Jessie’s laying on my bed flipping through some magazine she found in my closet, “So how are we going to investigate this without Lastner finding out? I mean we’re looking into her and the President. I’m pretty sure flags are going to go up and bells are going to ring. Shit’s going to hit the fan and it’ll all go in our direction. We need to call Parker and get him to run through just how bad it’s going to get.”
“Would you calm down? We aren’t going to get caught. And we can’t call Parker, not yet anyway. We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Given I was attacked, we’ll have a good enough reason to come back early.” I say from the computer chair where I’m sitting at my desk.
“Okay but how are we going to investigate Lastner? She’s smart, she probably has measures in place to protect her from anyone looking into her.”
“So we’ll find an indirect way of looking into her. Parker will figure something out, it’s what he does. We’ll talk to Parker in the morning okay?”
“Whatever you say, Boss. You know I’m with you no matter what.”
“I know. It’s late, let’s get some sleep.”
Once Jessie falls asleep, I slip out of my room and head down the hall. I pass my parents’ room and peek in on them. Smiling at what I see because even asleep my parents are drawn to each other; with my mom curled into my dad’s arms he seems to be protecting her from everything, not just the slight chill in the house. I tiptoe past and down the stairs, careful to avoid the squeaky step near the bottom, I walk into the living room and sink into Dad’s big recliner. I close my eyes and visualize the town. I check on Reid first to make sure he made it to Corey’s okay. I can see that he’s passed out on the floor cuddling a pillow snoring, so I look in on Jackson. He’s not quite asleep but that seems to be the way with the SEALs, never quite asleep but never quite awake either, always ready for a fight.
I go from Jackson to checking over the whole town just as I’ve been doing the past two days. I spot an energy on the outskirts of town that’s new and almost seems to be beckoning me to it. I quickly morph my clothes from pyjamas to jeans, boots, and a long sleeve shirt and grab my coat on my way out the door. I don’t teleport directly to it just in case it’s a trap set by the Urics, but I get within a mile and make the trek up the hill where the energy hasn’t moved. I wasn’t able to identify what the energy was from but as I come upon it, I find a Uric. I scan her face and her file pops up in my field of vision. Masha Avakian, one of the top Uric Chipped officials, although not much is known about her other than the fact that she’s one of the top tech chipped in the world, even what she does is mostly unknown.
“Commander Fleming, it is nice to finally meet you,” she says in perfect but heavily accented English. “You and I have much to discuss, as you know I cannot go through the proper channels in order to speak with you, so here I am.”
“I can’t imagine we have anything to discuss other than how you got here undetected,” I reply while scanning the surrounding area for more Urics, and although I don’t find any I stay alert to everything around me. “Obviously you came in with the Urics that attacked me earlier but why weren’t you with them or at least in the area watching?”
Masha’s face contorts in what seems to be genuine confusion, “There were Urics here today? And they attacked you? What did they look like?”“Of course they attacked me! There’s a bounty out for me. One that your government put on me because of some rumors floating around about what my abilities are exactly. Don’t try to deny it or the fact that your government sent practically untrained agents to apprehend me.”
She takes a step toward me reaching for me with a look of urgency in her eyes, “What did they look like? Please, I need to know.”
I give her a doubtful look but figure there won’t be any harm in telling her, “There was a weapons chipped. He was short and stocky with black hair and had an Eastern Uric look to him. The other two were fighters one was a guy with light brown hair and deep set eyes and the other one was an older girl with dark brown hair-”
Masha closes the distance between us and my body reacts instinctively by pulling my arms up readying myself for a fight, but Masha’s swing never comes. Instead she has her phone in hand showing me a photo of the girl I fought earlier. “Is this her? Is this who you fought?”
Now it’s my turn to be confused, “Yeah but-”
“She is my sister. She and six others were abducted from a training camp in the South Western Territory about three weeks ago. The attack was carried out at night and they left no trace.”
“How do you know they didn’t just leave in the hopes of bringing me in with them and collecting the bounty?”
“Our intelligence says they were taken by a team of your SEALs, although we have not figured out how normal humans were able to take them so easily. These seven are the top of their training class; they might not be fully trained but they are highly talented.”
“Really? Because the three that I fought seemed as though they had been in training for maybe a month or two. There’s no way they would be at the top of any class.”
Masha’s eyes light up causing me to take a step back, “My chip allows me to manipulate any piece of technology or to read it. I have had a tough time fooling yours into not picking me up on your scans of the town. Your chip is extraordinary; it has fully integrated into your body’s network so it is not a foreign body any longer it is actually part of your body. You are as powerful as the rumors say you are, but in reading your chip just now there was a problem with it around eight tonight. It adapted quickly but not completely which probably made you feel fatigued, no?”
My eyes narrow at the intrusion. She’s the enemy. Why would she tell me her ability? Why not just take me out as she so clearly could any time she wanted? “Why would you tell me all of this? What’s in it for you, other than your supposed sister being taken? Why not just kill me or disable my chip and take me with you? I hear the bounty is quite large or you could use me for leverage against the US. And why would a group of SEALs abduct seven barely trained Urics?”
“I could ask you the same question. You are capable of killing me with no effort expended, and yet here I stand. I do not know why they would take them, except from what you have told me and what I have read on your chip. Maybe you were the target of your own government. The only way I could know is if I were to talk to my sister. I am telling you all that I know in the hopes that you will trust me and maybe we can begin a period of peace between our nations.”
I give her a skeptical glance but when I read her she seems to be telling the truth, “Breathe a word of what I’m about to do and show you to anyone and I will kill you without a single thought.” Masha presses her lips firmly together but nods in agreement.
Author: Kailan Counahan 