by Mallory Kane
“I've known for a while now that someone was trying to kill me. At first, it seemed so ridiculous that I didn't want you to worry about it. The sad thing is, as things kept happening, I was afraid you'd figure it out or read it in my thoughts or something, so I did my best to stay away from you. I'm sorry about that."
Kristen hadn't moved, except to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“I don't have a clue why they're after me, but I'm guessing it has to do with my research. Be careful Sis. I'd tell you to crash the computer and burn the hard drive and the flash drive right this minute, but I know you're too stubborn to do that. So be careful. And use your senses. You'll know who to trust."
She reached out and touched the screen.
"Be careful. I'm going to miss your songs."
"I'm sorry, Doc," he said as the screen went black.
She looked up at him, her eyes wet and bright. "I've been so alone since he died. Until—" She blinked and the tears fell down her face.
Rider was afraid to ask what she meant. The thought twisted his gut and shot pain through his middle, but he couldn't stand not knowing. He had a dreadful notion her answer would change everything.
Her tear-stained face was open, naked, and he read the answer there. Read it, and wanted to lash out against the implications. "Until me? You're the one that's barking, Doc. There's no link between us."
He had to grind out the words from between his teeth, the pain was so bad, because he had the oddest sense that he was lying. He was afraid she was right. Deathly, sickeningly afraid. Afraid because he knew what she meant. He'd felt it too, and not just since he'd made love to her.
From the first moment he'd touched her ankle, there in the street, he'd known. Through the pain, through the sickness, through the most incredible few minutes of his life when he was joined with her, he'd known.
But knowing didn't stop the agony. Knowing didn't kill the hatred that burned within him for Deviants. He tore his gaze from hers. The Deviants had destroyed his life. Hadn't they?
"Rider?"
He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. Sweat trickled down his face.
"Rider? What's wrong?"
He gulped huge breaths of air and forced the strange thoughts out of his head. "Nothing. What do we do now, Doc?" He nodded toward the computer.
"I don't know." She pulled her gaze away from his with an obvious effort, and stared at the screen. "Who was trying to kill him? He never said anything," she said to Rider. "And I never gleaned it from him."
Rider winced at the naked grief in her voice. "How did he die?" he asked, hating that he had to make her recall it.
Kristen shivered, and went somewhere Rider couldn't follow. She sat quietly, lost in a nightmare memory of her own, until he began to worry, but then she spoke, her voice flat and soft.
"He thought he'd found something. He was staying at the lab until all hours of the day and night. He kept telling me how busy he was, wouldn't let me come over, wouldn't see me." She brushed tears out of her eyes and laughed shakily. "I thought he had a girlfriend, although I couldn't figure out why the big secret. I thought maybe she was married or something."
Suddenly Kristen roused herself and slammed her fists down on the table again. "How could I have missed it? How did he shield his mind from me so well? How could I have not known he was afraid for his life? Oh, God, I should have known—" Her voice quit on a sob and she slammed her fists down on the table—again and again.
Rider pulled her up from the chair and held her against him. She lowered her head to his shoulder and kept talking, her voice muffled, her breath hot against his skin. Gentle waves of nausea fluttered across his brain, but he ignored them and cradled her skull in his hand, rocking her gently against his body.
"The lab exploded," she whispered, quivering against him. He could hear her teeth chattering, he could feel the tremors in her arms where she clutched at him. "It all went up in flames. Everybody said it was inevitable. The oldest building on campus. All the chemicals." She swallowed.
"There were four people inside. It was—really bad. A piece of his—foot. It was his shoe—" She stopped, choking, her fists pressed against his chest, her tears wetting his shirt. "The watch I gave him for graduation—it was just a lump of metal, but I could still see part of the engraving."
She lifted her head, and in that moment, Rider would have sworn he was the telepath, so transparent were her thoughts and feelings to him.
"They were nice about it, so solicitous. But the bottom line was there was hardly enough left to bury." The words wrenched from her throat were harsh, bitter.
Rider understood that she needed the bitter anger to keep from breaking. He didn't offer her any sympathy, or platitudes. She didn't want them. He merely continued to rock her against him, like a child.
"I knew when it happened," she went on, doggedly. "I mean the very instant. I was working late at the hospital, dictating charts." Suddenly, she jerked away, as if she couldn't stand to be touched or comforted any more. She sat back down at the computer, toying with the keyboard.
"He just—" she snapped her fingers, "disappeared. Just like that. All his essence, everything that had been inside me all my life, everything Skipper, was gone."
Rider sat perched on the desk watching her, aching with pity for her. She ran her fingers through her hair again, covered her face for a long moment, then wiped her eyes and looked up.
When she did, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What?"
"What?" he echoed, bewildered by her reaction.
"Why are you looking like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you just realized the world was round or something?"
Rider stared at her. What had he been thinking? He stiffened as the subconscious thoughts coalesced in his brain. "The lab exploded," he muttered.
"Yes, what—?" Kristen's face drained of color as her thoughts followed his.
He didn't want to do it, didn't want to show her what his brain had put together while she talked. He didn't want to add to her pain, but he had to. She needed to know. She had to understand just how real, how imminent the threat to her was. "The lab exploded, Doc, just like the clinic. Just like your apartment."
"No!" She clasped her hands on either side of her head, her fingers buried in her hair, as if she could squeeze out the truth if she pressed hard enough. "You’re crazy.”
“Yeah, maybe. Think about it, Doc.”
“I don’t want to—. You think the same people that blew up the lab killed Skip?" she shouted, vaulting out of the chair. "Why? Who's hates us that much?" She stood rigid in the middle of the floor, helpless, wringing her hands, fisting them, wanting to lash out but having nothing to lash out against.
Rider grabbed her hands, stopping her. Her anguish echoed inside him as he absorbed her struggles. He held her relentlessly, taking it, until she wore herself down, then he caught her as she crumpled.
Gathering her in again like a child, his hand cradling her head, he rocked her back and forth while the sobs shook her body like tiny earthquakes. With each sob, an answering aftershock echoed through him, bruising his heart, flooding him with more sensations than he thought anyone could bear in a lifetime, but he endured them, trying to ignore the queasiness. It was nothing compared to her grief.
She began to mumble against his bare chest, her lips brushing the hairs and sending pulses of desire across his skin. "What did he do? He never hurt anybody. Why did they kill him? He was all I had."
He held her so tight he thought she might burst. He hated them, hated himself for being one of them. "I don't know, Doc, I just don't know."
He winced. The physical pain he had endured in the TAINCC had been easier to bear than the pain of knowing he'd caused her anguish. They'd sent him to destroy her, and one way or another, it seemed that's exactly what he was doing. "But I am beginning to wonder the same thing. What did you do to deserve this?"
After a long time, he loosed his grip, touching her tear-
stained face as she pulled away.
It was puffy and red as she studied him closely through narrowed eyes. "You! You hate us that much. Rider, did you—?"
She believed he might have killed her brother. That hurt, but he couldn't blame her. He could have. If that had been his mission, he'd have carried it out without blinking. It was she who made the difference.
"No," he said, looking her in the eye, standing under the weight of her mistrust. "No. This is my first trip to your fair city."
"So who did? Those men who were shooting at us? Those men you said were following us? They came back two years ago and killed my brother?"
"Yeah. And they obviously realized killing him didn't solve the problem. See the theory is if we came back to the past and eliminated the progenitor of the Deviants, they would all disappear."
Kristen shivered. "So if it had been Skip, then everyone in your time who was his descendant would just sort of dissolve?"
"That's the theory."
"That's disgusting!"
"Yeah. But it didn’t happen. So it wasn't your brother."
"Or the theory's wrong."
He gave her an admiring glance. Had they ever thought of that, his brilliant 'employers' from five hundred years away? "That's a possibility, I guess. But it looks like they're not taking any chances. Because they sent me to kill you."
"Why? You've never told me why!"
He shrugged. "Because you're the Mother of all the Deviants." It was getting easier to say the words. It was beginning to sound ridiculous, to think that this lovely, innocent woman with her vulnerable lower lip and multi-colored eyes could possibly be such a heinous criminal.
"Why are they so afraid of me?"
"Because they—. Because it's—" Rider wanted to explain how revolting it was to think someone else could read your mind. He wanted to tell her that the Deviants were violent sociopaths who would stoop to anything, even murder, to gain their ends, but he couldn't. He couldn't explain how much he hated the Deviants when he was beginning to feel something very far from hate for this woman who’d supposedly spawned them.
He spread his hands. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't know why they're so afraid of you." She was just one girl, hardly even a woman yet. She’d been a virgin. That still rocked his foundations.
"But you say the Deviants killed your wife."
He glared at her, trying to stop the churning thoughts in his brain, thoughts that whirled through so fast he couldn't comprehend them, with only an occasional glimpse coalescing.
Mari, her brow creased in concentration as she pulled off the headphones and gazed at him, saying "It's here. They're coming here."The room awash with green light as a blast caught her, throwing her body backwards, away from him.
He clenched his fists, willing the distressing memories to go away.
"Well, did they?"
Rider stared at her, incapable of speech as all the assurance The TAINCC had fed him dissolved, leaving him naked and raw, and horribly confused. The cat turning into a pile of charred flesh on the floor.
"You're not sure, are you?" Kristen persisted.
He growled and held his head between his hands. The heat of the blaster, still burning on her skin.
"Shut up! Just shut up, why can't you?" he shouted. She was right. He wasn't sure. The memories were too convoluted, the images too confusing, like double-exposed film. He couldn't sort them out.
"You can't kill me."
He shook his head, pain ripping through his gut.
"So what happens now?"
Rubbing his face with trembling hands, Rider tried to force himself to think calmly. "I suppose they could think killing you didn't work either. As far as I know, they can't look back here and see what's happening."
"Then who's after us? And how do they keep finding us?" Kristen had wrapped her arms around herself, hugging herself with all her might. He saw tendons standing out in her arms and neck.
He stared at her, thinking about the BeeDee, the blaster. "They can send metal back, and they've perfected the most dangerous explosive ever invented."
"Are you sure they can't watch what you're doing?"
Rider shrugged. No, he wasn't sure at all. He wasn't sure of anything any more. "I'd think they would have told me."
A knock sounded on the front door. Rider jumped, then put one hand on Kristen's shoulder. "Who is that?"
"How should I know?"
He tightened his grip. "Are you sure you didn't tell your friend there on the comlink thing where you are?"
"No. You heard me, didn't you? I told her I wouldn't tell her. I told her to call off the police."
"Then who is this?"
The knock came again, more insistently this time, and a voice called out. "Hello? Electric company. Hello. We need to check some wiring."
Kristen grabbed Rider's arm. "It's the electric company," she whispered desperately.
Rider couldn't figure out what the problem was. He looked at the door, then back at her. "So if we don't answer and stay quiet, they'll go away, right?"
"No, you don't understand." Her fingers were digging into the flesh of his arm. "It's like the little woman said. They never knock, they just read the meter and leave."
"You're not making any sense." He shot her a glance, wondering if she had snapped from the strain. Her eyes were wide as mini-disks, and her voice was quivering.
"I know." She sounded triumphant. "That's the point."
"Doc, sometimes I think you're the one who's barking."
"Hello? Is anyone home? Open up." The knocks sounded more violent.
"I'll try to explain it sometime. Right now we've got to get out of here," she whispered urgently, closing the computer and sticking it inside the belt pack, which she buckled around her waist. "Come on."
"Fine," Rider said, shaking his head. He had no idea what she was talking about, but he could feel the urgency in her when she touched him, and somehow, he was beginning to trust the peculiar feelings he occasionally gleaned from her.
He pushed her through the house and out the back door. "Is there a way out of this jungle?" he muttered, looking at the two-year growth of grass, weeds, and untrimmed flowers and shrubs.
"There used to be a hole in the fence back here," Kristen breathed. "Skip was going to fix it because the neighbor's dog kept getting into his yard and digging up his flowers."
As they pushed their way through the underbrush, crawling under shrubs, Rider heard a crash behind them. He pushed Kristen ahead of him and turned in time to see a man dressed in a blue uniform with a cap that read "Cable Electric" raise a silver weapon.
"Dive!" he shouted, whirled and plunged into the waist high brush as the unmistakable whir of a blaster sounded and a green ribbon of heat whizzed by his head. "Doc!" he whispered. "Stay down. Where are you?"
"Here," she said, very close to him.
He reached through weeds and touched her leg, his hand trembling with relief. "Let's get out of here!"
"Here's the break in the fence." Kristen’s voice was ragged, as if she'd been running. He knew how she felt. He was terrified too.
Another whir and a wisp of smoke beside him told him the man was still shooting. Rider had to admire the guy for not diving into the undergrowth with them. He was smart enough to wait until they gave their position away, then calmly shoot them. Well trained.
Rider lost his hold on Kristen's leg as she slithered under the fence. He knew the shrubbery was undulating above their heads, and he heard her I tear as she pushed under the wire. Good, she was through, he thought as he heard the man moving carefully closer to them.
He cringed, expecting a blaster burn any second, but their pursuer must be holding his fire for a good shot. He found the fence and probed beneath it. He wasn't sure there was enough room for his larger body to crawl underneath. As he pushed against the wire, trying to fold it up, he had a grisly vision of himself caught under it, smoking holes burned into his torso. But at least Kristen was free. He almos
t chuckled at the irony of that thought.
"Rider, hurry!"
Damn. "Run, Doc! Get the hell out of here." Why hadn't she taken off?
Rider pushed his way under the sharp wires. Metal scraped his bare skin and caught on the sweat pants as he forced his body through the tiny opening.
Kristen's hands were under his arms, pulling. "Damn it, Doc, I told you to run!" he grated as fire brushed his ankle and he smelled burning flesh and rubber.
Then, miraculously he was free, and he scrambled to his feet and grabbed her arm. The only trouble was, on the other side of the fence was a lovely, manicured lawn that appeared to stretch for miles with no chance for cover.
Rider dropped to his knees again, pulling Kristen with him, flattening himself against the fence.
"Rider! Come on! He's got a blaster!"
He put his hand over her mouth. "Shut up! Wait!"
Kristen gripped his biceps hard and he let her. He was beginning to understand that she needed to touch him to reassure herself that he was rational, that he had a reason for what he was doing.
Now if only the man was alone. Rider glanced up. The fence was at least eight feet high. He wondered if their pursuer would expose himself by climbing over the top.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rider waited, his breath harsh in his throat. His back stung from scratches and his ankle burned like liquid fire. He closed his eyes, willing himself to be calm, to think coolly, rationally. He searched within for the calm resolve of the TAINCC.
Sure enough, he heard their attacker scrambling under the fence. In the one quick glance he’d had, Rider had seen that the man outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. If so, he'd have a hell of a time crawling through that little hole. And with a little luck—
Rider patted Kristen's hand, then gently removed it from his arm. When she touched him, she distracted him, and he was going to need all his wits and both arms to take care of their attacker.
Without moving, he turned his head toward the hole. A blue-clad arm pushed through the dirt and underbrush—a blue-clad arm clutching a bright silver blaster.
