Portal Jumpers

  PORTAL JUMPERS

  CHLOE GARNER

  Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

  Portal Jumpers Copyright © 2016 Chloe Garner. All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission.

  Cover design by A Horse Called Alpha

  The image: sig16-009 (Protoplanetary Disk) is Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

  The image: NGC 6814: Grand Design Spiral Galaxy from Hubble is Courtesy ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

  Published by A Horse Called Alpha

  PORTAL JUMPERS

  We were there, of course. When it happened. We called it an internal event and chose not to intervene and then, when the risk from the Consciousness became too great, we left. As far as we have been able to discern, he is the only survivor of the global genocide. His handlers report he is uncooperative, but not unfriendly, and he shows signs of being an exemplary sample of his race, a mind in a generation, to have escaped as he did, and then survive long enough for our ships to find him. It is unknown whether he can be converted into an asset, but all attempts to restrict his freedom to date have, obviously, been ineffective. It is possible a more intensive effort may be successful, but that effort seems unlikely, given the events described above.

  What to do about it was above her pay grade, and she was grateful for that. She read over her report again, then blinked. Her eyes were dry enough that her eyelids stuck to them, and she blinked several more times, realizing how late it was. One or two other analysts were still there, but the bustle of the place had calmed and died hours ago. She checked the time on her screen, then got out her phone and called Troy. He answered on the first ring.

  “What’s up?”

  “You bring anyone home tonight?”

  “My bed’s all yours, love.”

  She smiled and hung up. The transformation from agent to grown up had been rough. She’d bought a house about thirty minutes from base and painted the walls colors she thought she’d like. She mowed the lawn on Saturdays and planned on planting flowers next spring. But she missed the barracks. Sleeping in bunks with a dozen other agents between assignments, or in a field house with two or three guys on some planet out there. Thinking about it made her glance skywards, even indoors. Having a whole house to herself made her feel retired. And analysts weren’t allowed to have unsupervised interaction with agents. Agents were only allowed to know what they knew. They didn’t talk about their jobs, even with each other. Analysts knew everything, but it didn’t help much. The analysts would talk to her, but they weren’t the same.

  The knowledge, at least, had been a relief. Sitting up with Troy, talking about everything she had seen and done. He got it.

  They’d been friends in school, but a funny light sensitivity had derailed his intent to become an agent. She’d been devastated for him, but he’d never been that upset. He stayed in school after she left, becoming one of the best scientists and analysts the agency had. He ran a lab with a billion dollar budget, but still had a desk with the analysts. It would have never been enough for him to just facilitate other people’s work. At work, inaction made him twitchy.

  He opened the door before she knocked.

  “Did you get him?”

  She let the reality of it sink in, slowly grinning. She hadn’t meant to gloat. There would be enough people making way too much of it in the next few days, but the eager glow to his eyes just made her light up.

  “I got him.”

  “Cassie, you’re a genius.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without you,” she said, letting him sweep her into the apartment.

  “You hungry?” he asked. She looked at her phone.

  “It’s past midnight. You haven’t eaten?”

  “Knew you’d want to talk all night,” he said. “Been drinking coffee.”

  She leveled her gaze at him for a moment.

  “How much coffee?”

  He grinned.

  “There are four courses, but I could scrap the one if you’re not really hungry, or, well, there’s a dessert that comes in two stages…”

  “Shut up, already,” she said, laughing. He made her feel inadequate. She got home and sat on the couch and listened to the quiet, wishing it were gossip. She did laundry, she ate spartan meals, she cleaned and straightened, but when she was out of things to do… she stopped. He kept going.

  “You got him,” Troy said, pulling something out of the oven. It smelled of tomato and made her realize she hadn’t eaten in twelve hours.

  “It’s not that big a deal. Anyone could have done it.”

  “Not anyone,” he said. “You found the anomaly.”

  “You make it sound so exotic,” she teased, getting silverware.

  “He was jumping?” Troy asked, pausing to look at her. There was a moment of silence between them, recognizing the significance of it. Jumping was sacred, controlled at the highest levels. Mankind’s responsibility within the universe, and all that. She nodded.

  “Yeah.” There was another hesitation, then she turned to the table. “Coming back from only heaven knows where, actually. I tried to back-track it, but… Troy, he’s good. He’s better than any of us.”

  “Not better than you,” Troy said.

  “Much better,” she said, sitting and letting him serve. Quick fingers. Sexy quick fingers. She didn’t watch.

  “You caught him.”

  “Only because, for reasons I haven’t been able to figure out, he always comes back. Lot easier to trap someone who always comes back to the same place.”

  “But you told them when,” Troy said. “He could have come back any time, but you had them waiting.”

  He left unsaid how embarrassing it would have been to be wrong, in that moment. She’d wanted to be there, to see her fate with her own eyes. They’d cleared traffic off the portal so he couldn’t slip away unnoticed, and had been standing there, in that echoingly big room, just her and a group of heavy-set men with guns, there to arrest him. There because she’d said he would turn up right at that moment.

  And he had.

  She grinned again.

  “I don’t know why,” she said. “The pattern recognition isn’t worth much if you can’t explain why.”

  Troy threw himself into the other chair and started to eat with his fingers, blowing on them and sucking sauce off his fingertips with a complete lack of decorum. She used her fork and knife like a grown up.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said between bites, swallowing. “You got him. All that matters. No one else can keep him pinned in, and you told them where he was going to be.”

  She shrugged. Troy was a good cook. Maddening, really. He did everything well.

  They ate in silence, something he’d learned to do from her. Agents ate with an expectation of being interrupted - everything in sight, as fast as possible. When she’d first gotten back, he’d tried to carry a conversation with her, but it had frustrated both of them. She suspected other women were more sterling dinner partners than she was, but he put up with her. She had the best stories.

  Not many people had spent six years of their lives on other planets.

  “You read his file,” Troy said when she finally finished. “Where do you think he went?”

  “I need a shower,” she said, rubbing her eyes. A shower and to fall unconscious. She’d hardly slept at all the night before. How many years had it been since she’d been that excited? He waved her off from clearing the table.

  “Go, go,” he said. “I’ll get your stuff.”

  She took an extra moment in the shower, absorbing the heat, then dressed
in the soft clothes she left at Troy’s apartment to sleep in. She brushed her teeth with the second toothbrush on the sink - hers - then finished toweling her hair as she made for his bed. She’d asked him, once, what he told women who spent the night and found a second toothbrush in the bathroom in the morning, and he answered that he just had them throw it out. He kept fresh spares, and obviously someone else forgot to throw theirs out before they left. She shook her head. He kept herbal shampoos and raspberry-scented shaving cream in the shower, and high-branded moisturizer above the sink. His apartment was set up for frequent visits from women, but she wondered why none of them ever wondered if he was cheating on someone with whom he was more serious.

  He was staring out over the city through the giant windows that made up one side of his efficiency apartment. Couch, television, table, and bed, all in view of the front door. No one would ever sneak up on him here, and she secretly knew it was part of the reason she liked it here. The creaks in the house kept her up, some nights.

  “So why are you alone tonight?” she asked. He glowered at her without turning his head.

  “Where do you think he went?”

  “Maybe he’s looking for other survivors,” she answered.

  “Where?”

  She climbed into bed and leaned her head against his shoulder, immediately drowsy. He smelled safe, familiar.

  “Nearby planets?” she asked. “I guess.”

  “Where would you go?” he asked. The question startled her.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shifted to look down at the top of her head.

  “If you could use it to go anywhere. Where would you go?”

  “How would I know where to go?” she asked. “I’ve never been there.”

  “There isn’t anywhere you’d want to go back?”

  She sighed and settled against him, draping her arm across his chest.

  “You know I would…”

  He held her, letting her wriggle lower onto the pillows and pulling the blankets up over her shoulders.

  “Not for work,” he said. “For you.”

  “They were all work,” she said. “I wouldn’t go back for me.”

  He nodded.

  “The things you’ve seen…”

  The pang of sympathy was stronger than normal. He was more introspective than she normally found him.

  “Somewhere new,” she said, looking up at him. “Somewhere I’ve never been or heard about. Somewhere no one I know has ever been.”

  He tucked his chin against her head.

  “Maybe that’s what he’s doing.”

  She closed her eyes and started drifting again.

  “Maybe so.”

  He let go of her with one arm to turn off the light, but she never heard it click.

  When Cassie woke up, Troy was making breakfast.

  “Your phone keeps ringing,” he called when she groaned at the peeking sunlight.

  “Get curtains,” she called back.

  “Never.”

  She smiled to herself and stretched.

  “How long have you been up?” she asked, going to lean against the counter. He’d laid out clothes for her on the back of the couch, one of several sets she traded out here. She’d leave yesterday’s clothes here and they’d turn up in rotation, laundered and smelling sweet.

  “A while,” he answered, using his fingers to slide bacon to one side of a pan so he could add an egg. He sucked his finger tips and grabbed a fork.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said, motioning to the clothes. “I can pick my own clothes, mom.”

  “Don’t want you pawing through my stuff, trying to find them,” he said. She laughed. He glanced at her. “You got him.”

  “I got him.”

  They grinned at each other like children for a moment, then her phone rang.

  “Told you,” he said. She went to dig it out and answered.

  “General.”

  “Good morning, Calista.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “I’ve just finished reading your report.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I need to see you this morning when you get in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She waited, but the line went dead. She sucked her cheeks in.

  “I might be in trouble,” she said.

  “Why would you be in trouble?” Troy asked, handing her a plate and sliding half a fried, scrambled egg and three pieces of bacon onto it. “Milk?”

  “Orange juice,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s like I got called to the principal’s office, though.”

  He laughed.

  “You never think he would be calling you in to give you a merit, do you?”

  He handed her a glass and poured orange juice into it, putting the carton back into the refrigerator and kicking it closed with his heel as he turned, pouring the rest of the pan, grease and all, onto his plate. The pan hit the sink and he was facing her again.

  “It’s just my job,” she said. “What if I crossed the knowledge boundary, pulling data?”

  “Did you?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, insulted. He laughed.

  “Never you. You’re not that kind of girl.”

  It was a jab. One that made the hairs on her arms stand up.

  Their first and only date, a few weeks after she’d become an analyst. They’d gone to dinner and talked. It was the first time they’d really talked since he’d left the agent track, and everything had been so natural, the way it always had been. He kept ordering sugary drinks and tipping the waitress, and then Cassie was in an alley down the street, pressed up against a wall, his mouth on hers. She’d kissed a few of the other agents, drunk, with her guard down, but the regs were crystal clear on agents’ romantic lives. They weren’t permitted. This was the first time it had been allowed, and full of fruit-flavored alcohol and familiar conversation, she indulged. How they made it back to his apartment, she never knew, but they were there, a tangle of limbs and chemicals, when she realized what was happening. Stunned at herself, she’d extricated herself and mumbled something mortifying about ‘not that kind of girl’ and fled, ashamed.

  She knew his life.

  She wasn’t going to be just another one of his girls.

  She loved him, but she wasn’t that kind of girl.

  She’d thought long and hard that night about changing her name and disappearing; the drive to work the next morning was the longest of her life. She avoided her desk, using the workout room until her body gave out then ducked into the analyst room and hoped he wouldn’t notice. A few minutes later he’d put a hand on her shoulder and leaned over her, putting the side of his mouth against her cheekbone.

  “The day, the very moment you decide you are that kind of girl, I want you to call me,” he’d said, then clapped her shoulder and left. They’d never talked about it again, but he teased her once in a while.

  Now, he stood with his hips against the counter, eating his eggs with his fingers, his eyes glittering at her. He knew exactly the images he’d invoked. She glowered at him and ate her breakfast.

  “Give me a ride in?” he asked. “We’ll go to dinner tonight to celebrate.”

  She nodded.

  “Gonna go get dressed. Be ready in five.”

  He nodded and she grabbed her clothes off the back of the couch and went into the bathroom to change. She brushed her hair and her teeth and straightened her clothes one last time, going back out into the main room to find Troy dressed and ready to go.

  On base, she dropped him at the tech building and drove to the general’s office, a few blocks away. His receptionist smiled at her and waved her through.

  “He’s expecting you.”

  Cassie’s stomach lurched, but the woman didn’t give her any indication of foreboding. General Thompson wouldn’t tell the woman anything specific about what was going on, on base, but she knew his moods well enough to at least telegraph that much. Cassie shrugged and the woman
smiled again.

  “Cleared his whole morning.”

  Cassie wasn’t sure that was better.

  She knocked on his office door and waited.

  “Enter,” he called. She pushed the door open and walked into the office, full formal. The worst thing she could do was be timid. She stood in front of his desk while he finished something on his computer. He looked surprised.

  “Sit, Lieutenant, please.”

  She pulled a chair square with his desk and perched on the front edge of it.

  “He was surprised we caught him,” the general said, scratching his head with a pen. “Wants to meet the person who figured it out.”

  She shrugged.

  “I would, too,” she said. He smiled. “Sir, am I in trouble?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Seems like the natural thing to want to know,” she said.

  “You’re too suspicious,” he answered. He put his pen down and ran his hands through his thinning gray hair. He still had the body of a military man, but his skin and his hair betrayed the number of years he’d been at it. “It was a shame we had to pull you out of the agency. You were always one of the best.”

  “Not that you ever put me on an advance guard,” she said. There was a reason she was often in trouble. He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You never met the physique requirements, and you know it.”

  “Of course,” she answered.

  “I want you to interview him.”

  Cassie was startled for a moment.

  “Why?”

  “Because you get what makes him tick, more than anyone else I’ve got to send at him,” he said. “You don’t have to tell him who you are; probably shouldn’t, but I want you to take a run at him.”

  “What’s the objective?”

  “Who is he, why is he here, where does he go, and is he endangering our interests in doing it.”

  “None of his interviews to date have suggested malice,” Cassie said. He shook his head.

  “No, they haven’t. You’re right. But we can’t predict what he’s going to do, and I never trust what I can’t predict.”