Justice Keepers Saga - Books 10-12

Chapter 4-2

Anna was next to him with her hands in the pockets of her shorts, nodding slowly in agreement. “Crystal, we would love to have you along,” she said. “But Jack"s right. It"s too dangerous.”

Jack felt a sudden pang of guilt.

His mother looked crestfallen, but she accepted the news with a stiff upper lip. “I suppose you"re right,” she whispered. “A shame…I want to see what life is like beyond the confines of this little world.”

“Maybe you could visit us on Leyria,” Anna suggested.

“I"d like that.”

With a deep breath, Crystal stood up straight, squared her shoulders and put on a brave face. “Well,” she said. “I guess there"s nothing left to do but to see you off. Come on. I"ll drive you to the SlipGate terminal.”

Melissa sat alone at a round table in the little cafe that overlooked the concourse on Station Twelve, watching the people scurrying past below. Traffic was light at this hour; she saw a Justice Keeper reading something on a tablet as he walked by and a man in a gray suit on his way to the tram station.

Hunched over with her elbow on the table, her chin resting in the palm of her hand, Melissa sighed. “Yeah,” she whispered to Ilia. “It makes me sad too.”

Everything about Station Twelve reminded her of Jena. She remembered the many, many sparring sessions in which she had struggled to pick up the basics of martial arts. Jena had always been patient and kind, encouraging her to keep trying. She remembered meeting Raynar for the first time. She remembered running frantically through corridors that seemed to go on for miles, bursting into Jena"s office and proclaiming that she knew what Grecken Slade really wanted. Melissa would never have imagined that she would look back on those days and long for the simplicity of easier times.

Claire was staying behind and moving in with their mother. That bothered her, she realized. She would have never thought that being separated from her sister would leave her with a dull ache in her chest, but there it was. Claire would be safer here on Earth – she knew that – but a part of her wanted to protest and insist that her little sister belonged with her on Leyria.

Letting her mind drift, Melissa slipped away from the physical world to commune with her Nassai. The setting that Ilia chose was a replica of the little cafe. But now Ilia was sitting across from her. Or maybe it was more accurate that Jena was sitting across from her. Nassai experienced every thought that passed through a host"s mind. It was fair to say that they knew a person better than that person knew themself, and Ilia had used that knowledge to recreate Jena in every detail.

She was right there, just as Melissa remembered her: tall with boyishly-short hair, sharp eyes and a dimple in her chin. “Don"t be so somber, kid,” she said. “We had a lot of good memories in this place too.”

“We did.”

“So, why so sad?”

Pressing her lips together, Melissa looked up at the ceiling and blinked. “You ever get the feeling that the world is changing?” she whispered. “And you really, really want it to stay the same?”

Jena grimaced as if she had a bad taste in her mouth, then shook her head quickly. “Change never really bothered me,” she replied. “It"s just a part of life. You kind of have to accept it.”

“I guess.”

“You don"t sound convinced.”

Melissa"s chair scraped across the floor tiles as she stood up. When she looked over the railing, she saw no one else down there. But then, why would there be? This facsimile of the station was probably empty except for her and Jena and any other avatar that her symbiont chose to adopt. “It just seems like fortune cookie wisdom.”

“Doesn"t make it any less true.”

“Can"t we just…invent some kind of time-stopping device?” Melissa protested. “I"m gonna miss my sister.”

Jena stretched out in the chair and smiled that special smile of hers. The one that called you an i***t and said that she loved you at the same time. “I"m pretty sure they"ve still got my stuff in storage,” she said. “Go access it. Should be in locker Unit Twenty-Three. The password should be Tomas14.”

“Why? What"s there?”

“Something that might make you feel a little better.”

Ten minutes later, after a ride on the monorail that had taken to the other side of the station, Melissa found herself in the hallway outside Jena"s old office. That brought all of her memories flooding back to the surface, and she had to push through the pain again. She wasn"t sure why she had come here. It was on the way to the storage unit, but there was nothing here she needed. Maybe she just wanted to look at the place one last time.

When she poked her head through the door, she saw Larani Tal standing by the window behind Jena"s old desk, peering out into space. Melissa was quiet, but spatial awareness alerted the other woman to her presence. “Agent Carlson,” Larani said without looking. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Melissa stepped into the office with her hands clasped behind herself, frowning as she took in the sight of it. “I guess you had the same idea I did,” she mumbled. “You miss her too, huh?”

“I do.”

“I never realized that you and Jena were close.”

Larani turned abruptly, her sharp eyes accusing Melissa of implying too much with that statement. Her face softened a moment later. “We weren"t,” she said. “Not, I suspect, as you mean it, anyway. Jena and I knew each other as cadets.”

“She never mentioned that.”

“I"m not surprised,” Larani grumbled. “Jena was something of a sensation among the other cadets. She flew through the program with ease. Six months after she arrived on Leyria, she was already going on dangerous missions with senior Keepers. They thought she was a rising star in the organization.”

“What changed?”

“Jena made an enemy of Grecken Slade.”

With a heavy sigh, Melissa strode across the room and stopped in front of the desk. She studied her reflection in the SmartGlass. The face that stared back at her seemed unfamiliar somehow. Older. More worn down. It wasn"t anything obvious – there were no wrinkles or blemishes – but Melissa could see the fatigue behind her own eyes. “I guess I should have expected as much.”

Larani sat down in Jena"s old chair, crossing one leg over the other and folding her hands in her lap. “She thought very highly of you, Melissa,” she said. “She told me more than once that she expected you to become an excellent Justice Keeper.”

Closing her eyes, Melissa felt a tear sliding down her cheek. “I didn"t think I would take her symbiont,” she whispered. “Sometimes I feel like…like I have to live up to her legacy. And I"m not doing a very good job of it.”

“On the contrary,” Larani replied. “I can"t think of a more worthy successor. Jena would be proud of everything that you"ve accomplished.”

“That"s what Ilia tells me.”

Reclining as far as she could, Larani smiled ruefully at the ceiling. “You Earthers,” she said, shaking her head. “For over seven hundred years, the Justice Keepers protected Leyria from threats both foreign and domestic, and no one thought to name their Nassai until Jack Hunter came along.”

“I"m glad to know we shook up the system.”

“Are you, now?”

Melissa looked around the room. There was nothing to see – the walls were bare, the furniture untouched – but that didn"t mean anything. Even though she had occupied this office for the better part of a year, Jena had never bothered to decorate. Almost as if she were trying to avoid settling in. As if she thought her life circumstances might change on a moment"s notice, and then she would be flying off to some other part of the galaxy. Maybe the facsimile that Ilia had created was right. Jena really was the kind of woman who just rolled with the changes.

Melissa had only been a civilian in those days, but she had always felt as though she were a part of the team. Now…Now, the team was different. Jena was gone and Ben too. Thinking of Raynar might make her start crying again. She had liked the young man even if he was a bit of a doofus. And Melissa got choked up whenever she remembered what her father had told her. That Raynar said kissing her was the happiest moment of his life. She was flattered, but what did that say about the poor guy"s life?

The team was different.

wasThey had Rajel now and Novol. Melissa tried not to think about the butterflies in her stomach that showed up whenever someone mentioned him. And Keli had become their resident telepath; there was no denying it. Melissa just wished it didn"t make her feel so sad.

“Are you all right, Agent Carlson?” Larani asked.

Melissa cleared her throat and then stepped back, bowing her head to the other woman. “Quite all right, ma"am,” she answered. “I just…Being back here brings up a lot of memories I haven"t thought about in a long time.”

“For both of us,” Larani assured her.

She left the other woman to her memories of Jena and made her way to the storage units. They weren"t far from the living quarters. Once inside, she found a series of metal doors in the wall, all sealed shut.

She entered the password into Unit 23, and the door swung open with a hiss. At first, she wasn"t quite sure what to look for. Some of Jena"s clothes were sealed up inside plastic bags. There were some books, a picture of Jena"s parents in an ornate frame. But nothing stood out to her.

Leyrians weren"t big on personal property. They didn"t really own very much. When they moved out of a house, they left the furniture behind so that the next occupants could use it. Their multi-tools were fairly modular with circuitry that was upgraded regularly. Every house and apartment had several workstations with computer interfaces. No one had to buy their own laptops or tablets. Sometimes, Leyrians hung on to things with a lot of sentimental value. Melissa imagined that if she and her father were to move out of their house on Leyria, Michael the robot would go with them. But there just wasn"t much here. She was about to give up when she noticed something.

ownA big, fuzzy teddy bear with soft brown fur was sitting on a shelf at the back of the storage unit. His eyes opened when Melissa stepped inside, and his limbs began to move with a soft, mechanical whir. “Hello,” he said. “Where"s Jena?”

“Fuzz Bear,” Melissa whispered.

“It"s nice to meet you,” he said. “Are you a friend of Jena"s?”

She sniffled, making no effort to stop the tears that streamed over her face. “Yes,” she whispered, nodding. “I"m a very good friend of Jena"s.”

Fuzz Bear looked up at her with his big black eyes, and he blinked once in an almost human gesture. “Is Jena all right?” he asked. “I haven"t seen her in a while.”

How did she answer that?

Over the last year, Ilia had shared some of Jena"s memories with her. This robotic teddy was one of Jena"s most prized possessions. He had been with Jena ever since she was a little girl. Melissa didn"t have the heart to tell him that his human companion was dead. He wasn"t really sentient. Melissa knew that, but she still couldn"t bring herself to say it. “Jena"s just fine,” she murmured.

Crossing the length of the storage unit in three quick steps, Melissa picked up the bear, and he wrapped his arms around her. He nuzzled her cheek with his fuzzy nose. “My name is Melissa,” she said. “Jena asked me to come and get you so that we could be friends.”

“I would like to be your friend, Melissa.”

“I"d like that too,” she whispered. “Jena had to go away for a while…To help some people. But she said that you and I could take care of each other.”

“Any friend of Jena"s is a friend of mine.”

“I"m glad to hear it,” Melissa said. “Now, let"s pack up some of this stuff. We"ve got a long flight back to Leyria.”