by R S Penney
“You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?” Jena purred.
With two hands, Jena undid the clasp that held her cloak in place and shrugged out of it one shoulder at a time. The garment fell to the floor behind her. Before Melissa could so much as blink, she was moving forward, closing the distance in seconds.
The woman kicked high.
Melissa ducked and felt a boot pass over her head. She popped up in time to see a fist clip her cheek in a back-hand strike. Everything went fuzzy for half a moment. Half a moment too long.
A foot landed in Melissa's stomach.
She stumbled backward, doubling over and clutching her belly with both hands So much pain! This wasn't like fighting Brinton. As her vision cleared, she saw Jena running toward her.
Melissa jumped, back-flipping through the air, allowing the other woman to run past underneath. She turned upright and landed on the hard floor tiles, trying desperately to catch her breath.
Jena came up behind her.
An arm slipped around Melissa's throat, forearm applying pressure to her trachea. “Pitiful. It seems my all my lessons were wasted on you.” Jena whispered in her ear. And then the woman gave a shove that sent Melissa stumbling toward Jack.
He moved past her.
As he closed in for the kill, Jack found his former boss standing there with her fists up, an arrogant smile on her face. Beating up a half-trained cadet? That was low even for one of Slade's lackeys.
Jack didn't hesitate.
He threw a punch, but Jena leaned back, one hand coming up to deflect the blow with casual disregard. Her other fist came at him.
Jack's left hand shot up, clamping onto her wrist before her knuckles could touch his nose. He used his right to deliver an uppercut to the stomach that made Jena wheeze as the air fled her lungs.
The woman pulled free of his grip.
She spun for a hook-kick one foot wheeling around in a tight horizontal circle. By instinct alone, Jack leaned back in time to watch a black leather boot pass within inches of his nose.
Jena came out of her spin, facing him.
She leaped and flew right over his head, kicking the back of his skull as she passed. Dizziness washed over him like a wave as he went sprawling face-first toward the brick wall, and he barely caught himself in time. Melissa…
Melissa recovered in time to watch Jena jump over Jack's head and kick him. The other woman landed on the floor tiles as Jack went stumbling toward the wall. So much for two against one…Terror filled her mind as she watched the woman she had grown to love move toward her on nimble feet and close the distance within seconds.
Jena spun and back-kicked.
Melissa hunched over, catching the woman's ankle in both hands before she made contact. The woman jumped, turning her body like a corkscrew, her other foot coming up to strike the side of Melissa's head.
Vertigo! Terrible vertigo!
Melissa stumbled backward.
As her vision cleared, she saw Jena striding toward her with a murderous grin on her face. How could you do this? she wondered as her opponent drew near. We trusted you! We believed in you!
A pair of jabs to the chest drove the air from Melissa's lungs, and then five fingers were seizing a handful of her hair, yanking her head down. Jena's knee came up to hit her face, and everything went dark.
She landed on all fours, groaning as she struggled to clear her head. Jesus Christ, the woman could hit hard! Through contact with Ilia, Melissa was able to sense the other woman walking away.
She seemed to be heading toward a door in the back of the room, one that led out to the field behind the Student Centre. Melissa didn't know what to make of the fact that her former mentor hadn't bothered to finish her off. Was there some spec of mercy left in the other woman? Or was it that Melissa was too unimportant to bother with? An obstacle to be removed and then promptly forgotten.
Jack ran to her side.
He dropped to his knees in front of her, gently cupping her chin in both hands, and then his face filled her vision. He seemed to be staring into her eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” Melissa groaned. “We have to go after her.”
“You're not going anywhere.” He stood up with a sigh. “Except to a med-centre! You're in no condition to fight that woman.”
“But…”
“No buts,” Jack insisted. “I'll handle her. By this point, campus security will have been alerted, and we have cops on the way.”
Revealing herself had not been part of the plan. The Inzari had been quite specific in their instructions; she was to stir up chaos and add to the climate of distrust they were fostering on this planet, but her identity was to remain a secret. Leave it to Jack Hunter to throw a well-crafted plan right out the window.
Still, Isara couldn't say she was unhappy with the result. Now that she was finally free of the lie that was Jena Morane, she would no longer be consigned to those dreadful hoods and masks. For over a hundred years, her face had brought fear to those who saw it and to become the symbol that these idiots rallied around was simply galling.
She stepped through a door and found herself on a concrete path that ran through a field to the nearby arts building, but that wasn't what got her attention. Three egg-shaped drones floated in front of her, each one with a nozzle on its front side and a horizontal slit that glowed with blue light.
Beneath them were three officers in the black pants and white shirts of the campus security squad. Two men – one dark, the other pale – and a woman with red hair that she wore in a long braid. It was pathetic, really. These people weren't even allowed to carry firearms. What could they do against her?
“Stay where you are,” the woman said.
Isara smiled, bowing her head to them. “Or what?” she asked in a voice as smooth as the finest silk. “I just threw around two Justice Keepers like a pair of rag dolls. Do you really think your toys frighten me?”
The drones floated higher, pointing their weapons at her.
At the last second, Isara raised a hand to shield herself and created a Bending that refracted the light until it seemed as though she wasn't staring at three people but rather at a swirling whirlpool of black and white and green and blue.
Stun-rounds hit the patch of warped space-time, curved away from her and flew off to hit the two men. She let the Bending drop to find them collapsing to the ground while the woman backed away.
The drones floated further upward and split apart so that one was on her left, one was on her right and the third was dead ahead. From multiple angles, they pointed their weapons at her.
Isara ran forward.
Without even thinking, she erected a Time Bubble in the shape of a long tube that ran along the pathway. Just ten feet long – not even half the distance between her and the frightened redhead – but it was enough to let her evade incoming fire. When she reached the end of the tube, she let it vanish.
Charged bullets hit the ground behind her.
Isara leaped, using a surge of Bent Gravity to propel herself forward. Her skin was burning from the strain she had put on her symbiont, but a warrior learned to ignore pain. She flew right over the uniformed woman's head.
Isara landed behind her.
She whirled around to find the redhead backing up toward her. Isara grabbed the woman's shirt with one hand and clamped the other onto the woman's throat. “No sudden movements, dear,” she cautioned. “We wouldn't want to make a mess.”
The three egg-shaped drones had turned around to point their weapons at her, but none fired. Their software was sophisticated; they wouldn't fire when there was a good chance of hitting someone in a friendly uniform.
“We're just gonna move nice and slowly to the subway terminal,” Isara said. “No need to make a fuss”
The security officer squirmed in her grip.
Gritting her teeth with a hiss, Isara brought her lips to the other woman's ear. “I said there was no need to
make a fuss,” she growled. “Good children obey their elders. Nasty children, however…”
She squeezed the girl's throat.
The drones moved a few inches closer, but they didn't fire. They just floated above the path and waited for their opportunity. Not that she had any intention of providing one. This was getting tiresome.
Tilting her head back, Isara narrowed her eyes. “Multi-tool active!” she called out in a gruff voice. “Execute Program 3.”
The Student Centre was a box-like, yellow-bricked building with windows on the first floor that looked into the cafeteria. She had watched Melissa for half an hour before choosing this place as the venue for her attack.
A Death Sphere that she had left on the rooftop suddenly floated over the edge and reoriented itself to point its lens at the three floating drones. Recognizing the new threat, those egg-shaped robots turned around to face her sphere.
They fired stun-rounds, but the Death Sphere didn't even bother to move. Bullets hit the sphere's surface at too low a velocity to do any real damage, and the charge they carried was too weak.
The sphere's lens began to glow with orange light, and then it spat a bright orange particle beam that it swept through the air in a horizontal arc. The beam cut through the security drones one by one, leaving chunks of metal that fell to the ground.
“Follow,” Isara ordered.
Her multi-tool chirped its confirmation.
She dragged the redheaded security guard up the path while the Death Sphere floated just a few paces behind them. Not far ahead, the path forked with one branch running straight toward the arts building and another heading off to her right, toward the edge of the campus.
It wasn't very long before she found herself on a gently-sloping hillside, and at the bottom, a narrow street that bordered the university was packed with black police cars, each with flashing yellow lights.
Officers in gray uniforms were taking refuge on the other side of the line of cars, over two dozen people, all pointing guns at her. There were drones as well. Six of them floating above the cars. “Director Morane,” said a man with dark hair. “You're ordered to stand down.”
The name sickened her.
Isara shut her eyes, trying to calm herself. “Really now, Sargent?” she said, pulling the frightened security officer hard against her own body. “Do you expect me to believe that you're going to fire when I have this lovely young lady with me?”
Gripping the girl's chin in one hand, Isara squeezed until she heard the sweet snap of breaking bones. The redhead whimpered, and tears streamed over her face. “Now step aside,” Isara ordered. “Or she dies.”
At that moment, she sensed movement behind her. The silhouette of Jack Hunter came up the path, stopping a few feet away and lifting the pistol she had discarded in his hands. “Jena…” he called out. “Stand down.”
“We have you surrounded,” the lead cop said. “Be reasonable, Director Morane. You're not walking out of this-”
“Let me pass!” Isara screamed. “Or I kill the girl.”
Scrunching up his face with a groan, the cop shook his head. “I don't think so,” he replied. “The girl is your only bargaining chip, and you know it. You're not going to kill her just to prove a-”
Clamping one hand onto the girl's chin and the other onto the side of her head, Isara gave a quick twist and snapped the young woman's neck. The body slumped against her, and she let it fall to the ground.
The lead cop gasped. “Take her!”
“Program 3!” Isara bellowed.
The Death Sphere floated off to her left, pointing its lens at the cop cars. Before it could fire, EMP rounds from Jack's gun struck its body in a flash of sparks. The sphere fell to the ground, landing in the soft grass and exploded.
Isara barely noticed.
Fifteen police officers began firing stun-rounds at her. Thrusting her hand out, she crafted a Bending that stretched the image of those cars into a streak of black that seemed to curve around her. Her Bending was in the shape of a dome, causing incoming bullets to flow around her on either side and hopefully cause Jack some trouble. Her skin was on fire, but she tried to hold on.
A moment later, the Bending vanished. She was still concentrating on maintaining it, but her symbiont was too exhausted to continue…And so was she. Isara dropped to her knees, panting from the exertion.
One stun-round hit her and then another, sending jolts of current through her. As consciousness fled, her last thought was a silent prayer that no other slugs hit her. Too many in quick succession could kill, and if she died here, the Inzari would be unable to restore her.
She passed out right there on the path.
Chapter 17
Jena was alive.
That was the gist of a report that had shown up in Anna's inbox just over half an hour ago. Oh, there were some details about an attack on the university, and about the police bringing her in along with a suspect in the vertical farm bombing. But you could hardly expect Anna to focus on those details in light of the fact that Jena was alive. Alive and evil, it would seem.
Anna strode through a corridor with her arms swinging wildly, shaking her head with a growl. “Just what I need,” she muttered. “One more way for this world to kick me in the gut.”
The silhouette of Ben came jogging up behind her, huffing and puffing with every breath. In seconds, the man was falling in beside her. “Is it true?” he asked. “Is she really still alive?”
“It's true.”
Ben stared into the distance with his mouth agape, sweat glistening on his brow. “But we found her remains,” he mumbled in disbelief. “The science teams confirmed it! How can she be alive?”
Glancing over her shoulder, Anna squinted at him. “What makes you think I have the answer to that question?” she snapped. Bleakness take her, the rage was like a fire in her chest. “I just found out myself!”
She squeezed her eyes shut, then gave her head a shake. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” It was hard to keep her tone civil. “I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed, and this on top of everything else…”
Of all things, Ben hugged her.
Anna slipped her arms around him and buried her nose in the side of his neck. “Oh, thank you,” she whispered. “I really am sorry.”
“Don't worry about it.”
At the end of the hallway, double doors split apart to reveal a room with black floor tiles and blue walls. Hospital beds were positioned at even intervals, each one with three or four screens that could monitor a patient's vital signs.
Only one of those beds was occupied.
Larani stood just inside the door with hands shoved into the pockets of her black pants, her hair pulled back in a dark bun. “Agent Lenai,” she said with a curt nod. “I'm glad you came so quickly.”
Dressed in gray pants and a blue t-shirt with a white collar, Jack stood over one bed with his arms folded, his short brown hair in a state of disarray. Anna's first instinct was to say something comforting, but…Given the situation between them, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
Her eyes fell on the bed.
A woman in black pants and a sleeveless t-shirt was stretched out there: a woman with boyishly-short pixie hair. Her eyes were closed, her face serene. Jena. It was really Jena. Until now, some part of her had been holding out hope…
Covering his mouth with one hand, Ben shut his eyes. “Sweet Mercy,” he rasped, letting his arm drop as he stepped forward. “How did she survive…Does that mean Slade is alive too?”
Jack looked over his shoulder with blue eyes that seemed to blaze. “Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing,” he muttered. “No one really saw what happened in that room. For all we know, they left some organic material behind, set off a bomb and then took off together.”
It was a fair question. At the moment of Jena's death, Anna had been recovering her strength with Ben, in a room littered with the bodies of soldiers who had rallied to Slade's call. All of them had suffocated when the Over
seer sucked the air out of a narrow tunnel that connected the chamber she and Ben had taken refuge in with the main corridor.
Anna crossed her arms with a sigh, shaking her head. “Melissa might know,” she said, stepping forward. “She Bonded Jena's symbiont. If the Nassai knew anything about what Jena was planning…”
“Where is Melissa?” Ben inquired.
Fists clenched at her sides, Larani turned her head to stare at the wall. “The girl was beat up pretty bad,” she murmured. “We've got her recovering in Med-Lab 2. I don't want her here if that…woman wakes up.”
Dr. Sarela came around the corner. A short woman with olive skin and dark brown hair that she wore in a braided ponytail, she took a moment to survey each of them and then let out a sigh. “Director Morane's vitals are stable,” she said. “A few stun-rounds are nothing to laugh at, but her symbiont seems to be healing the damage. I think it would be prudent to subdue her.”
Jack nodded.
He lifted a thin metal band from the table next to Jena's bed and snapped it around her neck with a click. A slaver's collar? Anna felt her stomach turn at the sight of such a thing, but then there really wasn't much else you could do to keep a Justice Keeper under control. At least this way, Jena wouldn't be able to go on another killing spree.
Anna felt her knees weaken at the thought, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Seth groaned in sadness. This was the woman who had advised her, who had guided her. Anna knew it was only practical advice, but she couldn't help but relive some of those old arguments where Jena had insisted that she learn to make “the hard choices.”
And then her confrontation with Slade on Station One…
The man had stood there in front of the SlipGate with a mocking grin, insisting that she lacked the stomach to do what was necessary. At the time, his words seemed to be a twisted echo of Jena's advice, but now…Was it possible? Had Jena been grooming her to take her place as one of Slade's agents?
