Friction

by R S Penney

  His boss had moved to the window and now stood in the dim light that came in through the blinds. “Remember what I told you, Mr. Tombs,” she added. “My people are by no means perfect, but without our presence, your planet is easy pickings for nations with less benign motivations.”

  Tombs gritted his teeth, bowing his head as if he didn't want to look at her. “Yes, Director Morane, I remember,” he said with a nod. “That doesn't change the fact that we have an emergency situation on our hands.”

  “No, it doesn't,” she said. “So let's discuss options.”

  The meeting continued with several high-ranking officers debating plans to find this terrorist and bring him in. Wendy Connors, head of the RCMP's anti-terrorism task force, had drafted plans for a sting operation.

  A plump little woman in black pants and a gray blouse, Wendy had blonde hair and thick glasses. “I believe we should focus on the drug you call Amps,” she said from the back of the room. “Have some of our undercover officers in narcotics division make a few discreet inquiries as to where they can buy some. This may flush him out.”

  Jena leaned against the wall with her arms folded, shaking her head. “That won't work,” she replied. “You'll only be putting your people in danger. He's more likely to kill anyone who tries to approach him.”

  Harry, who had been silent until this point, sat in the back in a gray suit and black shirt with the collar unbuttoned. “You said he wants to sow chaos,” he began. “Wouldn't distributing the drug fit with that agenda?”

  “It's unlikely,” Jena said. “Once you start taking Amps, you have to keep taking it or face serious health problems. The drug isn't something you can manufacture in the back of a trailer. You'd need access to a sophisticated laboratory in addition to all of the research on the subject.”

  “In other words,” Wendy added, “he's not willing to part with the drug for fear of running out. If he's so reluctant to share, what convinced him to make an exception in the case of Ricky Sykes?”

  Jack felt an immediate pang of irritation at the realization that he should have been asking the same question. Was there something about Ricky that made him a useful agent of chaos? He filed that away for further consideration.

  Peter Tombs wore a scowl that could crack stone. He sat hunched over and stroking his jaw with the tips of his fingers. “We need to do something,” he muttered. “Can you suggest an alternative to Superintendent Connor's plan?”

  Leaning against the wall, Jena bowed her head and sighed. “This man wants attention,” she began. “He's going to come to us, and we need to be ready when he shows up. I'm reviewing the security measures for hospitals, schools and all of the other locations he mentioned in his message. I plan to bolster them with Keeper support.”

  “That hardly seems proactive,” Tombs replied.

  She looked up at him with determination on her face, squinting when she made eye contact. “I've also got my best people going over every last centimetre of the crime scene,” she said, “searching for any clue as to where this man's been and where he might go next.”

  Tombs shifted his attention back to Jack. “And you?” he asked with a thin, raised eyebrow. “Do you also believe that improved security is the best we can do in light of this threat?”

  Jack wrinkled his nose, shaking his head in dismay. “I'm not the best person to ask,” he answered. “But I can tell you this. No one in this room understands the situation better than Director Morane.”

  He was new at this, but Jack suspected the other man's question had been designed to test Keeper solidarity. Politicians, he noticed, often fell victim to what he called 'The Busy Hands Fallacy.' When a crisis happened, they had to do something. It didn't matter what, so long as they did something.

  Of course, more often than not, it was the wrong thing. Terrorism had a way of bringing out the reactionary side in otherwise rational people. He was beginning to think that Tombs was no exception to this rule.

  The man wore a frown as he lowered his eyes to stare into his lap. By the look of concentration on his face, it was clear that he was weighing the pros and cons. “We'll go forward with both plans,” he said at last. “Ms. Connors, have your undercover officers make discreet inquiries as to where they can purchase Amps.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As for the rest, we'll double our security measures. Director Morane, if you can have some of your Justice Keepers assist our people, it will be greatly appreciated.”

  With that, the meeting came to an end.

  The afternoon sun felt warm despite the presence of fluffy clouds in the sky. Even though autumn was only weeks away, it shone down on the little strip mall with a ferocity like that of midsummer.

  The downtown branch of Capitol Credit Union was roped off with yellow police tape, and several uniformed officers stood in the lot. One had a relaxed pose, standing with hands on hips and chewing gum as he stared into the distance.

  Jack couldn't really blame him. These cops weren't here to investigate; their only function was to keep the average bystander away. He wondered about the employees of Capitol Credit. What must they be thinking with their branch closed for an investigation that involved both federal agents and Justice Keepers?

  Jack got out of his car.

  He still wore the black pants, gray V-necked shirt and jacket that he had worn to the meeting. Keepers had a great deal of latitude in the clothing they chose – at least by Earth standards – but there were times when one had to dress to impress. Sadly, in this weather, it made him more aware of the heat.

  Jack winced, sweat matting dark hair to his brow. “Just wonderful,” he said. “You couldn't have given me mild weather with a nice cool breeze? That was too much to ask?”

  As he drew near, two of the uniformed officers turned to face him. “Agent Hunter,” one said, looking him up and down. “Miss Layson was just saying she wanted a moment to talk to you.”

  “That so?” Jack asked. “Mind getting her for me?”

  They let him duck under the police tape and left him to wait for several minutes while one officer stalked off to find the head of the forensics team. She came flitting out of the building maybe two minutes later.

  Ali Layson was a petite woman in a denim skirt and white sleeveless blouse. Her copper-skinned face was framed by short auburn hair, and the glasses she wore almost made her look cute. “Agent Hunter,” she said.

  Lifting his chin, Jack held her gaze for a brief moment. “Miss Layson,” he said with a curt nod. “Please tell me you've found something that might point us in the right direction.”

  Ali frowned, shaking her head. She reached up to brush hair out of her face. “I'm afraid not,” she replied. “Not much has changed since my report to you last evening. The nanobots our perpetrator used match a model of multi-tool that was discontinued nearly eight years ago.”

  “DNA?”

  “Scanners have found skin flakes on the floor, hair follicles and the odd eyelash. We've identified the DNA of twenty-three separate individuals, but most cannot be matched to anyone in particular. Your people have not created extensive genetic records.”

  He folded his arms, frowning down at himself. “What do you expect?” he said with a shrug. “We've only had access to scanning technology for three years, and most people are uncomfortable with the thought of putting their DNA on record.”

  Ali's mouth twisted as she studied him through the lenses of her glasses. On Leyria, samples of genetic material were taken from every infant at birth. Obviously she couldn't understand why Earth wouldn't adopt the same practice. “As you say,” she replied at last. “If you'll follow me.”

  Ali turned around and made her way back to the building's front entrance like a humming bird darting from flower to flower. “My people have scanned nearly every last inch of the foyer,” she explained. “As of yet, we have found nothing to identify the man who committed the attack.”

  Once inside, Jack found himself in a well-lit lobby with a line of t
eller stations on his left and a reception desk on his right. The small offices along the back wall no doubt belonged to the loan officers.

  “Mind if I scan the lock?”

  Ali froze in midstep.

  Glancing back over her shoulder, she watched him with an expression so sour, you might have thought she'd swallowed a fly. “For what purpose?” she inquired. “I promise you my people have been quite thorough.”

  “Humour me, Ali.”

  It wasn't that he didn't trust the forensics team to do their jobs; he just felt the need to verify things with his own eyes. For months now, he had been living with the sinking suspicion that his superiors were hiding things from him. Breslan's reluctance to go after Petrov was just one of many things that didn't add up for him.

  She led him back to the front entrance where a pair of forensic technicians who had been scanning the floor for genetic material leaped out of the way. One shot a glance over his shoulder to scowl at Jack. Apparently some people didn't like to be interrupted. Well, to be honest, Jack was one of those people.

  He found the lock in the thick metal door.

  Rolling up his jacket sleeve, he exposed the gauntlet on his left forearm. “Multi-tool active,” Jack barked. “Commence level three scan, listing all anomalies biological and technological.”

  The little metal disk on his gauntlet spat out a laser beam that swept over the lock in a slow, gentle caress, almost like a bar-code scanner. After several passes, the laser went out and his tool let out a beep.

  When he checked the screen, he found the wire-frame outline of a small device that looked almost like a beetle. No doubt about it. That was a nanobot. Not much bigger than a grain of sand, it would be almost undetectable to the human eye.

  His tool detected five of them in the keyhole. Sometimes nanobots broke off of the objects they fabricated. The average multi-tool contained thousands, and they could be easily replaced.

  His readouts confirmed what Ali had told him. This nanobot was property of an XJ-11, a multi-tool that had been discontinued over seven years ago. So that meant their perpetrator was likely scrounging for technology.

  Ali watched him with a grimace, squinting behind the lenses of her glasses. “I take it you're satisfied,” she said. “Perhaps now you will accept my reports at face value and not waste my time with redundant scans.”

  Jack grinned, his cheeks suddenly very warm. He pressed a hand to his forehead, then raked fingers through his hair. “Yes, I've learned my lesson,” he assured her. “What else do we know about-”

  Her multi-tool chirped.

  Lifting her forearm, Ali frowned at the readout. “Well, isn't that interesting,” she said, her eyebrows climbing. “It seems that one of my lab technicians has discovered an anomaly in the DNA samples.”

  She tapped away at the tool's display screen without giving him a chance to ask her to clarify. Seconds later, Ali let her arm drop, and a holographic projection wavered into existence right next to her.

  The image was of a young man with fair skin and dark hair. The fact that Jack could only see him from the chest up suggested that he was sitting. “Ali,” he said with surprise in his voice. “You got my report?”

  Ali pressed her lips together, nodding slowly in response. “I did,” she said, turning to face the image with arms folded. “Perhaps you should share your findings with Agent Hunter. I think he would rather hear it from you.”

  The young man pressed a fist to his mouth, clearing his throat as he wheeled back from his desk. “On a hunch, I checked the samples against Human Genome Archives,” he explained. “Some of the skin flakes belong to a man who is descended from a Ragnosian Colony in the Alak system.”

  Jack looked up to study the hologram. He blinked slowly, confused by what he had heard. “Our perp is Ragnosian?” he sputtered. “How is that possible? They're literally on the other side of the galaxy.”

  “Not necessarily,” the young lab tech interjected. “Our perpetrator has Ragnosian ancestors, but for all we know, he was born on this side of the galaxy. Nevertheless, the sample stands out.”

  “You are quite correct, Agent Hunter,” Ali added. Her tone and expression said that this was all some puzzle she couldn't wait to solve. How could a man from the other side of the galaxy have come here. “It should be impossible. We only know of the Ragnosians through contact via the SlipGate network.

  “We know that they are human by genetic records they have reluctantly shared with us. They insisted that we do the same, of course. It would take our fastest ships eighteen months to reach the borders of their space, and from what we know, their technology is comparable to our own. A starship would run out of provisions long before it reached its destination with no guarantee of finding a suitable world to replenish its food and water supplies. This was the primary reason no one has ever made the attempt.”

  Jack frowned and lowered his eyes to the floor. “But if they've found a new method of travel…” he said, his brow furrowing. “Regardless of how the man came here, the fact that he is here means we have a new threat.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Thanks for bringing this to my attention,” Jack said. “Forward this data to Director Morane. I think we have a new problem.”

  He could already see the potential implications. There were many possible ways a Ragnosian might have come here. Perhaps they had discovered a new technology that would allow them to cross vast interstellar distances, or perhaps a Ragnosian fleet had been slowly making its way across the galaxy for over a year now. They may be looking at an invasion force.

  Or perhaps… Perhaps there was another player.

  Jack stood inside the elevator to his apartment building, still dressed in the same clothes that he had worn to the meeting. Every now and then, he did like to clean up nice, but he had been stuck in these clothes all day, and they were growing uncomfortable.

  With his mouth agape, Jack looked up at the ceiling. He blinked slowly, as if in a daze. “Oy, my head is killing me,” he muttered. “Summer, does it hurt you just as badly when I get a migraine?”

  She answered in the affirmative.

  “Well, I'm sorry.”

  Lifting his forearm, he rolled back his sleeve to expose the multi-tool on his gauntlet. A tap at the little icon that was shaped like a phone brought up his call logs, and he dialed Marie's number.

  Half a moment later, the screen lit up with Marie's smiling face as she stared into the camera. “Hi, you've reached Marie,” she said sweetly. “I can't answer right now; so leave me a message.”

  The screen told him to begin recording.

  Jack pasted a big, fake smile on his face. “Hi there. It's me.” He let his head hang, rubbing his brow with the back of his hand. “I guess you know that. Anyway, call me back when you're able.”

  The screen went dark. Three days without a word from her, and he was beginning to suspect that she wasn't interested in a second date. That was somewhat confusing since she had essentially asked to have sex with him. Or maybe he had been wrong to assume that coffee meant sex?

  Gah! Why did it always have to be so frustrating? He often told Ben that he had no time for dating, and this was why he clung to that excuse. With a terrorist on the loose, he had no right to fret about his personal life.

  The elevator doors opened.

  Once outside, he found himself in a dimly-lit hallway with green carpets and white walls with ornate rectangular patterns. It reminded him of some of those classy Chicago buildings you saw in 50s cinema.

  Jack marched down the hall with arms folded, head hanging in shame. “Well,” he said with a shrug. “There's yet another romantic prospect that I've screwed up in record time. I should get a medal.”

  His door was on the wall to his right.

  Jiggling the key a few times, he managed to get it open and watched as the lights came on, illuminating his small kitchen and the dining room beyond. Spock was waiting in the hallway that led to the bedrooms, but the feline slowly turned aro
und and waddled away with his tail in the air.

  Maybe that was for the best. If he started relying on Spock for comfort every time his love life went badly, he would turn into a crazy cat dude. You know what that means, Summer. You're gonna have to pick up the slack.

  She reacted with amusement.

  His living room had carpeted floors and a green couch that faced a television. A door on the far wall led out to the balcony. He'd left it open just a crack so Spock could have some fresh air.

  Jack dropped onto the couch.

  Scrunching his eyes tight, he turned his face up to the ceiling. “What am I doing?” he wondered aloud. “I'm twenty-two. Shouldn't I have things figured out by now?”

  Well, no… But it felt good to bitch. “Multi-tool active,” he said. “What time is it on Alios, Jakara time zone?”

  “O-eight-hundred,” the tool replied.

  “What time of day is that?” A day on Leyria – and just about every other Earth-like planet for that matter – was still twenty-four hours long, but their calendar worked a little differently. 0:00 was at dawn. So everything was offset by five or six hours, and he had never gotten used to that.

  “Mid-afternoon,” the tool answered.

  “Call Anna Lenai.”

  It took a moment for the tool to make a connection, a moment in which he watched the word “calling” flash on the screen in bright blue letters. SlipGates could forward his call to any other Gate in the network through a microscopic wormhole.

  The screen lit up with an image of a wooden chair in front of Anna's desk. Then she slowly leaned in from the left, grinning her impish grin. “You've reached Anna Lenai,” she said. “I can't talk right now, but leave a message.”

  He killed the call.

  Jack shut his eyes, a single tear rolling over his cheek. He shook his head with a shuddering breath. “Where are you?” he asked. “Things are going to hell down here, and I need you, An.”