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  “Three,” Jun corrected, “Ryu just found another.”

  Fred’s face turned hopeful, before schooling it to neutral again.

  “Tell them to keep searching,” Tabitha told Jun, her eyes flicking back away from Fred.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Boston, Ma - USA

  Footsteps were heard entering the room, “You can tell them to look behind the medicine cabinet on the third floor,” Barnabas spoke. “They will find a small lock in the lower left-hand corner they need to pick before the back part will separate.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Fred asked, looking over his shoulder as Barnabas stopped beside the chess set, “I’m Barnabas,” he answered and then moved a chess piece, “And this game is now won by me moving Bishop to Queen’s three in five moves.” Barnabas continued further into the room.

  He was wearing a dark, three-piece suit with pinstripes. “I am,” he told the three, all of them staring at him. “The person who is going to decide if we,” he pointed to Tabitha and then himself, “take care of this here and now, or we bring the Queen in on this.”

  “What Queen?” David asked, “You don’t mean that trumped up piece of ...”

  “Can I call her now?” Tabitha interrupted, looking towards Barnabas, her eyes pleading.

  “No,” Barnabas answered.

  “David shut…up.” Charles ground out.

  “No, David,” Tabitha told him, her voice sounding annoyed. “You should really continue, as Barnabas needs a little more persuading that Bethany Anne should come down here.”

  “Why us? Let’s talk about her. Why is she hoarding medical advances? Let’s put her ass on trial.” Fred retorted, “We are sitting here, growing frail when totally useless, money-grabbing, self-centered bastards from Ivy-League schools are raping and pillaging our companies. Doing it for their own benefit when we could still be around, with a little help from her,” he practically spat the word, “for decades longer and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Barnabas pursed his lips, “Your defense, for all of your efforts, is health?”

  “Like you would know about aging,” Fred replied, flopping back in his leather chair, “You’re what, late twenties, early thirties or so young man?”

  Tabitha snorted and looked away from Barnabas, trying to keep a smile from her face.

  “No,” Charles said, his eyes narrowing slightly as Barnabas turned to face him, “You just look younger. There is wisdom in your eyes something that young men wouldn’t have.”

  This time, Tabitha rolled her eyes where Barnabas couldn’t see her.

  “My age is irrelevant to this discussion,” Barnabas told the three. “We are here to find out why you did the multitude of things you did. At the moment, it seems a common desire for more power, more money and more … just more.” He told the three.

  “Challenge, proving one is better than others, there is more to life than having more things,” Charles replied, “Certainly someone with your experience understands the desire to prove oneself?”

  Tabitha turned and looked back towards Barnabas, “How about now?” She asked.

  Charles threw an ugly look in Tabitha’s direction, “We,” he pointed to the other two men, “are responsible for over a hundred thousand jobs in the upper Northeast United States alone. If we are truly as destitute as this woman says we are, who is going to handle those families?”

  Barnabas turned to Tabitha, “You drained them dry?”

  She nodded, “Asshole response 101, hit them in their pocketbook. ADAM is taking care of the results.” Barnabas nodded his understanding.

  “What about our damned families?” David asked, “Are they not part of your equation? You won’t get away with this either. I don’t know how you think you will walk away from this at all. Our security gates and these grounds are tracked continuously.”

  “Yes, and they are all connected on the Internet for downloads. Conversely, that means they are online for uploads, as well,” Tabitha told him, “Achronyx took care of your chiquitito security system, senor.”

  “I’m going to sue your asses into oblivion,” Fred said as his finger pointed to Barnabas, then Tabitha and back again. “You won’t have enough to buy toilet paper to wipe your ass when you shit under a bridge.”

  Tabitha looked over to Barnabas, “How about now?”

  Barnabas shook his head and shrugged, “I tried.” He looked out through the large window on the other side of the table to the trees beyond, “You can call her.”

  Tabitha closed her eyes as she heard David ask, “Call who?”

  “Bethany Anne,” Charles answered, “Fred, you are a world class jackass.”

  “Why? What’s she going to do?” Fred retorted.

  “Not helping, idiot,” Charles told him.

  Fred’s chair squeaked, “Bahh, these two are just playing good-cop, bad-cop. We have Bethany Anne located somewhere off Earth. By the time she can get here, the cops will be swarming this place.”

  Bethany Anne?

  One moment, she replied.

  Tabitha kept her eyes closed, she didn’t care to see these three assholes any longer.

  Ok, done kicking Eric’s ass, what’s up?

  Barnabas has given me permission to ask what you want to do with the three assholes that were behind the attack on the Jayden’s?

  Little Anne and her family? Bethany Anne’s voice came back, going frosty over their mental link.

  That’s correct.

  Where are you? She demanded. Tabitha could almost feel the fire in her eyes as she walked out of wherever she was towards her room.

  Boston, Massachusetts in a private home on wooded property outside of town.

  Where is the G’laxix Sphaea?

  Right on top of our heads, well a few miles above us, but not much.

  Ok, let me grab Ashur, and I’ll be there in about … Hold one. Ok, I’m figuring say ten minutes.

  Understood, Tabitha finished.

  She opened her eyes to see all four men watching her, “She’ll be here in ten.”

  “Hmph, impossible,” David said.

  “Not if we have bad intel,” Charles admitted, sitting back in his chair.

  “If you believe,” Barnabas spoke, “that she is with the large station you would be right.”

  “Not that I’m curious, but I’m curious. How do you know this?” Tabitha asked Charles.

  “Hmm, basing it on the length of time they hadn't seen her,” Barnabas answered when none of the men said a word.

  The three looked sharply at Barnabas.

  Tabitha walked over to the table, “Well, that secret is still a secret, it seems.” She picked up the first briefcase, “Wow, talk about old technology.” She turned to Barnabas, “Should I pick it?”

  “No, you would find the status of their present projects, a few secret files they shouldn’t possess, a ham sandwich in David’s briefcase and other various stuff you would expect.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” David asked.

  “He is reading our minds,” Charles slumped lower in his chair and turned to look out the window to the trees beyond. “Checkmate.”

  “Why are you giving up?” Fred said, “These two aren’t killers and neither is the woman coming.”

  Charles looked over to Fred, “You need to open your eyes a little more, Fred.” He pointed to Tabitha, “She’s the one that jumped out of the third-story window in Germany. Remember that video?”

  Fred looked at the woman in the attractive pantsuit and then back to Charles, “What of it?”

  “She’s a modified human, Fred.” He pointed to Barnabas, “He’s God only knows what. But, he’s either,” Charles pointed to his own head, “reading our damned minds or can see through our briefcases unless they have some magic trick I can’t fathom.” He pointed to Jun behind the men, “They have replaced all of our security, can travel faster than light somehow to get here from outer space and,” he turned to face Barnabas, “how old are you,
really?”

  There was a pause before Barnabas answered, “A thousand years and then a few.”

  “Well…shit.” Charles muttered, “I hadn’t expected that answer.”

  “How could you?” Barnabas answered, “it is a pretty well-guarded secret.”

  “Secrets are our tradecraft,” Charles admitted, “At least, we thought they were.”

  The men all got lost in their own thoughts for a few minutes.

  A quiet enveloped the room and then a sense of unease permeated the men. Both of the brothers adjusted themselves in their chair and Charles started looking around.

  “She’s here,” Tabitha told them, “Vengeance has arrived.”

  The men, unsettled by Tabitha’s comment looked to each other before turning to the door. They heard footsteps, multiple pairs. The first they saw come through the door wasn’t human.

  It was the biggest damned white German Shepherd any of them had ever seen.

  It trotted over to Tabitha and looked up at her until she broke, “Fine, fine, how are you Ashur, besides begging for a head rub?” She asked him as she scratched him behind his ears. He chuffed to her, and she chuckled, “Yeah, the hound finally ran down the foxes, big guy.”

  The second through the door was a mountain of a man. White, dressed in a black suit with black sunglasses, he had to be damn near six and a half feet tall.

  He paused in the doorway, then continued when he was comfortable with the situation.

  Then, she came in. She wasn’t what they expected at all. She carried herself regally, but she held a sword in her hands. One that looked to be generations old and she carried it like it was a normal part of her life.

  Her hands had used it.

  The fear the men felt only escalated as she drew near them. She walked and stood beside Barnabas and looked the three men over. “Well, my Rangers, it seems the longest open case you have had is now going to close, well done. Here sit the instigators that paid to have a little girl laying on top of a bomb in Las Vegas.”

  Fred started to talk, but she looked to him and pinched her fingers in his direction. An overwhelming fear raced through his body, and it was all he could do to try and breath. “Judged!” She told him, her eyes flashing.

  “What are you doing to my brother!” David yelled, fear in his voice as he watched his brother’s hands pounding on his chair, clenched in pain.

  Bethany Anne turned and looked the man up and down, “Here, I’ll show you.” She pushed a hand towards him, and his body screamed at him to run, to leave, but he couldn’t move. His heart started racing faster and faster, and he couldn’t grab enough breath. “Judged,” she spoke before turning to view Charles.

  Charles tried to stand up, tried to run, but a hand grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back into his chair. Charles looked up to see the big guard standing behind him, his dark sunglasses only showing Charles his own reflection.

  Charles turned to see the two brothers struggle in their chairs, their faces turning blue. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice breaking as he watched his partners.

  “Allowing them to die, together,” Bethany Anne told him. “I’ve spoken with Barnabas, all three of you are guilty of events which killed other human beings. You willfully used your power without regard for others. Never caring what those in your employ did to accomplish your goals. You all have earned this judgment for many past sins.” Charles glanced up at her from watching the twitching of his friends as the twitches slowed, the men asphyxiating slowly, painfully. He had only glanced back to her when he noticed she was looking at him.

  And her eyes were glowing red.

  Her voice, deeper than a moment ago spoke, but he heard it both in his ears and inside his mind, “Charles, you paid those who endangered a little girl in Las Vegas, that was the decision which brought you to this end. You deserved this years ago.”

  The fear he was feeling became but a small memory to the desire to leave, to escape, but he couldn’t. His body locked up in indecision, his mind screaming in fear, chemicals released in his body at a level that never should occur.

  Charles struggled, never noticing that Fred and David had already stopped moving, death having taken them.

  Two minutes later, Charles stopped his struggling, and Bethany Anne stopped pushing fear into the man’s body.

  “You bastards,” Bethany Anne spat when she was done. “You fucking camel sucking jackasses had to try to have it all. This was a peaceful fucking end considering how you should have gone down.” She started walking out, “Rangers, you did superbly. Clean up as needed, and I’ll expect a final report in two days, Barnabas. I’ve got the President’s thing to go to this week.”

  Barnabas started walking out the door himself as he spoke back over his shoulder, “Tabitha?”

  “Yes?” she called after him.

  “I’ll expect that report by tomorrow morning,” he told her and then left the room following Bethany Anne.

  She watched him walk out, her mouth open, “Well, Gott Verdammt!” she grumped as she put the briefcases next to the three men. “Jun, tell the other Tanto’s to clean up and put the security people back where we found them. Barnabas’s mental commands are going to drop within,” she looked at her watch, “twenty minutes.”

  Jun followed her out, “Yes Kimosabe, what else do we need to do?”

  “Take only what we need and then find a place to hole up for the night back in New York, I’ve got fucking reports to write, she huffed.

  New Mexico - USA

  The system easily spotted the small flying insect. It allowed it to pass the first checkpoint. However, five minutes later when the little bug didn’t veer off due to the sudden light burst, the secondary security system shot it out of the air.

  It dropped like a rock, landing amongst the crevices beside a boulder.

  The security system confirmed there was no movement in the air and went back to passive mode.

  The little drone did not move, but it did send a message to the parent orb which was quickly relayed to the sky, then to outer space.

  Drone 012 attacked, a laser emitting on non-customary wavelength. Instructions?

  ArchAngel passed the information to the highest General in the Etheric Empire for review.

  General Lance Reynolds received the message and smiled.

  They found the bastards.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Private residence, outside Chicago, Illinois - USA

  The time was ten thirty in the morning, an hour behind the person he was waiting to call. A few years ago, he would have been sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office, making this call.

  Looking out his back window, he appreciated the fall colors and leaves laying on the ground. Winter was running late this time of year. You could almost go outside with short sleeves.

  Low sixties, who would have thought that?

  His phone rang so he turned his chair around and leaned forward, to the right side of his desk to pick it up. “Hello.”

  “Hello, sorry about the time, I’ve got this damned meeting with the Senate leaders in twenty minutes. Their whining is about to drive me nuts.”

  “Yes, now you understand how my hair went gray so fast.”

  “Well, it’s not a problem on my side, my hair was grey already.”

  “A small benefit in the larger scheme of things, I’m sure.” he replied.

  “Yes,” the President admitted. “I just wanted to touch base with you on the TQB meeting in Belgium, everything is a go for her to be there?”

  “You know, her has a name,” he replied, annoyance creeping into his voice.

  “Maybe for others, but that is the nicest name I have for her at the moment. Instead of moving ahead with tax reforms and building up this country, half of my time is dealing with outer space immigration and alien scare concerns. If I could, I’d slap that bitch into jail.”