Justice Keepers Saga--Books 10-12, page 34
The door opened just a crack, and Melissa poked her head into the room. When she saw that Jack was asleep, she came in. “They've got Cassi in lockup,” she whispered. “They wouldn't let me talk to her.”
Anna nodded.
“Is he?”
“He's sedated.”
Anna stood up, and Melissa came over to give her a hug. She found herself sobbing into the girl's chest, her tears leaving a wet spot on Melissa's blue shirt. “I'm sorry,” Anna whispered. “I'm so sorry.”
“None of this is your fault,” Melissa replied.
Backing away from her, Anna sniffled and wiped a tear off her cheek. “Yes, it is,” she insisted. “I knew what Slade was capable of. I should have seen it coming! I should have…”
The young woman watched her with a flat expression. Anna recognized that look; it was the one Harry gave you when he was about to tell you that you were being an idiot. “None of us saw this coming,” Melissa said softly. “Not me, not Rajel, not Keli.”
“And that's the problem,” Anna hissed. “He's always one step ahead.”
Melissa scowled as she took in the sight of Jack lying there. “Do they know what Slade did to him?”
“Not yet,” Anna muttered. “They put him through all kinds of imaging scanners, but so far, they haven't been able to determine what it is.”
“We'll find out,” Melissa promised. “And we'll fix it.”
Anna wished that she could be so certain. It was pretty clear that Slade was able to inflict pain on Jack with the N'Jal. That probably meant that the injection had contained some kind of Overseer technology. She wasn't sure if even the most cutting edge medical science could contend with that. She was halfway through the process of explaining her fears when Melissa's eyes lit up.
The girl smiled, shaking her head. “Overseer tech!” she shouted and then clamped her mouth shut when she realized that she was being too loud. “Don't you see? We have the solution! If it's Overseer tech, my dad can get it out of him!”
Anna leaned against the wall with arms folded, frowning down at herself. “I know you mean well,” she began cautiously. “But I'm not sure I want to take that risk. It didn't go so well for your sister.”
“That was an accident.”
“I know,” Anna said. “But Harry's not a brain surgeon. And that's assuming that the problem is in Jack's brain. We don't know. He could make things worse.”
Sighing, Melissa put one hand on her hip and held Anna's gaze for a very long while. “Why can't you just trust my dad?”
“Because I don't like the choices he's been making lately,” Anna snapped. “And it's not just the N'Jal. It's everything he's done in the last year. Yesterday, I got a report from Denabria saying that your father is now running some kind of cult.”
She fell into the chair again, tilting her head back and blinking at the ceiling. “And I know we've been here before,” Anna went on. “We should have trusted Ben; we didn't, and he paid for it. The similarity is not lost on me.”
“But…”
“But we don't know how a N'Jal works,” Anna said. “What's that story you guys like so much? The one with the hobbits? I seem to remember that a key plot point is that the Ring has a corrupting influence on anyone who uses it.”
Melissa stood by Jack's bed with a hand over her mouth, watching him sleep. “You think that the N'Jal is corrupting my father?” The girl spoke in a cool, serene voice. Despite that, it was pretty clear that she was not happy with the direction that this conversation was going in. Anna had no desire to pick a fight, but she was too damn tired to be diplomatic.
“The point is that we don't know,” Anna said. “It's Overseer tech. For all we know, they can use it to subtly influence his mind.”
A knock at the door interrupted them, and then Dr. Venaray stepped into the room. He was a short and slim man in his early forties, a handsome guy with tanned skin and wings of gray in his dark hair. “Come take a look at this.”
When she followed him out into the hallway, he handed her a tablet displaying a representation of Jack's nervous system. There were little red dots all over the place. Anna had no idea what she was looking at. “Does this mean you found the problem?”
“It's a virus,” the doctor murmured. “Or at least it behaves like one, using Jack's cells to replicate. When it's dormant, it binds itself to the sensory and autonomic ganglia of the nervous system. We suspect that it's activated by the telepathic signal your friend detected earlier.”
“So, how do we stop it?”
“I'm not sure,” Dr. Venaray answered. “There are various anti-viral agents that we could try. We might be able to devise a treatment that separates the viral DNA from Jack's cells – similar methods have worked against truisia and the HIV infection on Earth – but I've never seen genetic engineering like this. If this is Overseer technology, it may adapt to any treatment we try.”
Anna exhaled, falling against the door-frame. “Okay,” she whispered. “So what are the risk factors?”
The doctor's frown did not exactly fill her with confidence. “We won't know until we gather more data,” he said. “But there may be another option.”
“I'm listening.”
“Well, to be blunt, We do nothing.” Anna opened her mouth to say something, but the doctor raised his hands defensively before she could get a word out. “Jack's immune system is producing antibodies at an accelerated rate. We suspect that his Nassai is trying to fight the infection.”
“Can she do that?”
“We don't know,” Dr. Venaray said. “But the safest course of action might be to let her try.”
“Well…” Anna mumbled. “That's something.”
The only window in this little cargo hauler looked out on Alios: a beautiful gem of a world with continents covered in lush, green vegetation, perfect, sapphire-blue oceans and swirling clouds dancing over it all. Isara saw her faint reflection in the reinforced glass. A shadow staring back at her.
“He's asleep,” Slade growled.
Isara felt her mouth tighten, then shut her eyes and nodded slowly. A shame. Hunter might have been a valuable ally, but now that was impossible. “Don't you have anything better to do?”
There was a time to be vicious, but endlessly tormenting an enemy who had been so thoroughly defeated was just crass. It spoke to an inner cowardice, a fragility that she found repugnant. Victory alone wasn't enough for Slade; no, he had to constantly remind his enemies of their defeat. Anyone who truly believed themself superior would not feel the need to indulge in such vanity.
With proper motivation, Jack Hunter might have been brought into the fold. The virus could have been used toward that end. But with Slade, it was just a sledgehammer to bolster his ego.
She turned around.
Slade was sprawled out in the cushioned seat that served for a captain's chair, his booted foot propped up on the arm, and his lazy smile made her want to stab him. “That boy has given me no end of grief,” he spat. “I will make him suffer for every slight.”
“Pathetic.”
With a heavy sigh, Slade got up and strode toward her, his eyes fixed upon her with violent intent. “You should rethink your tone, Isara.” He lifted his right hand to display the N'Jal on his palm. “Or I may have to teach you a lesson.”
Pressing her lips together, she looked up into his eyes and blinked. “Please do,” she said.
He chuckled.
“So, what now?”
He pinched her chin with one hand, tilting her face up. If he tried to kiss her, she would kill him. And it wouldn't end there. She would travel to the Inzari's regeneration chamber and destroy it. She-
“Now,” Slade said. “We watch as history unfolds.”
25
Jack walked through a world of endless mist, mist without texture or temperature, mist that seemed to go on forever. It clung to his body, swirled around his legs and streamed from his fingertips.
He stopped dead.
Chewing his lip as he took in the sight, Jack nodded. “Well,” he mumbled. “That's new.” His head was still ringing, but the pain was a distant thing, easily ignored. Why did this place seem so familiar?
The answer came to him in a moment of vivid clarity. This was how he had met Summer all those years ago. Was she here too? He hadn't seen her, and he felt as though he had been walking around for hours.
As if in answer to his question, the mist parted to reveal Summer standing there in a simple pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt like the ones his mother used to wear. A long braid of golden hair fell to the small of her back. “Yes, I am here,” she said. “Your mind is still reeling.”
“What happened?”
“Slade infected you with a virus,” she explained. “It can activate certain neurons, trick your brain into thinking that you're experiencing a wide range of sensations, most of them unpleasant. I'm fighting it now.”
Touching his forehead, Jack grimaced as the memories came flooding back. “That sounds like something Slade would do,” he muttered. “So, give it to me straight, Doc. Do you think you can kill this thing?”
The look on Summer's face made him think that he didn't want the answer to that question. “We shall see,” she replied. “But fighting this virus is tiring. I have little energy to spare for conversation.”
“Hence the decor?”
“You will have to accept my apology.”
Jack put his arms around her, pulling her close. It surprised him when she squeezed him just as hard as Anna would. “Don't stay on this sinking ship,” he whispered. “If you can't kill the virus, I want you to leave me and take a new host.”
She pulled out of his embrace almost violently and looked up at him with eyes that blazed. “Do you honestly think so little of yourself?” Jack wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer that. “Would you give up your life so easily?”
“Summer, I don't want you to suffer,” he said. “And I don't want to live a long life as Slade's chew toy. I had a good run. Better than I deserve, really.”
His Nassai turned her back and stalked off through the mist, stopping when she was just out of arm's reach. “I hear things even while your mind slumbers,” she said. “Even if I cannot defeat this virus, the doctors are working on other options.”
She spun around to face him, and he almost took a step back. Jeez…And he thought Anna had mastered the death glare. “I will not abandon you, Jack Hunter,” she insisted. “Because of you, I understand what it means to have a best friend. So, we are going to get through this. We're going to live a long, happy life with Anna and Seth. And one day, you and I will bring Grecken Slade to justice.”
“Well, when you put it like that-”
He cut off when the setting suddenly changed. The mist was gone, as was the void that contained it. He was looking at the inside of a green door with a window of frosted glass. There were sneakers on the floor: pink ones that belonged to Lauren and gray ones that he had worn as a teenager.
Jack stumbled backward from the door, raising his hands up in front of his face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa…” He let his arms drop a moment later. There was no danger here. “What's with the trip to Flashback Town? I thought you said you were too tired for virtual reality shenanigans?”
No one answered him.
“Summer?”
Still no answer.
He turned around to find that this was indeed the house he had grown up in. A set of stairs went up to the second floor, complete with one of Lauren's sweaters draped over the railing. Mom was always getting on her case about that.
On his right, the dining room was in pristine condition, white curtains fluttering in the breeze that came through an open window. There were placemats on the wooden table but no utensils.
Jack crept through the hallway, trailing his fingertips along the wall. He could feel the rough texture. Whatever Summer was doing, she had gone out of her way to make it vivid. But why?
Poking his head into the family room, Jack saw that everything was as it should be. The room was empty, but his father had left a Jays game playing on the TV. There were throw pillows strewn about on the gray couches, and the recliner had a half-finished bottle of beer in its drink holder.
Bracing a hand on the wall, Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “All right, Summer,” he said. “I appreciate the nostalgia, but I'd rather you focus on killing the virus. So, why don't we get to the point of this little vision?”
“In here.”
That was not Summer's voice. That was a voice that Jack thought he would never hear again. And it was coming from the kitchen.
That, too was just as he remembered it: linoleum floor tiles and white cupboards encircling the room. One dish in the sink – most likely his father's – and a whole lot of magnets on the fridge. It even smelled like home.
An oval-shaped table sat in the light of a massive bay window that looked out on the backyard. One of the chairs was tucked neatly into place, but the other one…The other one had been claimed by an unexpected guest.
Ben Loranai looked good for a dead man: still slim and fit and handsome in black pants and a matching t-shirt. His hair was left loose to fall to the nape of his neck, and he saluted Jack with a beer bottle. “Hey, buddy.”
Anna smoothed a strand of hair off Jack's forehead. He was still sound asleep, or so it seemed. After the first day, the doctors had decided that constant sedation wasn't good for anyone, not even a Justice Keeper. So, they had switched to a drug called Thaladine, which induced a sense of peace and euphoria. Jack slept a lot, and when he woke, he was only half lucid. So far as she could tell, Slade had given up on torturing him, but that might just be the drugs.
The screen of SmartGlass across from the foot of his bed displayed a newscast on the election. Anna kept the volume low, but she could still hear the anchorwoman who stared directly into the camera. “As there are only two candidates,” she said. “This will be a straight popular vote. Right now, reports are coming in from districts across Leyria, Palissa, Salus Prime and the Petross space station.”
Globes appeared as a graphic over her right shoulder. The anchorwoman drew in a long breath, then closed her eyes and prepared herself to say something she obviously did not want to say. “Preliminary results show Jeral Dusep with a sizable ten-point lead.”
The image changed to a shot of Dusep in a hospital bed not unlike Jack's. The man was unconscious. He looked so helpless, not at all like the despot who had built his career on attacking immigrants and foreigners. “The councilor remains in stable condition, but he is expected to make a full recovery.”
Anna paced across the room with her arms crossed, heaving out a breath. “Damn it, Cass,” she whispered. “Couldn't you have resisted him? All you had to do was say no.”
She spun around.
Jack was still asleep, but his head lolled as he murmured something unintelligible. Every time he made a noise, Anna perked up. She knew that there was nothing she could do, but she wanted Jack to know that he wasn't alone.
Leaving the room was hard. The doctors had agreed to let her stay the night, and she had slept fitfully in the bedside chair. But there were still moments where she had to go down to the cafeteria for a meal or sneak out to the restroom. And every second that she was gone was filled with anxiety that Jack might wake up and find her missing.
She had taken a few hours, yesterday, to visit Cassi at Justice Keeper HQ. Or rather, she had tried to visit Cassi. Melissa had been turned away when she made the attempt, but Anna figured they wouldn't do the same to an operative who had carried a badge for seven years. Not when that operative was Cassi's supervising officer. But to her surprise, the guards refused to budge. The prisoner was not to receive visitors.
That pissed Anna off something fierce. She had marched right into Larani's office and demanded that the chief director order those guards to let her in. It did no good. Even Larani was not allowed into that cell. That didn't bode well for Cassi.
Anna fell into a chair with a heavy sigh. “You need to wake up now,” she muttered. “It's not going well, and I don't know if I can fix it without you.”
Jack didn't answer her.
Closing her eyes, Anna sighed as she forced herself to acknowledge an ugly truth she had been avoiding. “It's my fault,” she said. “You tried to warn me, but I didn't listen. You'd think, one day, that I'd learn to trust your instincts.”
The door opened to admit Larani, who sighed when she saw Jack. “I should have visited sooner,” she said. “I'm sorry.”
“It's been a crazy few days.”
“Indeed,” Larani said. “The Hall of Council finished its deliberations earlier this afternoon.” Now that was surprising. From what Anna had heard, those deliberations had started yesterday morning. Had they really taken more than twenty-four hours to decide whether Larani would retain her position? “They've chosen to delay the vote until after the election. For the moment, I will retain my position.”
Anna forced a smile. Right then, she didn't feel like smiling, but it was good news. “I'm glad to hear it,” she said. “And Cassi?”
Larani gripped the metal bar of Jack's bed, hunching over as she peered out the window. “Cassiara has been stripped of her badge,” she said. “In one month's time, she will stand trial for attempted murder.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“No,” Larani said. “It took some doing, but I was able to persuade the medical staff to run some tests. I think they were afraid that Cassiara might hurt them. They found no evidence of the virus that Slade used on Jack.”
“What?”
“Cassiara is perfectly healthy.”
Anna was on her feet and pacing in an instant, gesticulating as she worked it all out in her head. “Cassi's not a traitor,” she said. “Slade must have infected her when she was missing. That was five days ago now. Maybe her body had more time to fight the virus.”
