Paired Pursuit (12 page)

“Back to ours?”
Gareth sent.

“Absolutely. Can you deal with the bike paperwork? Better yet, intimidate someone else into doing it for us. You're scarier.”

“And you're lazy.”

“When it comes to dealing with box-ticking, I most definitely am.”
Finn gave him an unrepentant grin as he shucked off his helmet. Gareth snorted as his Twin took off with Mari tucked under his arm, and wheeled the motorcycle toward what passed as government headquarters in this City.

It took longer than he liked to get through the paperwork—even post-Invasion government regulations were still a hell of a nuisance. Fortunately, the representative wanted to hurry things along as much as Gareth did, signing off on the fuel report sheet and the safety checks without any real fuss.

He subdued a small group of junkies in the road with one searing glare. Although a larger and more ambitious group might have tried to tackle him, nobody hassled him as he walked down the street. Even so, he wasn't stupid enough to linger. He unlocked the door of the small, government-maintained dwelling, then meticulously relocked it behind him.

Finn was cuddled up on the couch with Mari, lazily rubbing her shoulder as he fiddled with the remote for the TV on the wall.
“She's still shaky, so I convinced her to stay with us for a while,”
he sent.
“Don't want her reading the diary on her own and having a nervous breakdown or something.”

Gareth took the spot on her other side, and she leaned companionably against him.
“We all deserve a break,”
he sent, wrapping his arm around Mari.

“Are we going to watch a movie?” she asked.

“Not if you let him choose,” Gareth said, pointing at his brother.

“Hey, if you want to watch your usual chick flick, I won't stand in your way.” Finn laughed, easily warding off Gareth's mock punch.

“I think we're limited by what's available,” Mari said diplomatically, gesturing to the TV. The former owner had movies in several different formats, with a predilection toward action movies. After some deliberation, they chose something that erred toward the fun-and-cheesy side.

Halfway through it, Mari fell asleep, missing the part where the heroine catapulted out of a crashing car and singlehandedly saved the day. Finn looked over at Gareth and smirked, looking more satisfied than Gareth had seen him in years.

An emotion which, Gareth realized, he shared.

When had he last felt so fulfilled? Not in his adult life, certainly not post-Invasion. Life at the Complex was comfortable at best, but he'd never known true happiness. Even before the aliens had come, much of their time had been spent training or being forced to perform for a government official.

“Yeah, you haven't been truly happy for years now,”
Finn sent.

“Neither have you.”
Gareth tugged a blanket over their feet as the early evening air started to become chilly.

“I'm better at hiding it.”

Gareth tilted his head in mute acknowledgment. His Twin had almost always been able to put a positive spin on things. Even when he found it really annoying, he had to admit it was better than both of them being completely negative.

For Gareth, finding out that the telepathic link between Twins could never be turned off had been difficult to digest. They could tune it down, mostly blocking each other—which came in handy during certain private moments—but strong emotion always leached through.

Sex, for example, was awkward as hell when it was happening with only one of them. Inevitably, their mental bond interfered, and it was a whole lot safer to hide in the bedroom when one of them was on a date. That way they didn't risk popping a boner at an inopportune time. Or worse.

Fortunately, the Complex was populated with people—mainly other Twins—who fully understood those issues. Yet even so, their attraction to Mari went beyond the initial pheromones or whatever that they'd instinctively noticed. Now that they'd gotten to know her, Gareth wasn't going to give her up for anything.

Chapter Six

Mari stretched, bumping pleasantly against the men she was sandwiched between. She opened her eyes, taking in the sight of washboard abs—dual washboard abs. Two pairs of green eyes fixed upon her as she tried to figure out what time it was and why she was in bed instead of on the couch.

“Um. How long did I sleep?”

“All night.” At her horrified look, Finn quickly reassured her that one of them had gone to tell Patrice she was safe with them.

“I should—” Sudden memory of the diary assailed her. She swallowed, abruptly uncertain. When she had fled Flagstaff, her uppermost thought had been to get away from Tim, clinging to the hope that her father had left something valuable here. Sure, she'd successfully navigated to Winter Street, but she hadn't connected all the dots until now. She'd have to talk to Patrice about this and sort through the items on the cluttered cherrywood table.

In retrospect, assuming the alien device was valuable had been a foolish hope. Still, she sensed there was something important in her father's diary—something he'd been preoccupied with for years. Every time news came in about Scar City, he'd perked up and listened carefully, asking pertinent questions. He did that about no other City—even San Francisco, where he'd been born and raised.

Aware that the Twins were still watching her, Mari rubbed her eyes. “I have to get back to the other house. I need time to think.”

The men exchanged quick glances. “Is opening this diary something you'd like to do privately?” Finn asked.

Mari nodded immediately. Getting all emotional over her father's words wasn't anything she wanted to do in front of the Twins. And she couldn't be sure how much the diary covered—had he written about her mother's death? Or was it simply a factual account of their journey from their cabin in the woods to Scar City itself?

Distracted as she was, she was grateful when the Twins insisted upon accompanying her back to Patrice's. It wasn't a long walk as the crow flew, but rubble and other debris in the street made it a haphazard journey. A fire engine, red paint peeling with age, blocked off a narrow alleyway and jutted partially into the main road. In its dubious shelter, a junkie hunched, eyes glassy and vacant, the early morning sun playing across his partially clothed body.

The Twins had taken up position on either side of her, subtly herding her to the other side of the street. She was grateful for their protectiveness, although she couldn't help but wish life were different for the addict in the fire engine. He wasn't that young, so he'd probably had some sort of adult life pre-Invasion, maybe a family.

Things could be worse for me
, she reminded herself.
Much worse.

When they reached Patrice's front door, she squeezed the men's hands. “Thank you. Did you want to come in?”

“We have to check in with headquarters, give them a status update.” Finn gave her hand a return squeeze before letting go.

Mari blinked. Status update? Was something wrong? She fought down a surge of panic at the thought of the Twins being recalled to this mysterious Complex, possibly without her…

“They'll want to pull us from the City when we tell them how bad it is here,” Gareth said in his typical blunt style, accurately reading the distress in her expression. “We can tone down our report a little, but not by much. I'm going to recommend this city be voluntarily evacuated beginning today—and that a forcible evacuation begins at the end of the week.”

“Easy for you to say,” Mari blurted, and immediately blushed at her runaway mouth. “Sorry.”

“Don't be. Why is it easy for us to say?” Gareth's green eyes fixed upon her. Not angry, she decided, but intent, focused on the truth. She liked that about him—his no-nonsense directness, his firm approach often tempered by Finn's diplomacy. She liked that too.

Still, she looked away, uncomfortable with the topic. “When you talk about forcible evacuation, what exactly does that mean?”

“The National Guard moves in and sweeps the City. They find anyone hiding, they'll direct them to the train station and get them out.”

“They're not rough, if that's what you're worried about,” Finn added. “A non-voluntary evacuation rounds up the more stubborn people. The world is short of humans. We need people to concentrate on survival, otherwise we'll die out.”

“Yes, but then where do they go?” Mari made a sharp gesture at the house in front of her. Patrice's house. Despite its peeling paint, it was a solid structure. “Some people won't leave—not voluntarily. Their whole lives are here. How can they start over?”

“They—”

Mari cut Gareth off with a shake of her head. “As for the whole
humans must survive
thing, by that logic I ought to go back to Flagstaff to marry Tim Johnston and bear his children.” The idea was so reprehensible to her that she looked away from them both.

“Mari, honey.” Finn caught her face in both hands, bringing her gaze gently but firmly back toward him. “I wish I could tell you what will happen to the evacuees, that they'll get food and housing and whatever they need. But all I can do, personally, is try to get them out of here before it's too late. I have to concentrate on giving everyone a fighting chance. Okay?”

“Patrice,” she said in a low voice. “What about Patrice?”

The thought of the elderly woman being evacuated by an armed soldier didn't sit well with her. Patrice's whole life was here—not only memories, but her only livelihood, her house. For that matter, the woman would probably refuse to go since she still held out hope that her granddaughter would return to Scar City someday.

“If she truly prefers death over leaving, then there's not much we can do for her,” Gareth said. “But I'd like her to come to the Complex with us. I won't drag her kicking and screaming, but the offer's there. Did you think we'd leave her behind?”

“I don't know if she'd go voluntarily.”

“If it comes to that, we're stronger than her,” Finn said with a touch of Gareth's sternness. “Now, let's go in. I want to be sure you're safely inside before we leave.”

She obeyed, and once she was settled, the Twins departed, leaving Mari with a curious Patrice and an affectionate Tank, who seemed to have accepted her as a member of the household. Mari stroked his wide head as she perched on the edge of a chair and told Patrice of yesterday's adventures.

The elderly woman raised her eyebrows. “Barks
inside
the ship? Of course. Why didn't we realize the bastards would hide there? Hell, there could be more aliens on Earth than we bargained for.”

Mari's hands stilled atop the dog's head as she digested that. Nobody had come up with a clear estimate of how many Barks there were on Earth. There were hundreds of thousands of
dead
Barks though, which meant that more than likely millions of the aliens existed on Earth, since the suckers were tough to kill.

“It's harder to destroy those ships than to knock down houses. And a lot of them landed intact, after the first ones overwhelmed our guns.” How many aliens
were
inside those ships? The Twins could probably hazard a decent guess, but she had no idea.

“Yep. Fat lot of good our politicians did back then, investing in weapons to kill each other, rather than the aliens on the horizon.”

Tank settled at their feet with a sigh. Mari envied the Rottweiler's ability to live in the moment. Her mind was tied up with mental calculations and half-remembered conversations with her father. He'd said that hibernation facilities had been found aboard one of the intact ships. Humans had seized it outside Seattle and killed the aliens inside.

Did all the ships have hibernation facilities? And were they still in use? With a sigh, she abandoned that line of thinking and regarded the old woman. It was time to solve her dad's mystery—or try to, at least.

“Patrice, did your daughter ever find anything really strange when out scavenging?”

She snorted. “Uh-huh, and plenty of it. Once, she brought back a wedding dress and a prosthetic leg in the same haul.”

“What about an alien device?”

That earned Mari a long, slow series of blinks. “Say what?”

“My dad, Jorge Aquino, mentioned Winter Street as a place he was supposed to meet a trader.” Mari rummaged in her pocket for the last page of notes, handing the slip of paper to Patrice.

“Scavengers, $150 offer. Valuable. No-show. Winter St. Other half?” Patrice read. Setting the paper down, she frowned. “Other half of what? My daughter often priced her rarer finds at a hundred and fifty. Don't know why she would have been a no-show, except… When was this?”

“Seven years ago to the month.”

“Oh.” Patrice grimaced. “Back then, I used to turn people away when they called to buy somethin'. Told my daughter I didn't want to deal with it. Could be I turned your dad away.”

Mari took the paper as Patrice handed it back. “I wish I had clearer memories of his comings and goings, but it all seems like a puzzle.”

“When you get as old as I am, it's all a damn puzzle.” Patrice looked over at the cherrywood table. “You want to go through the stuff, see if any of it looks familiar?”

“It won't.” Mari rose, giving the dog one last pat. “I won't know what I'm looking for yet. I'm going to go read his diary.”

Bolstered by Patrice's good luck wishes, Mari retreated to her bedroom and knelt by her father's old case. Her parents had shown her its false bottom years ago, and her mother kept the key in her locket. Still, the delineation was so subtle that she had a difficult time locating it until she chanced upon the tiny keyhole.

After a moment's hesitation, she unclasped her mother's locket and opened the metal heart, letting the key inside drop to her palm. Her mother's photograph stared back at her, a pretty young woman with blue eyes and brown hair. Mari realized with a start that she was probably the same age now that her mother had been when the photo had been taken. It felt strange.

She brought the key to the lock, holding her breath without conscious volition. If it didn't fit, she was going to be mighty ashamed.

But it did fit, clicking as it turned, and the false bottom opened with an ominous creak. Mari let her breath out in a ragged whoosh, reaching inside to remove what was there. It had been a good hiding place, designed to appear a natural part of the suitcase's thick outer layer.

She withdrew a slim, leather-bound notebook. It seemed too insignificant to have caused so much fuss in her life, and for a moment she couldn't bring herself to open it. She traced the cover with a lingering finger, then decisively opened it before she could chicken out.

Tears threatened as she began to read, her eyes skimming across her father's achingly familiar handwriting. He'd always preferred to write longhand, even when so many others turned to electronic means.

In this diary, the first entries were dated pre-Invasion, although only a few months beforehand. Her father had inscribed a mix of everyday observation and his take on current events. She flipped forward, resisting the urge to read about herself as a child, to relive those half-forgotten yet still cherished memories of ballet lessons, horseback riding and impromptu after-school ice creams.

One day she would be able to read it, assimilate it and spend the proper time grieving over her parents—and a lifestyle that seemed like a dream. For now, however, she flipped ahead, skimming through to where her father had noted down his visit to a smaller, crashed spaceship. The entry was short, cramped and hastily written without a date appended.

Found one of their intact spaceships. It was daylight, so I poked around. No life forms inside, seemed completely abandoned. Ship's inside contained technology more advanced than our own, with controls designed for their sucker-like extremities. There was a possible communication device on the dashboard… I took it back with me. It was only a whim, but I feel strongly that I did the right thing. Don't want them calling more pals in from the ends of the universe.

In his meticulous style, her father had drawn a picture of the item he'd taken. Mari frowned, studying the page. The shape wasn't familiar. Had she handled it as a child? Part of her was disappointed it wasn't valuable, but her curiosity was sparked—what had her father discovered?

And where was it now?

She read on, sifting through information, viewing her own childhood through adult eyes. The communication device was why her father had agreed to go to Seattle—he was afraid the aliens would return to find their ship tampered with, and their cabin wouldn't withstand an attack for long. So they'd retreated behind Seattle's walls.

Not long after, the aliens had attacked that City in droves. Their concentrated assault had nearly been successful, and her father wrote about his decision to take them south, behind Portland's walls. Mari snuggled up on her bed as she read, recalling the way they'd bunked down in Powell's bookstore. The huge store had been turned into a library, and she had been furious when her parents told her they were moving to Scar City.

The diary gave her the deeper reason for the move, cooling her remembered anger immediately.

I'm afraid,
her father had written
. I still have this potential communication device, and there is a possibility the aliens are tracking it. We had a close call getting into Seattle when that convoy of aliens nearly caught up with us. I convinced Sara that the attacks were coincidental, but after our arrival in Portland, the attacks ramped up yet again.

I need more time to research this device, but it's difficult without the resources. Everyone is focused on survival. Hopefully I will be able to go examine another ship. It may be that these devices are simply a standard feature on their transports.