Phase Shift

by Kelly Jensen

  Some of us. So...they had an immigration program?

  The slice of ‘factor shit slid down his throat without stopping. Felix swallowed. If he didn’t chew, he could pretend...something. Man, he never used to be a fussy eater. Must be Zed’s influence.

  “What are you then, that you can fix a ‘factor?”

  “Mechanic.” In simplest terms.

  “Yeah? Can’t be easy with only one good arm.”

  Ignoring that, Felix asked, “What about you?”

  Andy snorted. “What about me?”

  “Is guard duty your thing, or do you all have to pitch in around here?” Guard duty seemed to be a common thing, judging by the number of men and women hovering close by. Or maybe they were just curious.

  “We all pitch in. This colony is what we make of it.”

  Colony. With one word, Andy had confirmed that this was a rogue colony, an illegal settlement on a world Central hadn’t claimed—or at least one that they hadn’t opened up for colonization bids. Though, given their distance from the rest of human space, Felix guessed this hunk of rock just wasn’t on Central’s radar.

  Illegal colonies weren’t common. There just weren’t enough planets capable of sustaining human life—and, in Felix’s humble opinion, Paradise barely qualified. But when a survey team did find a planet that might host a useful colony, Central sent out a request for colonization bids. The group that needed the least amount of help, or promised to provide the most return on investment, usually won it. Sometimes there were other politics to get through, high-level interests to be taken into account, but that was the normal process of setting up a settlement.

  Once in a while, Central missed a habitable planet. Maybe it was too far away from the rest of humanity’s space, like this one, or maybe there just weren’t any viable resources to be found on the surface. In either case, what Central skipped over, pioneers set out to conquer. It was a difficult life, getting along with only the resources planetside or whatever bare bit of help they could scrape from less-than-scrupulous traders. If they were discovered by Central or the AEF, they were looking at severe punishments, up to and including life in prison for any number of offenses. Too often the colonies went dark with no one to mark their passing.

  This place, though...There was something off about the whole setup. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the data trail ended here. Thing was, if these colonists knew anything about Project Dreamweaver, they’d have recognized Zed. No one had.

  But none of the colonists had seemed all that surprised by their visit, either. They were wary, but curious. All except Dayne who continued to guard the door.

  * * *

  A shudder of relief coursed through Zed as he entered the mess hall and spotted Flick immediately. He sat at one of the picnic-style tables and, although he was scowling at Dayne, some of the tension in his face melted away as he saw Zed, then flooded back in as he noted the exhaustion Zed must have carried in his own expression.

  His wrist might not hurt for the moment—the doctor had taken his advice about needing a substantial dose of anything and numbed him so thoroughly Zed wasn’t even sure he had a hand anymore—but he was tired. Beyond tired. Somehow the fact that his wrist had been properly treated, with a good dose of Mendo and cradled in a plasmix brace, made everything else wrong with him hurt that much more. A headache had crept in and all he really wanted was to be horizontal.

  Though he wouldn’t turn down food, if they offered.

  Zed slipped onto the bench beside Flick, nudging his shoulder. Hindered by their clothes, the brush wasn’t enough to let their connection click into place, but the physical contact felt good anyway.

  “You okay?” Flick whispered.

  Zed held up his braced wrist. “All good. Set and Mendo’d.”

  A shaky breath escaped Flick, barely audible. “Good. Did he check out your head too?”

  “Mild concussion, like we thought. Nothing to worry about.” Zed eyed the gray cubes on the plate in front of Flick. “‘Factor food?”

  “Yeah.” Flick poked at one of the cubes with his utensil, keeping his left arm still to maintain the ruse of it being useless. He didn’t look thrilled at the meal, but a colony like this one—that didn’t seem to be agricultural-based—couldn’t be expected to serve up anything but ‘factored sustenance. “Not my favorite but it’s warm.”

  Zed grunted. Warm was good. It felt like forever since he’d had a full stomach, let alone one with warmth in it.

  “Want some coffee?” one of the colonists—Andy?—offered.

  “No,” Zed said quickly, then added, “thank you.”

  Beside him, Flick chuckled. Yeah, yeah, his aversion to caffeine was so amusing. He’d like to see what Flick would do with an unflagging erection and increased horniness when he could take care of neither.

  Someone brought over another plate for Zed. Even though it looked no more appetizing than Flick’s meal, Zed dug into it. Worries about the food being drugged flashed through his mind, but he quickly shoved them aside. They wouldn’t go through the trouble and expense of repairing his wrist if they intended to drug them senseless. Mendo wasn’t cheap and, if this was an illegal colony, refilling their stores wouldn’t be an easy thing. The cubes were bland but warm, like Flick had said. It’d do.

  Todd entered the mess, flanked by a few more colonists. Deep lines etched furrows on either side of his mouth and more had taken up residence across his brow. He looked less congenial than he had earlier.

  Flick pushed away his plate and looked up at the leader of the colony. “What are you going to do with us?”

  There was more movement over near the door. Zed looked up—then jumped to his feet, dragging Flick to his and shoving him behind his back, ignoring his lover’s protests.

  “Hello, Major,” said Dr. Carlisle Preston, smiling.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  Something must have leaked over their connection, some sense of the threat facing them, because Flick tried to get past him. Zed shoved his good arm out to prevent it. God, he wanted Preston nowhere near Flick. Ever.

  “Carly,” Zed growled. Predictably, the good doctor frowned. She hated that nickname, which was why he used it.

  Dr. Carlisle Preston had been the lead medical specialist for Project Dreamweaver. She’d been the one to determine when to dose them with the stin venom, how much and for how long. She’d monitored them, put them through untold tests. Every single man and woman on his team had come to hate her and her cold, unfeeling approach to their suffering. Yes, they were all volunteers, but she’d treated them like fucking lab rats.

  Zed had even more reason to hate her, though. The last time he’d seen her, she was employed by an AEF admiral to mitigate his pain resistance so they could interrogate him. She’d stabbed him, then dosed him with stin venom. Combining pain with the poison made his hallucinogenic trip even more intense and awful. And it had all been for nothing. The AEF gave up on questioning him. The admiral in charge decided he was far more interested in making Zed simply disappear—a plan that had been thwarted by Flick and the Guardians.

  But none of that explained why Preston was here now, looking pretty much the same as she had on the AEF military intelligence flagship—caramel hair pulled back into curls cascading down her back that made her look far less dangerous than she was. Unless—

  “Fuck.” Zed sagged. “This isn’t an illegal colony.”

  “Technically, it is,” Preston said with a shrug.

  “Who the fuck is she?” Flick hissed from behind him.

  “She’s from the project,” Zed said. “She was the doctor—”

  “This is Preston? You fucker!” Flick dodged Zed’s outstretched arm, only to be brought up short by a wall of bodies. He clawed at them, forgetting to keep his left arm still, trying to get through. “Do you know wh
at she did to him? She fucking tortured him! You fucking bitch!”

  “Flick! Felix!” Zed yelled. No point in worrying about names now. “Stand down!”

  “Fuck that!” Flick cocked a fist back, ready to let loose.

  “Goddamn it, we’re still outnumbered here! Stand down!”

  Flick swung, but the colonist dodged. Another jumped in, throwing a punch that connected with Flick’s cheek hard enough to make him stop and blink. Zed started forward, determined to get to his lover, but someone grabbed his bad arm, making him hiss in pain. He jerked his wrist out of the grasp—ow—and stepped forward, just as Flick took another hard hit to the head. This time he stumbled, falling back a few steps, but he didn’t go down.

  “Felix, stop.”

  Flick turned to him, blinking, clearly trying to focus. “She hurt you.”

  “Yeah, and she’s gonna hurt you if you keep this up, stupid.”

  Flick narrowed his eyes. A male colonist grabbed his shoulder and encouraged Flick to take a seat on one of the nearby benches. Zed joined him, both to keep him out of trouble and to make sure he was okay. A quick visual inspection revealed a couple of bruises already forming, but no blood. He’d avoided getting punched in the nose for once.

  “Are you done?” Preston asked, her voice cool.

  “For now,” Flick shot back.

  “Good.” She smiled and, wonder of wonders, the expression actually reached her eyes, warming them. “Because I’d like to talk to you about Project Dreamcatcher.”

  Chapter Eleven

  What the fuck was Project Dreamcatcher?

  Zed put a pin in that thought for the moment, lacking the energy to parse it out. Instead, he reached for Flick’s hand. He didn’t need to touch him to understand the rage that thrummed through him—it was all but palpable—but he wanted to offer some wordless comfort, calm him down some. He wasn’t surprised when Flick avoided his touch and tucked his hand between his knees.

  He got it. Sometimes you just didn’t want to be calmed down.

  Shrugging it off, Zed turned back to Preston and lifted his chin. “Project Dreamweaver has been disavowed. There is nothing to talk about.”

  “Dreamweaver might be done, but Dreamcatcher is well underway. You’ve met one of my soldiers and you are in a unique position to help his team.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  Preston’s smile softened. “Because you couldn’t save any of your teammates. But I’m prepared to give you another chance.”

  Tension rippled through Zed like a wave, rocking him back and forward again. Goddamn Preston and her fucking mind games. She knew how to manipulate soldiers like no one else he’d met, always knowing their weaknesses and just what to say to get them to agree to what she wanted. Zed had seen her in action during the project. It sickened him that, at the time, he was grateful for her ability to read his teammates and poke them to the right conclusion—failing out of Dreamweaver wasn’t an option. Not a healthy one, anyway.

  “Fuck you.” Zed leaned back and folded his arms. Not the most eloquent answer, but heartfelt.

  Preston tilted her head. “You were so much more polite when you were a part of the AEF, Zander.”

  “And you haven’t changed a bit, Carly.”

  The spark returned to Preston’s eyes. “No, I haven’t. I still believe in this project and its value to humanity.”

  “Value? You’re killing people trying to make something that shouldn’t exist.” At Flick’s words, Zed reached out again but Flick wormed his shoulder away from Zed’s fingers and raised his hands. “I’m finished throwing punches, but I’m not going to sit by and listen to this madwoman try to justify what she’s doing to the men and women she’s supposed to value.”

  Moving in, Preston caught his hand, the crystal one, her eyes wide, expression hungry. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “It’s cybernetic and dead,” Flick said, trying to pull his hand from her grasp.

  “You’re a worse liar than your lover, Mr. Ingesson.”

  Fuck. Zed clenched his jaw. He’d hoped Preston hadn’t realized who Flick was, but he was hardly anonymous. He’d starred in a number of holos when reporters had gotten too close to Zed. Not to mention the news about his arm—though if she’d seen those holos, she wouldn’t be asking about it. That raised the question of the amount of time Preston had been on Paradise. How long had this new project of hers been operating?

  “How did you come by this?”

  Enough. Zed pushed himself between Preston and Flick, nudging her back. Her coterie of guards pressed forward, but she lifted her hands. “There’s no need for violence. I asked a simple question.”

  Zed glowered. “You do not touch him, do you understand?”

  “Aw, you’re so protective.”

  “Should have seen them holding hands earlier,” Dayne put in with a smirk.

  Zed sat down next to Flick and took his hand, not letting him pull away this time. He needed the connection with Flick, and he suspected Flick needed it too—a suspicion that was confirmed when Flick pressed against his side. Zed could almost feel Flick absorbing his strength, his purpose, his nearly shredded calm. Then Flick’s rage skittered across, transformed into energy and focus. It helped. It didn’t ease the aches over most of his body or give him much of a second wind, but it helped.

  He couldn’t prevent the fear he felt from trickling across to Flick—but, somehow, when he felt an answering tendril, that helped too.

  “There’s a reason you’re here,” Preston said. “Alive and well, fully functional. You’re what we dreamed of, Zander. The perfect soldier.”

  Zed couldn’t deny he was a soldier. That was for life. But like hell he was going to throw in with Preston’s craziness. “I am no longer a part of the AEF. And neither are you.”

  “That’s why we’ll get it right this time.” Preston smiled.

  “Looks to me like you already did.”

  “Not yet. My new team is more stable than yours ever was, but they’re still going to succumb to the effects of the stin poison in time. That is why your data is so important to us. Thank you for that, by the way.”

  “If you have the data, why do you need me?”

  Preston clucked her tongue. “I would have thought that was obvious. I need you to train these soldiers. Mason managed to evade you on Chloris, but the rest of them? They’re not heroes, not yet. Just think, your own team again. Men and women like you.”

  Zed shoved aside the momentary flicker of want at that thought and shook his head. “I want no part in it.”

  “You don’t have a choice. You’re here and here you will stay.”

  “You don’t think Central will wonder where the emissary got to?” Or that the Guardians wouldn’t? Zed didn’t think he needed to add that part. It should be obvious.

  “The galaxy is a big place and mostly unexplored. People disappear all the time.”

  But his family had already lost their youngest son once. They weren’t likely to let it happen again, even if they had to hire every merc and treasure hunter to turn over every last rock on every last fucking planet, explored or not.

  “Now, I think it’s time you got some rest. You’re no good to me with a concussion, and your wrist needs time to set. Tomorrow is an important day.” Preston smiled her horribly warm smile, then gestured at Andy and Dayne. “See that our guests are made comfortable.”

  Letting go of Flick’s hand, Zed rose to his feet. “You might as well find your deepest, darkest hole and put me there now. I will not be helping you.” If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he might have bitten back the words—they sounded almost like a dare.

  “Oh, I think I can change your mind.”

  Todd, face flustered and red, stepped forward. “Wait just a goddamned minute. He sai
d he didn’t wanna—”

  Preston turned to the colony leader. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten our agreement, Mr. Todd.”

  Todd held her gaze, his face growing redder as he clearly fought with himself. “No,” he said finally. “I haven’t.”

  “Excellent.” Preston nodded toward Andy. “Take Mr. Ingesson down to my laboratory. I think he’ll be very comfortable in the holding facilities I have there.” She turned to address Zed. “Did you know the resonance substance deteriorates after a while?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The communication shards the resonance gifted us with. They stop working after a while, don’t they?”

  The resonance had provided a set of small shards to each species in order to facilitate communication. After two months, the mental signal had weakened to the point where the shards no longer worked reliably. By then, other means of communication were being tested. Visual codes based on mathematics that could be sent back and forth using the existing relay point network. But the crystal shards remained the fastest, clearest and most reliable method of talking with the wholly telepathic aliens. The resonance had agreed to replace the shards every eight weeks, offering fresh ones to be distributed from the Hub.

  Zed gave the barest nod in response to Preston’s observation.

  She tipped her head toward Flick. “That makes Felix here very, very important to my research. His arm is alive and will remain so while it is attached to his body. The perfect source of living resonance substance.” Her warm smile finally vanished, leaving a cold and calculating expression in its wake. “So I’ll be keeping him in that deep, dark hole you suggested until you realize our arrangement is mutually beneficial.”

  * * *

  They took him to a deep dark hole. Led him toward the rear of the settlement and into a fucking cave at the base of the cliff. Felix tried giving Andy a betrayed look. They’d bonded over ‘factor cubes and mechanical failure, hadn’t they? Ignoring him, Andy kept a tight grip on Felix’s right arm. Another colonist held his left just as firmly. Together, they all but dragged him out of the mess, past a yelling Zed. Felix gave only a token struggle. His head hurt. Beyond that, he knew riling up Zed would likely get them both killed. Zed couldn’t possibly Zone again in his condition.