Friction

Chapter 1-2

Jack leaped.

He back-flipped through the air, allowing the screen to rush past beneath him, then turned upright to land on his feet. He brought the pistol up in both hands, ordering it to switch to standard ammunition.

A few squeezes of the trigger sent bullets into the other man's chest at full force. They made him stagger, stumbling backward, but not a single one managed to pierce the fabric of that jumpsuit.

The man pulled something from his pocket – a small steel ball – and lobbed it down the aisle. Panic welled up in Jack's belly as he watched it bounce along the concrete floor. He began a Bending.

The ball let out a pulse of energy.

It was a shock to realize that he was unharmed, and another to realize that his gun was now uncharacteristically warm. He lifted it and tried to fire.

Nothing happened.

The other man stood in the middle of the aisle, tilting his head with a lopsided grin. “You dislike EMP tech?” he said, eyebrows rising. “Ironic given that it was developed by your people.”

He raised a hand.

Jack spun around, placing his back to the side of a crate before another force-field could barrel down the aisle. So the guy had Leyrian tech. That meant his suspicions were indeed correct. These people were dealing in alien weapons. Depending on the intensity, an EMP flash like that might have taken out Ben's weapons as well.

The Russian accent put a name to the newcomer's face. Based on the reports that Jack had read, that man could only be Nicolae Petrov, the leader of this syndicate. He now had twice as much urge to bring him down.

Abandoning his weapon, Jack drew the gun that he had stolen from Mr. Greasy Hair. Electromagnetic pulses had no effect on chemically-propelled weapons. Say what you will about primitive Earth tech, there were times when it had its advantages.

He crept around the other side of the crate.

Now in the aisle with Mr. Nirvana T-shirt, Jack ran through the narrow space and jumped over the pair of bodies. He leaped and used Bent Gravity to propel himself onto one of the crates.

This allowed him to drop back into the aisle he had come from.

Spinning around, he found Petrov standing with his back turned, scanning the room for any sign of him. The other man twisted around and raised a gloved hand with a throaty growl.

Jack fired.

Another force-field flashed into existence, deflecting the slug before it could make contact. Through the curtain of flickering sparks, Jack saw his opponent duck behind one of the crates.

“This just keeps getting worse,” Jack said, starting forward. “Anyone care to remind me why I signed up for this.”

He approached the other man's last position.

As he moved to glance around the corner, Jack heard the soft buzzing sound of yet another force-field. Only then did he realize that Petrov had taken refuge behind a stack of crates that stood a good fifteen feet high.

The highest crate toppled over, propelled by the impact of a force-field on the other side. It fell toward Jack, threatening to flatten him.

By instinct, he called on Summer's aid. Bending his knees, Jack raised both hands to intercept the crate with his palms. Energy flowed through him, setting every nerve on fire while he crafted a Bending that reversed gravity's pull and multiplied its power.

He gave a shove.

The crate went flying up to the ceiling as if someone had set off a rocket under its bottom side. It collided with the roof of the warehouse, then dropped back to the floor – Bendings lasted only a few seconds – to land in the aisle behind him with a sound that made him think of rhinos stampeding.

His vision fuzzed, and thousands of little pinpricks left a fiery sting in his skin. A Bending like that could leave a Keeper passed out on the ground. He had to fight to hold onto consciousness.

Petrov stepped into the aisle in front of him with a pistol in hand. Giggling with delight, the mob boss lifted his gun. No! No!

Jack brought a hand up to strike the man's wrist and knock the weapon aside. He punched Petrov square in the nose. That left the bastard stumbling and flailing about in confusion.

Jack spun, driving his elbow into the other man's chest. Driven backward by the hit, Petrov staggered all the way to the concrete wall at the end of the aisle. He wheezed and tried to raise his weapon again.

One more time, Summer.

With the aid of his symbiont, Jack crafted a bending that made light refract, images blurred into streaks of colour until it seemed as though they had bent back on themselves. A deafening CRACK filled the air.

He saw a bullet appear in front of him, watched it curve off to the right, then bend back in the direction it had come from. He watched the bullet zip away only to lose track of it mere fractions of a second later.

The Bending vanished.

Petrov doubled over, huffing and puffing. The suit would have protected him from gunfire as well as any Kevlar vest, but a shot to the stomach was enough to leave most people on their knees, and he had taken several already.

That last Bending might not have been such a good idea. Everything went hazy, and Jack was barely aware of the sensation of falling to his knees. His skin was aflame, his head ringing like a struck gong.

Overtaxing your symbiont could be fatal, and not just because it put too much strain on your body. With a great deal of concentration, he was able to pierce the mental fog and watch Petrov stand. The man lifted a gun in a shaky hand.

Jack could watch, but he couldn't react. His limbs were so heavy that even thinking about motion made him want to sick up. For all intents and purposes, he was helpless.

“Drop it!” Ben's voice shouted.

The man stepped around the corner with a gun held in both hands, eyes narrowed as he stared down Petrov. “You're gonna want to put that down now,” he said, nodding once. “I'm quite comfortable ending your miserable existence.”

By some miracle, Petrov relented.

Fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare down upon gray metal lockers with chips and scratches in their doors. They lined all four walls, and wooden benches were set in front of each set.

Jack stood alone in the locker room, still dressed in black clothing. Every muscle in his body ached, and he still felt a tingle from the strain he had put on Summer. Sadly, his night was only just beginning.

Closing his eyes, Jack scrubbed a hand across his forehead. “What do you think, Summer?” he muttered. “Any chance we can just sneak out of here before all hell breaks loose?”

The door flew open.

A man in black pants and matching shirt under a gray jacket came striding into the room. Tall and well-muscled, he had a handsome face and thick blonde hair. “You went after Petrov!”

“Guess that's a no,” Jack muttered.

Director Cal Breslan stood before him with arms folded, wearing a scowl that could melt concrete. “You went after Petrov!” he repeated. “After I specifically told you to wait for further instruction.”

Lifting his chin, Jack squinted at the man. “Yes, Sir, I did,” he said, nodding. “I had a warrant to search his warehouse. You were stalling and stonewalling me every time we met; so I took matters into my own hands.”

Breslan went red, then lowered his eyes to the floor. He drew in a sharp, hissing breath. “Did it occur to you that I might have wanted to leave Petrov in play?” he asked. “That I was hoping to use him to trace his suppliers?”

“No, Sir, it didn't.”

“And this reckless insubordination-”

Jack stepped up to the man.

Maintaining his composure was difficult in light of the anxiety that had wormed its way into his belly – defying the orders of a senior officer was questionable at best – but he managed to keep his voice even. “It never occurred to me,” Jack began, “because you refused to tell me what you were thinking. We've had several murders in the last month, Director, all committed with Leyrian weapons.

“Now, we have a lead on who might be supplying those weapons, and you choose to stall for two weeks? Petrov could have gone to ground and then we'd never have found him. The proliferation of weapons would have continued.”

Pale as a ghost, Breslan studied him with pursed lips. “I am not required to explain myself to you,” he said, blinking. “The chain of command exists for a reason; you have proven that you cannot respect it.”

“Justice Keepers are supposed to think for-”

“And since you cannot respect it, Agent Hunter, you are no longer a member of my division.” Those words seemed to hang in the air for several seconds. “Report to Director Slade for debriefing, and then get your Bleakness-kissed ass off this space station.”

Jack left without another word.

After the altercation with Breslan, the last thing Jack wanted to do was argue with yet another superior officer. Nevertheless, he found himself on the way to an office on the far side of Station One, and this time, his stomach was roiling. Breslan was something of a pompous man full of bluster, but the man who stood one wrung above him…

Grecken Slade's office was big enough to host a cocktail party, complete with black tiled floors that ran all the way to rectangular windows where stars twinkled faintly in the distance. A desk of polished glass sat atop a dais with a leather chair tucked underneath.

Slade stood at the window.

The man wore fine black pants and a blue silk coat, his long dark hair falling over his shoulders almost to the small of his back. If he noticed the presence of another human being, he gave no sign of it.

Jack shook his head in disgust. “All right, let's get this over with,” he said, striding into the office. “Write all my failings on a sheet of eight-and-a-half by eleven; I'll sign it, and we can be on our way.”

Slade turned.

The guy's face belonged on a department store mannequin, complete with smooth skin and tilted eyes that seemed to catch the light. “I see you're planning to add 'conduct unbecoming' to 'insubordination'.”

Clamping his mouth shut, Jack turned his face away from the man. “I don't mean to pick a fight,” he began. “But you and I both know that you aren't going to convince me I was wrong to go after Petrov.”

“I see.”

With hands clasped behind himself, Slade puffed up his chest and studied Jack like a stern father sizing up his errant child. The intensity of his scrutiny sent a powerful wave of nausea through Jack. “If that is your attitude then.” Simple words delivered without a spec of anger. No passion of any kind. Men who chose to keep such a tight rein on their emotions always felt unreal to Jack. “A formal reprimand will be added to your Record of Service, and you are no longer on active duty.”

Slade took a step forward to stand just behind the desk, his posture stiff enough for a marble statue. Did the guy really need a dais on top of everything else? “We need every Keeper we can get,” he went on. “If you can find a Director willing to take you on, you may return to active duty, but I will not force one of my people to accept an insubordinate officer. You will, of course, retain your… monthly stipend. We are not monsters.”

The words were invested with such scorn, Jack could almost imagine the other man succumbing to the urge to wretch. He had heard the speech many times before. “Being a Justice Keeper was a calling, not something you did for money.”

Keepers were paid, of course. Those living on Earth, anyway. Leyrians had abandoned the use of currency economics centuries ago. It wasn't a feasible system when life's necessities existed in such abundance that everyone could have access to them. The idea that he would have to pay for his apartment was…Well, it wasn't very Leyrian.

He turned around.

Hunching over, Jack pressed a hand to his forehead, then raked fingers through his hair. “One last thing, Sir,” he said. “Ben Loranai was acting under my orders. I hope this incident doesn't affect his standing with L.I.S.”

“Agent Loranai is not my concern,” Slade replied. “His superiors will deal with him as they see fit.”

Jack left and found himself walking through long corridors with black floor tiles and gray walls. Suspended with pay. All things considered, it could be worse – he wasn't going to starve – but a part of him had hoped that delivering Petrov on a silver platter would be enough to earn him some leniency.

Keepers were supposed to be skeptical of authority. Centuries ago, when humans had bonded Nassai for the first time, the very first Justice Keepers had sworn an oath to be a check on power. They had operated for over two centuries with no formal command structure, but as the organization grew, consensus-based decision making became harder and harder to achieve.

According to the philosophies of the first Justice Keepers, formal authority was a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. It was a Keeper's duty to challenge the structures of power. Therefore, defying the orders of a superior officer was not a criminal offense as it would be in more traditional military.

Just because they couldn't imprison him, however, was no cause to believe that they would let him off easy. Making waves with the boss was never good for your career. But he could live with Slade's ire.

Sadly, the worst task was still ahead of him. He'd faced his superiors and endured their wrath, but now he had to face his family.