minutes, each man had two beers sitting in front of him.

  William looked down at the large steins and then over to his two friends, then back to the two beers.

  “Should we?” he asked.

  Marcus looked at his two beers and shrugged, “I’m willing, it is for research purposes.”

  Bobcat grabbed his first stein and held it up, waiting for his friends to bump theirs together, “Here’s to research!”

  The three men drank their first stein. Bobcat finished first, William second and Marcus a distant, twenty-seven seconds later third place. They all looked at each other and turned towards the waitress, lifting their empty mugs high, eyes alight with humor and called out, “Another Round of Research!”

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds

  Diane and Dorene, the heads of the Etheric Academy, were exiting the T
ram which ran from the outside to the inner core. The two had decided to check on Team BMW and make sure they were working with their team, but the guys had dropped to Earth with the Queen and were not available.

  Diane had made sure that John Grimes wasn’t anywhere around, so they didn’t accidentally meet him and her sister wouldn’t be tempted to pinch.

  Diane could play out the scene in her head right now…

  “There’s John!” Dorene would say, and no matter how hard Diane tried to get Dorene’s attention away from the guy, she would see her sister’s two fingers spasm unconsciously. Diane would remind Dorene of Jean’s last warning to toss her ass out an airlock, and her sister would settle down.

  For maybe ... ten minutes.

  Ever since they got their memory back from the episode with the Nosferatu in the mountains a few years ago, Dorene had been living life like she was young again. Well, physically they were. However, you would think that Dorene would have grown out of her pinching.

  But sadly, no.

  Diane smirked, yeah, she could understand the joy of the pinch. They had been busted in Europe for pinching inappropriately. Then, unlike now, they had older bodies and silver hair. It had been easy to be forgiven when they looked like everyone’s grandmother. Not so much when you now looked young, fresh and very available.

  Their real age didn’t provide them protection any longer.

  “So, no John?” Dorene asked, as the two walked from the Tram station and headed inward. The two had decided to swing by the park, and then try one of the two Chinese restaurants for a meal.

  They stopped as two small beeps sounded behind them. Stepping out of the way, they watched the two floating boxes marked supplies continued past them. The little cart with the two boxes was silent, except for the constant beeps to warn people of its existence.

  Meredith moved most of these boxes, or at least one of her sub-computers did. Dorene looked down and realized she and her sister had been walking in the transfer lane. It wasn’t a big deal, but when you heard the beeps, you were expected to move aside.

  “Guess I was focusing on John, never noticed we were walking in the package lane.”

  Diane waved her forward, “C’mon, let’s go. I thought you were over John a long time ago?”

  “How does one get over John?” Dorene’s voice carried down the corridor as the two women turned a corner. “That mountain of man meat…”

  Diane cut off her sister mid-lust statement, “Has a woman who creates new ways to blow people apart for the Queen.”

  Dorene’s voice came back a moment later, somewhat subdued, “Oh sure, bring up the negatives.”

  —

  Yelena was simply confused. Matrix and Snow had stayed with the Yollin Captain, and he had promised to bring them back to her place later when he was finished. He was enjoying the chance to explain more of his kind to the four-footed kids. That he accepted Snow had shocked Yelena.

  Then again, why wouldn’t he? He had been around Bethany Anne enough so that if he was a horrible…being… Bethany Anne would have figured it out.

  Now, Ashur and Bellatrix were romping around behind her as they made their way over to the park.

  In front of her, she had Jinx, the only sable of the litter, and the twins. The all black brother-sister team Dio and Devi.

  Yelena covered her eyes and looked up at the fantastic light and heat systems inside the hollowed-out core. She couldn’t look at the primary globe, or she could blind herself.

  She returned to walking the path as it opened up from the personal gardens which separated the park area from the commercial crops which helped feed everyone and then the park itself. Here, there were trees planted and people had laid out a few blankets and were enjoying themselves.

  She looked around and realized one thing that seemed to be missing. There wasn’t a breeze here. At least, not that she could feel and she wondered how everything got watered? This was only her second time to this area, so she figured she could ask Bobcat next time she thought about it.

  The puppies ran on, playing, and soon she was passed up by Ashur and Bellatrix who were running around, and then people called out his name, and soon his mate’s name as well.

  Damn, Bellatrix was going to become insufferable, she thought.

  Yelena noticed a few benches along the path, so she walked to one of those and sat down. It seemed to be made of a dark gray wood. Resting her hand along the back of the bench, her hand felt a metal plaque. She leaned back and could see it had words engraved on it, but she couldn’t read it.

  She would take a look when she got up.

  She was there for a few minutes when she heard some talking and turned to see two women, both dressed alike and if Yelena had to guess she would say they were sisters. She turned back to watch the puppies romp around.

  A few moments later, she was surprised by a tap on her shoulder, “Excuse me.”

  Yelena turned to see the two ladies behind her, “Yes?”

  The woman with ‘Dorene’ on her uniform pointed out to the dogs, “Are you Bellatrix’s owner?”

  Yelena smiled, “Well if you listen to Bellatrix after today, she would probably say I belong to her. But yes, Bellatrix and I are matched.”

  “Oh, good!” the woman exclaimed and walked around the bench to sit down next to her, “So, you are Yelena, right?”

  She nodded.

  “And you are seeing Bobcat?” she continued.

  Yelena nodded again, not sure where this was going when the other lady murmured, “Dear God in Heaven.”

  Dorene flicked a hand at Diane, “Hush sis, I have the perfect opportunity to make sure Bobcat stays on the straight and narrow with the kids, and I’m willing to use whatever tools I have at my disposal to do it.”

  “I’m going to apologize for my sister before she says another word,” the second lady commented, “By the way, I’m Diane, and Ms. Nosey-body next to you is my sister, Dorene. We are in charge of the Etheric Academy.”

  “Oh, ok.” Yelena now knew who she was speaking with. “Bobcat mentioned he screwed up with the first class, is that what you wanted to talk about?”

  Dorene blinked a couple of times, “Yeessss,” she admitted, “I didn’t expect him to fess up to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Uh, he’s Bobcat,” Dorene answered as if that was enough.

  “Sorry, but what she said,” Diane pointed to Dorene.

  Yelena shrugged, “I’m not following. Sure, he can be a bit impetuous at times, but he seems pretty down to Earth … ok, down to the base station for the most part. He felt pretty bad about the situation with the youth from the first class, I can tell you that.”

  “Was that pre or post-Bethany Anne’s ass chewing?” Diane answered.

  Yelena shrugged, “While not pleasant, Bobcat wouldn’t do anything to harm anyone on his side, which means anyone on Bethany Anne’s side.”

  “But, what about all of the mistakes and unsafe practices and,” Dorene started before her hands were gesticulating too much and she finally just spat out, “Stuff!”

  “Not sure?” Yelena answered, “But, whatever happened, I’m unaware of Bobcat and the team being taken out of the role of teaching, right?”

  “Well, of course not, we need them,” Diane answered.

  “No,” Dorene corrected, “we need them, but not enough to endanger the students. Which means when Bethany Anne finished her discussion, she had already ascertained the mistakes and they didn’t warrant…probably half the shit that people believe.”

  “So, why aren’t they correcting the assumptions?” Diane followed up, as much a question of herself than the other two ladies.

  “Probably because on the other side are the youth, and how they see reality isn’t the same as how an adult would see it,” Yelena shrugged.

  “Are you a mom?” Dorene asked Yelena.

  “A mother?” she chuckled and then slowly stopped when Dorene's face never cracked a smile. “Oh, you’re seriou
s? No, why?”

  “You mentioned the kids might see the whole story through their lens of reality. That sounds like a mother.”

  Yelena pointed out to the dogs running around, “I see things differently due to my four-footed kids.”

  When she pointed to the dogs, both Dio and Devi turned and bolted towards the three ladies who watched the matched pair race over. Diane stepped around from the back of the bench so she could play with the two puppies who were enjoying the attention. Devi yipped and Yelena answered, “This is Dorene, sitting and her sister, Diane who is kneeling down to pet you two.”