Wednesday March 29 2006
Los Terrentos California

Colby had been conspiring with John Lynch since before Miles Craven's death, when Lynch was still Director of Operations. He'd helped the older man execute his defection, and pull off capers against Ivana that would have gotten them both killed if things had gone wrong. He'd had no hand in the raid on the Genesis complex, but he'd risked discovery – and his life - numberless times to keep Lynch and his kids safe afterwards. In two and a half years as Lynch's accomplice, he'd never wondered if he was doing the right thing, backing the right horse. Until now.

They were meeting, once again, at a location of Lynch's choosing, and a time of Colby's. He stood in near-darkness among a cluster of empty maintenance buildings belonging to the California Highway Department. The buildings were arranged around a central open space on three sides, rather like a town square. Lights mounted above the doors on the fronts of the buildings filled it with bright blue-white light, but left the rest of the ground around the structures in deep shadow. Faint traffic sounds came to him from I-8, a mile distant, as he listened for the approach of his old boss.

Colby wasn't alone. His seven-man security detail was deployed on the rooftops and in the shadows around the buildings. He knew that his "bodyguards" had been assigned primarily to shadow him and report back, rather than provide protection. But he also knew these were Phillips' men, hand-picked, more loyal to him than to Ivana. And Colby had come to trust Phillips on slight acquaintance, as he had John Lynch twelve years before. No word of this meet would find its way to the Director.

He touched his jacket pocket to make sure the envelope was still there. Inside it were several pictures of the little blonde at the mall. He intended to show them to Lynch, and question him about her involvement with his group of runaways. He hoped to God that Lynch knew her, at least, and what she was up to, and that his kids weren't going maverick on him.

He looked at his watch. Lynch wasn't late yet, but he never was; usually he was the first to arrive. Colby wished he could have given him a heads-up about the men standing guard around the maintenance depot. He just hoped his former topkick wouldn't be alarmed when he spotted them.

He heard footsteps approach. Although he hadn't heard a car, something told him it was Lynch. A moment later, his old boss stepped into the other side of the illuminated square. Again, Colby was taken by the man's restored vitality, obvious in both step and posture. Lynch had never looked his age, even at his worst just a few weeks ago, but he'd seemed worn, fatigued, and strung out for quite a while. But the man standing in the light waiting for him looked like the one he'd faced every year at the hand-to-hand contest; certainly not like a man two years on the run who'd just had his house burn to the ground.

Colby stepped into the light. Thirty yards separated them. "Once again, Lynch, you've managed to pick a real garden spot for a meet." He didn't raise his voice, but it carried in the quiet and echoed off the walls.

"You'd rather meet at headquarters? Leave me a visitor pass at the gate?"

"I'm sure they'd let you in." He smiled briefly and started crossing the small square. He reached into his jacket for the envelope.

The chameleon stepped into the light behind Lynch.

He opened his mouth to call a warning. Before he could say a word, though, she zipped around in front of Lynch and stood shielding him, arms spread to maximize her coverage.

Guess I won't be needing the pictures. The look in her eyes made the hairs on his forearms prickle inside his sleeve. His shoulder holster was under his armpit, inches from the pocket containing the envelope. He withdrew his hand slowly and dropped it.

Lynch said, amused, "Stand down, Anna. He's my contact."

The little blonde's manner reminded him of an attack dog waiting for its master to drop its leash. "He's IO. I smell it on him. And he's armed."

"We're all armed. And I'm IO, too. We worked together. This is Frank Colby. He's a friend."

She dropped her arms and straightened, but kept her eyes trained on him. "He doesn't seem very friendly."

"He's probably wondering what the hell is going on. I always come alone."

"Does he?"

Colby found his voice. "I brought some people with me. They're safe."

"They are now."

His skin went cold. He tried to keep his voice even. "Those men are all sympathizers and potential allies. My freedom of movement depends on their cooperation. I really hope you didn't do anything drastic."

"No," she said. "Nothing drastic."

His cop instincts kicked on, and he saw the two of them from a shifted perspective. Lynch knew her, obviously, and knew her capabilities, else he wouldn't let her stand between him and a nervous man with a loaded gun. But more intriguing was the way they were standing together… closer than prudent for a bodyguard and her principal, and somehow they seemed to lean toward each other, even though they weren't… Lynch wasn't touching her, wasn't even looking at her, but Colby was suddenly sure the man was accustomed to laying hands on her. Top, are you sleeping with this little maneater?

She was still focused tightly on him. "Do you two usually meet with guns in hand? He was reaching for his before he saw me."

"No." Colby shook his head slightly. "I have something for him. An envelope with some pictures." He made a fist, leaving his first two fingers sticking out, and slowly reached towards his jacket opening.

"Don't." She glided across the open space toward him. "Let me." Lynch started to follow, but she made a halting gesture without looking back, and he stopped, shaking his head.

During the ten seconds it took her to close within striking distance, Colby mentally reviewed the mall scenes, gauging her speed and strength, and concluded he didn't have a chance against her unarmed. He looked past her at Lynch. The man nodded at him reassuringly. "Just humor her," his former boss said with a smile quirking his lips, and Colby's unease drained away.

She stopped just a foot away. Another clue: her sense of personal space seemed very un-American. Maybe she's European. Could Devereaux be her real name? He caught a trace of her perfume, just as she slid her hand into his coat. The back of her hand pressed against his chest as she reached into the pocket and grasped the envelope. He remembered what those hands had done to three men just a few days ago, but the memory wasn't as frightening as it should be. The touch was intimate and electrifying. I/S Effect?

She paused and looked up at him with her hand still inside his clothes. "Tell me, Mr. Colby. Do you get like this with every girl who acts ready to kill you?"

Ah, hell. That obvious? He swallowed. "They all think about killing me, sooner or later."

She twitched a smile as she removed the envelope and glanced into it. "Ah. You wanted to ask him about me."

"I know all about his kids, but he never mentioned you. I thought maybe he didn't know you."

"Well. That would open a great many unpleasant possibilities, wouldn't it?"

"Yes. Can I reach in my jacket?"

"Certainly. My apologies, Mr. Colby." But she watched him carefully as his hand slid into the opening. He was quite sure that if he'd put a hand on his pistol, it would never have cleared the holster.

"Call me Frank," he said, and drew out a business card for a construction company that had gone out of business years before; he presented it to her. "If you ever need anything, and he's not around, use this. Don't bother with the number on the card. It connects to an answering machine, and I never pick up the messages. Add one to the first digit, two to the second, and so on. That's the number you'll reach me at."

"I can't imagine what use I'd have for it." She started to turn away without taking it, then stopped. "If you never answer it, why do you pay for the number?"

He said slowly, "In case IO gets their hands on one of these cards. I wouldn't want some clueless citizen getting picked up for questioning."

She turned back and plucked the card from his fingers. "I'll leave you boys alone now. I've got to go make nice to your men." She cocked her head. "Take off your glasses, Frank."

"What?"

"Your glasses. Let me see you without them." When he hesitated, she lifted an eyebrow. "What's the problem? They're not corrective lenses, after all. Just clear acrylic with an anti-glare coating."

How do you know that, if you don't have access to my medical file? Slowly, he pulled them off. She looked up, studying him for a few seconds, then gave him a tiny smile. "Bet killing you's not the first thing they think of."

She turned away and walked back to Lynch, and he followed. She passed Lynch the envelope without a pause and disappeared into the shadows without a sound.

He and Lynch stepped into the shadows and shook hands. Still gripping the older man's hand, he said, "You know what you're doing, Top?"

Lynch didn't pretend ignorance. "Not entirely. But she saved my life, as surely as if she'd pulled me out of a burning building."

"Sure of her motives?"

"Is this just natural suspicion, or do you have something?"

"Just what's in those photos." He spoke briefly about the fracas at the mall, and the conclusions Ruche had drawn about the Gens and their 'housekeeper'. He added the speculations he'd entertained over the suppressed Information. When he paused, Lynch nodded. "Right or wrong, you've planted some seeds, and provided a good diversion."

"It's stirred up the hive, that's for sure, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do. I should have given more thought to Ivana's reaction. It's completely off the charts. She's ordered all our spear carriers trained up to take on Gens, even the Razors and X-Teams."

Lynch whistled softly.

"Top. Is any of it close to the mark? Where did you find her?"

Lynch shook his head slowly. "Letting you in on that little secret might put you in more danger than you can imagine. Suffice to say that I've known her for years, even before I left IO. And I trust her completely. Okay?"

With as casual a voice as he could muster, he asked, "How does she get along with the kids?"

"Bobby calls her 'Mom." They all love her. She says they're her reason for living. And if you think she's protective of me…" He waved the envelope. "Well, you've seen. A tigress with her cubs."

"Are there more like her? Can you tell me that much?"

Lynch shrugged. "We think so. We're not in contact, and we don't want to be. Another secret." He looked at Colby, the dead eye seeming as intent as the living one. "I see now, why you called a meet so soon after the last one. Any more cheery news?"

"Ivana's nose is twitching. She told me, flat out, she thinks we're talking. She wants your girl and her associates so bad she's willing to overlook it. Even offered me the Director's slot if I hand her over."

"And if you don't, you must be playing for the wrong team, and she'll boil you alive. There's no middle road with that woman." Lynch looked away, turning the blasted side of his face towards him. "We may need to keep out of touch for a while."

"Yes. Or we may need to get in touch quickly. I'm assuming Ivana's got an ear on my phones, but she doesn't know about this one." He handed Lynch another of his cards and explained its use. "What about the Stuttgart sightings?"

"Still on, but moved back a week. We'll all lie low till then." Lynch pursed his lips. "It may work once more, but I doubt they'll go haring off after every lead like they used to, not after this."

Colby shrugged. "Maybe they'll turn out all that extra manpower to look for the Genactive Resistance."

"Hope so. Otherwise, I'll have to buy an island in the Pacific or something."

-0-

When Gordon Phillips regained consciousness, he was looking down at the concrete floor a foot from his nose. His head and neck ached, and his shoulders were on fire, because his arms were stretched out behind him, and he seemed to be hanging from them. He moved, causing him to swing gently, and discovered that his wrists and ankles were all bound together. Something was pressing hard into his calves and cutting into the backs of his knees. He felt like a side of beef in a slaughterhouse.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he turned his head to survey his surroundings. He was inside one of the maintenance buildings, and he wasn't alone. Close by in a neat row, he saw several other troopers dangling in the same way. They were all hanging from a drive-on car lift in some sort of machine shop, with their lower legs thrown behind them over the track and their wrists tied to their ankles to form a large loop, from which they were hung. The closest prisoner, Mike Loud, looked back at him sourly. "Was starting to worry. You were the first one they took down, I think, but you were the last to wake up."

"The others?"

"We're all here. Dragged us in from all over the complex and put us in the same building. Maybe they're gonna set fire to it."

"Oh, that little bitch," said Castro, somewhere behind him. "I get out of this alive, I'm gonna hunt her down if it takes the rest of my life."

Phillips felt cold. "You saw her?"

"Yeah, for about a fucking second."

"Little blonde, looks like she ought to be selling Girl Scout cookies?"

"Dunno bout that. She looked plenty mean when she yanked the gun out of my hand and planted the stock in my gut. I think she broke my trigger finger. Never seen anybody move so fast. Fuckin little Kung Fu bitch."

Loud's mouth twisted. "Something you want to tell us, Gord?"

A door squeaked open. "Oh God oh God." A girl's voice, young and distraught. "I'm so sorry. I thought you were here to hurt them." He felt himself lifted. Loud's eyes widened as Phillips' hands came free in a rattle of chains on concrete and he was lowered to the ground. The Chameleon was crouching over him, seeming on the verge of tears. "Are you okay? I tried not to hurt anybody, but I wasn't sure. I had to make the first hit count, you know? You guys are just too big. Oh, God, Mr. Lynch is gonna kill me."

He rubbed his wrists. "Cut the others down." Loud glanced his way, and Phillips shook his head slightly, warning him. "Where are the weapons?"

"Over in the corner, behind the drums. I'm sorry. I spotted you guys all around us, and I freaked. I thought they found us again." She lifted Loud in her arms and twisted the chain wound around his wrists and ankles, and it fell free. She carefully set him on the ground and moved to Castro, a huge man with dark hair and eyes.

He glared at her upside-down as she approached. She knelt, laid her hands under his shoulders, and lifted, so that they were face-to-face, albeit forehead-to-chin, almost as if his head was in her lap. "I'm sorry," she said softly, brushing a strand of hair off his forehead and looking into his eyes. "You must want to put my lights out. When I get you down, take a poke at me, if it makes you feel better. I've got it coming."

He frowned. "Christ, you look twelve years old. Nobody's gonna hit you. Just get me down."

-0-

"It was the scariest thing I've ever seen." Phillips sat behind the wheel of one of the team's idling Suburbans; Colby rode shotgun. They were waiting for the rest of the squad to mount up in the other two vehicles and stow their gear.

"Scarier than the mall footage?"

Phillips shrugged. "I've seen men killed in hand-to-hand before. I never saw anybody do what she did when she came back for us. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. They all knew she was the one who took them out, and the one who smashed her way through the team at the mall; she should have had six guns on her the moment they got them back. Instead, they're all gathered around her like she's some kind of kid sister, patting her on the head and telling her nobody's gonna hurt her while they're around. Like they'd forgot all about what she did to them. Castro hugged her. Castro. That guy doesn't smile at his mother." He shook his head. "They all volunteered to escort you to your next meet, I think just for a chance to see her again."

"I saw. She didn't charm you, too?"

"I saw the mall footage. I watched her switch back and forth from a cheery little bimbo to a killing machine. I knew I was looking at a wolverine in a bunny suit."

A hand slapped the closed window inches from Colby's head, startling him. Behind the palm pressed to the other side of the glass, he saw the face of the chameleon, Anna. She made a twirling motion with her hand, asking him to roll down the window. Pressing the 'up' button to keep Phillips from lowering it from the driver's side, he said, "It's broken."

She came around the front of the vehicle, headed for the other side. Quietly, he said to Phillips, "Roll it down."

She waited impassively as the driver's window dropped. "Hello again, Frank. Jack told me some of what you've done for us. I'm sorry I misjudged you."

"No problem."

Then, she addressed Phillips. "I wanted to talk to you before you left. Your men call you Gord, but I wouldn't presume. Do you have a rank or a title, something like that?" The girlish voice and manner were gone; she was all business again.

"Phillips is fine," the man said warily.

"Mr. Phillips," she said, "I like your men. They're tough, but they're big-hearted and sentimental in their own way. And sure of themselves, else they couldn't have forgiven me so easily. That speaks well of you, too, as their leader." She locked eyes with the team leader. "But you still act like you can't turn your back on me, and I don't think it's from wounded pride. If we're going to work together, maybe we should understand each other better."

Phillips glanced at him; he shrugged. The man turned back to her. "I know how good an actress you are. They don't. I'm the only one who's seen the mall video."

She nodded. "Ah. So, you're not sure which is the real me?"

"I'm not sure I've seen the real you." He added, "I found the kid in the bathroom."

Her face turned stony. "I'm sorry about that. But I had an urgent need for information, and no time to be gentle. I thought you were all there for us."

"He said you were almost beside yourself with rage. That you could barely restrain yourself from killing him."

"Like I said, I thought he was there for my kids." She gave him a hawk's stare. "Did mall surveillance catch us in the hallway?"

"When you shot those men?"

"Just after, when we ran to the garage doors. The little girl with the purple hair. You saw us at the end of the corridor?"

"When she stopped to catch her breath, and you had your little tête-à-tête? Yeah."

"They didn't record audio." It wasn't a question.

"No. Why?"

"Because if they had, I think you'd be looking at me differently right now." Her face hardened further. "Roxanne is sixteen years old. Like all Gens, she's in excellent physical shape. She's quite athletic, too. She smokes, but not enough to impair lung function. When she doubled over to catch her breath, she wasn't winded from a piddling hundred-yard trot down the hallway. She was having a panic attack." Her face softened, and she looked away. "You can't imagine what it's like, listening to her cry out in the night as she dreams of being back in their hands, even after two years. When we put our foreheads together at the end of the hall, she was asking me to make sure they didn't take her. Any way I had to." They watched her eyes mist. "God's sake. At her age, her heaviest decision should be picking out a prom dress. But she was almost paralyzed with fear, and I couldn't tell her 'no'." She turned back to them. "But that's a promise I'm never going to have to keep, because I'll blow up IO headquarters with everyone in it to keep her safe. I'll do anything." Her face settled back into its calm mask. "Well. That's what I'm about." She turned away.

"Hey."

She turned back to look at Phillips.

"I won't say I'm ready to blow up headquarters," he said slowly. "But I joined IO to help people. I know your boss by reputation, and Frank is his friend, and I trust them both. If I can help you or your kids without getting somebody else hurt, I will. That's what I'm about."

She nodded.

The headlights of the other two Suburbans came on, signaling that the rest of the team was boarded and ready to leave. She turned towards them and waved, smiling. Phillips put the car in gear and followed them out of the maintenance park.

Colby said, "She got to you."

"I know. She's still a wolverine in a bunny suit. It just seems now that wolverines are every bit as cute as bunnies." Phillips glanced pointedly at Colby's armrest. "There's nothing wrong with the window."

"No. I just didn't want to wipe her prints off the glass."

-0-

Lynch watched the vehicles exit the compound. Then, while he waited for Anna to complete her final perimeter walk, he pulled out the packet of photos. He studied the shot of her in the act of killing a man with her fist, and another that showed her firing on a human target, intent as a sniper. Then he looked at the photos of her with the girls, happy as a lark to be involved and included. He wondered, not for the first time, what had prompted her to come with him that day in the warehouse, and what had bound her to him ever since. Then again, he supposed, every man in love probably asked such questions.

Then he slipped the bottom eight-by-eleven out of the pile and did a double take, because at first he took it for another woman he knew. Her eyes and hair had been darkened with pencil. He stared at it for only a few seconds before he said softly, "Miles. Miles, you twisted son of a bitch," and put them all back in the envelope.

A minute later, Anna returned. "All clear. No witnesses, nothing left behind." She gave him a curious glance. "Something wrong?"

"Not a thing." He offered her a hand, palm-up. "Care to take a walk in the moonlight?"

"With you?" She smiled and took his hand, and they started walking towards the car. After a few steps, she said, "Jack, what's the story on Colby?"

He took a moment to answer, while noting that her footfalls made no sound on the gravel. "My protégé at the Shop, you could say. We met just after that business in Iraq. We did a couple of missions together, and went into field and desk work at about the same time. We spent time together and became friends, and I helped him along in his career at IO. Not that he didn't have a bright future there without my help."

"No. I mean… does he have a wife? Or a girlfriend?"

He swung their clasped hands. "Thinking of trading up, doll?"

"As if. But… when I slipped my hand in his jacket, his adrenaline and pheromones shot up at the same time. That's very unusual."

"Humph." They were nearly at the car, the black Charger nearly invisible in the deep shadow under a cluster of trees. He went to the passenger door and stopped without opening it. "Frank's a good guy. If he ever found the right girl, I'm sure he'd make her happy. But he's drawn into poisonous relationships somehow. His girlfriends are all psychos. He told me he once made a date with a girl in the squadroom who was being booked for clubbing her ex with a whiskey bottle. He could barely read the phone number she wrote down, because she had to use her left hand, the right being handcuffed to a chair arm." He shook his head. "Drug addicts, career criminals, manic depressives, paranoids, you name it. And the affairs never end well, I can tell you. He's got scars, real ones."

"Doesn't speak well for his attraction to me."

He looked at her face, alight with mischief, and his mind's eye overlaid another face on it. "Well, even if you weren't a live grenade, what attraction could be more hopeless for him than to a girl sworn to destroy IO? And spoken for, besides?"

"Is that why he wears those fake glasses? To put girls off? I bet it doesn't work."

"No, he just likes his vision clear in case he has to draw his piece and start shooting. How did you know they weren't corrective lenses?"

"It's easy, if you've got my eyesight and you know what you're looking at." She smiled. "Your count is jacked up too. No pun intended." She let go of his hand and slid her fingers into the waist of his pants. "Does knowing another man wants me get you hot?"

"You know, most married men complain that their wives are obtuse about such things. It's a little unnerving having a girlfriend who knows when I'm in the mood before I do."

She pushed him gently against the car and pulled his shirt out of his pants. "And does it make it better or worse, knowing I'm always ready to do something about it?" She reached for his belt buckle. "When was the last time you did it in the back seat of a car, old man?"

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