reflection 01 - the reflective Read online

*

  Beth

  Rachett tore into the hospital room, and Beth nearly climbed out of her skin.

  The air still rippled with residual disturbance from Merrick's jump.

  “Where is Ryan?” Rachett barked.

  Beth took a deep breath. “He jumped with Merrick.”

  Rachett's jaw moved back and forth. “No… Merrick would not take a jump with Ryan.”

  “I don't think it was voluntary.”

  They looked at each other.

  Rachett seemed to notice Beth was in a hospital gown, flashing her backside to the window behind her.

  “The residual still remains,” she said quickly, throwing her palm toward the shimmering air pocket between them.

  Rachett studied the area, locked onto something and drove his palm through it in a slicing gesture that ended in his cupped fingers bringing the air back to his nose.

  He waved that little bit he'd collected back and forth in front of his face.

  “What signature?” Beth asked, moving to stand in front of him, her eyes on his hands as he smelled the air.

  His face fell into grim lines. “Sector Thirteen.”

  Rachett turned to Beth. “You're so damn hot to jump, jump that.”

  Beth took a step back. “But… I'm a female. I don't have clearance for that sector.”

  Everyone understood how treacherous that sector was. It had a terrible shortage of females, an estimated one to every fifteen males.

  She would be delivering herself into the lion's den.

  “Afraid?” Rachett taunted.

  Beth stared at him. “I've never been afraid a day in my life.”

  Anxiety is not fear.

  “That's my girl. Now”—he touched her shoulder so briefly that Beth thought she imagined it—“get Ryan back. We have somewhere he needs to go.”

  Beth paused then hit the affirmative decisively. “Yes, sir.”

  He laid the universal locator on the hospital bed. Its sheen reflected the spattered blood on the ceiling. Rachett’s eyes followed hers.

  When they lowered to meet hers again, he made no comment.

  Rachett never asked once if she was well enough to jump… or if she wanted to.

  Beth was Reflective, and that was answer enough.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Beth

  Unaware of Merrick’s gift, Beth traveled the tailwind of his jump with ease.

  Truly not jumping was harder than jumping. It was unlike any other compulsion that Beth had ever known. She forced herself not to give reflective surfaces more than a passing glance.

  Reflective surfaces were banned in some places, but no one could ban the water or tell the drops of rain where to fall.

  Pools of water existed as proof of moisture falling, and lakes were made to swim in and harbor the fish that her people ate.

  It was how it had always been.

  Of course, there were those stories of Reflectives borne outside the net of The Cause, unfortunate enough to grow up without knowing what they were.

  They were doomed to jump without knowledge, by pure instinct alone… to wherever their gift led them.

  Legends even told of young ones flinging themselves along the pathway of travel to Sector Thirteen—or One.

  Beth shivered inside the tunnel of fire and ice, spinning so quickly that she closed her eyes against the vertigo as she free fell.

  Beth was glad the jump was always brief. To think of more than a few seconds of that sensation was the only true fear she ever experienced. The thought of being stuck in the jump—always moving, never landing—was a hiccup of pure terror.

  Just as the thought solidified, she was spit out of the transport pathway, and with a spinning somersault, she came to an abrupt halt, her spine a raging nightmare of pain

  One knee was planted in stiff grass; the other, bent in preparation to stand. Both palms were embedded in an unyielding plant-like material with light-blond stalks. They rustled in a hot breeze that shot across a flat plane of land.

  Beth raised her head and met fifteen pairs of hostile eyes.

  She stood slowly, ignoring the worst of her injuries, and hoped she'd healed sufficiently to run.

  She knew what people these males were: Fragment, the most dangerous contingent of Sector Thirteen. Merrick had spoken of the Band.

  The Band might have been reasoned with.

  The Fragment would not be.

  Beth barred her teeth and charged them, pulling her two ceramic blades. Holding them expertly, she used their small weight for balance. Beth's senses traversed the uneven landscape while the men were shocked into a standstill, circling two Reflectives.

  Merrick and Ryan reacted to Beth's diversion.

  Merrick unleashed his blades on the four Fragment members who approached him. Kneeling as he got close to the first two, he severed their hamstrings.

  He rolled between the shrieking pair as they clutched their wounded legs. He drove the daggers in an arc toward the next pair, slicing their femoral arteries near the groin.

  They had seconds before their lifeblood would soak the ground beneath them.

  Probably not soon enough for Merrick's taste.

  Beth moved into the Fragment’s tight group, where her diminutive height was perfect for her to cut their throats. She closed her eyes against the spray, as she'd been taught to do, turning her face away to breathe.

  Her head swung like a pendulum as they bore down against her and she navigated through their ranks. Through her peripheral vision, Beth glimpsed a strike and blood spatter as a blade sang past her face. She noted the smell of the Fragment's metal, which she’d been trained to detect.

  Reflectives never used Fragment metal, though they had been trained to use and recognize the native weaponry of foreign sectors.

  She leaned away from the air pressure of the swipe and opened her eyes. Blood soaked her lashes like macabre glue.

  Ryan was her attacker.

  She acted on reflex, suspending her disbelief that he would still pursue his agenda of murdering her while they were under attack.

  She struck him with her four knuckles in a straight stabbing punch to the throat.

  Ryan staggered backward and fell to the ground on his backside.

  She exhaled raggedly as two of the Fragment leapt over Ryan’s body to get to her.

  Relentless.

  Ryan would get up momentarily; he was as skilled as she.

  Her eyes flicked to the advancing Fragment.

  Beth dropped to her haunches and crisscrossed her blades at the crotches of the men intent on hurting her.

  She defended Ryan, though he deserved nothing.

  He might not believe in The Cause, but Beth Jasper did.

  She was born to Reflect.

  Beth was not pureblood—she hailed from a combination of unknown genes—but she believed she was meant for a higher purpose. At that moment, it was killing Fragment.

  They did not pose a long-term threat to The Cause. Their technology was primitive, but she needed to survive another day to save those cultures that depended on the Reflectives, though they did not know it.

  Much of the Fragment was comprised of the criminal leavings of Sector Three, courtesy of two corrupt scientists and their misguided genetic manipulations. Beth had read the file. She knew what Merrick had inferred, but she’d kept it to herself.

  She'd also lost sight of the battle, thinking about things left to a time when she wasn’t actively engaged.

  One Fragment member reached her, taking hold of her braid. She'd been warned about her hair. It was her one concession to femininity, but this criminal had laid hold on the one weakness she’d given him due to stubbornness.

  He jerked her around, and Beth used the momentum, stabbing upward underneath his jaw in quick succession. A second white mouth of flesh opened.

  She turned her head before the spray, and he released her into the arms of his cohort. Beth fell backward and spoke in clear Fragment: “Fire!”

&n
bsp; Merrick and Ryan heard, Fi-rah!

  It was the one word that all cultures immediately understood to mean danger.

  It was more effective than stop, help, or any other word.

  It had Beth’s desired effect. Her assailant paused, still cradling her armpits, loosening his grip. She shifted the hilt of her dagger in her hand and punched it backward at whatever flesh she could strike.

  The sound of her hard blade striking an eyeball was unmistakable.

  She rotated and sprung up, seeing that her blade had indeed embedded in his eye socket. She jerked it out smoothly then dropped to the ground. Beth began tumbling down the ravine, the edge of which they’d been been perched on. She tucked the blade against her chest and crossed her arms as she rolled.

  When she came to a complete stop, she unfolded her body and stood. Bodies littered the ground. Ryan stood, staring down at her, and his very countenance reeked of his hatred for her.

  Beth sheathed the blade against her thigh. How she wished for a stimulator. But that handy weapon wouldn't have made the journey to Sector Thirteen.

  On powerful legs, Merrick began to descend the small knoll. Beth took a moment to admire him in motion. A thing of beauty, his sandy-colored hair was almost blond in the bright glare of this world's summertime. He came to stand in front of her, barely breathing after the fierce battle

  Neither said anything about Ryan’s attempt to kill them. The other Reflective stayed at the top of the hill, not acknowledging what had happened after Beth's escape down the small decline.

  Merrick didn't say anything for a few moments, and his eyes were like stranded storm clouds in the blood that covered his face.

  He reached out, and Beth flinched. Merrick ignored her and scooped something off her face.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He put his finger up, and a piece of gray clay the size of a pea stared back.

  “Brains,” Merrick said casually, flicking it off his thumb.

  Beth had a case of the quick swallows, fighting her rising gorge.

  Then she caught Ryan smirking down at her like the king of the hill.

  She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

  “Let's go,” Beth said instead.

  Merrick hid a small smile as they mounted the hill and began to weave between the dead bodies.

  Beth noticed the different modes of dress; some were of a modern Three origin. Actually, she saw clothing from every sector.

  The sectors occupied different times and parallel existences, but all were still Earths of varying degrees.

  “Those interfering asshole Zondoraes…” Beth muttered, and Merrick's brows rose. She couldn't help thinking that Thirteen would be so much safer if those criminals hadn't dumped Three scourge there. The worst insult: they'd fashioned a pathway that non-Reflectives could travel in, but not without health consequence.

  “Yes, we'll be dealing with them shortly.”

  “What does it matter? They're not bringing the technology here. They're just dumping the criminals.” Their scientists were bent on advancement to the detriment of their own world and the one the Reflectives stood in.

  Of course Ryan wouldn't see any problem with it. He must have thought it was such fun to engage with the Fragment.

  He was an efficient killer. After all, he had almost killed her.

  Merrick turned slowly to Ryan. “Before we jump, I am putting you on notice.”

  Ryan's eyes slimmed down on him.

  “Because of you, I missed a fine rut with a female Reflective of worth. You had to go and make the final play for another inductee and make it personal.”

  Beth couldn't believe this was about sex. She narrowed her eyes on Merrick with blatant disbelief.

  “So”—Ryan stabbed his own chest with a thumb, and Beth smiled when she caught sight of the nasty row of bruises on his throat he hadn't managed to heal—“you think I'm a cock-block?” Ryan snorted.

  Definitely a fan of Sector Three Earth idioms, Beth noted.

  “I don't think. I know,” Merrick answered.

  “That's just great that Ryan's attempted murder of me got in the way of your humping agenda.”

  Beth stalked off, leaving them to diminish the value of her life to an inconvenience.

  Merrick's voice stopped her. “We're jumping. I'm senior. Toss me a locator.”

  Beth's lips twitched. She hurled the locator.

  No tossing involved.

  Merrick smoothly caught the sphere. Only the tightening of his eyes let her know it had hurt.

  She raised her middle finger. “Sit and spin, boys.”

  They weren't the only ones that had a handle on foreign language. She was female, after all.

  Everyone knew females were the great communicators, regardless the sector. Beth was not going to be shut down by anyone.

  Especially Lance Ryan and the cock-blocked Jeb Merrick.

  Merrick put the sphere at their feet and turned to Beth, but she was already gone.

  She'd jumped before he set it on the ground.

  Unlike most, she didn’t need the locators to be still for her to travel.

  Her partner and his murdering sidekick could follow the end of her Reflective tailwind.

  *

  “Jasper!”

  She kept walking, Jeb Merrick could screw off. And? If there was any confusion, she had the map for him to find his way.

  “Hold on—Jasper!”

  Without actually losing dignity with a full-on jog, he was catching up. The bastard was well over six feet tall.

  She whirled around, and Merrick nearly plowed into her. His gold hair was curling along the ends, his fair complexion a ruddy slap against his cheekbones.

  Hell, he’d been invigorated by the jump.

  She folded her arms. “Weren't you stabbed, Merrick?”

  “It's just a flesh wound,” he answered without a hint of a smile.

  More Earth humor.

  Beth wasn't laughing. “What the Hades was that back there?”

  “That was diffusion, if you'd been paying attention instead of storming around like a female before her cycle.”

  Beth wanted to gut him where he stood, but she jammed her hands on her hips instead. “I was not ʽstorming aroundʼ.”

  Not too much.

  Merrick cocked an eyebrow.

  “Really,” he drawled.

  “Yes, really. Ryan's tried to kill me… what? Twice?”

  Merrick nodded. “But now we've got a gentleman's understanding.”

  Oh, Principle, this is rich.

  “I make him think that I have to suffer through our partnering, for the sake of some advancement… while trying to get in Daphne's panties…”

  Daphne, the slut of Papilio. That should be easy. Beth scowled at him.

  “You can't dismiss his attempt to murder me. I won't act for The Cause only to look over my shoulder for one of our own to disable me at a moment's notice.”

  He took Beth off guard with, “Nice neck jab.” He grinned down at her, white teeth blazing at her embarrassment.

  With supreme effort, Beth resisted putting her hands to her flaming face.

  “Thanks.”

  There was an awkward pause. “I've already been to Rachett.”

  Beth's chin jerked up, meeting his gaze. “And?”

  “I don't think anyone's going to be murdering anyone.”

  His smile faded.

  Beth stepped closer. “What?” Her eyes searched his face thoroughly.

  “Sector One incarceration.”

  She inhaled a sucking gasp. “How long?”

  “Thirty.”

  Thirty days in Sector One for a Reflective would be….

  Merrick had been following the thought processes that flowed across her face like emotional water.

  “Torture?” he said lightly.

  She gave him a sharp look. “Yes.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Sorry?”

  Beth s
hook her head slowly. “If it keeps him away from me, then it's worth it.”

  An evil grin spread across her face.

  Merrick quirked a brow. “What?”

  “And… look at it this way—he can't be blocking your cock if he's not around, can he?”

  Ruddy color spread up his neck, climbing to his face, and he frowned.

  So, the unflappable Jeb Merrick could be embarrassed.

  “Give the whore of Babylon my regards.”

  “Daphne isn't a whore,” Merrick said in a low voice.

  “I never said her name,” Beth replied, walking away.

  Jeb stared after her, palming his chin.

  He hated how she got under his skin.

  There was no denying that if she had been male, he would not have felt compelled to protect her.

  And therein lied the problem.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Beth pulled out the slim, hard pulse, nearly the size of the playing cards the people of the Adlaine Quadrant used for poker. She pressed her thumb to the bottom center. The screen lit up, and she swept her finger across.

  Jasper, Beth. Sector Ten Papilio.

  Characters bled to the top of her viewing screen like green cream rising to the top of black milk then scattered across the surface. Those random symbols burst then coalesced into a single word:

  Initializing.

  Beth swept the word aside and thought her request.

  She touched her thumb to the pulse dock pad briefly. The Brain Impulse Technology created a conduit between her thumb and brain, which allowed her thoughts to travel like the sensation of pain following nerve endings.

  The instantaneous transfer was completely secure within the confines of her thumb-secure entry and unique brain signature.

  The device was a new conquest built from old technology on Papilio. A small rectangle of nubby high-density polymer manufactured on Sector Three, its synthetic composite closely mimicked a natural polymer, so it could travel on the Reflectives’ person during a jump.

  Each Reflective had been assigned one from the correct era to blend on jumps where pulse tech was in use.

  Reflectives would soon be traveling to the sector that had created it second to Papilio. Reports had been trickling in that the tampering of Earth's adolescent population had become alarming.

  The color threat for that sector had risen from orange to red.