Justice Keepers Saga - Books 10-12

Chapter 7-1

The weather on Alios was almost always beautiful; that was one thing that Anna missed about her time on that world. The sky above Caleem Park was a perfect sapphire-blue with fluffy clouds drifting over the tops of buildings that surrounded her on all sides. Many of those buildings had unique architecture. One was shaped almost like an hourglass; another looked more like a pyramid.

Seven rows of folding chairs were spread throughout the grass in the middle of the park, all facing a stage where the Prime Council and her opponent would give an opening address to their audience. Every one of those chairs was filled. Anna saw people from all walks of life, men and women both young and old.

There were cameras as well: small, disk-shaped devices with lenses that floated above the crowd. She saw a line of reporters conversing quietly with one another behind the furthest row of chairs.

In white pants, a black t-shirt and sunglasses, Anna stood by the stage, waiting for the show to begin. She tapped her earpiece to activate the comms. “We"re a go in five minutes, boys and girls,” she said. “Give me a status update.”

“Nothing on this end,” Jack said.

Anna caught a brief glimpse of him near the edge of the park. He was keeping an eye on the perimeter with a pair of uniformed cops. Tickets to attend this event in person had been distributed through a lottery. In theory, no one would be able to get in without proper identification, but Slade and his goons had a talent for slipping past even the best security measures.

“Nothing on the northwest corner,” Rajel said in her ear.

“Northeast is clear as well,” Cassi added.

Pressing her lips together, Anna looked up to the rooftops of the nearby buildings. The warm sun on her face did nothing to ease the chills that ran down her spine. To say that she was nervous was a massive understatement. “Keli,” she said. “You got anything to report?”

“The crowd is relatively calm,” Keli replied. “I"m sensing anger from some people. Some of them do not care for Sarona Vason, and others are even less sympathetic to Dusep. But none of them intend violence so far as I can tell. I would have to probe deeper to be absolutely sure.”

“No,” Anna said. “That"s good enough.”

She spotted Melissa coming her way, pacing a line right in front of the stage. The young woman kept scanning the audience as if she expected someone to jump up and start shooting at any moment.

Anna spun to face the girl with a soft sigh, forcing a smile that anyone with half a brain would see through. “How are you holding up?” she asked. “Feeling nervous?”

Casting a glance over her shoulder, Melissa narrowed her eyes as she studied the audience. A sudden shiver went through her, and she gave her head a shake. “Right now, I"m thinking "paranoid" might be a better adjective.”

“I bet I know what you"re thinking.”

“What"s that.”

This time, when Anna smiled, it was genuine. “Right now, you"re asking yourself, "Why couldn"t my first assignment as a real, true Justice Keeper be something simple like an arm"s deal or a terrorist cell?”

Melissa chuckled, shaking her head. “I"ve already had my share of terrorist cells,” she replied. “Remember the Sons of Savard?”

“Don"t remind me.”

A flicker of static in her ear made Anna jump, but then Keli"s voice came over the comm system. “Get ready,” she said. “They"re starting.”

The massive speakers on either side of the stage crackled momentarily before a deep voice said, “Assembled guests, I present to you Sarona Vason, the Prime Council of the Leyrian Systems Accord.”

Thunderous applause serenaded Sarona Vason as she walked on stage in a green jacket and a white, high-collared shirt. A reminder, however subtle, that she had come from the Green Party. The Prime Council was supposed to put aside such allegiances when she assumed office. In theory, her role was that of a mediator. However, Dusep had rallied the Blues with his anti-immigrant rhetoric. And the Greens had been their fiercest opponents.

The wrinkles on Sarona"s dark face only served to make her look that much more distinguished. Her white hair was up in a bun. “Good afternoon,” she said. “I"m glad to see so many of you here on this fine day. And I am pleased to address the millions of you who are watching at home.

“We"ve walked a long and difficult road these last five years. When I took office, we had just made contact with Earth. We had learned that the legends of our lost homeworld were true. We stood at a crossroads then, and now we stand at another. The galaxy has changed. We are vulnerable to threats that, just a few years ago, would have been unimaginable.”

Anna found herself watching the crowd, trying to gauge their mood. It was hard to pin down anything solid. The most she could say was that many of them were fascinated by the Prime Council"s words. Or at least…focused. She couldn"t shake a sense of unease that kept gnawing at her, and Seth echoing her feelings certainly didn"t help matters.

Humanity had to unite against the Overseers – that much was obvious – but given half a chance, Dusep would push them in the opposite direction. As Prime Council, Sarona Vason could not decree policy, but she could force a vote on any issue. Anna had no strong feelings about the woman one way or the other, but she knew that Sarona had used her position to maintain a balance of perspectives. Dusep would do no such thing. He would force votes when he was sure that he would like the outcome and censure councilors who opposed his rhetoric.

“In the face of this growing uncertainty,” Sarona went on, “many of you feel the urge to look inward. To cut off contact with our neighbours and to seal ourselves off. The thought of doing so makes you feel safer.”

Her face was stern, her eyes sharp as she studied the crowd. “But feelings are not always an accurate description of reality,” she said. “In reality, isolationism would put us all at great risk. Hating Earthers. Hating Antaurans or Ragnosians. Hating that which is different: these are the very prejudices that we worked long and hard to overcome. Will we turn our backs on all that progress so easily?”

Shutting her eyes tight, Anna stiffened at the thought. She tapped her earpiece to activate the microphone. “Perimeter team,” she murmured. “Give me an update.”

“All clear out here,” Jack replied.

“Same,” Cassi added.

Anna took a deep breath to calm herself. So far, so good. This event would be over in ninety minutes. A long ninety minutes for Anna and her team, but she took comfort in the knowledge that two hours from now, she would be sitting down to a quiet dinner.

longOperative Telien"s team would be covering the first debate tonight. Which meant that Anna"s people would get some much-needed rest. They just had to hold out a little longer.

Pressing his hand against a keypad next to a door at the top of the stairwell, Aiden reached out to the symbiont he now carried and applied a Bending. The power to warp space-time. It was incredible. Energy surged through every cell in his body. He felt the twisting sensation as circuitry within the panel was ripped apart at the molecular level.

That done, he unclipped a small metal disk from his belt. “Multi-tool active,” he said, touching it to the door. “Program One.”

Nanobots emerged from the disk and scuttled over the door"s surface, crawling into the lock. Normally, buildings had security systems to prevent this sort of thing, low-level EMP fields to disable invasive nanobots. But Aiden had just destroyed those systems with a Bending.

There was a soft click as the lock turned, and then he opened the door just a c***k. Blazing sunlight assaulted his eyes.

clickShielding himself with one hand, Aiden retreated deeper into the shadows. He let his arm drop and blinked. “Those who walk the path of Justice,” he whispered, quoting the Covenant of Layat, “need not fear the light of day.”

He stood on the landing in an almost skin-tight bodysuit with his face covered and his eyes hidden behind a pair of goggles. With his teeth, he pulled a black glove over the one hand that he had left bare. He couldn"t Bend space-time with his hand covered. Well…he could, but it would damage the circuitry in his glove as easily as it had damaged the circuitry in the keypad. “The Leyrian tech has done its job,” he whispered. “Let"s see if the Ragnosians are equally competent.”

could, One tap at a button on his belt, and he began to ripple and fade away, growing more and more transparent until he was invisible. He watched his arms and legs vanish, which was disconcerting, to say the least. Even the plastic case that he carried in his right hand was gone. He still felt the handle in his grip, but he couldn"t see it.

Gently, he pushed the door all the way open, stepped out onto a flat roof under a clear, blue sky and then pushed it closed again. In the distance, he heard Sarona Vason"s booming voice coming through the speakers in Caleem Park. That sound was quickly overshadowed by the soft hum of a security drone. Aiden wanted to jump, but he forced himself to remain still.

The drone flew past without incident.

His suit could conceal him in more ways than one. It could render him invisible to the n***d eye, yes, but it could also drastically lower his heat emissions so that infrared scanners would not pick up any trace of him.

He crept across duroplastic coated in photo-voltaic paint and knelt at the north-east corner of the rooftop. The building was on the west side of a street that ran all the way to the border of Caleem park, about a kilometre away.

He opened the invisible case, and his goggles painted a blue, wire-frame outline of a sniper rifle that no one else could see. He clipped the stock into place and attached the scope. Then he used it to select a target.

The scope"s magnification factor gave him a very good view of the guests seated in several rows of chairs spread across the grass. On the stage, Sarona Vason was standing tall behind the lectern and speaking emphatically. Aiden ignored her. The Prime Council was not his target. Slade would deal with her when the time was right. Aiden"s task was to kill a Justice Keeper. It didn"t matter which one. Slade just wanted a death to inflame the city"s fears.

He slid his rifle to the left and found Lenai standing at the base of the stage on the west side. Settling the cross-hairs onto her head gave him no satisfaction, he realized. She had done nothing to him personally, and from what he could tell, Lenai was a competent officer, if misguided.

Another pivot brought his scope in line with Melissa. She was positioned on the east side of the stage, watching the audience with obvious trepidation. Killing her would prove his loyalty to Slade"s cause but…No. He couldn"t. Not like this. If he was going to kill Melissa, he would do it face to face.