“You mean he’s dead?” Kirk was shocked.
“Possibly. If they manage to seal up the crack promptly enough they might be able to bring him out again, but there are no guarantees.”
Kirk walked on in silence.
As they rounded a corner Lu broke the silence.
“Nice work back there, by the way. I had no idea your species could do that in an offensive way.”
“Most of my species would find it pretty offensive if someone did that to them,” Kirk replied.
“No, what I meant was...”
She never finished the sentence. They rounded the corner to the street that the Shady Boughs Apartment Complex stood on. The courtyard entrance was surrounded by patrol vehicles, and what Kirk guessed were at least two ambulances. They set off running towards the apartments.
In a strange way, there was something comforting in the assembled patrol vehicles and officers milling around the entrance to the apartment complex, all moving with a purpose seemingly only known to themselves. At first, Kirk had no idea why he found this scene comforting, but as he and Lu ran up the street he realized that this was the most normal thing he’d seen since leaving home.
Whilst admittedly, his F.R.B. had done a good job in translating the sights, sounds, smells and even tastes of the alien things he experienced, it was somehow reassuring to see an activity that needed no translation for him to understand, however morbid that scene might be.
This realization took about three strides down the street to filter and be understood before another thought popped into his head with the force of an angry rhino. The scene he was witnessing was outside his new home, and given that he was beginning to realize he was in the middle, and possibly a key part of, something very serious and very big, he was convinced this was no coincidence.
As they approached the first group of patrolmen, Lu turned to Kirk.
“Don’t say a word,” she whispered. “If this has anything to do with you, there could be spies around and I don’t want to be exposed. These are the local guys. Inside there are probably some Securitat agents, but on Sevres Prime, these guys have jurisdiction. Our headquarters are here, but we only work cases here at local invitation.”
Kirk nodded as they slowed to a brisk walk and Lu pulled out her identity badge and flashed it at the nearest officer.
“Special Agent Lu Pillah,” it sounded more like a command than an introduction. “This is my colleague.”
The officer looked at her badge and then eyed Kirk suspiciously. “Where’s his I.D.?”
Kirk opened his mouth then saw the look Lu gave him and remembered her instruction.
“He’s undercover,” Lu replied.
“What about his belt? He doesn’t have the belt.”
Kirk looked at his belt and then noticed for the first time Lu’s belt, which, in addition to containing a clip for her F.R.B., a holster and several other small compartments, had a very distinctive buckle designed with a shield set in the center of a comet.
“He’s deep undercover,” Lu replied.
The patrolman looked suspiciously at Kirk again but failed to allow them past.
Lu let out an annoyed sigh. “How long have you been on the squad?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? I was ordered to keep everyone but authorized personnel out. You can go in, but he stays here.”
“How long?”
The officer looked uncomfortable.
“Six months?”
“Seven!” replied the officer indignantly.
Lu nodded. “That should have been long enough to hear about him.”
“What about him?”
“Surely you’ve heard about the one agent we have. The one special agent? The undercover agent? The special special agent?”
The officer swallowed nervously and studied Kirk more closely.
“I thought... Well, I thought... y’know? That was just a rumor.”
Lu pointed a thumb in Kirk’s direction. “Does he look like a rumor?”
“And he’s...?”
Lu nodded.
The officer began to sweat.
“Probably not a good idea to annoy him. What do you think?”
The officer looked around for some support from his colleagues, but those who were close enough to hear what Lu suggested suddenly found things in need of their immediate attention elsewhere.
“I guess I can let you both through. Assuming that you’re willing to...”
“Take full responsibility?” Lu interrupted.
Before the officer could finish nodding Lu had brushed past him with Kirk following.
Kirk looked back as the young officer sagged then sat down by the side of the road as several of his colleagues rushed in exchanging words. Suddenly all looked over towards Kirk and he was sure the expression on their faces was one of fear.
“What was all that about?” Kirk whispered to Lu.
“I’ll explain later, but for now, we seem to have a problem in your new home.”
She pointed inside the courtyard of the apartment complex as an emergency team wheeled a shrouded body from his front door.
Chapter Twenty
As they made their way through the emergency crews, the local patrol officers and several people that Kirk now recognized as Universal Securitat Agents by the distinctive belt buckles they wore, he felt an increasing sense of dread. Up until this point, for all the incredible events he’d experienced, he’d never felt that he was really in any danger. Even the journey through the space breach had happened with such speed and been so frantic that it wasn’t until they were safely aboard the String freighter that the real idea they could have died really settled in, and by that time he was far too exhausted to worry.
But this was different. To die in an accident was one thing, there was no real planning you could do to avoid an unforeseen event, but knowing that someone was actually trying to kill you was quite another. That someone, somewhere was actively seeking his demise was a thought that made him very uncomfortable and very nervous.
The courtyard seemed to be getting brighter. Looking up, expecting to see the leaves brightening with the arrival of dawn, he was surprised to realize that it was raining warm gentle drops into the courtyard and for a moment all thoughts of death slipped away as he was again lost in the beauty of this planet. Now the raindrops created glistening diamonds of light as they slipped through the tree canopy, reflecting and refracting the silvery glow of the leaves. And as they steadily soaked the courtyard and the apartment complex they puddled, creating pools of light on the ground that shimmered as drops broke their surface, sending spectrums of light reflecting off other glistening surfaces.
“Is this him?”
The growling voice broke his thoughts and he looked to see where the voice had come from.
At first he was frightened because what he thought he saw towering over Lu was Toast. Then he realized this was impossible as it seemed in all likelihood that Toast was, if not dead, probably a shadow of his former self.
The grizzled features were similar, as was the abundance of orange fur, but this alien was obviously wearing a freshly pressed uniform and the identifying belt buckle of the Universal Securitat.
Finally, he realized that Casio was at work here. Toast and this agent must be the same species and his F.R.B. had referenced these two individuals the same way for him. As he looked closer, he could see that there were differences. There were definite patches of graying fur suggesting this new agent was older than Toast was. Or was likely to ever become.
“This is him, sir,” Lu replied as she turned back to Kirk.
“Kirk Deighton, may I introduce Chief Boh Yah Di, head of the Universal Securitat. Chief, this is Kirk Deighton.”
Kirk was not sure if he sho
uld salute or not, and settled on offering his hand to shake.
The Chief looked suspiciously at the proffered hand.
“It’s a greeting on his planet,” Lu said.
The Chief nodded and held out his own hand in a similar manner but did not take Kirk’s.
“You’re supposed to shake it, Chief,” Lu said.
“Ah,” said the Chief, shaking his own hand loosely and looking at Kirk to see if this was acceptable.
Kirk smiled weakly and lowered his hand.
“I think that it would be better to get out of here immediately. I have transport ready. I can debrief you and advise you of the current situation. It seems there are forces intent on your mission failing, Mr. Deighton.”
“What mission?” Kirk asked. “What happened here?”
“All in good time. However, speed seems to be the key factor here and we’re losing valuable time just standing around. Preparations have been made for the next leg of your journey, and it would be very embarrassing if you were killed under the nose of the Chief of the Universal Securitat, no?”
Lu nodded her head to the side slightly, indicating that Kirk should just follow. He did, and Lu, now intently studying the roof of the apartment complex and the surrounding windows looking into the courtyard, followed.
About three hundred yards up one of the huron trees that dwarfed the Shady Boughs apartments, Restive Pro studied the scene below through the targeting scope on her Sniper Particle Rearrangement Rifle. She briefly toyed with the idea of taking her shots now. She had made a mistake, and knew it.
While this put her in no danger and she was not the least bit concerned that she’d killed an innocent man rather than her desired target, she also knew that to take a shot now would be foolhardy. Even with all the local patrol officers and the Securitat agents swarming around the place, she knew she could easily pick off both Lu Pillah and the Pangaean, but doing so would make her escape difficult, maybe even impossible.
There would be another time, and while she was mildly concerned about the way this might affect her reputation, she was more keenly aware that were she to make a foolish choice now, she was unlikely to be able to enjoy her reputation in freedom much longer.
With practiced ease and speed, she packed away her rifle and began the stealthy decent. As she dropped to the bottom, she momentarily wondered about the second shot she had fired. She was sure she had hit both targets, but the younger of the two men at the door had plunged through the doorway and vanished from sight. He was probably dead, but not being certain left an annoying grain of doubt in her mind.
On the opposite side of the apartment complex, sitting on a branch about sixty yards higher than Restive Pro had positioned herself, sat a small figure shrouded in shadows and surrounded by the dimly glowing leaves of the tree’s lower branches. No one was close enough to hear, but from time to time he would stifle a giggle, then in hushed tones he would mutter the same words, over and over, “Invincible. Indestructible. I’ll live forever!”
He’d been there for almost as long as Restive had. He watched as the two burglars entered the second floor apartment and later as they departed, assaulting the apartment owner on their way. He also watched as the two men entered the courtyard and, after a brief study of the doors, settled on the one with the slightly different shade of paint. They had opened the door and the younger one stepped inside, only seconds before his partner was felled by one shot from Restive Pro’s weapon.
He had waited as patiently as Restive had for the young man to come out again, but the man seemed to have some brains because he did not emerge from the open doorway where the now dead body of his colleague lay.
He had waited as patiently as Restive had, as the first residents took a look at what was happening outside their homes, and he watched with mild interest as a small group of residents held an impromptu meeting around the body in the open doorway.
Then the local patrol had arrived, followed by an ever-increasing amount of officers. He was intrigued as to why Restive had shot this person, and even more so by the amount of patrol officers arriving so quickly. However, this was not what really surprised him.
What really surprised the shadowy little figure was the amount of Universal Securitat Agents that were now arriving, and that Chief Boh Yah Di, who he recognized from images he’d seen before, was also there on the scene.
All of this was mildly diverting, but the main focus of his attention was on Restive Pro, and as she packed up, he began to get ready to descend himself.
Once he was sure it was safe to move, he lowered himself from his branch and with one final look down into the courtyard he idly mused about the small wrinkled man in faded orange robes who seemed to be wandering around, unhindered by any of the agents or patrol officers. It didn’t really matter though. His destiny was calling him and he had to follow. He had to follow Restive Pro.
As Chief Boh Yah Di quickly ushered him through the milling throng, Kirk suddenly became aware of two things. The first was that he was suddenly very aware of a great many Universal Securitat agents standing around and watching intently. Each one with a hand just hanging naturally by their side, but on further study was obviously ready at a moment’s notice to draw a weapon and fire on anyone they deemed a threat. In a way it was a comfort to know that should a gun battle break out, the likelihood of anyone, especially himself, being killed, was very slim, but the idea that these people were intently guarding him hammered home that he was in very real danger.
He wasn’t sure if these agents had been there all along, and a combination of excitement and fear simply allowed them to pass unnoticed to this point. Perhaps, he considered, now that he knew how to identify them by the distinctive belt buckle, this was the reason they now seemed so obvious. However, there was also the very real possibility that they knew more than he did about the situation and were amassing their forces to offer him the best protection they could.
The second thing Kirk noticed, as they ducked into a large heavily armored vehicle, was the gaunt-looking young man standing outside his front door. He appeared almost human, but for blue skin and a shock of yellow hair standing off the top of his head. He neither looked like a resident of the apartment complex, nor was he wearing a uniform that corresponded with either the local patrol officers or the emergency medical crew, and there was no belt buckle either. At first he couldn’t work out why this young man stood out and then he realized he’d seen him on Titan. A few moments of concentration reminded him that this was one of the local security officers at the space port, however, as the door closed to the armored Securitat vehicle, he had no time to think about why this man had apparently followed him.
Chapter Twenty-One
As the door closed and the armored Universal Securitat vehicle rose on a gentle cushion of air then shot off down the street, Junior Security Officer, North Rubik, Titan Spaceport Division, ran thin blue fingers through his shock of yellow hair and wondered just what he was doing so far from home.
When he left Titan, along with the assured commanding presence of Chief of Security Skake, there was no doubt in his mind what their mission was or that there was even the remotest possibility of failure.
One of their comrades had gone down. Killed in their very own detention block by a criminal of unimaginable callousness, at least in Rubik’s experience, having only experienced one real noteworthy incident since joining the security team on Titan.
That was a dispute in the Kenturkee Fried Chicken franchise where a customer complained that his meal was the worst he had ever tasted, and the proprietor replied that he knew what he was getting when he ordered, so why expect something edible afterwards?
The whole affair was resolved in a matter of minutes with the indignant customer being appeased by the offer of twenty free meal coupons valid at any Kenturkee Fried Chicken outlet. The thought that perhaps this was
not the best result the complainant could have achieved did occur to Rubik, but then the smell wafting through from the cookers distracted him, and he was tossing a half eaten drumstick in a trash can on the promenade before he realized that both he and the angry customer had obviously fallen under the spell of the secret blend of herbs and spices.
Now he was feeling a similar sensation. As if what he thought he wanted proved to be something very much different and inferior to what he had gotten, but there was no way he could toss this into a trash can. He was stuck, with very little money, over eighty light-years from home and even further to where he actually wanted to be.
As the local patrol officers questioned the local residents of the apartment complex, Rubik looked around and found that the only eyes that made contact with his were those of a wrinkled old man in faded orange robes standing under a tree in the center of the courtyard, intently studying him with a thin, wry smile on his lips.
“Are you the victim’s associate?” The voice was soft and compassionate, and hinted at many years of experience.
As Rubik focused on the location of the voice he found he was looking at a female Universal Securitat agent who was a similar shade of blue, with the same yellow hair but for streaks of grey that betrayed she was obviously older than him.
“Are you...?” he began.
“Same species?” she finished the question for him with a soft warm smile. “No. But I’m not surprised you thought I was. It happens a lot. I’ve seen it myself plenty of times.”
Rubik looked confused.
“It’s your F.R.B.,” she explained softly. “When you experience a traumatic incident as you have, if you’re alone, you want to see something or someone comforting. You want to see your own kind. As your F.R.B. interprets my shape for you, it will try to make it fit what you want. Extreme emotions can effect the nanoprobes like that sometimes.”
Rubik nodded.
“Now why don’t you come over here, sit down on this bench and tell me what happened.”
Dale Mettam Page 14
