Justice Keepers Saga--Books 10-12, page 69
As he rushed through the damp grass, Harry heard something. He was still amazed that his ears worked. Had the N’Jal protected him from his scream? At first, he ignored it, but the soft whirring sound grew louder and louder.
Harry looked over his shoulder to find three egg-shaped security drones floating over the trees and chasing him through the backyard. Each one had a round aperture on its front side and a horizontal strip of LEDs that scanned back and forth.
“EMP!” Harry shouted.
The gun ignored him. It was keyed to Haxon’s voice. He twisted around, raising a hand and putting up another force-field. The air shimmered, distorting his view of the three drones, but he could tell they were firing at him. Stun-rounds bounced off of the pulsing wall of energy, landing on the ground.
Two of the drones split off, one going left and the other right, while the third kept spitting ammo at him. They were trying to attack him from multiple vectors. That would make it harder to defend himself.
Harry manually set his gun for EMP rounds.
Then he changed the force-field into a tight dome that hovered a few inches above his head. The edges of it didn’t quite touch the ground. Air could still get in. But now, he was immobilized. Carrying that force-field with him was certainly possible, but it would slow him down considerably. And extended use of the N’Jal would tire him out.
The security drones surrounded him, each one firing down on him from a different angle. He did something to the force-field – it was hard to say what, but he knew that he had done it before – and the bullets no longer bounced off of it. Instead, they seemed to stick to it like flies caught in a spider’s web.
Harry waited for several dozen to accumulate.
Then he expanded the force-field and flung every single one of those bullets back at the drones that had fired them. Some hit the house – a few even left thin cracks in the windows – but most pummeled the egg-shaped drones. It wouldn’t hurt them, but it just might mess up their targeting scanners for a few precious seconds.
Harry’s pistol training kicked in.
He swung his arm around and fired several white tracers at one floating robot. They ripped right through its body, and the damn thing fell to the ground.
Turning abruptly, Harry adjusted his aim and fired again. Glowing ammo punched through the second drone and disabled it.
The third one managed to target him.
Harry dove, somersaulting through the grass and coming up in a crouch. He pointed the gun behind himself and fired without looking. The sound of burnt plastic hitting the ground told him that his aim was true. It wasn’t Spatial Awareness that gave him an edge. He was just a damn good marksman, and he remembered his target’s position.
He got up, dusting himself off.
“Through here!” someone bellowed.
When Harry spun around, he saw a man in black body armour emerging from the trees behind the house. The newcomer paused just long enough to realize that he had found his prey, then raised his assault rifle.
Harry fell onto his backside.
White tracers sped over him.
Without thinking, he extended his hand toward the other man and summoned another force-field, a flat wall of crackling energy. He sent it rushing over the grass toward his enemy, watching as it climbed at a slight angle.
It slammed into the man with enough momentum to lift him off the ground and send him flying backward into a tree. He collided with a thump, probably shattering his spine on impact, and fell to the ground like a discarded ragdoll.
For a moment, Harry looked on in horror. The power…This was more power than he had ever wanted. More than anyone should have.
Then he forced himself to stand, turn around and hop over one of the smashed drones. He couldn’t slow down. Not even for a moment. But where could he go? He had just turned himself into the city’s most wanted man.
Jack, he realized. Jack will help me.
He ran a long time before he found a safe place to stop and call his friend.
23
Jack checked his warbling multi-tool and found that he had an incoming call…with level-three encryption. Whatever this was, someone desperately wanted to keep it quiet. He couldn’t even see who was calling.
When he answered, Harry’s face filled the screen. The man looked haunted…no, hunted. He kept looking over his shoulder as if checking to see whether anyone was coming. “You remember the end of last summer when you and Anna took the girls out for a picnic?”
“Yes,” Jack said cautiously.
“Meet me there.”
The screen went dark before Jack could ask any follow-up questions. Something was wrong. And he had a pretty good idea what it might be. There was only one reason why Harry would be on the run. The Office of Planetary Security had tried to round him up as one of the immigrants they were shipping off to detention camps.
Jack left his office and stepped into the hallway, moving at a hurried pace toward the elevator. He couldn’t run – that might get people wondering why he was in such a rush – but dawdling would be all kinds of bad.
His multi-tool beeped again.
This time, it was Bil Herdrel’s face on his screen. The chief director stared grimly into the camera. “My office,” he said. “Now.”
And the call ended.
“Heaven help me,” Jack muttered. He had to go. If he refused, Bil would wonder what he was up to. Harry would just have to hold on.
When Jack entered Larani’s office – he still thought of it as Larani’s office no matter what anyone said – he found Bil bent over the desk. The man twisted around to see who had come in, a subtle reminder that he wasn’t a real Keeper, and then grunted. “Good. Hunter, I’m sure you know what this is about.”
Squinting at the man, Jack shook his head in feigned confusion.s “I have no idea,” he lied. “What’s up?”
Leaning against the edge of the desk with one hand clasping his chin, Bil studied him as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he believed Jack’s words. “I guess you haven’t checked the news in the last hour.”
“Sir?”
“Your friend, Mr. Carlson, just assaulted several OPS officers, severely injuring one of them. They were attempting to detain him under the new security measures when he attacked them with that alien device.”
Jack raised both hands defensively and hit his boss with the old, puppy-dog eyes. “Harry would never do that,” he insisted.
Bil didn’t answer him with words. Instead, he just waved a hand, and a hologram rippled into existence between them. It appeared to be dash-cam footage from a police cruiser that was driving down a suburban street. Someone was standing in the road. The darkness made it hard to identify him, but when the man extended his hand and projected a shimmering force-field, Jack knew it must be Harry.
Two seconds later, that force-field was coming at him. The windshield cracked, and the car turned sideways, now pointed at a small house that was nestled between two lines of trees. He had a brief glimpse of one man collapsing against the dashboard. And then the hologram vanished.
Pinching the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger, Jack groaned. “Okay,” he muttered. “So, Harry did it…But he must have had a good reason!”
“Your loyalty is touching.”
“Sir-”
Bil strode forward at a measured pace, planting himself right in front of Jack. He stared up into Jack’s eyes. “You’re going after him, Agent Hunter.”
“I won’t!”
“Yes, you will.”
It was time to put up a fight, to display a little bit of his trademark defiance. Jack wanted to be the one to go after Harry, but if he agreed too easily, Bil might start to doubt his motives. This was a test; he knew that. His new boss wanted to see whether he could shut up and follow orders. Well, he would do just that but only after making it look as though he had been browbeaten into it.
“You said those guys were OPS, right?” Jack snarled. “Well, then it’s pretty obvious what they were doing there. They were going to take Harry to one of those god damn detention centres. He had every right to defend himself!”
Bil was unimpressed. With a loud harrumph, he turned and stomped back to his desk. “The man is a danger,” he said. “That device he carries makes him a menace. But worse yet is this cult that he started. It’s only a matter of time before one of his rabid followers does something drastic. If anyone belongs in a detention centre, it’s your friend Harry Carlson.”
“What about freedom of religion?”
Bil snorted. “We have a responsibility to protect the public from charlatans. Let me make this very simple for you, Agent Hunter. Either you bring in your friend, or a tactical team hunts him down, and I guarantee you their orders will be ‘Shoot to kill.’”
Gritting his teeth, Jack hissed air through them. It took some effort, but he managed to stoke his anger to the point where he was sure his face was flushed. “Fine,” he spat. “Just keep OPS off my back.”
“Agent Hunter-”
Jack turned, marching out of the office, pausing at the door. “I’ll bring him in, Bil,” he said. “You promise me that he’ll be treated gently and that I won’t be tripping over any trigger-happy agents with assault rifles.”
One job done. Now, on to the much harder task. He would need to find a way to get Harry out of sight. He had a few ideas, but every single one of them was risky. For a brief second, he wondered what Anna would think. He had promised her that he would play by the rules, but here he was, throwing his career away.
Well, he would just have to ask for forgiveness and hope that his partner understood. Anna was half a lightyear away by this point. There was no way he could talk to her, and even if he could, trying would be too much of a risk.
He took the stairs down to the first floor. When he was sure that he was alone, he placed a call to Keli, making sure to encrypt the transmission. She answered right away as if she had been expecting him to reach out. “Yes?” she asked.
Pressing his back to the wall, Jack lifted his forearm and spoke softly into the microphone of his multi-tool. “Do exactly as I say…” he began.
The clouds were thick above High Point Park, and the rain they unleashed didn’t so much fall as hang in the air, leaving a chilly, wet film on Harry’s skin. Night had fallen, and it was bloody cold.
The park was pretty much what you would expect, a vast field of grass, surrounded by trees, on the south side of the city. When he gazed northward, he could just make out the lights of the downtown core through the thick fog. He had walked for over an hour to get here, keeping off the main streets and sticking to paths that went through the city’s many wooded areas. Now, his feet were numb. Without a coat or shoes, he feared that he might pass out from the cold.
Harry stood under a tree, hugging himself and rubbing his arms as he shivered. His breath misted. “Come on, Jack,” he whispered. “Where are you?”
There had to be a way to use the N’Jal for heat. If he could just figure it out…But he was so tired.
He remembered coming here six months ago with Jack, Anna and his two daughters. Back then, he had still been recovering from the shot to the chest that he had taken. Going out for an entire afternoon was quite the accomplishment. Of course, it had been sunny then and blessedly warm. What he wouldn’t give for some of that sweet, summer weather…
Now, it was dark. There were no lights in the park, and it was unlikely that anyone would be out walking in this abysmal weather. That was why he had chosen this place. But he was fading fast?
Harry…
He blinked, unsure of whether or not he had imagined the voice that whispered in his mind. Droplets of water rolled over his forehead. “Keli?”
Hold on, she said. I’m coming.
He scanned his surroundings for any sign of her, but it was so dark his eyes ached from the strain. A few minutes later, the sound of heavy footsteps in the grass gave her away. Keli Armana was many things, but graceful was not one.
Cursing and muttering, she crested a nearby hill. He saw her then, silhouetted against the city lights – a tall woman in tight pants and a thick coat who carried a bag over her shoulder. She came scrambling down the hillside, nearly plowing into him.
Shutting his eyes, Harry felt cold raindrops on his cheeks. “Oh, thank god,” he whispered through chattering teeth.
Keli unzipped her bag and pulled out a coat. “Jack said you looked like you were freezing,” she explained. “Put this on.”
He did as he was told, wrapping himself in sweet, blessed warmth. He was about to suggest that they get going, but Keli shocked him by fishing a sturdy pair of shoes out of the bag. “They’re Corovin’s,” she said. “I don’t know if they’ll fit.”
“H-how d-did you know?”
“We thought that if you left the house in a hurry, it was likely that you wouldn’t have adequate protection from the elements. It seems we were right. I’m going to bring you back to my apartment now.”
“T-thank you.”
She turned, looking around, then raised a hand to her temple. Was she using her talent? Telepathy would go a long way toward helping them stay out of trouble. “There’s a man-hunt for you in the streets,” she said. “I think we can avoid them, but you will have to do your best to be inconspicuous.”
Zipping his coat up, Harry nodded enthusiastically. “I can do that,” he assured her. “You live downtown. We’ll need to take a subway.”
She completed his ensemble with a hat that he gladly put on his head. It was thick and fuzzy and best of all warm. “No,” Keli said. “They’ll have agents at every station.”
“But we’ll be walking all night if we try to go on foot.”
Instead of answering, Keli just took his hand and pulled him through the grass. His feet were still numb, but the shoes made things a little better even if they were a bit too tight. “They’ll have your face posted on every screen,” she said. “Anyone who watched the news will be on the lookout.”
“How do you expect to get me through one of the most populous cities on the planet without being seen?”
“Jack sent me because I can help with that,” she explained. “Flashy telepathy is hard to hide. People know there’s something wrong when they start hallucinating a big dragon that breathes fire on them. But subtle telepathy can slip by without anyone ever noticing. If I’m careful, I can implant the idea that you’re unimportant in the minds of anyone we pass. People’s eyes will just slide off you.
“But…you’ll ruin the illusion if you make too much noise. So, eyes down. Don’t look directly at anyone. Don’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary. If someone crosses your path, step out of their way. Do everything you can to reinforce the idea that you’re nothing, you’re no one.”
Simple enough. He could do that. He had gone undercover more than once. Those old instincts weren’t buried that far down.
It took the better part of an hour to walk to the north side of the park. It was slow-going over that uneven terrain. Eventually, they passed through a line of trees and then down a gentle slope.
A narrow road ran from east to west, blocking their path, and on the other side, Harry saw a blocky, rectangular building that he recognized as a food processing plant. A yellow robot with two long arms rolled across the lot on treads. The human staff would have all gone home by this time, but there were bound to be security cameras.
The Leyrians were stingy with the use of facial recognition software, but they might make an exception in his case. All it would take was one judge…or arbiter…to issue a warrant. He didn’t want to get too close to that building.
Lifting his left hand, Harry put up a very weak force-field, one so thin it barely refracted the light passing through it. Anyone who saw the security footage would think it was just an out of focus camera, but hopefully, that would be enough to prevent any pesky algorithms from getting a match.
Keli looked at him.
Closing his eyes, he repeated his explanation in his thoughts.
She nodded.
Not far from the processing plant, another road branched off, heading north toward downtown. This one was lined with trees on either side, and when he peered through the gaps between them, he saw a massive field of solar panels.
There was no one around up here, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it meant that Keli would not have to use her talent to disguise him, a curse because if anyone did see them, they might wonder what two people were doing alone in the city’s industrial sector.
After about twenty minutes, they came to a crossing street. Harry noticed small buildings on the other side: a coffee shop, a supply depot, a veterinary clinic. They were entering a residential neighbourhood similar to the one he lived in. He was so eager to get back to civilization that he almost started running.
Keli grabbed him and pulled him between two trees on the left side of the road. He was about to snap at her – to ask what had gotten into her – but she raised a finger to her lips to silence him.
A moment later, a police cruiser drove through the intersection. He was willing to bet that whoever was in that car had been looking out the window. And if they had seen two people in the road…
Their walk through the residential neighbourhood was uneventful. Keli kept turning her head this way and that, searching for any onlookers.
Drawing air through his open mouth, Harry closed his eyes. “I need to stop,” he whispered. “Just for a little while.”
Keli stood on the curb with her forearm raised, tapping away at her multi-tool. Her face was set with that look of concentration. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going to call an automated car to take us the rest of the way downtown.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“The autos aren’t allowed to log who rides in them,” she said. “Anna told me that. They can record the time of the trip, the pick-up and drop-off locations but not who was riding in them. It’s a privacy thing.”
“I see…”
She gave him a sidelong glance out of the corner of her eye. “If we had ordered a car back there, in the industrial sector,” she went on, “it might have looked suspicious to anyone who was checking the records, but this will just look like someone going home after visiting a friend.”
